We existed in a bubble. That corner of my brain kept rising to the surface, warning me to be cautious. Men like Axle Hart weren’t for me. I pushed those thoughts away and raised up on one elbow.

Axle was magnificent. He lay stretched out on the beach wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. For days, I’d imagined what he looked like under that leather cut. The answer took my breath away. His arms, back, and torso were covered with intricate, swirling ink. There was the dark saint on his left pectoral muscle, matching the patch he wore on the leather vest over it. There were names, dates, other symbols that marked whatever he’d survived to get to this day, this time, here with me. I wanted to ask him about every single one. I wanted to know him. Axle’s eyes clouded a bit as he watched me trail my index finger over his washboard abs. His skin was deeply tanned. Just below his right nipple, he bore a long, faded scar. A row of tiny white dots ran along it on the top and bottom. A surgical scar.

“Will you tell me about these?” I asked, placing a kiss on his temple. I smoothed his dark hair away from his face, running my fingers through the length of it.

“Some other time,” he answered, giving me a half-smile. “And some of it you don’t want to know.”

I wanted to argue with him. The feeling was so fresh, so new, I couldn’t claim to fully understand it. But I wanted to know everything about him. At least, everything he was willing to share.

“What happened to you?” he asked. It was the question on my lips for him, but he turned it back to me.

“What do you mean?” I settled back, finding the hollow of his shoulder where my head seemed to fit best. Axle had his arm wrapped around me.

“Last night,” he said. “You said something happened.”

I ran a hand over my face. Earlier, the clouds threatened to drive away our perfect beach day. But the sun had prevailed. It baked my skin.

“It’s nothing,” I said, not wanting anything to spoil my time with him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Axle kissed me. He reached over and circled his thumb around my nipple sending a shiver of pleasure through me. Groaning, I turned to him.

“You’re sure we’re safe out here?”

It seemed decadent and sinful to lay there half-naked on this abandoned stretch of beach. How did no one else know about it?

“I told you.” Axle shifted, turning on his side toward me. “It’s a nature preserve. Or used to be. Sea turtles or some shit spawns here in the spring. The state abandoned it years ago, but the zoning is still tied up.”

“It’s a shame,” I said. “Or maybe it’s not.”

“Nobody comes out here,” he said. “Except horny sea turtles.”

I laughed so hard I snorted. Axle caught my chin with his index finger and gently tilted my head toward his. When he kissed me, I felt it all the way down to my toes. I lost track of time. Was it two hours, three since we came out here? Once we started, I couldn’t seem to get enough of him. After that first time, he’d taken me down to the water and we fucked beneath the waves. The swirl of the surf around me as Axle thrust himself inside of me took me to new heights of pleasure. Then we’d found our way back here to the beach. The third time he took me, he let me take control. He’d lain with his hands behind his head, enjoying the view as I went down on him. When he’d spent himself and I’d taken every drop, he made me a promise. Before we left this beach, he aimed to return the favor. Already, my sex throbbed with heat and anticipation.

“I don’t want you to go back there,” he said. At first, I didn’t know what he meant. I sat up, letting my toes sink back down into the warm sand. Axle sat up with me, his eyes flashing.

“Where?”

“Cups,” he answered.

Did he know? God, I felt almost drunk with good sex. I couldn’t remember everything I’d said to him. I thought I’d been vague, but I knew I said something about having the worst night of my life. Axle knew I’d been at work yesterday. For about the dozenth time, I contemplated telling him what I saw and what I’d done. Something made me cautious though. I didn’t want to drag him into whatever drama this was. He’d been tense around Junior. That first night at the bar, I saw the fury in Axle’s eyes as Uncle Frank tried to touch me. Though he might never tell me how he’d earned his scars and tattoos, I wasn’t naive. I knew at least some of the club’s reputation. I didn’t want to say something careless that might make Axle think he had to defend me.

“Oh, that,” I said. I drew my knees up and rested my chin on them. “Well, you’re in luck. I’m pretty sure yesterday was my last night there. I hope you can understand, but I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Axle leaned forward and grabbed his jeans from a sandy heap beside him. Standing, he shook them out downwind of me. “Good,” was all he said.

“Good? Easy for you to say. I’m unemployed. I’ve got about a few weeks’ worth of money saved to live on. I’m probably going to end up losing my apartment. Best-case scenario, I might end up hauling ass back to Monroe, Michigan. It ought to be a swell homecoming. My mother just might want to get ‘I told you so’ tattooed on her forehead. It’ll save her the trouble of having to say it every other sentence.”

After Axle had zipped up his jeans, he knelt in front of me again. He put his hands on my shoulders and locked eyes with me. “I don’t want you to leave.”

I rested my hands just above his wrists. “I don’t want to leave. But I’m going to have to find a good enough reason to stay.”

Deep lines furrowed his brow. I’d meant my comment half-jokingly, but he clearly hadn’t taken it that way. But who was I kidding? That sensible girl reared her head again. This man wasn’t safe. He couldn’t possibly be looking for anything other than what we’d shared on this beach today. I had to know that going in.

“You shouldn’t,” he said, his eyes hard. His fingers twitched where they held my face.

“Shouldn’t what. Stay?”

Pressing his forehead against mine, something changed in him. For the briefest of moments, I felt like I was the one holding him up. A tremor went through him and he sucked air in through his teeth. Then, as quickly as the moment started, it passed. Axle came back into himself again. He dropped his hands from my face.

“Axle?”

For the first time since we’d come out here, I felt self-conscious about being naked in front of him. He leaned down and shook out his vest and t-shirt. Finding my clothes would be another matter altogether. I’d torn them off with Axle’s help in the heat of passion. I’d just worn a small t-shirt and cut-off jeans. I couldn’t see them anywhere. Scrambling down the dunes, I hunted for them, leaving Axle standing above me.

After a few minutes, he came to me. He had his shirt off and wore his leather cut over his bare chest. It made him look even more fierce, now that you could see the tattoos and his hard muscles.

“Sorry,” he said, holding out his white t-shirt. “I think I ripped your shirt.”

I grabbed the t-shirt from him and pulled it over my head. It hung down to my knees but it was warm and smelled like him. Seeing something in my face, Axle pulled me to him; cupping my ass he lifted me a few inches off the ground.

“What do you do to me, woman?”

“Me?”

In spite of myself, Axle’s commanding touch stirred me again. It was as if my body were tuned to his. It only took the flick of his finger or a look in his eyes and I felt myself growing wet. I wanted him. Plain and simple. I wanted to lose myself in him over and over. Reaching up, I brushed a few grains of sand away from where they had embedded in his brow.

“I think the better question is what do you do to me?” I asked. “You have to know, this isn’t my usual M.O.”

He jerked his head back. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t just ride off with fierce-looking bikers on the regular.”

“You better not,” he said, giving my ass a playful but possessive smack. God help me, even that sent fresh waves of desire coursing through me. I flat out couldn’t think straight around this guy.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but the phone in his back pocket started to ring. Axle’s face darkened and he put me down. “Babe, I gotta take this one. Your shorts are down by the water. Give me a second.”

Axle backed away. I took a staggering step sideways, feeling slightly disoriented from the absence of his touch. The heat of the sun wasn’t helping. Plus, we’d been out here all morning. My stomach lodged a protest by erupting in an audible growl. As Axle put the phone to his ear and turned away from me, I headed down to the water. Just as Axle said, I saw my jeans wadded a few feet away from the water line. I slipped into them and tried to shake the worst of the sand out of my hair.

When I turned back and headed up to the top of the dunes, Axle had walked almost back to the road. I shoved my feet back into my tennis shoes and started to walk toward him. Something about his posture and expression made me stop. He looked angry, his face almost ashen. His right fist curled at his side and he stabbed it into his thigh. I couldn’t hear what he said, but instinct told me this was club business. He’d never said as much, but I had a feeling it was something he wouldn’t want me to hear.

“I’m on it,” he said through tight lips.

The wind picked up and Axle’s hair lifted off his collar. God. Shirtless in his vest, he looked like some tribal warrior. I hadn’t asked him about that yet, but I’d put money on the fact he had Native American blood flowing through his veins. There was something about his eyes and the way he carried himself.

“No,” he barked into the phone. “If I need it, I’ll ask for it. I told you last night I got this.”

He saw me from the corner of his eye and I froze, not wanting to invade his space. Crossing my arms in front of me, I turned back toward the beach. A sense of melancholy bled through me. Something magical had happened out here this morning. It almost made me forget everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Now that the morning sun had brightened into the full, bright blaze of the afternoon, a million questions burned through me right along with it.

Had I really watched Junior kill a man with his bare hands? As much as she’d treated me like shit, I felt so bad for Aimee. Detective Langley’s warning rang in my head as well. Maybe it wasn’t safe for me to stay in Port Azrael. But where would I go instead? Then there was Axle. He might be a complication I didn’t need in my life right now. Whatever happened with Junior DiSalvo, it was going to involve me. Langley hadn’t said it, but if they built a case against him, I’d be a major part of it. Part of me wished I’d just kept my mouth shut. Except I knew I’d never be able to live with myself if I had. Cory Kline had been nice to me. He was a human being. Whatever happened to him, he hadn’t deserved it. If I didn’t speak up, who would?

As my thoughts swirled inside of me and I watched the tide come in, I didn’t hear Axle come up behind me. When he wrapped his arms around my waist, I sucked a startled breath in. Then warmth flooded me and I leaned back, loving the feel of my head against his solid chest.

“Everything okay?” I said, turning to face him.

That dark hardness had come back into Axle’s face. I reached up and tucked his hair behind one ear. He brought his hand up and circled his fingers around my wrist. Bringing my fingers to his lips, he kissed me. A shiver of pleasure raced through me.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Mmm. I know we should. Hell, I’ll probably be as red as a lobster by this evening. Remind me to bring sunscreen the next time you get the idea to ride out to the beach. I’m pretty sure I’ll be burned in some rather delicate places.”

His low, wicked laughter aroused me. “And I think I’d like to rub aloe in some of those places. Could be fun.”

Every nerve ending in me tuned to him. It was all I could do not to rip his or my clothes off again and have him make good on his promise to service me the way I had him.

“You’re trouble,” I whispered, pressing my cheek against his bare chest. His strong heartbeat skipped as I slid my arms around his waist. I wanted to lick my way up and find his lips again.

“Leave with me,” he said. It was a command more than a question, but his eyes danced when I finally looked up and met his gaze.

My own heart skipped a beat. Leave with him. It was impossible. It was intoxicating. All the reasons I shouldn’t scrolled through my mind like the crawl on the bottom of a cable news channel. I barely knew him. I had responsibilities. I wasn’t this girl. My parents would never approve. But underneath all of that, another reason bubbled to the surface. It beat like a drum along with my heart.

I wanted this. I wanted him.

“And go where?” I asked.

“Anywhere,” he said. “No. I know a place. Let’s just get the hell out of Port Az for a few days.”

I don’t know what he expected me to say. Hell, I don’t know what I expected me to say. What I ended up saying was, “Yes.”

Axle’s eyes flashed wide. He jerked his head back almost as if absorbing a blow. I’d shocked both of us. But the simple truth was, I didn’t have the strength to say no.

“Wait,” I said.

Axle’s face went hard. “There’s no time, Maya.”

“No, it’s just. My cat.”

His mouth twitched but he didn’t smile. “Where we’re going, you can bring the cat.”

He didn’t say another word. Axle just took me by the hand and led me down the hill to the road. Then I climbed on the back of his bike and rode away with him.