Bad Boy Blues(57)

The crowd erupts in cheers but I’m too dumbstruck to even move.

Too dumbstruck to even loosen my fist or my body. I’m still a tight mass of nervousness and dread.

Zach’s seated on his bike like he’s some sort of prince. A dark, dark prince with his black leather jacket and huge boots planted on the ground.

I come unglued when he parks his bike on the side. A few people surround him, thump him on the back, shake his hand. He takes his helmet off and rolls his neck, running his fingers through the strands, and I take off.

I run around the wide gap, my Mary Janes stumbling through the dirt.

“Zach!” I call out his name when I reach the other side and he’s across from me, still standing among the group of people.

This time, he hears my voice and his eyes snap up to me.

He appears surprised, but slowly it leaches off and all that remains is his big frown and a pulsing on his jaw.

Oh please.

I’m mad at him too and I’m not going anywhere.

We stand there, staring at each other across the width of the hole he just jumped. The spotlight is glaring and I can see his sweat-soaked t-shirt. His jacket is gone – he probably took it off in the minute or so it took me to run across – and sweat is dripping down the side of his neck.

When Zach begins to move toward me, my breathing stutters. He’s striding over, strong thighs bulging in his jeans and his long legs eating up the distance.

Behind him, I see another biker making the jump and people are cheering all around us. But it doesn’t matter.

Not to me and definitely not to him.

He doesn’t even bat an eyelash or give any indication that he knows we’re in the middle of a crowd.

Zach needs to get to me.

I know it like I know that I wouldn’t be anywhere else but here, in this moment. I’d drive that car all over again and bust my knees and scrape my palms.

I’d do it all over again just so I could be stared at with his black eyes, stalked by his equally black intentions.

When he reaches me, I crane my neck to look at his sharp and stunning face. He’s breathing through his mouth, his chest swelling under the dust-covered t-shirt.

And the first thing out of my mouth is, “You idiot.”





Zach clamps his jaw at my words.

I want to call him all the rude names in the history of the world for scaring me like that but he shuts me up before I can even open my mouth.

He bends down and heaves me up in his arms.

Somehow, I knew he’d do that. I knew it. Manhandling me is his favorite pastime. Not that I’m mad about it.

I guess I need to touch him just as much.

So I hike up my thighs around his hips, wrap my hands around his neck and fist his damp hair.

I hug him tightly and he hugs me back.

And then I can’t stop talking. Everything I’m feeling needs to come out. It’s the adrenaline, I think.

“What were you thinking? What’s wrong with you?” I grit out my words as I tuck my face in his neck and he walks toward something – I don’t even care what or where.

“You’re crazy, you know that? I can’t believe you put yourself through this. I mean, I know people with dyslexia have other things they’re wickedly good at; I’ve been reading up on the internet. But what the fuck? You could’ve died. You could’ve broken your neck. You could’ve paralyzed yourself. Did you see all those people? They couldn’t make the landing. They couldn’t…”

My breath hitches, thinking about all the botched-up attempts to land smoothly on the ground and I hold onto him tighter. I rub my lips on his pulse, tasting his skin, the salt of his sweat. It soothes me. It makes me believe that he’s alive and he’s taking me somewhere with him.

“Do you have any idea how scared I was? Any idea at all?” I continue, tugging on his hair, crossing my ankles at his back. “I was going out of my mind, watching you fly through the air. Newsflash, Zach: it’s a bike. Not a fucking plane. And is this even legal? I don’t think so. I don’t. Fucking. Think so.”

I bite his pulse slightly; his taste, his smell explodes on my tongue, and his hold on me goes even tighter.

“I can’t believe this is where you go almost every night. What if you get caught? What if the cops come and arrest you? You wanna go to jail, Zach? Is that your plan? Is that –”

I stop talking when my back thumps against something – the door of a rusted, white truck – as Zach deposits me against it, and we come apart.

We’re far away from the crowd and roars of flying bikes and all I can hear is our roughened breaths.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he growls, leaning into me.

His hands go down to my butt and squeeze the flesh over my skirt, and I bite my already-torn lip at the pressure.

“I followed you.”

“What?”

“After that dinner… I didn’t want you to be alone. I didn’t –”

Another squeeze of my ass. “Who said I wanted your company?”

God, he’s rude.

And big and bad.

He hasn’t changed. He’s still the same as he was back at St. Patrick’s.

I, however, have changed. I have changed the way I look at him. His rudeness doesn’t bother me. It just… fits. Fits him like armor.