Just seconds after Coco had left, she’d returned with a new outfit, a pair of khaki shorts and a pink sleeveless tank for a warm day at the lake. She’d even given me suntan lotion and a band to tie up my hair for the motorcycle ride. I pulled on the ankle boots from the night before and marveled, once again, at how perfectly everything fit. I grabbed my sunglasses from my purse, about the only item of use I had brought with me, and stuck them on my head.

I was positively giddy by the time I hopped down the stairs to the entryway.

Beck was putting our food in the side pouches on his bike. He glanced up in his opaque black shades when he heard me shut the front door. He laughed. “You look like a kid coming down the stairs to the Christmas tree.”

“I feel like one. The last time I was this excited was when my grandmother and I traveled on a bus to California to spend the day at Disneyland.” I grinned down at the motorcycle. It was a chrome and black beauty, and while I didn’t know much about bikes, this one looked fun . . . and fast. “This will be way better than Space Mountain, and I’ll bet I won’t walk off of it with a sore neck.”

“Nope, and she’s all ready for you. I only have the one helmet.” He handed his black helmet to me. “I’ll have to adjust the straps.”

“No, please. I wouldn’t feel right wearing it. Are we going far? Coco mentioned some lake?”

“We’ll just be traveling along a quiet, back road. We’ll leave the helmet here, and I’ll go slow.”

“No you won’t. Please.”

“All right, Ms. Knieval, climb on and we’ll ride. I’ll try to make it at least as cool as Space Mountain.”

He looked exactly right on the motorcycle, and the thunderous roar of the motor as he started up the bike, sounded exactly right too. There was nothing quiet or tame or conventional about Beck.

I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes and held his shoulders as I threw my leg over the seat and sat down behind him. I wrapped my arms around him. His hard stomach muscles rippled beneath my hands as he turned the bike and headed down the long driveway.

I rested my chin on his shoulder and watched the road get closer. I couldn’t hold back a squeal as we rolled downhill.

His hard stomach twitched with a laugh. “I haven’t even taken it out of first gear yet, Em.”

“I know. That was just an anticipation squeal.” I squeezed my arms around him to get my mouth closer to his ear. “You know, like last night just before you—well, you remember. You were there.”

“I sure as hell was.”

I squeezed him harder, loving the excuse to hang on to him like he was mine. He stopped at the bottom of the driveway and looked both directions. Before taking off, he looked back over his shoulder at me. “Hold on there, wild one. We’re about to blast off.”

* * *

The asphalt and thick green landscape rolled past in a blur. I stayed close to Beck. He wasn’t the type of man I ever wanted to be just near. I wanted to be close, really close. Something about him made me feel safe and wanted. Appreciated. I’d never felt any of those things with David or any of my other questionable man choices, for that matter. The ironic thing about that was if you lined my past boyfriends up in a room and stuck Beck in the middle of them all, he’d be the last one anyone would pick out as the guy who would make you feel safe and appreciated. Yet, he had, far more than any of the other silly, dull men I’d wasted time with.

A cool pine scent muddled the fresh breeze as the evergreens slowly grew taller with each curve we passed. The bike was too loud to have a decent conversation while riding, so I talked more with body language, hugging him tighter, kissing the back of his neck, pressing my face against his back, just to let him know how much fun I was having.

Just as Coco had promised, an azure blue lake suddenly appeared through the trees. I never traveled much past the city, or the library, for that matter, and I never would have imagined such a bucolic, lush landscape just a few miles north of town. I was almost not convinced it was real . . . any of it. Including the incredible man.

Beck slowed the bike and turned off the highway along an unpaved road. My bottom slipped sideways as the bike tottered along on the uneven path.

He glanced back, the lines of a grin edging his mouth. “Sorry about that. It’s a little rough.”

“That’s all right. Gives me an excuse to hold you tighter.” I squeezed my arms around his hard waist.

“I’m all for tighter.” He steered the bike to a shady piece of flat land and parked it. “It’s just a short hike down to the water.”

I climbed off. My legs wobbled before I got them securely beneath me.

Beck caught my moment of instability. “Whoa there, little cowboy, guess you’ve never ridden a hog before.”

“I haven’t, which you could no doubt tell by the intermittent bursts of joy as we zoomed along. But I think the wobble in my legs is more due to another activity than riding a hog.” I winked at him and realized I’d never flirted so much with anyone as I had with him.

He climbed off the bike and rose up to full height, a sight that always stole my breath. As if he read my thoughts, he pulled me into his big, powerful arms. “Is that right? Guess we need to work on building a little stamina then, because I’m not nearly finished with those activities.”

“Good thing,” I smiled up at him. “Because I hear practice makes perfect.”

“Yeah? And here I was thinking we were pretty damn close to perfect already.”

I laughed. “And if we’re done talking in this nebulous form of sexy doublespeak, then I think we should walk down to the lake.”

“See, that’s why I like being with a bookish woman. Not many women make the word ‘nebulous’ sound so fucking hot. And I don’t even know what the hell it means.”

I opened my mouth to explain, but he pressed his finger against my lips.

“Don’t ruin the dirty meaning I’m gathering in my mind with the real definition. Just let me enjoy the vision of you and me doing nebulous things together. Preferably naked.”

“What kind of librarian would I be to ruin an erotic fantasy with definitions?” I hopped up on my toes and threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.

Beck stopped to pull a bag out of his saddle pack.

“My mouth is watering for one of Coco’s sandwiches,” I said as we headed to the narrow trail leading down to the water. “Not sure what she puts into her food or into everything she does, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with magic.”

“Coco is hard to explain, that’s for damn sure. But sometimes, when something is awesome, you just don’t try to figure it out.”

“Well said.” And, as I trekked down to the glassy lake in the center of the serene, evergreen setting with a man I could only ever dream of, I seconded that notion in my mind. No sense in trying to unravel something that was seemingly awesome.

We found the ideal grassy knoll that was warmed by the sun and provided an unimpeded view of the oval lake.

I sat down and gazed out at the scenery. “It’s like we fell into an oil painting. There’s no one else here today. How is that possible on such a beautiful day? It’s like we went through some portal that took us away from civilization and dropped us in the middle of paradise.”

Beck sat down next to me, knee up and forearm resting on top of it. “I can’t get enough of the way you phrase things, Emmie. Like a walking picture book.”

“I’d think someone like you wouldn’t appreciate my wordiness. That’s what I like about you. Nothing about you makes sense.”

“Someone like me? Not sure how to take that. I actually appreciate the artful side of life.”

“Sorry, did not mean to cast you into a certain role.” I laughed. “I guess that’s exactly what I did. It’s just, you don’t look like the ‘artful type’. I know so little about you, except that you like beer, motorcycles and—well, you know how to please a woman. And trust me, pleased is an extremely underwhelming word for what I’ve been feeling when I’m with you. What is it you do when you’re not roaming around on your motorcycle and hanging out in pool halls defending the honor of a hustler?”

“I’m a welder. I work mostly in ports and shipyards.” He stopped and stared down at the ground for a moment as if a piece of his past had come back to him. “I married right out of high school.”

There it was—the shoe that hadn’t dropped yet. “So, you’re married?” The question nearly caught in my throat.

He shook his head as he lifted his face to me. “Not for a long time. We knew almost the moment we said ‘I do’ that we’d made a big mistake. We both had crummy home lives, and we were looking for something better. But we didn’t find it with each other. She’s moved on and is remarried with two kids. I moved on too, but I never remarried. Never found the right person.”

“And when you’re not working or riding?” I asked.

“In my spare time, I paint and create metal sculptures.”

I blinked at him in surprise.

“What? You don’t believe a guy like me can create art with these hands?”

“Uh, you mean hands that look as if they could bend a steel bar? It’s a little hard to picture you holding a paint brush or sketching pencil.”

“I drew the patterns for a lot of my tattoos, including, this snake.” He hopped up, and I worried that I’d insulted him. But he smiled down at me. “I’ll prove it, and I just found my model. And since I’m the artist, I get to pose my newest subject exactly the way I want.” He walked down the grassy hill.

“Where are you going?”

“Be right back.”

While I waited, I pulled a foil wrapped sandwich from the bag. Coco had even packed two cold thermoses. I untwisted the top of one. It was filled with fresh lemonade. I took a bite of the gooey peanut butter sandwich and washed it down with the cold drink and got lost in a few blissful moments with the delicious lunch and the heavenly setting. Then Beck’s tall, dark figure appeared again, and it was hard to concentrate on the food. He not only stopped my breath every time I saw him, but he made my heart bounce around in my chest like a rubber ball.

I was so busy gawking at Beck, I hadn’t noticed that he had a pad of paper dangling from his hand. As he got closer, I saw that he had a pencil box too.”

“You weren’t kidding. You are actually considering drawing me.”

“Not just considering. This is the perfect setting for it.” He stopped and glanced around. “Found the place.” He lowered his free hand to me, and I readily took it. He lifted me to my feet and twisted his mouth in thought, sliding his beard back and forth like a pendulum as he stared down at my body. “First of all, I need you to perform that Houdini trick and lose the bra.”

I covered my chest, pretending to be shocked but secretly feeling the thrill of his request all the way down to my pussy.

“Come on, Em, while the light is just right.”

I shook my head. “Never heard it called the Houdini trick,” I muttered as I reached beneath the tank top and unlatched my bra and then proceed to slide the straps down and off over my hands. I yanked the bra out from under my shirt with a flourish and took a bow.

“Never seen that trick done better,” he quipped.

“I’m pretty sure I don’t want you to elaborate on that comment.”

“Good.” He grabbed my hand. “The sun is at a perfect angle right now.” He led me down the grass covered hill, and we walked toward a stone wall. Most of whatever the wall had been attached to had been eroded away by time and inclement weather.

I patted the wall. The large gray stones had been grouted together with a dark gray material, clay or some other type of earthen glue. The surface of the stones had been worn smooth, almost glossy.

“What do you think this was?” I asked.

“I’ve heard it was part of a shelter for hunters in the winter, back in the day when people traveled through here on foot. But that could just be a story. All I know is it’s the perfect backdrop.” He moved closer, and the warmth from his body immediately made me feel lightheaded.

Beck put a firm hand on my waist and kissed me long and deep enough to conjure up a flurry of erotic thoughts and feelings. He lifted his mouth, after leaving me nearly breathless, and gazed down at me. “I’m going to put you in the pose I want. Are you game?”

“Uh, game? Yes?” I said, completely unsure where this was leading.

He placed his pad of paper and pencils on a nearby fallen tree. Then he returned. It seemed his mind was dashing about like an artist’s as he took in his model and her surroundings. He took my hand and turned me so my back was against the wall. Then, without warning, he rolled my shirt up. I reached for it, but he stopped my hand.

“Nope. You said you were game.”

“If you listened carefully, there was a lift in my tone at the end of yes, which means I said it like a quest—”

He kissed me again, mostly to shut me up, but it also worked to throw off my composure. His mouth stayed close to mine as he spoke. “There is no one around for miles. We won’t take it all the way off. In fact, it’ll be that much hotter if you keep it rolled up just above those beautiful breasts of yours.”

He stepped back and seemed to come to yet another conclusion. With no further explanation, he reached for my hands and lifted them above my head. He rested them against the rock wall. I had to arch my back to accommodate this new position. “Leave those hands right there.” He reached for my shirt and rolled it up with just enough slow precision to send a surge of moisture into my panties, especially with the way his dark eyes gazed hungrily at my breasts as they were exposed.

Beck tucked the shirt up so that it stayed. My nipples hardened at the idea of being displayed in the wide open. A cool breeze brushed against them to pucker them more.

“Sorry, sweetheart, it’s not very professional of me, but I can’t resist.” He leaned forward and dragged his tongue around each nipple.

I instinctively lowered my arms to touch him, but he took hold of my wrists and lifted them back into position. He put his hands behind my back to make me arch it a little more.

“Don’t move,” he commanded. He reached to my shorts and unbuttoned them. I stirred just enough to make him scowl at me. “I said don’t move.”

He unbuttoned the shorts and pushed them just low enough to see the top of my panties. Then he splayed the fly open so my panties were almost completely exposed. “Should have had you lose the panties too,” he complained.

“There is no Houdini trick for panties. At least none that I’m aware of.”

“Too bad. Anyhow, I’m sort of liking this look. Not as good as naked pussy, but it works.” He backed up to the log where he’d set his paper and pencils. He sat down and tilted his head some.

“Aren’t you supposed to be looking at me around your thumb?”

He smiled and started rubbing a pencil over the paper. “Don’t move.”

“Won’t lie. I’m feeling a little self-conscious about this,” I muttered, trying not to move my face as I spoke.

“Why? I’m the only other person out here, and I’ve already seen every beautiful inch of you. Now hold still.” His gaze shifted from me to the paper and back again. All the while, his hand and pencil made quick sharp strokes on the paper.

“Looks like you’re just scribbling,” I noted again through a tight jaw.

“You are the most talkative model I’ve ever drawn.”

“So, you’ve had a lot of women pose like this for you?”

He stopped, at first with a grunt of frustration, but then his expression softened and he looked at me. “None like you, Emmie. This one’s for me, and it’s going to be a challenge finishing it when all I can think of right now is stripping those shorts and panties off of you and taking you right up against that old stone wall. So quiet. I need to finish fast.”

His last confession changed everything. My self-conscious feelings washed away, and suddenly, I was taking part in one of the most erotic moments of my life. Every time Beck’s dark eyes lifted to look at me, my composure melted just a little more as if every stroke of his pencil was a stroke of his hand on my naked body.

As the breeze pushed through the trees and across my bared breasts, my nipples ached with the need to be touched. The more they ached, the more my pussy ached for his attention.

My hands tingled above my head, and the smooth stone felt cool on the skin of my back. And all I could think about was Beck making good on his earlier threat to take me right then and there.

Even with the brisk temperatures beneath the forest canopy, my skin warmed with a flush. It seemed my artist was noticing my transformation. My sudden silence had to have signaled how I was feeling, and he, too, was having trouble finishing his task. I could see the movement of his throat as he swallowed hard, more often than was natural. His chest seemed to rise and fall more often than normal too. He pushed the pencil hard against the pad, and I wondered how he managed to draw any lines without ripping through the paper.

“Fuck it,” he muttered as he tossed the paper and pencil down and stomped toward me.

My arms dropped around his neck, and I fell against him with relief. His mouth covered mine. He fumbled with his pants until he managed to shove them haphazardly down around his thighs. With less fumbling and much more determination, he rid me of both my shorts and panties, only having a moment of difficulty when trying to get them over one ankle boot.

Then he moved like a man possessed, a man who had been alone in the world for the last year and I was the first woman he’d seen. His frenzied movements, coupled with the sheer strength, should have frightened me, but it didn’t. I wanted him just as badly.

Beck hooked his hand around my thigh and lifted my leg around him. He stared down at my face. “Damnit woman, what the hell have you done to me?” he growled as he jammed his cock inside of me.

My body bounced against the stone wall as he thrust himself into me again. I’d been so turned on by standing nude as he sketched my picture that I was already close to coming.

“Again, Beck, more.”

My entire body trembled as he pushed into me again, going deeper than seemed possible and filling me with his thick erection, stretching my already tender pussy tighter. His fingers gripped my leg, and he rocked into me again. My body split into a million pieces and I came.

“That’s it, baby. That’s what I want from you.”

My eyes drifted shut with the intense feel of it. His grip on me tightened and he thrust inside of me again. His body hardened and his head lolled back with a groan as he came.

It took a squirrel running through a nearby shrub to startle me from my state of delirium. “I think we had a voyeur.”

Beck lowered my foot to the ground. “And he was cleverly disguised as a squirrel.”

I laughed as I quickly struggled to get dressed, suddenly feeling extremely exposed in the middle of the forest.

Beck took his time redressing, not seeming to care if anyone, two legged or four legged was watching.

“I want to see the picture.” I brushed the dust off my shorts and shirt.

“Don’t know if I’m ready to show it to you.” He was concentrating on buttoning his fly when I dashed past him and made a run for the pad of paper.

I shrieked at the sound of his heavy footsteps behind me. I snatched up the pad of paper, but before I could look at it, he had his arms wrapped tightly around me trapping the picture against me.

“Please let me see it.”

“I was under duress, so it’s not my best work.”

“So, looking at me naked was a hardship.”

“You better fucking believe it, sweetheart. It’s not easy to create art when you’re fighting a raging erection.” He released me. “Go ahead. I can take the criticism. I’ve got a tough shell.”

I held the notebook out and looked down at the picture. In an incredibly short time, and with what had appeared to be just short rough scratches of a pencil, Beck had captured my likeness exactly. Even with the rather risqué pose, out of character for me, I was looking down at myself.

“Beck, it’s amazing. It’s like you had me memorized in your mind already, and it just came out of your hand on paper.”

“I do have you memorized.” His deep voice came over my shoulder. “Every inch of you, Emmie.”

I held the picture close again. “Can I keep it?”

“Nope. That one is for me.”

I turned around to face him. “Then I want one of you, a self-portrait that captures all of this.” I waved my hand around him. “All this incredible manliness and virility and power. I want it all in one sexy-ass picture that I can keep.”

He shook his head. “Yeah, I’m not big on sketching self-portraits.” He took the notebook from my hand and looked at the picture. “You’re right. Not too bad. One thing is for sure—it’s making me crave a repeat of a few minutes ago.”

“Lunch first. I’m starved.”