"I am not going to get on the back of that motorcycle," Leah says, exasperated. She has one arm crossed over her chest, and her free hand twirls the tip of her hair. "This is ridiculous. I don't want to end up as an oil stain on the highway."

I grin at her. We stand on her street corner, and she looks back and forth nervously, like she's afraid of being caught out here with me.

She looks so damn good in her t-shirt and sweatpants. I don't think she's wearing a bra, and it might just be my imagination, but I think I see the outline of a nipple through the fabric.

"It'll be fine," I say. "We won't ride on any highways. Just through the city."

She puts her hands on her hips and looks at my motorcycle. It's bright red and has "Ducati" emblazoned on the gas tank.

After a day of hell at the office, a joy ride is exactly what I needed tonight. Well, that, and to come here and finally see this gorgeous bombshell that I can't get my mind off of.

I gesture to a second helmet strapped to the side of my bike. "Wear that. And I'll give you my riding jacket."

"So let me get this straight," Leah says. She sticks out a hand in exasperation and counts on her fingers.

"One, you come to my apartment late at night, uninvited, and you knock on my window. Two, you think I'm going to get on your motorcycle and ride around Manhattan like a crazy person. Three, you're even thinking about driving this bright red motorcycle around New York at night. Do you know that red vehicles are the most ticketed? Four—"

I wave my hands back and forth like a movie director cutting a scene and I laugh. "Just loosen up and relax. Jesus."

"So you think taking me for a motorcycle ride is going to get me to loosen up? You're disgusting."

I pause for a moment to think before I get her drift. "That one wasn't actually a sexual joke," I say, grinning, "Surprising, I know. But I like where your head's at."

"You're an animal," she says, shaking her head. I can't help grinning. I like seeing this feisty side of her.

"I'd like to see you act like an animal," I say.

She reddens. "You'll never have the privilege."

"We'll see about that," I say, smirking.

Leah looks mad, but she keeps eyeing the bike and I can tell she wants to be convinced.

"You hungry?" I ask. Food is always a good way to get through to a woman's heart.

"Well," she says, her voice suddenly becoming less defiant, "I was actually thinking about going out for some dessert."

"What kind of dessert?"

"Donuts."

"I know a great donut place," I say. I lean over and unbuckle the helmet from the bike and hold it out toward Leah's chest. "We'll go the speed limit," I say with a wink. "Promise."

* * *

I twist the Ducati's throttle and we roar over the Brooklyn Bridge toward Manhattan. The speedometer only measures kilometers per hour because I imported the bike straight from Italy.

Soon we hit 160 k/ph, about 100 miles per hour. The bridge is completely clear and the roads are dry tonight. I'd never put Leah in danger if there were traffic or dangerous conditions. But it's a clear, quiet night and I'm completely in control of the bike.

The engine roars between our legs, and her hands practically claw at my abdomen as she hangs on for dear life. But the only danger to us right now is the cops, and I'm not worried about them.

For anyone with the amount of money and influence that I have, the cops aren't a real threat. Even if they pull us over, they'll let me go after they figure out who I am. That was one of the things I learned back in my party days.

Sure, a patrolman might slap some handcuffs on me and maybe even take me into the station for processing, but once it gets escalated to a high enough level, I'll get a call from some police sergeant or the police chief himself, apologizing for the inconvenience and notifying me that the entire episode was nothing more than an unfortunate mix-up.

Of course, I don't make a habit of abusing that privilege. Not anymore. I'm a mature, respectable guy now. Well, maybe except for late-night, high-speed donut runs.

The wind rushes by our heads, but I can hear Leah yelling at me through our helmets. The one word that I manage to make out is: "SLOWER!"

So naturally, I twist the throttle even harder, and I don't hit the brakes until we clear the Brooklyn Bridge and thunder into lower Manhattan.

I pull to a stop at the first red light—I'll speed over an empty bridge, but I won't run a red light. You never know who might be jaywalking, and the last thing I want to do is hurt some innocent person who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When we come to a stop, I flip my visor up and I hear Leah's flip up behind me as well. Riding at over a hundred miles per hour causes a ton of wind noise inside a helmet, and my ears are practically ringing as she hollers at me.

"You're insane," she yells from behind me. "You said we were going to go the speed limit!"

I turn around and grin at her. "We did. The speed limit is what I say it is."

"You're absolutely nuts." She slaps my shoulder. "I trusted you."

"I got you here in one piece, didn't I?" I say.

"We could have died."

"But we didn't."

She starts to talk again, but the light turns green. I reach around behind me and flip her visor down for her, silencing her mid-sentence.

I chuckle to myself as she squirms behind me on the bike. Yeah, maybe she'll be mad at me, but this is the most fun she'll have this month. She'll get over it.

I flip my visor down, too, and we accelerate through the intersection toward Times Square.

* * *

The scent of fresh donuts swirls in the air around us. I smell fresh fried dough, frosting, cinnamon sugar, and confectioner's sugar. I take in a deep breath and savor it as we stand in line.

Leah stands next to me, my riding jacket hanging unzipped off her shoulders. She's breathing heavy like she just got done running a marathon.

"What flavor do you like?" I ask her.

She side-eyes me. "I like double chocolate. And it's especially tasty with a side of being alive."

I smile, shrug, and roll my shoulders, stretching my muscles. "I don't know about you, but I feel more alive than I've felt all week. Hell, maybe all month."

We get to the cash register and order a dozen donuts. This joint is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In the middle of the night, it's mostly drunk college kids from NYU and the other colleges in the city. It reminds me of when I was younger and freer, and I like it.

When the cashier rings us up, I pull out my debit card to pay, but Leah sneaks a $20 onto the counter and pushes it toward the cashier. "I've got this," she says. The cashier shrugs, the cash register dings, and he starts to make change.

"This was my treat," I say. "It doesn't make sense for you to pay."

"I told you," says Leah, "I don't accept hand-outs."

"A couple free donuts don't qualify as a hand-out."

"It's not up for debate."

I chuckle as we navigate through the crowd of college kids. We sit down in a tiny booth in the corner of the shop, right by the window. Outside, the lights of Times Square flash in rainbow colors.

Leah looks at me from across the booth. "It feels really good to finally be on solid ground," she says, grabbing a double chocolate donut from the white paper bag and tearing off a chunk. "I can't believe we just did that."

I reach in the bag and pull out a plain white powdered sugar donut. "Got to feel alive after a long week of meetings with tight-asses."

She eyes me like she's psychoanalyzing me again, and I can't lie, it makes me uneasy. I feel like she's actually looking inside my mind, as crazy as that sounds. She's clearly got a special talent for understanding people, and I like that about her.

"Why not go out and unwind with some coworkers or friends?" she asks, tearing off another piece of donut.

"Well," I say, shifting in my seat. "I don't hang out with a lot of people outside of work."

She raises an eyebrow. "You're telling me you're a handsome billionaire and you don't have any friends."

"I have no shortage of people who'd like to be my friend," I reply.

"So what's the problem?"

"Everyone wants to get something from me."

"So you decide not to be friends with anyone, just to avoid the few bad seeds."

"Hey," I say, "You asked me. I'm not complaining about it. I got my business and my finances to worry about. And I got my professional network. That's good enough."

"But everyone needs real friendships. And relationships."

"Doing just fine," I say. But the truth is, this kind of thing is exactly why I go out to eat lunch at Jacob's Deli, and why I like to get on my bike and ride to shit-holes like this donut shop. Because when I come to these places, no one knows who I am.

Sure, they might see me wearing a nice suit, and maybe they'll assume I'm rich, but nobody knows the full extent of it. It gives me a temporary break from all the sycophants, yes-men, and sugar babies that always try to hang around me in my normal life.

When I'm out like this, I don't have to worry that the people around me are trying to get insider information, or favors, or just cold, hard cash. I can feel completely normal for a while, and less lonely.

But I'm not going to admit that to Leah. Or anyone. I don't feel comfortable talking about that sort of thing. That's why business is my escape.

"You know," says Leah, "If you want to hang out with me and my friends sometime… that would be cool. For whatever it's worth."

I grin at the thought of hanging out with a bunch of twenty-something girls, and I have a vision of them bustling around me and putting cucumber and mud masks on my face. "Sure," I say. "I'm willing to give that a shot."

Leah smiles.

"By the way, how's your dad?"

Leah's smile fades. "Not great."

"Sorry to hear that," I say, and I don't like seeing her sad like this. "What's going on?"

"He's at Jersey General. It was supposed to be an easily treatable form of cancer, but the chemo hasn't worked so far. I don't know what's going to happen."

I nod. "Let me know if I can be of service," I say. "Or if you want to talk about it." For some crazy reason, I feel like her sadness is my sadness. I want to do whatever I can to help her.

"Thanks," she says. "I will."

"You know Leah," I say, changing the topic, "One thing that intrigues me about you is that you really do make your own way."

She shrugs, and her hair flutters down her cheek. She's got a beautiful face, and—I'm starting to realize—an equally beautiful heart.

"It's just the way I was raised," she says. "I don't mind that you have money. But I'll never let it become a thing between us."

I grin. "Thinking that far into the future?" I refrain from mentioning to her that I'm thinking just as far into the future myself.

She pauses for a second. She's so cute when she's embarrassed. "That's not what I meant," she says, but I chuckle and shush her.

I extend my hand across the table, and she puts hers in mine. It sends a rush through my stomach every time I touch her.

I stroke her palm with my thumb, and she moves her fingertips against my palm as well. "This feels good," I say.

She smiles shyly. "It does."

Squeezing her hand, I look deep into her eyes. "I want you," I say, letting my fingernails dig lightly into her skin. I lean in toward her, and she does the same. Our faces are only about ten or twelve inches apart, like they were back when she came over to get her notebook out of my limo.

Her smell intoxicates me. It's like vanilla, and ocean spray, and spices. But I don't even think she's wearing perfume. I think it's all her, just her natural smell, and it turns me on like fucking crazy.

She lowers her voice. "Tell me more," she whispers to me. "Tell me what you want from me."

"Leah," I growl, "I want to uncover all your secrets. I want to learn everything there is to know about your body, and I want to taste every fucking inch of it. I've never wanted someone as much as I want you."

Her breathing quickens, and she squeezes my hand harder. She has so much sexual energy inside her, and I can't wait to experience it first-hand. But at the same time, I still detect that there's something she's not telling me. She seems stiff, uptight, as if she's hiding a secret from me.

"Is that all you want?" she asks.

"No," I growl. "I don't just want your body, I want your mind, too. And your heart."

She stares into my eyes, and I think I could get lost in her baby blues right now. I can't keep my eyes off her lips. They look perfect, and almost remind me of peaches. I bet they'd taste that way, too.

I decide that I can't wait any longer to find out. Or at least, I don't want to.

"I'm going to kiss you now," I say.

Her hand feels hot in mine, and she doesn't resist my advance. I lean across the table, closing the gap between us, and I place my lips on hers, getting the taste of chocolate frosting in my mouth. Our tongues press together, our lips hungrily searching out one another, and attraction surges through my body like thunder.

When our lips finally part, I'm breathing hard, and so is Leah.

"Damn," I say.

"That was… something," says Leah, blinking and staring into my eyes.

"Yeah it was," I respond. I stand up and grab her hand. "Come on. Let's get out of here."