Page 8 of Bad Boy Biker's Bride
I rub my hand over my jaw. “You think they’d buy that? I’ll consider it… I need to get going.”
Wrench makes a sound that might be approval. “I’ll tend bar tonight… you go check on your girl.”
Pulling my keys out of my pocket, I throw them over. “Lock up for me.”
Riding home, my pulse is running higher than the bike. I take the steel staircase two at a time and unlock the door.
Bethany is asleep on the couch. The apartment smells like the soup she heated up from my fridge. Her wavy blonde hair is loose and falling around her beautiful face, her arms crossed over her stomach.
I walk over and crouch down beside her. The floorboards creak and she blinks those big blue eyes open. They meet mine and she smiles, raising herself up on her elbow. She’s a little off balance and rolls toward me, so I catch her arm and we both go still. The contact is like a wave of electricity, spreading down my arm, then my torso and straight to my dick.
Bethany takes a breath in as my hand comes up to frame her face, stroking the soft curve of her cheek. We’re both breathing harder. My gaze falls to her lips and I’m lost. Crushing my lips on hers, I kiss her like a man who has been holding his breath for hours under water and has suddenly resurfaced. I get one hand into that silky hair. The other goes to the small of her back and pulls her against me, her soft tits crushed against my chest. She makes a small sound against my mouth that goes through me, a breathless moan.
What the fuck am I doing? I’m meant to be keeping her safe. I pull back.
“No.”
“Striker. Don't stop.”
“We need to wait.”
“For what?”
“You don't know what I am yet… what you've walked into. When I take you, you're going to choose me with your eyes wide open. The way you didn't get to choose with that fucking marriage sham.”
She strokes her hand across my jaw, smiling. “Whenyou take me?”
“That’s what I said. And I'm going to tell you everything, and then you tell me; yes or no.”
Chapter Six
BETHANY
I wake up alone in Striker’s bed for the second morning in a row. After that mindblowing kiss last night, it’s ten shades of wrong to me. The sheets are warm, but it’s the smell that keeps me there a second longer than I should be. Clean soap, cedar, and his own scent. It’s everywhere. On the pillow, in the cotton of his t-shirt twisted around my hips, in the air itself, as if this room is holding onto him even when he isn’t in it.
The kettle hums low in the kitchen. Striker’s up already. I lie still, staring at the ceiling, replaying last night in careful, dangerous detail.
His mouth on mine and the way his hand spread across my back like he’d been holding himself back for hours. The rough sound he made when I kissed him back and the huge, hard lines of his body against mine.
Last night the springs of the couch creaked as he shifted around, like was unable to get to sleep. Silence for a few minutes, then more movement. Meanwhile, I was in his bed with my face buried in his pillow, breathing him in like I was gasping for air.
Eventually, I sit up and shove my hair back, pushing the thoughts away with more determination than success. He’s leftme one of his clean shirts and I put it on, leaving my legs bare. The shirt slips off one shoulder when I stand, and I don’t fix it.
The kitchen is warmer than the bedroom, sunlight cutting in across the counter in a pale stripe. Striker stands at the stove with his back to me, broad shoulders stretching the dark fabric of his shirt, damp hair curling at the nape of his neck. He’s making toast with the intense focus I’ve only ever seen in people doing something far more dangerous than breakfast. Juggling knives, maybe.
Striker glances over his shoulder and his gaze lands on me. It drags, slow and deliberate, from my bare legs to the loose fall of his shirt over my shoulder, and then finally up to my face. Heat follows its path, settling low and heavy in my core.
“Morning, princess.” His voice is rough.
Leaning against the doorway, I smile up at him. “Morning.”
For a second neither of us moves. The toaster pops loudly between us and Striker turns away.
“Coffee?” he asks, already reaching for a mug.
“Yes, please.”
I climb onto one of the stools while he pours. When he slides the mug toward me, his fingers brush mine and that fleeting contact still sends a sharp line of heat up my arm.
