The First Taste(114)

He holds out a helmet. “You coming?”

I bite my bottom lip. “Nearly.”

He arches a quizzical eyebrow at me. Is it possible he rides a bike because he loves it, and not because he knows how sexy it makes him? I take the helmet, all notions of wrecked hair vanishing, and cross the duffel over one shoulder. I stick it behind us, get on, and scoot as close as I can get. His six-pack middle is hard under my arms.

“Sure you got a good enough grip?” he asks and laughs, his stomach tightening underneath me.

“Oh.” I ease up. “Am I hurting you?”

“Just the opposite, babe.” He checks for traffic before pulling away from the curb. I squeeze him again, this time out of fear of being flung off the side. He whips down the center divider line, weaving between cars. I’ve never moved this quickly through the city, even in the absence of traffic. I get a thrill from the way the skyscrapers blur together, from the wind whipping around us, from the edge of danger he rides along.

“You good?” he calls over his shoulder.

“Great,” I say into his ear, slipping my hands under his shirt. His stomach is warm. It’s hard to tell with the bike vibrating underneath us, but I think he shudders.

We pass through Lincoln Tunnel and shoot back into the night. An ache forms in my ass, but it’s nothing compared to enduring twenty minutes of stimulation while curled around a sexy man. But once we’re out of the city, and then the outskirts, traffic falls away. Aside from the growl of the bike, we make our way down the freeway in silence. The ride is no less exciting, but somehow peaceful.

Andrew exits the freeway toward Elizabeth, and eventually we enter a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood. He stops at a colonial-style white house with a lawn so well kept, it’s richly green, even in the dark. There’s a mailbox and a blue front door—nothing out of the ordinary, but surprisingly traditional. And nothing like I’d imagined.

I climb off, stretching the stiffness from my legs. “This is your place?” I ask.

“This is it.” He nods me toward him, unclips the helmet strap from under my chin, and eases it off my head.

“Is it a mess?” I ask when he smooths his hand over my hair.

“Yes. Just how I love it.” He leans in and surprises me with a kiss. “Is that okay?” he asks.

I nod. “It’s good.”

“Just good?” he asks. “Is good great? Is it unsure? Can you be more specific?”

I’m not sure I can describe how it feels to kiss Andrew again when I didn’t think I’d get another chance. “You know when you’ve been searching for years for a pair of leather boots in a very specific color, like Merlot red or Chestnut brown, and finally, Louboutin comes out with a pair that exceeds your wildest dreams? And you go to the store and ask for your size, and they actually have them, and you slip one on . . .” I sigh.

Andrew rolls his lips together. “You lost me at that L-word.”

I scrunch my nose. “What, Louboutin?”

We stare at each other. “Okay,” I say, trying again. “Let’s say the boots are a pair of jeans and the brand is Levi’s.”

He slow-blinks at me. “You think I’ve ever gone into a store and asked for a specific pair of hard-to-find jeans and then been elated that they had them . . .?”

I roll my eyes. “Okay. Then how about the feeling when you buy a car part and it clicks perfectly.”

“Ah.” He nods. “Sure. I get it.”

He may be indulging me. “That feeling. It’s just . . . right, you know?”

“Right,” he repeats, slipping his hand under my hair, around my neck. “Well, that’s better than good by a mile.”

I grin. “Yes, it is.”

“How are you doing? Earlier—that was a lot to handle.”

“It was, but—”

“But nothing,” he interrupts. “It was a lot, Amelia. You must’ve been scared.”

I relax my shoulders a little as he begins to knead my neck. I have to stop my eyes from rolling back into my head, and as my muscles loosen, my resistance follows suit. “It was unnerving. I expected you, so when he walked in the door so nonchalantly—”

“You thought it was me? Holy shit. I didn’t even think of that.”

“At first. It’s supposed to be a safe space, a home, but it wasn’t in that moment.”

“And it won’t be ever again,” he points out. “Not after this. We’ll find a new place next week. You can stay with me until then. You won’t have to spend another night there if I have my way.”

My instinct is to protest, to say I’m fine. Fear is weakness, and I’ve always tried to beat it into submission. But it seems Andrew and I have both learned a lot about fear these past few weeks. I nod. “I would like that.”

“I’ve been in your position,” he says. “When Shana left, I was scared she’d come back. I was scared she wouldn’t. I thought that being afraid meant I was a *, but looking back, I’m just human. There’s bravery in facing fear when it’s easier to bury it.”

Andrew is one of the most intelligent, empathetic people I’ve known, and I never would’ve guessed just meeting him like I did. “I was terrified,” I admit. “He held me in place and wouldn’t let go. I panicked.”