Uncontrollable Temptations (Tempted #3)(11)

“Please take me away from here,” she whispered, her brown eyes pleading with mine. Killing the cook became a distant thought, replaced by the unexplainable need to save her from herself. Like a moth drawn to a flame I was at her mercy.

“Let me take a look at your arm,” I whispered.

“Please,” she repeated, letting go of my wrist as she wrapped her hand around her injured arm.

I looked at her for another moment, glancing down at her arm before diverting my eyes over her shoulder at the cook, daring him to say another word. He opened his mouth before his eyes fell back to Reina and snapped it shut again.

“Where’s her stuff?” I asked him roughly.

He tipped his chin toward the diner and I placed my hand on the small of her back. “Let’s go, Sunshine,” I murmured.

She hesitated for a second before she relented and let me guide her back to the front of the diner. I bent down, grabbing her purse and jacket from underneath the counter then rose to my full height. She robotically took her jacket from me, draping it over the arm of her uninjured hand. I looked down at her arm and caught a glimpse of the raw flesh. Already it had a sheen to it as the skin stretched and changed to a nasty shade of purple. Realization set in, crippling me as it became clear she hadn’t just fallen victim to a simple accident in the kitchen of the diner. She was reliving the traumatic experience she shared with my brother.

I took her injured hand, felt her body tense at my touch, and guided her out of the diner toward my bike. I slid my helmet from one of the handlebars and turned around, offering it for her.

“You ever ride before?” I asked, as she stared at my bike.

She shook her head, and I sighed. I threw my leg over and straddled the bike, bracing my hands on the handlebars as I looked at her.

“Climb on and hold on tight,” I instructed, watching her pretty little lips part. I couldn’t help think how I wouldn’t mind repeating those same words under different circumstances. I shook my head, shoving my thoughts and my desires aside.

“The hospital isn’t that far of a ride from here,” I said.

Her eyes snapped to mine, and she shook her head. “No hospitals,” she uttered. “I can’t go to the hospital.”

“That burn looks pretty nasty, Reina. You should have it checked out.”

“No, I said no.” She took a retreating step back. “It isn’t that bad,” she said, her voice sounding detached. “It’s nothing.”

I realized the burn that ran along her forearm was in fact nothing compared to what she probably had endured in that fire. Bianci’s voice haunted me, reminding me she had been badly burned, so much so she had been hospitalized for weeks. My eyes traveled the length of her trying to determine where she had been burned in the fire and then it clicked. The baggy clothes she wore were an armor for the scars that marred her body.

“I just want to go home,” she whispered.

“Okay,” I conceded. “Just tell me where you live.”

“The Southgate projects,” she mumbled, taking another step toward my bike, staring at the helmet in her hand like it was a foreign object. She slowly lifted it on top of her head and I reached out and fastened the chin strap. She awkwardly assessed how she would climb onto the bike before placing her hand on my shoulder and throwing her leg over.

One touch and I was branded.

She positioned her feet and scooted closer, the warmth of her body pressing against my back. She fumbled with her hands, placing them on my shoulders first then dropping them to rest at my hips. I exhaled and reached for her hands, wrapping them around my waist.

“Hold tight and steady, Sunshine,” I ordered, as her breasts collided with my back and her fists closed around my leather jacket. She rested her chin on my shoulder as I ripped the engine of my bike, the sweet sound of her purring to life engulfing me as I peeled away from Dee’s.

I took off into the dark with the wind in my hair and sunshine on my back.





Chapter Five




Alive.

I was breathing big gulps of air.

My heart was beating so fast and so profound it felt as if it was outside of my chest.

Adrenaline soared through my veins like a rocket taking launch.

For the first time in months I wasn’t the victim. I wasn’t the woman living in the shadow of a life she once had. I wasn’t the tortured soul suffering with survivor’s guilt.

The wind blew through my hair, pushing it away from my shoulders, baring my face to the dark night. The faceless woman, the one who hid behind a mane of hair and ill-fitting clothes, disappeared for a moment.

Just a moment.

And I felt reborn as I temporarily was gifted a glimpse of the carefree woman who enjoyed living on the edge. The girl I was before the world fell out from under me. It was funny how something I never did before could remind me I was still breathing.

I rested my chin on Jack’s shoulder forgetting what led me to this moment. I had found a sliver of life in the face of a stranger.

“Faster,” I encouraged. I don’t know what came over me, didn’t even care to overthink it either, but being on the back of Jack’s bike was the escape I needed. He turned his head slightly to the right, stealing a glance of me in his side-view mirror and I swear his lips curved ever so subtly.

He accelerated, taking us to a speed way past legal, and I felt the most incredibly foreign sensation in my belly. Butterflies. Jack, the stranger, who not only gave me a glimpse of life, gave me butterflies too.