CHAPTER SIX
"Hope you are available to ride until at least six-thirty," Cole said to her as Nicole skipped up to him from her apartment building door.
"Oh? I'm good with that, even longer. What's up?"
"I have something to do up north while we are there. I can't talk to you about it, can't tell you why, where, who to, or who from. That's just the way it is. Still want to ride?"
"Am I going to be in danger?"
"No, not at all. I'll leave you at a café I found. The wait should be less than an hour and then we are off again for whatever you choose."
She gave him a mischievous smile, "Whatever I choose? I just get to say, do this and we do that?"
"You should be used to that from me by now," he pointed out.
"Hmm," she mused, "I suppose you are right, but I pay you for that privilege and this is personal time. Very personal. I won't be naïve and say it won't affect the other, but in my head, this day is just you and me, nothing else -- except for that thing you can't talk about, which doesn't exist for me anyway, right?"
He nodded his head, searching her eyes and she swore she saw hope laced with fear.
"Agreed," he finally told her.
"So do I just get on?" she asked with a smile, pushing their conversation past that awkward moment where she witnessed her driver and protector suddenly displaying signs of vulnerability.
Cole got her helmet on and strapped, then onto the backseat, which felt comfortable. Then he gave her very brief instructions on what to do back there. She snuggled around, got comfortable, and then wrapped her arms around him. He gave the bike some gas to wake it back up and, right after revving the engine, he put it in gear, sending them flying from the parking lot.
She clung to him with excitement and fear, outrageous emotions swirling around, which were churned up by tactile stimulation based on the degree of muscle definition she discovered in his abs.
"Holy Christ!" she hissed, but the wind carried her exclamation away from Cole's ears.
All right, she admitted to herself, his physical attractiveness is very high and getting higher. Fine.
Then Cole put his left hand flat across hers, as if giving her a focused but meaningful hug, as they blasted up the on-ramp to the freeway. Then his hand was gone, returning back to control the bike.
That touch, that warmth from his hand, which was large enough to cover both of hers, she noted, touched her in a way she had never been touched in her life. For a brief moment, she was real and she knew what she wanted out of it now, as clearly as if it were branded on her forehead.
I'm fucked. I'm well and truly fucked now.
She wanted Cole. That's what she wanted out of life and she felt a welling of passion and energy inside of her, powering her commitment to achieve those ends. Nothing else mattered. If she were Cole's, she was fulfilled.
As they roared north, she held him tight, pressing the side of her face to his back, and felt more alive and whole than she ever felt before. Her mind was drained of all its tedium and useless questions about the future or her current employment. Her vague visions of retirement and travel, which were somehow never quite able to sustain a level of appeal for her, were washed away.
Occasionally, he would casually rub her left thigh with his marvelous hand and send blazes of desire rippling through her. When he did that, all of those belonging thoughts and warm desires would rush through her again.
Was this what she caused in her clients? Was this the lust they paid so dearly for? Her bubble, she realized, was definitely popped. She was just Nicole -- nothing else, no one else -- with no bullshit between her ears humming around. If this was what she gave her clients, she needed to raise her rates. But now that she found Cole, her clients were screwed, because she was certain that she was leaving the show.