Isaac had to fight to keep his attention on the catalogues spread out on his desk. He’d been taking notes while he and Joe discussed options of piecing together a custom bike, but he kept jumping when the phone rang. Only, it never rang more than once before Ava picked it up, and she must have gone through three more interviews by now, judging by the parade of women through the shop.

But all Isaac could think about was the sight of Ava walking into his garage, torn cutoffs showing her long legs, a loose, flowy top hanging off one shoulder, and cowboy boots. She’d braided her long hair into one tail and had aviator sunglasses clipped between her breasts.

Fuckin’ edible.

He flexed and clenched his hands to ease the need to feel her.

She hadn’t bothered them in over an hour. But people had come and gone. The phone had rung at least a dozen times. And Isaac still had no idea why she was here. Either for more sex or…for more sex. He didn’t mind the sex—hell, he craved it—but for the first time since Jeremy died, he wanted more with a woman. He wanted to talk with her. Get to know her. See who’d she’d become. She’d certainly grown out of the shy girl with her nose in a book.

But if he were honest with himself, he knew she was here for more backcountry biker sex, not for Isaac. All of Isaac. He didn’t want to care. He wanted to give her what she’d come for, then happily send her back to that rat pack in New York.

“Isaac?” Joe said.

“Huh?” He refocused. “Oh yeah. Looks like we’ve narrowed it down to two categories. If you want to go with a Harley, shoot for the touring styles in your price range, like the Road Glides or the CVOs. They’re compact, dependable, comfortable, and won’t have your ass draggin’ on the ground. But I know you like Beemers, and you can’t go wrong with one of their K models. We’d buy either stripped down, then I’d customize every detail just the way you want it.”

“Sounds good.” He stood. “Can I take a few of these to show Suzie?”

In the distance, the rumble of multiple Harleys touched Isaac’s ear. And in his mind’s eye, Isaac saw the Steel Warriors finding Ava in his shop looking like their next meal. His protective instincts flared. He pushed to his feet, collecting the catalogues.

“You bet.” He handed them to Joe as they exited the office. “Call me with any questions.”

His gaze traveled over the garage. He found Ava and a young interviewee perched on stools at a counter. Ava’s legs were crossed, one booted foot swinging, one hand twirling the end of her braid. Just the sight of her flooded him with all sorts of emotions—most of them circling around desire. Physical, mental, intellectual desire.

But she certainly wasn’t here for his brains or business savvy.

The phone rang, and Isaac’s stomach dropped. But without missing a beat, Ava said, “Excuse me,” answered the phone, took a message, and returned to her conversation.

Joe glanced at Isaac. “Can’t you just hire her?”

Isaac chuckled. “She’s already got a job.”

“Too bad.”

“Fortunate, actually.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I wouldn’t be able to concentrate with her around.”

Joe burst out laughing just as five Harleys thundered onto Isaac’s property. They slowed near the garage bay, and one of the guys jumped from the back of another bike. He pulled off his helmet while stalking toward Isaac, yelling over the idle of the bikes. “Wrench, my bike done?”

“Yeah.” He said good-bye to Joe and walked him out, meeting Grim at the bay opening. “She’s right here, ready to ride.”

Isaac steered the bike around to face Grim and found him staring at Ava and the woman she was interviewing.

“Is that the tease from Grind?” he asked.

Isaac dropped the stand and let the bike lean into it. “She’s not a tease, and you won’t see her at Grind again.”

Grim gave him a lopsided I-know-better grin. “You claimin’ her, you wingnut?”

“Damn right.” He smacked the keys to the Suzuki into Grim’s hand. “Tell your boys she’s off-limits.”

Grim chuckled. “Your funeral. A woman like that might be fun to take for a spin, but the high maintenance gets old real fast. I’ll tell the others, but if she steps into Grind again without you, that makes her fresh meat. And I know a few guys who wanted a taste real bad.” He pulled Isaac’s hand up and smacked a wad of twenties into it. “That ought to cover the clutch.”

With their brother on wheels, the gang steered back onto the road and disappeared around the bend. The rumble faded on the warm air.

Ava finished up her interview and escorted the other woman out to her car. Isaac leaned a shoulder against the open garage door watching her move, relishing the sheer, curvy grace of her. She returned to the garage and waited there at Isaac’s side in silence while the woman got into her beat-up Toyota and drove away.

As soon as the sound of their engines faded, Isaac exhaled and let his shoulders drop. “Do you hear that?”

She crossed her arms and listened for a second. “What?”

“Silence.”

She laughed, a light bubbly sound that made him smile. “Your buddies want you to go on a ride with them?”

“They aren’t exactly buddies, and they were here to pick up a bike.”

“You all seemed tight at the bar.”

“Work acquaintances.” He glanced at her shiny black Lexus coupe, pimped to the gills. “Nice ride.”

She lifted her shoulder with a smirk. “For a car, right?”

“For a car,” he agreed with a reluctant grin.

He didn’t like the Warriors knowing she was here. Hated knowing other members had an interest in her. Loathed the fact he didn’t own her as he’d led Grim to believe. She was free to go back to Grind and get it on with any dirty biker she chose.

Forcing that from his mind, he offered an easy “Thanks for helping out. You saved my ass.”

“Business is good.”

“It would be better if I could clone myself. Any decent candidates?”

“For cloning? Hardly. As a receptionist?” She made a noncommittal sound in her throat. “They were all pleasant. They all seemed to have good intentions and good hearts.”

“But…?”

“I guess it depends on what you need and how badly you need it.”

All Isaac needed right now was Ava. And he needed her badly.

“I met with Charlotte, Jaime, Trixie, Lola, and Becky Rae while you were in the office,” Ava told him. “Charlotte is a single mom. She can only work from the time she drops her last kid at school until she picks the first one up, which totals about four hours a day.”

“I’m pretty needy. Four hours isn’t going to work.”

“Needy.” She grinned, and her tone teased. “That wasn’t exactly the description I would use.”

“What would you use?”

She met his gaze directly. “Demanding.”

Flashes of their sex by the lake clicked through his head. Ava naked, on her back, stretched out on his bike. Isaac driving his hips between her spread thighs, his hands covering hers on the handlebars above her head, his sweat dripping on her chest.

The whole atmosphere shifted. The air sizzled between them.

Her face flushed, and she looked away, fanning her cheeks with a weak laugh. “Wow, heat rush.”

“I’ll say,” he muttered, shifting on his feet to relieve the pressure on his cock’s growing girth.

“Jaime doesn’t have a car,” she continued, “so she depends on the bus. As she tells it, the bus schedule changes on a whim and depends on staffing. Your shop happens to be on one of the more obscure routes the city shuts down at the mere threat of snow or employee illness.”

“Lucky me.”

“Trixie is seven months pregnant—with her fourth child. And she was very open about future plans of getting pregnant again, as soon as this baby pops out. See, her baby daddy—of child two and child four—wants a baseball team of kids, and he, evidently, doesn’t particularly care who participates in creating that team. She also wants to know about health insurance, on accounta the maternity care she gets in the hospital on welfare ain’t fit for chickens.”

Isaac laughed. “She did not say that.”

“Swear on my momma’s grave.” Ava made the sign of the cross.

“Your momma’s not dead.”

“How do you know?”

For an instant, he considered telling her that he’d recently talked to his own mother, who’d confirmed Ava’s family was in perfect health—if not in their right minds. He thought of telling her about their family connection and remind her of their Sunday-night dinners together as kids to prove to her he wasn’t a loser backwoods bike mechanic. But then what? She wasn’t here because she wanted Isaac Banks. She could get a newer, shinier version of Isaac Banks behind every office door in Manhattan. She was here because she wanted Isaac the backwoods bike mechanic. The one she believed hung with a dangerous biker gang.

“I don’t think you’d joke about that?” he answered.

She tilted her head. “How would you know?”

He shrugged. “Call it intuition.” He changed the subject. “Can’t wait to hear about Lola and Becky Rae.”

“Lola has a two-year associate’s degree from a junior college and a minister for a daddy.”

He lifted his brows. “Promising.”

“And those years she spent in prison were on accounta her daddy pulling her into an embezzlement scheme on the parishioners. How was she to know the money donated by the congregation for the less fortunate didn’t include their own family?”

“Oh my God, no,” he said. “Just no.”

“Yes, sir. Their congregation lives by the firm belief that charity begins at home.”

He rubbed his face with both hands, laughing. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He held up his hands. “Forget it. I’m done. The phone can ring. I’ll just ignore it.”

On cue, the phone started ringing. Ava automatically turned toward it. Isaac grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Pulled her all the way back until her body bumped his, then wrapped his arms low on her hips and held her against him.

“Let the machine get it,” he told her. “You haven’t told me about Becky Rae yet.”

She relaxed into his hold, and the feel of her body melting against his put a match to his gasoline. He slid his hands up her back, confirming what his body already knew: she wasn’t wearing a bra. And the freestyle way she felt against him made him hum with pleasure. “Did you come here commando, Miss Ava?”

“Maybe.” Her hands curled into his T-shirt. “Becky Rae may be your best option.”

“You don’t sound confident.”

“She’s a little…eccentric. But she has experience, a car, no kids, and can work a full day.”

“After everything you’ve told me,” he stroked a hand over her head and down her braid, “she sounds like gold.”

“Depends on your perspective. From where you stand, she’s the best you’re gonna get unless you want to keep looking.”

He lowered his gaze to her mouth. The mouth she’d had wrapped around his cock. The mouth she’d used to leave an indelible mark on his soul, if not his body. “I don’t want to keep looking.”

“I didn’t think so.” Her soft answer brought his gaze back to hers.

Her eyes were clear, light blue with a dark ring around the iris. Her long lashes had been darkened by mascara. She fit against him like the perfect puzzle piece and smelled like lilacs after a rain. She looked both innocent and seductive, and she made Isaac ache.

He lifted his knuckles to her petal-soft cheek. “And what are you looking for, Ava?”

“You.” She stretched to wrap her arms around his neck. Her body slid against his, breasts against his chest, hips against his erection. “And this.”

Damn. This was one of those times when he wished he’d been wrong. Or at least half-wrong. He wanted this too. He just also wanted more. “Sure you’re not slumming again? Trying to make your boyfriend jealous?”

“I told you I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Why not?” he asked, hoping to get her to open up a little.

She didn’t answer, just held his gaze with thoughts passing through her eyes. “We broke up,” she finally admitted. “He cheated on me—repeatedly.”

Isaac nodded, relieved she’d told him the truth. A cool breeze fluttered the hair that had fallen from her braid, and he skimmed his fingers into the loose strands at her neck. “How’d you find me?”

“I stopped at Grind, chatted up the bartender.”

Anger flashed in his gut, and his arms tightened. “You promised me you wouldn’t go back there.”

“Relax.” She gave him a confused smile. “It’s daylight.”

Isaac loosened his hold a little. “That place can get rough any time of day. And I’ve been warned that if you go in there again, the guys you rejected last time won’t take no for an answer.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And you know this, how?”

“Grim told me.”

She glanced toward the drive, where the Warriors had rolled up fifteen minutes before. “Just now?”

“Yeah. Just now.”

“Are you part of the club?” She refocused on his chest. “I saw everyone’s colors and patches today. I don’t remember you wearing any, but they know you. Knew where to find you.”

“Would it matter?”

She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean are you looking for a biker? Is that what turns you on?”

She paused, her expression turning serious. “Like I said, I’m looking for you. You turn me on.”

His insides jumped. His groin surged to the beat of his heart. In some ways, that night with her felt like it lived only in his imagination. Like it was a fantasy that vanished in the light. But she was real, right here, right now, in his arms. He knew their night had just been a hookup. Knew it meant nothing—at least not to her. He’d been fine with that. But now that she’d sought him out… Now he wasn’t sure if they were on the same page.

“You don’t know me,” he told her. “You know a man who saw a little rich girl out looking for a good time in the wrong place and decided to show her how dangerous that could be. I’m not an asshole who needs to dominate. I’m not controlling or mean. I just gave you what you needed that night. So, if you’re looking to be used and abused, you’ll have to go somewhere else.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned away. “I never felt controlled or abused. I felt…desired. Intensely, passionately desired.” She met his gaze, open and honest. Vulnerable. Prodding him to open up the same way. Her hands loosened around his neck, pressed open against his chest, and she eased away. “But if you want to keep what happened between us a one-time thing, that’s fine. I just thought…” She lifted a shoulder and shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

She pulled out of Isaac’s hold and turned toward her car. Gravel crunched under her boots, prodding Isaac into action. He caught up with her and slipped his arm around her waist from behind, pulling her up against him. She grabbed his forearm but didn’t pull away.

The feel of her, the smell of her… She hit him like a drug. He buried his face in her hair and doubled his arms around her, molding the back of her body to the front of his. Her quick heartbeat tapped his chest through her back. Their connection felt deep. Deeper than it should, given their history of one wild night. It was his imagination. Him projecting what he already knew of her, of their families, into the mix.

“What did you think?” he asked at her ear, his voice rough.

“You’re in my head all the time. I crave you. I guess I just hoped it would be the same for you.”

He wasn’t about to admit that it had been. “So, you didn’t come to the other side of the tracks for another edgy fuck? Hoping to get me out of your system?”

“I don’t know what you want to hear. Yes, I want you. Yes, I want the passion we had together that night. But, no, I’m not looking for anything more. My life is a mess. I can’t do more.”

He exhaled and lowered his lips to her bare shoulder. Of course, she couldn’t do more. Her fiancé had screwed her over. She was working like a dog, smothered in a family corporation that could so easily steal your soul when you weren’t looking. Isaac was her outlet. Her release valve. Her escape.

They’d become each other’s dirtiest little secret.

He’d have to accept that, because he wasn’t ready to let her go. Not yet.

He slid one hand under her loose blouse, over her warm, flat belly, up her chest, and covered one supple breast with a squeeze. Ava sighed a moan, and her ass pushed back against his cock.

Just like that, Isaac was on fire.

She tilted her head back, wrapped an arm around his neck, and dragged his mouth to hers. As soon as their lips touched, she opened to him, and his gut fisted with lust.

He stroked his tongue into her mouth on a groan of relief. He couldn’t believe how badly he wanted her. Having her here, wanting him, made every barrier drop. Her tongue lapped against his, and the friction shot fire into his cock. She pulled out of the kiss and turned in his arms, leaving him dizzy.

“When do you close?” she asked, her voice soft and breathless, her hands finding their way under his shirt and stroking his chest.

“Whenever the fuck I want.” He gripped her waist and lifted her off the ground. Ava’s legs parted and wrapped his hips, then she crossed her feet at his back.

Desire flared through his body like a fuckin’ wildfire. With one hand in her hair, he kept her mouth on his, kissing her, licking her, tasting her while he stumbled to the stairs leading to the loft above the garage.

There, he tore his mouth from hers, hammered the button that closed the bay door, and started up the staircase while Ava held his face in both hands and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him.

She lowered one hand between them and stroked his erection. The pressure weakened Isaac’s knees, and he stumbled, losing his grip on her. He fisted the metal railing with a growl of frustration. But when he tried to reposition his arm around her, Ava wiggled out of his grasp and sat on the stair, clawing at his belt, then his jeans.

He tried to grab her hands, but she had a determined, lusty look in her eyes and fought him. “Upstairs…” he said, suddenly breathless. “The loft…a bed.”

She shoved his pants down, then wrapped her hand around his cock.

Isaac jerked at the contact. He swore and grabbed a handful of her hair just as she impaled her mouth with his cock. His hand fisted, back arched, head fell back on a loud groan. “Fuck…Ava… Fuck.”

She moaned and sucked and ate at him like she’d been starving every second they’d been apart.

“Jesus Christ.” He found his balance, cupped her jaw, and pulled her away, then bent and dragged her up. She was smiling. A devious little bright-eyed grin. When he got her halfway to her feet, she dropped her head back and kissed him, her mouth a succulent offering he couldn’t resist. “Ava…” he muttered between kisses. “Dammit.”

He dropped to his knees and pushed her blouse up, exposing her bouncy tits and flat stomach. Isaac rubbed his heavily stubbled jaw along all her smooth skin, raking her nerves to the surface. He opened wide and took one breast into his mouth, scraping the nipple with his teeth before he sucked hard. Ava arched, balancing with one hand on the stair. Her long, low moan rippled along Isaac’s skin. His head went light, and he lost track of how he got her shorts off or how he ended up on his back. But he leaned against the stair treads, gripped her hips, and pulled her pussy to his mouth. Ava’s hand slapped the stair above him; the other grappled for the railing.

Isaac pushed both hands between her legs, spread her thighs, and gripped her ass. He licked her folds open, then flicked her clit with the very tip of his tongue. Just whispering, teasing, quick taps that made her writhe and growl and shake. And, finally, finally beg.

“Suck me,” she panted. “Please.”

Isaac opened his mouth and covered her, then watched her come apart at the seams, head thrown back, hips rocking, moans rolling out of her throat as he sucked and sucked and sucked.

Ava came in a fit of screams and jerks. While she was still shivering, Isaac rolled on a condom, moved up a couple of stairs and guided her hips over him. When he pulled her onto his cock, Isaac’s groan of pleasure mirrored Ava’s. She shifted, lifting the tops of her boot-clad feet to his thighs. The move spread her thighs wider, pushed him deeper. She pressed her hands to his chest and used her toned thighs to lift and lower, taking him balls-deep. Isaac swore and sat forward, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her neck, her chest, dropping his head back to kiss her mouth as she slowly fucked him insane.

Ava finally rose to orgasm again, and Isaac took over thrusting. Using the steps for leverage, he lifted into her, quick and deep until their heavy breaths were drowned by the slap of skin. And when they finally broke together, they were both covered in sweat, breathless.

She dropped her head to his shoulder and whispered, “Oh…my God…”

Isaac smiled and huffed an exhausted laugh. He turned his head and kissed her neck. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”