It was Thursday morning and he was standing there with his glorious mane of hair loose and blowing in the wind, dressed in a denim jacket with his leather Dominion Brotherhood vest over it, faded jeans with those fawn cowboy boots. He was knocking on the glass door of my salon, holding two take-out cups of coffee in a tray in one hand, a paper bag hanging from his teeth, so he could knock.

I wasn’t due to open for ten minutes. I was at the reception desk.  I unlocked the door and opened it.

He handed me the tray of coffees and transferred the bag from his mouth to his hand and his lips touched mine.

I licked my lips, meaning I licked both of our lips.

He made an Mm sound.

“Good morning,” I said softly.

“Mornin’, beautiful. Sorry about last night.”

“What happened?” I asked, trying to hide the hurt I was feeling.

“Found Scoot. He’d been attacked.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Attacked?”

He let out a big breath and leaned against the tall reception desk. Scoot was Scooter, a.k.a Scott, the blond scruffy dirty-pretty prospect.

“Yeah. It was bad.” His eyes held a darkness that chilled me.

“How bad?”

He shook his head, “He’ll live. Not gonna sugarcoat it; it was bad.” He opened the lid and sipped his coffee.

“Oh God. Is he in the hospital?”

“He’s home now. We were there with him a good part of the night.”

I winced. And then I noticed he had a scratch over his eye.

I touched it with my finger. “What happened?”

He shook his head. “No biggie. Cash my raincheck in tonight?” he asked, and he caressed my cheekbone with just the tips of his fingers and tucked my hair behind that ear.

I moistened my lips, feeling tingly.

His eyes moved to my mouth and then back to my eyes.

I gave a nod.

“Skeptical?” he asked.

“No.” I smiled. “I understand. I hope Scooter is gonna be okay.”

He clenched his jaw.

“Be careful, gorgeous. You see rabid dogs on leather you am-scray. Don’t even make eye contact with those fuckers. Prospects are supposed to be off limits. These guys have no scruples, whatsoever.”

I winced. I wanted to ask what happened, but I didn’t. I watched him, waiting to see if he’d offer further explanation. He didn’t.

“Gotta go. I’ll pick you up at nine. Pop that cherry. Go to the Roadhouse for a drink. See where the night takes us?”

I smiled. “Yeah.”

He kissed me again. This time his lips lingered.

I put my hands into his hair at the sides of his head and held on.

His body was plastered against mine and it felt good. It felt right.

Man, he was a good kisser. And he smelled amazing. Like fresh air and green apples.

He backed away, grabbing his coffee from the counter and he left, smiling at me.

I left the door unlocked, flipping my sign to “Open”, watching him walk to his orange muscle car. He gave me a wink as he started it up. I bit my bottom lip and wiggled my fingers in a little wave.

I watched him drive away and then I opened the paper bag and it was a chocolate éclair donut in the shape of a heart, with a thick layer of whipped cream inside.

I texted him.

“What a sexy donut.”

He replied about ten minutes later.

“Not so bad yourself…”

I laughed out loud and then took a selfie of me eating it, the donut tilted sideways, my tongue dipped into the whipped cream center suggestively. I put a dramatic filter on the pic and sent it to him. And then I ate the donut, while daydreaming about that night, hoping our date would actually happen.

***

I was getting my make-up done when Ella phoned me.

She was talking a mile a minute about Deacon moving in with her at her parents’ house.

“Why are you so mad?” I asked.

“Did you hear anything I said?” She was acting like she was outraged.

“I heard it all,” I told her.

“To recap,” she started unnecessarily recounting, “We’ve been dating like four days, including the day that I sort of broke up with him, and he has moved in with me. My father is conspiring to marry me off. He and my dad discussed him staying here. Without me being in that conversation!”

She went on for a minute, continuing to recap all she’d already said but in a high soprano voice, assigning demerit points to Deacon and her parents while listing their infractions.

“So, from everything you’ve told me, Deacon has gone full steam ahead with your relationship,” I stated.

“Double warp speed,” she said. “Is Rider like this?”

I wish. I felt a stab of jealousy.

“No. And I gotta say, I’m a little jealous. Ten points against you, Elle. Everything I’ve heard points to him being protective. Let him protect you. He’s giving you orgasms. He wants to be with you as much as he can. You like everything about him so far?”

“Everything. Except these controlling alpha male ways. He’s amazing so far. But I haven’t even practiced my signature with his name yet.”

She was such an over-thinker. Well, I guess I was a bit of one, too, but I bottled it up. Ella needed to verbalize it.

She ranted some more until I reminded her to breathe and told her to roll with it. It was time for me to finish getting ready for my date with Rider.

If he actually showed up this time.

My text went off.

“Outside @ your back door.”

“Oooh… dirty…got a diamond ring for me?” I wrote back and added a winking emoji.

“Get that sexy ass down here so I can pop that cherry.”

I was excited. I was a tad downtrodden that he hadn’t come to the door.  I pushed it away and grabbed my bag, said bye to Pip and Joe, who were making fajitas together in the kitchen, and went out back to the roof patio and down the stairs. He was there, on his motorcycle, looking casual and so sexy.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he greeted.

“Hey,” I returned with a flirty smile. I was in jeans and high heeled open-toed Jimmy Choo boots with black nail polish on that had little silver stud embellishments (aka: biker girl toes), a leather jacket, and I was wearing a black bustier underneath. My hair was loose and wavy, and I had my irresistible blue-red lip stain on. He eyed me, head to toe, and I read approval on his face.

His hair was in a low man bun and he wore his Dominion Brotherhood leather jacket, dark jeans, and motorcycle boots. He had a black bandana around his throat.

He passed me a black helmet. I fumbled with it, so he got off the bike and put it on for me, getting the strap done up tight. It made me feel looked after, which was sweet.

And even with these high heels on, he still had height on me, which I really, really liked.

“Ready?”

“To get my motorcycle cherry popped? Yes!” I was exuberant.

“Can’t believe you’ve never been on a motorcycle,” he said. “You weren’t shitting me?”

“Never,” I confirmed.

He smiled, “That’s what I was hopin’ to hear.” He winked, pulled the bandana up over his mouth, and he revved his very shiny, even in the dark, chrome Harley up.

He pulled away from the building. I put my arms around him and felt my smile go wide as we pulled away.

Being on the back of his bike felt awesome. My face hurt from the smiling I did on the way to Deke’s Roadhouse. And Deke’s Roadhouse was way too close. I wanted to do this for hours. I wanted to take it in, feel the power of the machine, feel his power in commanding it, absorb that through every single nerve in my body.

Too soon, we were getting off the bike.

My hair held up okay through helmet wear and somewhat windy weather. I fluffed it while catching my expression in the window of the Roadhouse on the way in. I gave him a huge smile.

“That effing rocked!”

He looked surprised and pleased. He held the door for me and I skip-walked ahead.

There were a lot of eyes on us as we entered and maybe it was because I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. And that I was skipping, sort of. He grabbed my hand and we went right to the bar.

Deacon was sitting there, drinking a beer and talking to Bronto, and another Dom in a prospect vest who had black hair, looked Hispanic, and was covered in tatts. He was kind of gorgeous in a Dave Navarro way. Deacon and Rider did a bro shake and then he did that with the other prospect as well.

“What to drink, gorgeous?” Rider asked and a different guy than the usual bartender, this one also a big man with a beard to his belly button, lumbered over.

“Corona,” I said.  “Hey, guys.”

“Jenna,” I said, holding my hand out to the dark-haired guy when Rider didn’t introduce us.

“I know. Met you the other night when we took you two back to your place. Jesse.”

I smiled.  I guess that was why Rider hadn’t introduced us.

“Ohhh, right. That was tanked Jenna you must’ve met. She’s a forgetful thing.”

He snickered and squeezed my hand just briefly and then he moved away saying, “Be back.” and he moved to two Dominion Brotherhood bikers coming in the front door. Jesse’s leather vest said “Prospect” on it.

I turned my attention to Rider, who was getting our drinks. He had our two beers and he looked so handsome, smiling with his mouth and with his eyes, that my heart tripped over itself.

“Wanna grab a table now or you mind if we have our first drink here with Deacon at the bar?”

“That’s cool.” I smiled, getting comfortable.

Deacon fished a phone with a broken screen out of his pocket and was texting someone.

I smirked, deciding I’d get ahold of his phone before the drink was over so I could program Ella’s “favorite” ring tone on her biker’s phone.

Tee hee.

***

We were on our second beer and it was now just us two at a cozy little booth. We were both flirting shamelessly as he was starting to tell me about life back in Sioux Falls. So far, I knew he was a mechanic at his family’s garage, he owned part of the three businesses that they’d just started (the bar, the garage, and a bike dealership), and he said he earned a cut of earnings from his MC, The Dominion Brotherhood, which he’d gotten his patch for when he turned 22. He and his brothers started prospecting at 21 and all three of them earned their patch at the one-year mark.  He was 26. Deacon, 28. Spencer, 25. Their little sister, who was attending school in Sioux Falls to get her degree in teaching, was 19.

He also said that he and Spencer designed custom bikes. Spencer and Rider drew up the plans based on what they’d brainstorm together, and Rider built them. The other businesses and the MC took priority, but he tried to spend a day a week working on them on the side and had several orders to fill within the next year. Word was getting around and he had other potential buyers wanting to get in line.

“I’d love to see one sometime,” I said.

“Got an album of pictures back at my place,” he said.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

Maybe I’d get to see his place sometime. I sure liked the look in his eyes.

We were side-by-side in the half-circle booth, and my left leg was thrown over his right one when Paige Simpson walked by for the third time, shamelessly giving him ‘fuck me’ eyes.

He’d made eye contact with her the first time, but his face was blank. He ignored her the second. The third time, I could swear I saw irritation. And I couldn’t hide my own, either. This time, he watched me as she walked by and I didn’t stop myself from shooting daggers at her with my eyes.

Paige had been here trying to be all over Deacon the past Saturday night. We knew her from high school. She was a few years ahead of me and Ella and she might as well have had skank written in red Sharpie across her cleavage.

She’d been seen on many bikes since our teens, including Ella’s Wyld Jackal cousin Christian and the president of the closest Wyld Jackals club.

Chris had kissed me once and groped me at a high school party. I’d been drunk as a skunk and thankfully it didn’t go further. Ella would never have forgiven me if it had. And the fact that it happened was one of my few secrets from her. Maybe my only real secret from her.

The worst part was that it didn’t stop because I’d stopped him, it’d stopped because the underage party got raided by the cops. I’d always joked with Ella that Christian was a hottie before that night and had to keep it up after that night, so she wouldn’t know anything had happened. She hated him. And for good reason. He tormented her endlessly when they were kids going as far as cutting one of her pigtails off, once. I’d probably let it go as far as I did because I was in self-destruct mode post break-up with Michael, the guy who’d taken my virginity and then broken my heart.

In case Skanky Paige decided to do a slow swaying walk by, yet again, I moved in a little closer to Rider and touched his hair. I took it out of the elastic and fluffed it out. His eyes twinkled.

“You have zero split ends. I’m impressed.” His eyes twinkled even more as I inspected the ends of his hair.

“Joelle turned me onto the right hair band. Comes out easy. I also trim it every month or two.”

“Joelle?” I asked, on high alert.

“My little sister.”

“Ah,” I said, “And who cuts it?’

“Not had it cut for a while. It’s due.”

“Well, you can’t let just anyone touch it. It could be a very bad idea if you don’t choose your stylist carefully.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, baby,” he said huskily and leaned in like he was going to kiss me.

And that was when she stopped at our fucking table.

Seriously?

“Hey, Riderrrr. How’s it goin’?” She was oozing with sluttiness. She was dressed in a micro-mini skirt and her bustier had netting through the torso that equated to under-boob cleavage. Too much boobs. If I had boobs like that (though they were definitely fake; she didn’t have those boobs in high school), I’d be tempted to flaunt them, but leaving something to the imagination. She looked like a porn star.

Her red hair was teased and stripper-hair big and it looked not far off from an 80’s hair band groupie. She had on an inch of make-up. She was maybe 27, 28, but she looked ten years older than that. Hard living. Too much sun. Not enough moisturizer. And I could see her split ends from where I sat even in the dimness of the bar.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Hey. Good.” He then dismissively turned back to me. He caught the way I looked at her. He gave me a heated look.

And I liked it a lot that he didn’t let her engage him in small talk or give her any inclination whatsoever that he wanted to chat (or do anything else) with her.

“Don’t I know you?” she asked me, instead of leaving.

Of course she knew me. She was being a bitch.

“Yeah, you know me, Paige.”

“You seem a little familiar. Ohhh, you work at Walmart?”

What a catty cow. Not that there was a thing wrong with working at Walmart, but she’d been in my salon. Twice to buy hair spray. She knew I owned it. She’s called me Jenna at the counter both times and the salon was called Jenna’s House of Allure, for fuck sakes. She probably figured by the way I dressed that I was a label whore, and this was clearly her attempt to rattle me in front of Rider, who she clearly wanted.

“Nope, I don’t. Is that where you got those shoes?” I asked.

She was wearing Jimmy Choo’s. I should know. I was wearing $1400 Jimmy Choo open-toed boots right now.

She glared at me.

“Uh…actually, these are one-thousand-dollar Jimmy Choo’s.”

“Oh. You blow old Sal at the shoe store to get a discount?”

Rider snickered and put his hand on my thigh and gave it a squeeze. I glanced at him. He was looking at me intently. I didn’t know how to read it. He looked amused.  I think.

“Rider, I’m sorry I missed your call last night. I just wanted to say that.”

My stomach took a dive.

“Didn’t call you last night,” he muttered, giving her a death stare.

“Pocket dial?” she suggested.

“Not sure how that’d be since you’re not in my phone.”

“Oh,” she gave him a pout. “Weird. Well, call me anytime, sexy.” She winked at him and placed her palm on the table. She moved her hand away and I saw a post-it with a phone number on it.

“Jenna,” she sneered and then strutted away and idiotically so, since she’d used my name after having claimed to not know me.

Bitch.

Did I believe him? I didn’t know. I tried to keep my face blank. I sipped my beer.

He gave my thigh a squeeze.

I faked a cramp with a wince and gingerly pulled my leg off his and squeezed my legs together, my hands folded between my thighs.

“I didn’t call her, Jenna.” He ran his hand through my hair, “I was with my brothers all night. Don’t even got that bitch’s number. Look. She left her number on the table. Would she do that if I had her number?”

I glanced at him and our eyes locked. It was a loaded moment and I didn’t know how to respond to it.

I tried to brighten. “Whatever. I got her number, too. 1-800-Skank.” I took another healthy swig of my beer.

I felt the heat of his gaze, which was burning into me.

“Like this,” he muttered.

“What?” I asked.

“Possessive,” he stated.

I didn’t make eye contact. I reached for my handbag. “Little girls room calling,” I chirped.

“You believe me?” he grabbed my hand, halting me.

“Of course. She’s just trying to get me goin’. And she’s making sure you know she’s interested. Not that you would be, because, hello…” I gestured to the direction she’d walked like it was preposterous.

I slid out of the booth and I was kind of intrigued at the idea that he liked the idea of me being possessive.

And as for Paige’s intentions? That’s what I did think. That she was just trying to get me going.

Mostly.

***

A few hours later

He was leaving. Leaving.

He was pulling his boots on after giving me a lame excuse about an early appointment at the garage. My place was only a ten-minute drive from the garage. It didn’t make sense to me.

What did make sense? He was being cold and detached. After sex.

And I was trying to hide my heartbreak. We’d had sex and now he was going. This hurt. This hurt a lot. This was a sure sign that he was only after sex, not anything long-term.

I had a sneaking suspicion the first time, when he left that morning and didn’t come back up when he picked up his car, chucking my effing chin, but then he’d seemed like he was still interested…

I’d come twice.  He’d come, too. And now it was five minutes later, max, and he was already dressed, so he could leave. Maybe he was heading back to the bar to fetch the Post-It with Paige’s number on it.

He gave me a quick kiss at my kitchen door, and not the kind of kiss you give a woman you’ve just had sex with, unless you’re not planning to come back for more. It wasn’t the chuck on the chin I got last time, but it certainly didn’t leave me thinking he was interested in thirds.

And then after he pulled away, I sat, in my pale pink lacy nighty in my big empty bed that still smelled like sex, and I tried to do a post-mortem on the night as the sound of his motorcycle pipes echoed in my aching heart.

What went wrong? I rewound the evening and thought it over.

After Paige had left, maybe I’d deflated, but I tried hard not to let it show.  We stayed while I had another drink and he switched to water. I’d put my wall up, I guess, because the idea of seeing a guy seeing another girl was too déjà vu for me.

And we sat, and I talked to get rid of what felt like awkward silence, and he, in hindsight, replied mostly with Yeahs, um hms, and did more yeah-ing while he kept checking his cell phone. There was a lot of awkward silence.

“Are you waiting for a call?” I asked after he’d looked at it for the third time.

“Nope.” He put the phone down face down and gave me a smile that didn’t give me the warm fuzzies. At all.

Maybe he was checking the time. Maybe there was something up with his club to do with Scooter getting attacked. Maybe he wanted to go.

Maybe he wanted to see if he could catch up with Skanky Paige, who had been trying to catch that guy Jesse’s attention after leaving our table.

“Do you, uh… wanna come back to my place?” I asked. And I sounded funny. I didn’t like the way I sounded, because I sounded needy, and like I was afraid of rejection. And it really wasn’t like me to tip my hand.

He leaned forward and looked me in the eyes and looked like he was unsure. He searched my face for a second.

And I wanted to erase any implication that I might be afraid of rejection.  So, I touched the opening of his shirt, and then my finger glided from his throat down past the top three buttons, which were not fastened, to where the next button was done up. My finger then gilded back up and touched his bottom lip. I leaned forward and kissed his lips, letting my tongue touch that lower lip before my lips caught up.

He kissed me back, hungrily, and the look in his eyes changed to sexually charged.

He got to his feet, taking my hand, waving at a couple of bikers as we made our way to the door. Deacon was already long gone after we’d had just one drink with him and then Rider walked him out as they exchanged words that huddle ended in back slaps and grins by the door. Spencer was here, though, and I saw Rider shoot him a nasty look as we left. Spencer’s response was to put a bottle of beer to his lips and glare back.

The ride back to my place felt too long. A sharp contrast to earlier, because I couldn’t wait to get him alone. I wasn’t drunk tonight. I was very looking forward to getting reacquainted with that piercing and that tongue.  I pushed Paige out of my mind.

Literally. I envisioned shoving her over a cliff out into a great big black hole of nothing.

I’d already texted Pippa from the bathroom earlier and she confirmed that she and Joe were heading to his place after fajitas, so the apartment was all mine tonight.

Joe lived with two roommates, one had just moved out and the other was in the midst of moving, so they had some alone time.  In a few more weeks, after the place was, in Pippa’s words, “redecorated, fumigated, sanitized, and exorcized”, she’d be moving in with him.

Why hadn’t I told Mom that when she was going on about Pip living with me without paying rent? She’d mentioned a few times that if Pippa ever left, she could have that room rented out in a heartbeat. Right. To someone who worked for her, most likely, a someone who would report to my mother on all my business.

I had my mother on a need-to-know basis.

I’d find a new roommate myself before telling her that Pippa moved out.

I didn’t need a roommate, but I wanted one. I liked having people around. My friend and neighbor Andie had six siblings and loved living alone in her little apartment. Me? I wish I’d had a bunch of siblings. Then maybe my Tiger / Helicopter Mom would’ve had more than just me to focus on.

When we got inside, I grabbed Rider’s hand and took him straight to my room. I gave him a playful shove and he fell onto his back on my bed. The look in his eyes was ultra-sexy.

I grabbed a lighter from my dresser and lit a candle and then got out of my booties. He was on his back, watching me.

“Come here, gorgeous.”

“One sec,” I said and slipped into the bathroom and swished with mouthwash, rolled more deodorant on, and fluffed my hair, then turned on the bathroom’s scented wax warmer.

I walked out, finding him lying there on his back, perpendicular on my bed, his feet planted on the floor at the side of my bed, staring at the ceiling, looking gorgeous in the flickering candlelight. I got closer and he didn’t only look gorgeous, he looked bored.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so long.”

“Way to kill the spontaneity,” he mumbled.

I snickered and stood at his knees and then said, “Kick those boots off.”

He did, using one foot to push the other boot off, then doing the same with the other boot, not taking his eyes off me.

I climbed up and straddled him.

His hands went to my waist.

I started to kiss him and work at his fly.

When I got his dick out, he reached into his leather jacket pocket and produced a condom. He passed it to me and slid the jacket off and tossed it to the floor.

Ugh. He wanted me to put it on. Flashback to our last night together.

“You do it,” I passed it back. “It’s too sticky and I can’t get it just right.”

His eyes flashed with something, maybe irritation, but then he ripped the corner of the package and got down to business.

I watched.

“The sooner that’s on, the sooner I get to go for a ride,” I wiggled my eyebrows. He wiggled his in reply. My eyes dropped and yep, he was as well-equipped as I remembered.

I rolled over onto my back beside him and waited.

A beat went by where he watched me, his eyes working actively and greedily over my body, and then he got to his feet and worked my jeans undone and hauled them off. He hauled my panties off next.

And then he settled on top of me and lined up. I felt the wetness gather between my legs. Just a look from him and I was ready. Very ready.

I opened my legs wider and wrapped them around his legs. He put a finger inside me and smiled. “You ready?”

I nodded and sank my front teeth into my bottom lip as his finger moved in and out a little bit. And then he crooked it, hitting that magical spot inside.

“You’re ready.” He took his finger out and then watched me as he ever so slowly advanced and slid inside.

A breathy moan escaped my lips and then I kissed him, putting my fingers into his hair.

He put his fingers to my clit and began to thrust harder and faster while working it. It took no more than a minute before I was panting into his mouth, ready to come, when he let go of my clit and grabbed my hips with both hands and started fucking me harder and faster.

“I was almost…” I whispered, “You stopped.” My voice was filled with accusation.

“You want it?”

I looked at him thinking, ‘duh’.

“Fuck, you’re hot,” he said.

I rocked against him.

“Hot for me, baby?” He asked.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Say it.”

“Say what?” I asked, not hiding my annoyance.

“That you want it.”

I rolled my eyes and laughed.

He grabbed my face by the chin and stared, intently, stopping the thrusting.

“You want it bad enough, gorgeous? Ask. No. Beg. Beg for it.”

I stilled. “Beg for it?”

“Yeah, baby. Beg for it. Beg nice and I’ll give you the biggest climax of your life.”

“I’m not begging for it,” I said.

He stilled, “Then maybe you’re not getting it.”

I opened my mouth and then I closed it. I opened it again, “What?” 

His expression changed, and he shook his head, “Jokin’, Jenna.” He put his thumb back and bit down on my throat while working that knot of nerves again.

My eyes rolled into the back of my head, but then I pulled back. “That hurts.” I said, and he released my throat and began kissing me again.

I rocked into him, feeling him slide in and out and in and out as he twisted my clit and then, without warning, I hit a huge peak and let out a cry.

I floated back to earth again and he took a nipple into his mouth and sucked, then he changed positions and turned me to my side and was grinding against my backside, then sliding inside me.

I put my hand on his hand, which was on my hip and threaded my fingers with his.

He kissed my shoulder. “You are smokin’ hot when you come, baby.”

“Mm,” I said. “Thanks.”

“You could give a porn star a run for their money in the best orgasm face award,” he added, sliding in and out.

I giggled.

He groaned like he liked the way that felt around his dick.

“Mm.” He planted himself to the root and stayed there a second. And then he rotated his hips.

“Ah.” Wow, that felt good.

He drilled in again and again, making my eyes roll back.

We were spooning, and it was a really nice angle he was at. His left hand reached between my legs again and he worked at me, hitting me inside in a way where the next orgasm that came was fast and hard, and it was coming from inside and from the outside.

Damn, he was good at that.

After coming the second time, I was boneless and hoping he’d come soon, because I just really wanted to curl up on his chest and sleep.

He was thrusting into me over and over. He moved, putting me on my belly.

“On all fours, beautiful,” he whispered against my ear and then licked the ridge of it.

I moved up onto my knees and he pushed us forward so that I was pressed up against my soft padded headboard.

“Hold on.” He grabbed my wrists and made me hold onto the edge. And then he started going really hard. I was glad the headboard was soft because I was being slammed against it.

“That feel good?” he asked.

“Mm,” I grunted.

“Tell me.”

“Mm. Yeah, Rider. It’s good,” I said.

“Did I make you come hard?” He asked.

“Mm hm.”

“Talk to me, baby.”

I froze.

“Talk,” he kissed my ear, “to,” he kissed my throat, “me…” another kiss, on my jaw this time.

“And say what?” I asked.

He slowed. His hand caressed up my belly, past my breasts, and to my throat. He held my throat in his grip, loosely, his fingertips at my jawline.

“Tell me what you want. Where you want me to touch you, what you want me to do to you.”

I swallowed against his palm and felt a little claustrophobic suddenly.

I froze.

“For someone who’s come twice, how come you’re all tense? You’re safe with me.”

I couldn’t exactly tell him he’d already done all the good stuff to me and now I just wanted him to hurry up and finish, so we could sleep.

“I want you to come, Rider. It’s definitely your turn. Come.” I tried, my voice husky. I put my hand on his and caressed it and used the caress to move his hand down to my breast, away from my throat, which felt too vulnerable for him to be holding in that way.

He was still a minute and then he moved backwards on his knees, taking me with him, until I was back on my belly flat on the bed.

His palm trailed up my spine, up to my hair, which he gathered into one hand and held tight.

“Ouch,” I said.

He let go of it and was still a moment.  He pulled out.

I waited.

He flipped me over to my back and then was inside me, looking into my eyes. I closed my eyes and put my arms around him.

He buried his mouth behind my ear and started to hammer into me.  And he hammered. And yep… hammered. It was just skin slapping skin for a really long time.

“Tighten,” he ordered, “Wiggle.”

“What?” 

“Fuck,” he ground out, sounding frustrated.

It took a dog’s age for him to finally moan into my hair. I ran my hands up and down his back.

Things felt… wrong. The affection of a few minutes before was gone.

I tried to bring ease back into the room.

“You want something to drink?” I kissed his shoulder.

“Naw, babe.” He rolled to his back and ran his hands through his hair.

“Food? I could order a pizza. I have a big box of really good pastries in the kitchen.”

“Naw, that’s all right.” He got up and walked, nude, to the bathroom and closed the door behind himself.

I stretched and leaned over to grab my purse from the place I’d discarded it on the floor when we came in. I pulled my cell out and plugged it into the USB port in my bedside table lamp.  I checked the volume to make sure it was up for the alarm that’d wake me up in about six and a half hours.

He was back as I put the phone down. He reached to the floor for his jeans and got into them, commando.

My heart sank as it registered that he was getting dressed.

“You’re getting dressed.”

“Yeah, babe. Gonna hit the road.”

“Uh… you can crash here.” I said.

“Got an early appointment with a customer to fix the brakes in his pickup.”

“I don’t live far,” I muttered.

“Easier to roll outta bed in the mornin’ and head right to the garage fifty feet away. But, cheers, babe.” He leaned over and grabbed his leather jacket. “Walk me out so you can lock up?”

I got up and used the sheet to cover me until I could get to my closet where I found my nightie and robe. I was feeling all kinds of shy all of a sudden. And my chest was burning with a very unwanted emotion.

I tied the sash as he finished getting his boots on, and then I followed him to the door, my disappointment impossible to hide.

“Lock up. ‘Night, babe.” He kissed me on the lips and it wasn’t a peck, but it also didn’t feel like the other times he kissed me.

This was it.

We were done; I could feel it. I could see it in his eyes, which weren’t the warm they typically were when he was looking at me. They were blank. Almost cold.

He got sex and now he was going. Done. Finito. And it felt like he was done in a way where I probably wouldn’t hear from him again.

He gave me a smile, but it was a little bit of a sad smile. It felt like a goodbye smile. I was also pretty sure I was wearing my heart on my sleeve right then and he was reading it and confirming my suspicions.

I stood at the door and watched while he walked the length of my patio, climbed down the stairs, and then I heard him start up his Harley and ride away.

He didn’t even glance back up at the doorway as he pulled away.

I went back inside, locked the door, and went to bed feeling empty and used.

***

I was not gonna cry. I was NOT gonna cry over a guy.

I cried over a guy once and he made me feel so small because of it that I’d vowed I would never ever do it again.

I was seventeen when it started and still seventeen when my heart got smashed. Michael was the bad boy of our high school. The James Dean.

He wasn’t Mike. He was Michael. And he was deep. He was the champion of the underdog. He played guitar. He was soulful and smart, though he ditched class more than he showed up. He challenged the teachers when he was in class and sometimes he flustered them, because he was smart. He smoked and drank and drove a muscle car he’d restored. He also broke my heart right after he took my virginity, because I’d found out he was sleeping with half the other A-list girls in the school. Well, Ella found out and broke it to me.

He’d wanted our relationship secret. He’d given me a line about it being just about us and not about what society thought relationships should be. I’d bought it. I later found out, after giving up my V-card, that he’d been seeing a bunch of other girls, all secretly, at the same time, and at least three of them had given him sex, two had given their V-cards, too. They’d all bought his lines, too.

I’d told Ella about my secret relationship, so when she heard another girl telling her bestie about her secret relationship with Michael in the girls’ change room, of course she had to tell me what she’d heard.

I had been madly, deeply in seventeen-year-old girl love with that v-card collector. I confronted him, tears in my eyes, and got so upset about it, behind the school by his car, that the confrontation drew a crowd. A crowd that meant other girls who were sleeping with him or fooling around with him also heard. It turned into a total Shit Show with multiple girls yelling and two of us crying. And he ridiculed me for it in front of a hundred other kids, laughing at my tears and calling me a traditionalist, saying it was sad and a total waste.

He had zero remorse for the lies he’d told about our future. He had no regrets about breaking the promises he’d made. Two weeks before graduation, he’d talked, with us naked under a blanket, about buying his older brother’s VW bus and us driving across the country together, so we could live free. Together. Or so he’d said.

Me and two of the other girls he’d fucked over got a bit of revenge. We couriered a positive pregnancy test to him anonymously (one of the girls had a pregnant older married sister) stating he was the father and that as soon as ‘Dad’ found out who the father was, he was threatening legal action or murder. One of the girls was named Jill and with my name being Jenna, we signed it J. He could wonder. We watched him sweat for two weeks until we confronted him together and told him he was a loser and would always be a loser.

But, the revenge didn’t stop me from spending the summer after graduation in a funk, a serious funk. Ella wanted to do Europe. I could barely lift my head off my pillow. Until the night I went to that party and made out with Ella’s cousin, which I had so much remorse for that I’d wound up back on the pillow for days afterwards, out of guilt.

And I won’t go back to being that lovesick and heartsick over someone who could potentially shred my heart into tatters again.

I told myself I’d never let a guy see me as weak again.

Telling Michael he was a loser wasn’t just wishful thinking. I saw him two years ago. He was working at the Shell, pumping gas. He had a beer gut. He’d lost his looks. He was only 24 and his hairline was starting to recede. He had lost all his appeal. He’d probably never even been out of the state. And I’d been in designer clothes, looking hot, in my shiny new convertible VW Jetta. It’d been completely by chance and totally random, and it felt fucking great.

He recognized me. It was all over his face. I drove away feeling vindicated. A few weeks later, that gas bar transitioned to ‘self-serve’ only and he was on the unemployment line. Last I heard, he still lives in a trailer behind his parents’ house, and it’s not a rock star trailer like Ella’s beautiful biker has, either.

And I hadn’t cried over a guy since him. I’d had relationships, but I’d never let anyone back in close enough to be able to annihilate me again.

And it wasn’t easy, because I really, really wanted to cry over what’d just happened with Rider Valentine.

What was I thinking?

I know what I was thinking. He was new and mysterious. He was sexy and different. He was not at all like anyone my mother would want me with. He was magnetically charismatic, and confident without being arrogant. He was amazing in bed that first time and even amazing the second time in spite of the hair pulling and trying to make me talk dirty.  He was the kind of guy that could potentially give me the kind of big family happy that the Forkers had.

And I knew we’d look good together. I knew we’d be one of those couples that people look twice at.

And then he rode off five minutes after fucking me as if I was completely replaceable. Like my feelings didn’t factor.

Well, fuck him. His loss. I’d beat back the tears and find a way to forget he existed.

And I’d hope that he lost his hair and grew a beer gut while I busted my ass to keep looking half-decent, so that when we ran into one another in ten years, I’d be again thinking I’d had a good escape while he got to kick himself, realizing that he fucked up.