“I’m in a dress.” I looked down at myself, surprised that I’d managed to retain my purse. Feeling awkward and like I was in someone else’s reality, I slid the long strap over my head diagonally, not sure what else to do with it or what to do next. It wasn’t my finest thinking moment.
“Turn around,” he demanded, aggression still edging his nervous system.
“What?” I looked at him stupidly.
Impatiently, he turned me so I was facing away from him. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me across his lap, butt first. I was sidesaddle, partly on the metal covering the gas tank and partly on his lap. Gasping with surprise, I looked into his eyes. His wrath and anxiety-ridden fear poured off him in thick, powerful waves.
The force of it blew me away. It was all for me. Raw emotion choked my throat from the realization. No one had ever worried for me before. No one had ever been driven to the edge of panic trying to protect me. He was in a killing rage over me.
His arms caged me in protectively as they grasped the handlebars.
“Hold on.” This time his voice was a little gentler, though it still sounded like it had gone over a rough patch of road.
“To what?”
“Me.”
A feeling of rightness went through me. Engulfed by his compelling, flinty green stare, surrounded by his strength, there was nowhere else I wanted to be. It didn’t make a lick of sense, considering our short and somewhat volatile history, but I was beyond judging the situation. Tentatively, I ran my shaky hands over bunched muscles outlined by his black-T-shirt-clad chest and shoulders. The familiar scent of his spicy soap gave me comfort as I leaned close.
He gunned the engine.
We shot off the sidewalk.
I kept my face pressed into his hard shoulder as we rode. It felt good to have his warm, solid body under mine. It felt good to have the air pushing through my hair and weaving itself around me. I didn’t know where we were going, but I was still too much in shock to care. The temperature was up in the high nineties, but I couldn’t seem to stop shaking.
It was only a few minutes later that we turned down a residential side street, and Ryder pulled over. After shutting the engine down and engaging the kickstand, he unclipped his helmet and hung it on one of the handlebars. I sat up and looked into his eyes. They still looked agonized.
He snarled, “I couldn’t find you.”
With no warning his calloused hands cupped my face, and he covered my lips with his. It was hot. It was desperate. It was fearful. He slanted his strong, warm lips firmly over mine, like he just couldn’t get enough, like I was desperately needed oxygen, like there was no tomorrow. He needed me. A mewling whimper escaped me. Tingles of sensation shivered over me. Nerve endings fired hotly. I didn’t want to let go. I did some grabbing of my own, my hands sliding through his thick black hair. I immersed myself in him, tasting him, needing to feel his strength.
“Dammit, Taylor,” he growled, pulling away. He was glaring at me at the same time that he tenderly wiped tears from my cheeks with an unsteady hand—tears I hadn’t even realized had spilled over. “I heard you calling me. I didn’t think I was going to get to you. You didn’t tell me where you were going, and it took too fucking long to find you. Shit.” He yanked me into his chest, and I felt his strong arms crushing me close, his hands running down my back and up over my shoulders tightly, as though I was...precious to him.
“They were going to take me.” I buried my face in his corded neck, feeling the rapid beat of his pulse. “Why? Why me?”
“We need to talk. Something’s going on here, but we need a safe place. I have a lot to tell you. Can you call in sick tomorrow? Maybe the next two days? I know a place, but it won’t be easy to just come and go.”
“I guess so.”
“Call now, because where we’re going, your phone won’t receive service.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s hard to explain. I’ll just have to show you.”
Sniffling, I stared into his eyes, which were normally hard and steely but were now acutely distressed, a vein on the side of his forehead bulging outward as a sign of his internal upset. He was worried about me, and I figured it was time to trust, at least a little, that I wasn’t just a job to him. He’d saved me. I was here, with him, and not in some van wondering how or when I was going to be assaulted or killed.
This whole ordeal could have gone a completely different way. A way I didn’t even want to think about. I needed some answers, and I needed to make a plan.
“I’ll make the call.”
Chapter Seven
“Holy Toledo, Batman. The Joker will never find us here.”
We were at the mouth of a hidden cave, in the middle of a rocky canyon, without another soul for miles around. I’d just survived an attack on my person and was hoping for some creature comforts, like maybe a quiet restaurant with soft seating to rest on, a coffee shop with soft seating to rest on or even a two-bit motel nearby, which would also have soft seating to rest on. See my theme here?
Looking around, I saw rocks, dirt and more rocks. I was feeling just slightly disappointed by this turn of events. With a great deal of reluctance, I got off the bike.
“We could take the Batmobile out for a spin, battle the forces of evil, combat nefarious plans of mischief and mayhem and save the citizens of Gotham City.”
Ryder’s eyes were still a bit stormy when he looked at me over his shoulder, noting my not-at-all-veiled sarcasm. Even in my brooding state, I couldn’t help but appreciate how good he looked uncurling his muscular body from the bike. His midnight-black hair was sort of sexily unkempt because of his helmet, his light eyes piercing as they tried to analyze what I was thinking.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re a smart-ass?” He frowned.
“Moi? A smart-ass? I’ve never heard that before,” I said in a dry tone, and I ran a hand over my own helmet-styled hair, trying to pat it down. It was more a gesture of comfort and familiarity than actually thinking I could do something about my falling-down, faux-chignon, helmet-head hair. “So is this a campout? ’Cuz I forgot my sleeping bag and my toothbrush.”
“Not a campout,” he answered shortly, hanging our helmets on the handlebars.
“Ryder, that was my smart-ass way of asking what the plan is. I wasn’t expecting to have to hike in the wilderness in order to do some talking.” I gestured toward my heels.
“Be patient,” he replied, and he opened up the seat compartment to snag what looked like a flashlight and a black case the size of a minilaptop.
“I am being patient. My patience is clearly evident, because I’m still here talking with you when what I really want is a nice soft bed to burrow into for like a week. So we’re here because...”
“You’ll see. Here. Hold this.” He handed the black case to me, checked the flashlight by turning it on and off and shut the compartment.
“Shouldn’t we call the cops or something?”
“Not yet.”
“You’re very secretive,” I complained with a scowl. “Why can’t you just tell me?”
“It’s complicated, and it wouldn’t make sense to just hear it.” A troubled look swept his face a moment, like a he-was-second-guessing-himself kind of look, but then it was gone, leaving me with a mental grrrrrr as he walked away. Over his shoulder he grated, “Wait here.”
“Bossy,” I grumbled to his departing back. I wasn’t sure if he actually heard me, though, because he turned the flashlight on and disappeared into the cave.
I stood there in my chunky heels and ruined designer dress, feeling tired and still somewhat shell-shocked. Could I be blamed for being a little cranky when faced with rocks and dirt? I just wanted to curl up in a blanket, wearing my girl boxers and tank, and sleep for a bit while the police took care of everything. That would have fixed me right up. So how had I ended up here?