Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
He strapped his backpack down, swung one leg over, stuck the key in the ignition and turned her over, the thunderous roar shattering the quiet.
He turned toward the dark houses lining the street. “Sorry,” he whispered to the neighbors.
Furi slid his helmet on and eased out of the garage. He hit the street, closed the garage from the remote, and coasted to the end of the block before giving the engine what it demanded.
The bike surged beneath him, and Atlanta fell away behind him.
The city at one in the morning was stripped down and relaxed, all its daytime attitude and bustle, gone. There was no traffic boxing him in, horns honking, entitled pedestrians, or double-parked delivery trucks in lanes. He didn’t have to worry about any of that shit. It was just a long, unending stretch of wet-looking pavement, and he could concentrate on what he was going to say when he saw Syn.
He’d apologized, promised, and begged enough. He didn’t think Syn had called him for more of that.
So Furi rode and tried to imagine talking while gazing into Syn’s eyes and not his back.
His dark, beautiful, soulful eyes.
Furi had always seen too much of his real feelings in them from the first day they’d met. When he was happy, anxious, mad, confused…aroused.
The highway opened around him, wide and nearly empty, the cool air snapping his jacket against his arms, and easing up under his helmet. He gripped the handlebars until his knuckles ached.
Corbin.
He let the name move through him with the pulsing of the bike.
Corbin. Corbin. Corbin.
By the time he turned onto the long road toward Fox and Bull’s ranch, his heartbeat had shifted into something slower, not calmer.
The dark sky spread wider here. There were fewer lights and more trees. The smell of grass and earth reached him even through the leather and exhaust.
The heavy ranch gate stood open between two cobblestone pillars, with a large wooden sign overhead announcing Walker’s Farm Ranch.
Furi slowed. He crossed the entrance and stopped just inside, cutting the engine before it could carry any further across the sleeping property.
He unclipped his helmet and hooked it over one handlebar, then got off and took the bike by the grips.
The gravel crunched under his boots as he began the long walk up the drive, pushing the Harley beside him. He didn’t want to be rude and wake the house or spook the animals.
The pastures stretched dark on both sides, moonlight silvering the long fence lines. Somewhere far off, animals huffed and wood creaked, maybe from the barns. Crickets chirped and nocturnal creatures called from the tree line.
The big house sat ahead with only a few low lights glowing under the porch and along the walkway. When he reached the side of the house, he parked his bike near the line of vehicles, set the stand, and unfastened his backpack.
As he rounded the front of the house, the minimal porch light caught the shape of a man sitting in one of the big Adirondak chairs.
My love.
Syn sat with his elbows on his knees, hands hanging between them. He was bare-chested, jeans unbuttoned, hair rumpled from sleep or lack of it. The soft lighting over his head touched his shoulders, illuminating the tan of his skin, and hard lines of his torso.
Furi stopped walking as his lungs forgot what they were made to do.
Syn lifted his head, staring at him, and everything Furi had rehearsed on the ride over vanished.
Syn stood slowly, but it hit Furi like a kick to his stomach. His knees almost buckled with relief, but he forced himself forward instead, taking the porch steps one at a time, careful and controlled.
He stopped a few feet in front of Syn. Close enough to smell him.
Syn’s gaze moved over him, intense, hungry, and wounded all at once.
Furi felt it everywhere. He slipped the backpack from his shoulder and let it drop to the porch. Neither of them spoke, and Syn took a step closer. Furi swallowed and took one too. Their foreheads met.
That was all.
No hands at first. Just the barest contact of skin to skin. His body shook, and he hated it, but he couldn’t stop it either.
Syn clutched the lapels of his bike jacket, fisting the light fabric in both hands, his brows drawn tight, face twisted as if something inside him hurt too much to hold on to by himself and this was the only place his hands knew to put it.
Furi’s own hands trembled as he lifted them to Syn’s bare chest. His placed his palms against the warm skin and solid muscle, sliding them upwards slowly, to his collarbones, then his neck. Syn smelled like soap and fresh air. Like sundried sheets and wind.
Furi kept his mouth close to Syn’s, close enough to feel every breath, wanting so badly to take, but he didn’t.