Being Me(Inside Out 02)(96)

I manage well enough until I step onto the automatic door sensor and Mark appears beside me. “Sara—”
“Leave me alone, Mark.”
“I’ll take you to your car.”
“No. I don’t need a ride.”
“I was trying to help,” he says defensively as we step outside.
“I can help.”
The instant I see the valet area is clear of people, I whirl on him. “What happened up there shouldn’t have happened.” Anger radiates from deep in my soul, lacing my words. “It can’t happen again. Ever. ” Urgent to get away from him, I turn to my right and stop dead in my tracks to find Chris standing there.
“Chris,” I gasp, my gaze hungrily drinking in the sight of him in all his leather and denim glory. His presence is a sweet relief, filling empty spaces, allowing me to breathe again.
He glares over my shoulder at Mark. “What just happened that can’t happen again?”
“You’re ripping her to shreds, Chris,” he replies with unmistakable contempt.
Chris’s green eyes sharpen and he takes a threatening step around me and toward Mark. I jump in front of him, pressing my hands to his chest to stop his progress. Touching him is heaven.
“No. Don’t.”
His lashes lower, his eyes resting on my face. “What happened, Sara?”
Mark answers before I can. “What happened is that she’s melting away to nothing over you, *.”
Chris’s head lifts, the fury deep in his eyes as he fixes them on Mark again. “We both know what this is about and I suggest you don’t go there.”
“You suggest,” Mark repeats with disdain. “You’re good at suggesting what you can’t do yourself.”
Chris starts for him again and I wrap my arms around him.
“No. Please.”
The two men stare at each other, Chris’s chest heaving under my hand. “Walk away, Mark,” Chris warns. “Walk away now before I don’t let you.”
“Mark, please,” I plead over my shoulder.
He hesitates. “If you need me, Sara, you know how to find me.” I hear his footsteps and Chris remains stiff, on edge, until I assume Mark is gone.
Chris’s attention slides to me for an instant, his fingers untangling my arms from around him, banding my wrist as he starts walking, all but dragging me toward the Harley parked near the door. “Chris—”
“Don’t talk, Sara. Not now. Not when I’m this pissed.” He stops at the bike and shoves a leather jacket my size at me. I stare down at it. He bought me a jacket? “Put it on, Sara.”
“I’m wearing a skirt. I can’t ride the bike.”
“Get on, or I’ll rip the damn thing to put you on this bike.”
I put the jacket on. He shoves a helmet at me. “And this.”
The instant I place it on my head, he tugs me forward and I yank my skirt up, sliding my leg over the bike. Chris shackles my wrists and pulls them around him. I begin to panic. I’ve never been on a bike. What if I fall off?
He revs the engine, rolls backward, and then in a roar of escalation we are on the highway, the cold ocean air blistering my bare legs. Chris speeds up and I bury my face against him.
We travel the twisting roads, and he speeds up, faster and faster still. He won’t slow down. He won’t stop. He’s going to kill us.
Chapter Twenty-nine

“Terrified and furious” doesn’t begin to describe my state by the time Chris brings the bike to a screeching halt just off the coastline, in the midst of twining trails and massive trees with towering trunks dimly lit by moonlight and stars. My heart is in my throat, my breath heaving, and my legs frozen to the bone.
He frees my hands and I scramble off the bike, stumbling and yanking off my helmet. “Are you crazy!” I scream, tossing it away and shoving the mess of my hair out of my face. “Were you trying to kill us, or just punish me, Chris? Have you not punished me enough?”
“Who’s punishing who?” he demands, setting his helmet on the bike and advancing on me.
My hands go up and they shake with the volume of adrenaline and emotion pulsing through me. “Stay back. Just stay back. I can’t believe you just did that to me.”
He grabs my arm and turns me, pushing me against a tree, my fingers digging into the bark, his hips against my backside.
Anger and arousal and a sense of needing him ignite all at once within me. “Did you f*ck Mark, Sara?”
“No!”
His hand slides up my waist, under the jacket, and over my breast. I squeeze my eyes shut against the delicious roughness of his touch I don’t want to react to. Not when he’s angry, not like this.