Emily
I put on a little black dress. I didn’t have a lot of clothes in my closet, living in a doctor’s coat, and most of my clothes consisted of comfy pants and shoes so that I could spend hours on my feet. Still, dressing up was fun.
The black dress was something I’d had for years. It had a capped sleeves, a low neckline that showed off the swell of my breasts to leave just enough to the imagination, and it hit me mid-thigh.
I brushed out my hair and let it loose because I never got to do that with my job, and then I found black heels that looked great again when I wiped them down.
I applied makeup, too. It wasn’t something I did often, either, and it felt good to dress up again for a change. My life as a doctor meant that so much attention went to other people that I paid very little attention to myself. When I walked out to the kitchen to find my handbag and swap the contents to a bag that would suit my outfit better, Sarah glanced over at me and whistled.
I blushed and shook my head, laughing.
“Since when do you have legs?” she asked. I chuckled, swapping the contents of my bags.
“I’m going on a date tonight,” I said.
“I’ll say. Is it Daniel?” she asked in a mocking tone that made me want to scowl at her. Instead, I just blushed again. “Where is he taking you?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted. I wasn’t even sure if it was a good idea to go, but I wasn’t going to mention that to Sarah. She was the one who had told me to do what I’d done with him in the car. She wasn’t going to join in talking me out of this.
“He’s picking me up at seven,” I said. Sarah smiled.
“I think you’re set for a date to my opening next week.”
I nodded. I was probably going to ask Daniel. I was nervous about him, but it was difficult to deny that I liked him and that I wanted to spend time with him. I heard a motorcycle pull up outside, and I glanced up at the clock. He was a little early, but it was better than being late. I hated a guy being late.
“I’m out of here,” I said and took my handbag. “Don’t wait up.”
Sarah laughed. “I won’t.”
I didn’t know what was going to happen tonight, but whatever it was, it was going to be on my terms. Losing control had been great, but I needed to keep some kind of handle on my life.
I walked downstairs and stepped out of the apartment building. Someone sat on a bike that looked like Daniel’s, but the person I saw hardly looked like him. I burst out laughing when I looked at him.
He wore a shimmering silver suit that fitted him as if it had been sculpted to his body. He wore a matching shimmer shirt and a tie that matched, too, so that everything was perfectly color-coded.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
I shook my head. It wasn’t the fact that he’d gotten all dressed up. He looked really good. It was the fact that on top of his head he had a helmet. One of those old ones that you saw in the movies.
“Did you take that out of mothballs?” I asked.
He smiled broadly. “I had to dress up for you.”
I shook my head and walked toward the bike. I looked at the seat, sizing up the bike.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I forgot that you’re on a bike. This dress isn’t exactly biker-friendly.”
Daniel looked me up and down, and that hungry expression crossed his face again.
“It looks pretty damn biker-friendly to me,” he said.
I blushed all the way down to my toes.
It took us about fifteen minutes to arrange me behind him on the bike without flashing my assets to the world, and then we took off. He’d even brought me a second helmet and my dark hair streamed from underneath it like a cape behind me. I wrapped my arms around his body, hugging myself tightly to his back and felt the wind whip around us. It was a new sensation, trusting someone else like that, and I was starting to think that this was something I was able to do.
I’d started noticing that Daniel challenged everything in my life: my serious need for control, my definition of freedom, my ability to trust.
We wove in between traffic as the sun set, and finally drove out of the city.
“Where are we going?” I asked. I expected it to be some restaurant, given how fancy we’d dressed up.
“You’ll see,” he answered over his shoulder and opened throttle. The speed took my breath away and I gave myself over to it, not feeling or thinking about anything other than right here and right now. With Daniel.
When he finally slowed down we were in a hilly patch of land with green grass stretching as far as I could see in the almost darkness and the smell of jasmine thick in the air.
Daniel got off the bike first and then helped me off, which proved to be a lot easier than getting on had been.
“What do you think?” he asked, holding out his arms to both sides and turning around. I turned around, too, looking at our surroundings.
“I think… it’s an empty patch of land?” I asked, feeling silly about my answer. We stood on what looked to be a plot of some kind.
“You’re right,” he said. Point for me. “I bought this a couple of weeks ago. I want to build something on it. A business. An empire.”
I looked at it again with this new dream in mind and nodded.
“I think it could work,” I said. “What kind of business?”
He looked sheepish and shuffled his weight from one leg to the other.
“I don’t know that yet.”
I chuckled. “Well, it sounds like a great idea nevertheless.”
He smiled, too, and extended his hand. I took it because there was nothing else I could do. There wasn’t really anything else I wanted to do. He led me onto the grass, and I had to clutch onto him so that my heels didn’t sink into the mud.
We move down a hill, and at the bottom, a gazebo was set up with what looked like a picnic basket. Some kind of lantern stood in the middle, and it looked like a fairy tale. Daniel looked at me and smiled when he saw my face.
“I was thinking this is a little better than the back of a car,” he said. I blushed at the idea and nodded.
When we reached the gazebo, I was stable on the wooden platform on my heels again, and we sat down on the blankets and pillows that were arranged. Daniel opened the picnic basket and pulled out food. Gourmet sandwiches, caviar, salmon, and champagne. It was the most expensive picnic I’d ever been on.
“What’s all this for?” I asked.
Daniel poured us each a glass.
“This is for you. I know the other night was spectacular and everything, but you deserve more, so I’m giving you more. I don’t want you to think I’m just after one thing.”
It was what I’d been thinking. His words meant more than he could ever know, so I didn’t say anything.
“This is really sweet,” I said, and we ate our sandwiches. As we ate, we spoke about the other victims that came into the hospital, thanks to the mystery drug.
“I don’t suppose you know any more about it?” I asked. I doubted his answer would be yes, though. He’d been out of town and things had been pretty busy all round. When he shook his head, I still felt disappointed.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” he said.
I nodded. The fact that we were losing lives because of this thing was killing me, but there was nothing more we could do than we were doing. The police were on it, the staff was prepared, and Daniel said his boys were keeping a look out. There was really nothing more that could be done.
“It looks like it’s administered with an injection every time. There doesn’t seem to be any other way to get it into the system, so that eliminates things like powder and pills, at least.”
Daniel nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. I wanted to ask what things they were looking for out on the streets, but I was scared. I thought about Taylor and his visit, and how he’d said that their lives weren’t the kind they wanted me involved in.
“It’s good to see you again,” I said after we ate for a moment in silence. “It was weird with you out of town.”
Daniel nodded and then rolled his eyes, swallowing his bite. “It was a pain in the ass. I don’t like having to leave town for work, but sometimes we have runners.”
“The bounty hunting?”
He nodded and took another bite. I hesitated. It sounded dangerous.
“I had backup,” he said, as if he knew what I was thinking. I flashed him a half smile, but it wasn’t genuine, and he picked up on it.
“What’s wrong?”
I shrugged. Was I going to tell him about Taylor? Was I going to tell him about my fears and reservations when it came to this relationship? I didn’t know where we stood. I knew that I liked him. I knew that I liked spending time with him. What I didn’t know was how far this was going to go. I didn’t know how far he wanted to go. I didn’t know how far I wanted to go. There were so many questions that it made everything feel weighted, sitting with him.
Finally, I shook my head and forced a smile. “It’s nothing,” I said.
He nodded, maybe not believing me, but not prying. Nice of him.
“Do you have any idea at all what you want to do on this land?” I asked, changing the topic.
Daniel shrugged and dusted crumbs off his suit.
“I don’t know. I feel like giving up the club is wrong. My dad used to do it.”
The way he spoke about it made me think that there was a story behind it.
“Where’s your dad now?”
His face hardened into a look I imagined he used on the criminals he chased.
“I don’t know,” he said. “And I don’t really care.”
It seemed strange that he was so hostile about his father but holding on so tightly to his legacy. I didn’t ask. I didn’t push it. Instead, I changed the topic again.
“This is really nice,” I said, looking out over the dark fields around us. “I can see the appeal. It’s so quiet and peaceful. And alone.”
I looked at him when I said that and shifted a little closer. I wanted him to pay attention to me—and not whatever was going on in his head. I shifted right up against him so that my face was just inches from his. He looked surprised for a second, but then he smiled.