Chapter Two

Savannah

I was glad that Axel didn’t know who I was. As the daughter of the head of an outlaw motorcycle club, my name was often thrown around. It didn’t help that I was a woman that didn’t blend well into a crowd. I was too tall, and too broad, to do so. Some men had likened me to a goddess, but I sometimes wished I was smaller. Not because I didn’t like who I was, but because it was sometimes nice to lay low. But, I liked the way that Axel was looking at me. I’d noticed it from the moment our eyes locked at the race. I liked that he wasn’t good at hiding his feelings and that his desire was clearly written on his face. It made me feel good about myself, and it made me want him as much as he wanted me.

I’d heard about Axel before. He was a great racer, and his name was often mentioned around. I got the sense that he didn’t know it though. For all his charades and big talk, he actually seemed very modest and down to earth. I wasn’t planning on hanging around for much longer, so spending a night with Axel before I left town was just the thing for me.

He ordered us a round of beers, and we took a seat at the corner of the bar. McB’s had always been a favorite bar of mine to frequent. It was small enough to feel intimate but large enough to not feel too exposed.

“I found it weird that we hadn’t met before,” I said. “Do you come here often?”

He looked around and smiled. He had a nice smile. A genuine one. “Yeah, I come here often. Well, not every week or anything, but often enough. I’ve never seen you before.”

“Maybe you just weren’t looking,” I said.

He laughed. “Trust me; I would’ve noticed you.”

I frowned. “Oh yeah? Are you making fun of my height?”

He seemed taken aback by my comment. “Your height? Why would I make fun of your height? I would’ve noticed you because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I know that sounds a little lame, but it’s true. You’re gorgeous, Savannah. I would’ve remembered someone like you. Trust me.”

I blushed despite myself, and I was glad for the darkened room. I was not a blusher. I was surprised that someone that I had just met could make me feel so flustered already.

“Thank you. Compliment accepted.”

He grinned. “Good. I’m glad. We were obviously just not meant to meet each other before.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “So we were meant to meet each other now?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I chuckled. “Do you really believe in things like that?”

He shook his head. “Not at all.”

I laughed. “You’re funny; you know that?”

“So I’ve been told. So, well done on your race today. You were incredible.”

“You do realize that you’ve just told me that you were incredible. You beat me. So if I was incredible then that means you were even more incredible,” I said. I sat back in my chair, sipping my beer. I was enjoying myself. I hadn’t expected to end up at the bar with a good-looking man. Especially not a man I’d heard so much about.

“Well, naturally. I’m incredible, you’re incredible, we’re all incredible,” he said. Somehow, he said all that and still managed to come off as a nice guy.

“Here’s to incredible people,” I said and raised my beer to his. “Okay, let me get us another one.”

He grinned. “Wow, you finished yours already?” he said. I wasn’t sure if he was surprised or impressed, or a little bit of both.

“Yeah, well, you finished yours too,” I said and pointed to his empty glass.

“Yeah, I know, but—"

“Don’t you dare say that you didn’t expect a woman to drink so fast,” I warned. “I already told you that I’m not like other women.”

He laughed and nodded appreciatively at me. “So you said. I’m starting to see what you mean now. But I’ll get the next round,” he said and stood up.

I shook my head. “Nope, it’s my turn. Fair and square.”

I walked over to the bar and ordered two more beers. The man behind the counter was new and began to flirt with me. He asked me for my number a few times until I pointed out that I was with Axel.

“With that guy? You on a date?” he said. He already sounded put off that I had turned him down.

“Yep, I’m on a date,” I said. I took the beers and returned to Axel. “Hey, if anyone asks, we’re on a date.”

He frowned. “Okay. But what’s going on?”

“The barman tried to hit on me. So I told him I was on a date with you.”

“You do realize I’m going to take you at face value here. If you say that we’re on a date, then we are on a date. And that means I’m treating you to the next round.”

I laughed. “Wow, I take it we’re in here for the night then.”

“Up to you. I can walk away and leave you with the barman. I can see him looking at you right now. Or, you can take your chances and stay with me all night.”

I laughed. I liked Axel. This was just the sort of night I needed to forget about my problems. “I think I’ll take the chance with you then,” I said.

He grinned. “Good answer.”

True to our word, we stayed the night. Axel got the rest of the drinks to save me from going up to talk to the barman again and laughed every time he got back. Apparently, the barman was not happy with him.

“I stole his woman,” he said and grinned at me.

I smiled. “You did. I mean, how could I turn you down? It was either a date with you, or I lose my car.”

“Tell me this, Savannah. If I were to have taken your car and still asked you out on a date, would you have said yes?”

I looked him up and down, considering the question. My mind was a little hazy, and so was my vision. I wasn’t drunk, but I was tipsy, and it was a feeling I enjoyed. I nodded.

“I’d have said yes,” I decided.

“Great answer.”

I was actually a very sweet and gentle person. Most people were surprised to find out about my compassion for animals and for my desperate desire to be loved. It frustrated me when people voiced their surprise. Just because I was a tall woman didn’t mean I couldn’t be loveable. That was why, when Axel looked at me and said, “You’re very sweet; you know that?” I almost melted in my chair. I knew he wasn’t just trying to flirt with me. I could tell by the way he said it and the look in his eyes, that he meant every word of that. He thought I was sweet. I am sweet, I said in my head.

I looked at him and smiled. “Would you like to come back to my place?”

He grinned. It had been the right thing to say. “I’d like nothing better.”

We hopped on our bikes, and he followed me home. And, even though I liked to be sweet, and I liked to be gentle, I also knew when to turn it off. And right then, standing in the middle of my living room, I wanted nothing more than for Axel to rip my clothes off and make wild and passionate love to me. Which, to his credit, was exactly what he did.

Axel, as it turned out, was just as crazy in bed as he was when he was racing. He was both fast and furtive, while equally loving and passionate. He knew when to slow down and when to speed up. He had taken my clothes off with expert hands and pushed me down onto the sofa. He’d taken his own clothes off while I watched with bated breath, and handed the condom over to me to put on him. I liked that he wanted me to do it for him, but at the time, I’d been disappointed by his lack of foreplay. Was that all I was going to get? Just a quickie? I’d been wrong. Oh, I’d been very wrong. Axel was ready for me from the moment he took my clothes off and only grew harder and readier as time went on. After thrusting inside me, he pulled away and stood up. He lifted me back up and then pushed me against the wall in a passionate embrace. He grinned at me.

“No woman has ever been tall enough for me to do this with,” he said.

“Well, I’m no ordinary woman,” I said and smiled back at him. It pleased me that me being tall was such a turn-on to him. My height had daunted some men in the past, but Axel was all for it. I liked the way the cold wall felt against my back, and how the contrast of the soft warm skin over his abdomen felt against mine. He was clearly a guy that spent a lot of time outdoors. His stomach was tanned and toned. I liked the way it looked against my lily-white skin. I was not one for tanning, so my skin was soft and pale. Something I’d thought I’d hated until the moment I’d seen it against his.

“Oh, you’re the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met,” he said as he bit my neck. I felt his hot breath against me, and I groaned. No man had ever ravished me the way he was doing, and I cried out with pleasure when his fingers found their way to my center. He opened me up, drawing circles inside me, and the more he drew, the wetter I became. When I was just about ready to come, he pulled away and picked me up. I had never been picked up by a man before, and the feeling was absolutely wonderful. I was almost the same height as him, and yet he somehow made me feel smaller. There was something very safe about this man that I had never felt with anyone else before.

He placed me down on the big sofa, and I mentally congratulated myself on the big purchase I’d made a few years ago. The man at the furniture store had told me that it was going to be too big for my apartment after I’d explained the size I was working with. But I’d fallen in love with the sofa, and I said I would make it work. I took up most of my living room, and I adored it. I loved it even more now as I sprawled out underneath Axel. By then, we’d been holding out for too long, and both of us knew we couldn’t take it any longer. Soon, we reached the peak of our orgasm together. It was, by far, the best sex I had ever experienced in my whole life.

Afterward, as he lay entwined with me, he surprised me by kissing me gently on the forehead and saying firmly. “I’m staying over.”

I thought about arguing. I hadn’t meant to bring a man home with me that night in the first place. All I had wanted to do was to race and to let some of my pent-up anger out. But I found myself nodding, too happy and too exhausted to complain. “Yes, you are,” I said instead.

It didn’t matter; I thought, as I closed my eyes, that I was never going to see him again after this, anyway. What was one night together? Surely, I deserved it too.