Beth flicked her eyes open and stared at the rusty springs of the bunk bed above. Her knee throbbed from where she’d hit it on the bar the night before, her ankle ached where she’d twisted it breaking her shoe, and her head was woolly. “All in all, a great morning then.” She closed her eyes again, willing the colossal mess that had been her evening to be all a dream.

Eyes open, wide awake. Nope.

Heaving a sigh, Beth looked out the open window. Everything was still and quiet at that time in the morning, and Beth let herself breathe in the smell of the world waking up just for a moment. It was a long way away from the dusty scents of the small farm where she’d grown up, farther still from the strong eucalyptus tree smell that would greet her each morning when she let the dogs out. On the outskirts of Melbourne, life had been simple, acting still mostly a dream, and now, here she was. Almost penniless. She tried not to let the sigh overwhelm her. Today was a new day. Period.

Shifting her legs, she winced. Everything hurt. It took her back to her childhood. Her mother’s voice came into her head. “You are not your past. The future is waiting for you to take it. Now.” Being the only girl who couldn’t play sports was a gift, her parents always told her. It had allowed her to find her feet as an actor earlier than others.

It had been a gift, but not as they had meant it. Onstage she could escape into characters who relished their body’s quirks, who were strong and proud and didn’t care what others thought. That was the woman she pictured herself as, but was too scared to allow herself to be. Onstage she could be her best self. The self that any Prince Charming would have slayed a bullying dragon for.

She’d lived her whole school life as Elizalimp or Limpalong Lizabeth, depending on how kind the kids at school were feeling that day. And it was only after her final operation that she realized she hadn’t needed to let it define her as much as it had. Her fear about being different, about not fitting in had made her run away into the world of her imagination and the only place she’d found solace had been in acting class.

Now her limp was gone and she was struggling with fitting in in an entirely different way. Funny how life turned out sometimes. Nothing was ever as easy as you thought it would be when you were dreaming it up. Well you ain’t limpy anymore but you just found a fairy godmother to help with the Prince Charming. Okay, so more of a fairy god-biker, but she’d take it.

Rusty McKinley. Sheesh. If someone had asked her yesterday how her night would have turned out she would NOT have seen him and his proposal coming. She took a deep breath.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bunk, she sat up. The hangover pain wasn’t that bad if she distracted herself. Her phone pinged and she reached for it. An appointment reminder flashed on her screen. RUSTY, 10 A.M., BISTRO. Oh, god. Her body swelled, heating up as the memory of the night flooded back . . . Don’t dwell on it now. She needed to move forward, that’s what her mom would have told her. For a second she thought longingly of calling her Mom and downloading the whole night. And then reality kicked in. Not even a swamp-load of angry crocodiles could have convinced her to tell her mom about last night.

It had seemed a good idea to come out here on her own. Force herself to jump into her new life without a parachute. This was a town where everyone was searching, after all, it made people hungry, passionate, driven. And it would add to her story when she made it big—make it easier to fund-raise to fight polio in other countries. But the lack of friends and well, anyone, for support was starting to get old.

“That’s why I need Grim,” she said out loud. The acronyms she’d come up with for the two of them sounded more like wizarding names than anything Hollywood though. “Elizagrim.” That was a little better. She might have reinvented herself as Beth over here, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t use her past to form her future.

She thought about the tall, dark actor: his eyes pools of chocolate and his voice thick with gravel. Sleek and focused, but with a lot of soul, she was sure, she would unwrap his glossy exterior and they would share their dreams together. The characters he played on the big screen were always darkly brooding but soft-centered. Letting herself daydream, she stood beside him on the red carpet, swathed in gently flowing silk as he looked down at her adoringly. It was a future she was going to make happen.

But sitting on her bunk, staring at the unadorned timber boards on the wall, she admitted to herself there was something else scratching at the edges of her fantasy. Something that kept creeping over her skin and nipping at her neck in a delicious but dangerous way: Rusty McKinley.

“The brother.” Saying that out loud didn’t help much either. Thinking of the tall, dark biker, her skin tightened like it was waiting for his touch. “It’s just shock. And your ego feeling stupid that you threw yourself at him.” Yes, that was it. And then he goes all fairy godmother. Sure the outfit would have looked ridiculous on him, but offering her the opportunity to work on a pilot could be her way to finally catch a break in this town. “Or it could be a complete mess.” Either way she was going to be seeing Rusty McKinley again. Thinking about his hands on her, their sure, steady grip on her waist, their strength, the callouses on his palms, just brought the heat back between her thighs, The blood rushed there, urging her to do something about it, to revel in the memory and let herself surrender to it. She took a deep breath and stood, unsteadily. “I need a pint of hot coffee and a cold shower.”

It didn’t help. The water flowing over her just reminded her of kissing Rusty. How wet he’d made her, how hot she’d felt under his gaze. “Oh, god.” If she didn’t get rid of her lust-haze she was going to be about as useful as tits on a bull. Give in, her mind urged her with a hot whisper and, biting her lip, Beth gripped the wall of the shower for support while her hand found her sweet spot between her legs. The water poured over her head and shoulders, and she let her finger part her folds and work at the aching nub of her clitoris. Quickly, the tension built, her body almost shaking with concentration as she tried to focus on getting thoughts of Rusty out of her head and giving in to the sensation, but just as she felt she’d caught the anonymous tail of her oblivion, her mind would start up a constant chatter and she’d be back to thinking of Rusty. “Oh to hell with it.” She let go. Let herself imagine it was Rusty’s hand between her thighs, let her head fall back and the water cascade down her throat as if it was his tongue. Her legs started to shudder and she came with such force she had to stop herself from calling out his name. But even as she put both hands on the wall, she still felt him with her. His hands, his fingers, his hot, dark gaze. This was not how it was supposed to go.

“You gonna be in there all day? Some of us have a shift to get to.” One of the women from housekeeping banged on the door and finally, the thoughts of Rusty dimmed just as the trailing bliss of her orgasm lessened to a hum. The best part? The coffee and the orgasm killed the remains of her hangover.

“I’m just coming, sorry.” As the words left her mouth, Beth smiled. This was good. She’d taken herself, ahem, in hand, and now she’d be able to focus. Dressing quickly, she walked out of the bathroom and apologized again to the woman waiting in the hall before she half-hobbled downstairs on her sore ankle.

* * *

Wilde’s menu wasn’t exactly Michelin starred, but there was zero chance of her being able to eat anything until she’d cleared the air anyway. Beth shifted the salt and pepper into the exact center of the table and took a breath. “Okay, so I just need to say something first,” she said as soon as Rusty had joined her at a table and the waitress had put a plate of eggs down in front of each of them.

“Right? Sounds ominous.”

“That girl you met last night? That’s not me. I’m organized and careful and smart. Heck, a casting agent said I was wholesome the other day and I don’t disagree.”

He cleared his throat. “Wholesome? You sure you know what that means?”

She felt the blush but stiffened rather than succumbing to it. “Of course I know what it means. I told you I don’t usually do . . .” She waved her hand at him. “Last night was an aberration. A one-off.”

“So you said,” he drawled. “It’s just, I don’t quite know how to put it, but have you looked in the mirror recently?”

Now her back really straightened. “I beg your pardon?”

Rusty wiped a piece of bread around his plate to finish off his breakfast and leaned back in his chair. “Where are you from again?”

“Australia,” she huffed.

“Remind me to head out to Australia when I’m rich and famous and find me a nice wholesome girl to look at.”

“If you think insulting me is going to make me work with you—”

“Who said anything about insulting? I didn’t say you didn’t look good. It’s just where I come from, wholesome usually doesn’t get up in the morning looking like it could fire up a man’s appetite faster than the smell of a plate of bacon. Your hair, your . . .” He waved his hands to indicate her curves. “Wholesome is buttoned-up cardigans and slacks. You, my dear, are what we’d call a bombshell.” He surveyed her for a moment. “I mean, look at your dress.”

“It’s vintage,” she said, unable to think of anything better to say. The dress was mostly white, covered with tiny pink roses. It was cinched at the waist, sure, and had a sweetheart line that did some seriously molding of her girls, leaving a sharp line of cleavage on display. But it was still knee-length, not short, and it was flared over her hips, not tight. It might have been a bit on the flirty side back in the 1950s, but by today’s standards it was wholesome.

Beth closed her eyes a moment, trying to remember why she’d brought all this up in the first place. “The point is, although it wouldn’t be the first word I’d put on my résumé, I am wholesome. I grew up on a small farm. There’s not a single scandal anyone’s going to find out about me or my family, ever, and I hardly even drink. So if I’m going to be working on your pilot, it’s going to be good. No half measures. I get your office into shape and we work to make sure we have a good script and get us a good crew. And I get a . . . writer’s credit,” she added, just to see if he’d take it.

“I’m not sure you’re in a position to be making demands.”

That got her and she readjusted her knife and fork to calm herself. “Nonetheless, that’s what I want.”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

“Really?”

“You say you can make it good, that’s what I want. I don’t care about how we get there.”

Buoyed by his nonchalance, Beth pushed again. “And you are going to introduce me to Grim. If I’m going to do TV with you, then I’ll need to have connections in film so I don’t get typecast.”

“That so?” Rusty eyed her with complete calm and she didn’t have one clue about what he was thinking.

Man, the guy didn’t give much away. “I would be good for him.”

“Let’s get my pilot going first and then I’ll see about introducing you.”

She opened her mouth to protest but Rusty held up his hand. “Time to get to work, little bird.”

Beth gave herself a little shake. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Rusty was a man, a biker no less, and he wasn’t going to be giving out favors just because she asked nicely. What mattered was getting along with Grim’s brother so that she could date her lust-crush. All she needed to do was stick to the plan. “You better tell me about your project then.”

“Ever been to a biker garage?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “I know our definitions differ, but”—she pointed a finger at herself—“wholesome, remember? In what universe would a girl wearing a dress like this have been to a biker garage?”

“In about ninety-two percent of the male fantasies in this hotel?”

She blushed. Again. But she couldn’t help tugging at the hem of her floral dress. A dress she’d thought had a pretty, fresh, fifties vibe, but which under the gaze of Rusty McKinley had turned into a too tight, too short vixen-suit.

“Come on,” he said, standing. “Best thing is for you to see it. I’ll give you a ride.”

He led her out of the bistro and into the parking lot.

“Oh. Hell. No.”

Rusty turned to her and frowned. “What now? You work in a biker hotel and you want to date my brother. A brother who plays a biker for a living and you don’t want to get on a bike?”

“Not a bike like that.” Beth pointed at the huge chrome monster Rusty had put his keys into.

“This is hardly big.”

“Excuse me?”

“This bike. It’s not like I ride a real monster. You should see some of the beasts that come through the shop.”

“I’m not sure I want to.”

“How much do you actually know about bikes?”

She shrugged. “Enough to know that they cause plenty of accidents. My mom was a nurse for a while. She wouldn’t even let my dad ride a trail bike on the farm.”

Rusty whistled. “This might not work out.”

Beth froze. She’d awoken this morning with a giant hangover and a pile of hot heavy regret, but the one thing that had held her together was the fact she was going to meet Grim properly. “What do you mean? What might not work out? I don’t have to like bikes to make a pilot about them. I’m an actress, remember, that’s what I do.” Her voice was a little shrill, even to her ears, and she realized that the thundering in her chest was her heart.

He must have heard it too. “You’re scared.”

“Not scared. Just sensible. I agreed to take an office job and to help you with your show, not die in a screaming heap of twisted metal.”

“You need to be able to sit on one without having palpitations to be in a show about them, little bird.” His voice was softer. “That pretty little face of yours might be able to sell honey to a bee, but it’s screaming, ‘Get me the hell away from here’ at the moment, and you can’t hide that on camera.”

Beth gave in to her nerves and stuffed a stray strand of hair into her mouth and chewed. Hard. He was right. Her heart was just about bursting out of her chest and she could feel her shoulders knotting as the thought of riding the machine in front of her stole through her body. “What do I do?” It was almost a whisper.

“We break you in. Slowly,” he said in a voice that matched hers. “Don’t worry. I won’t make you ride anything you can’t handle. But first . . .” He took her hand. “It won’t bite. Honestly.” The hot tingle of the contact slid up her hand but was cooled instantly by the touch of cold chrome. She shivered despite the warm day and closed her eyes.

“That’s it. She’s a gentle mistress, my Nancy. I wouldn’t let you get near her if I thought she might hurt you.”

Beth snapped her eyes open and pulled the piece of hair out of her mouth. “Nancy?”

Rusty wiggled his eyebrows and pointed at his bike.

“You call that pile of death-metal Nancy?”

He sucked in air through his teeth and pulled her hand away. “Don’t let her hear you. I’m trying to break you in softly, remember? Offend a bike like her and you’re tarmac-topping for sure.”

“Oh, god.” The groan came out of her before she could stop it. “Am I really going to do this?” She looked up at him. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “Not every day you get to break a girl’s bike-virginity.”

He was laughing at her now that he knew she was going to go through with it. Doesn’t matter what he thinks though. This is about you. Fear wasn’t enough reason to stop her from doing this. Not when a short ride on a motorbike might be the difference between getting a shot at TV and not.

“You’re going to climb on nice and slow. There we go.” He helped her get closer to the seat and Beth puffed out all her breath.

“Now lift your leg over.”

The laughter was unbidden. “I’m wearing a dress, remember?”

He shrugged. “It’s not that tight. Hitch it up and then, I dunno, tuck it under your butt.”

She tried to lift up her leg then realized she was going to give him a floor show of her underwear. “Look away please.” He did, but not before she saw the smirk. She lifted her leg up and over the back of the seat of the bike. Nancy, she corrected herself, rolling her eyes as she did.

But then, she was sitting on the bike. Sitting with about a hundred horsepower of dormant energy between her legs, her dress was tucked under her safely, and no one was dead.

“Look at you. Anyone would think you rode a bike every day.”

Beth sat up straighter. It wasn’t that bad. In fact, the cool chrome against her hot legs was nice. Sexy even. The wind eddied in a little gust around them and the bit of her skirt that wasn’t tucked under lifted, just enough to reveal more thigh than was wholesome in anybody’s vocabulary. His eyes flicked toward it and she realized, suddenly, that he felt it too. That his gruffness this morning had been as much to mask his uncertainty about what had passed between them as her stammering defense of her actions the night before.

“Try this on.” He handed her a helmet and when his hand brushed hers a million goose bumps leapt to attention, sure that this was their chance to take over her skin once and for all. And then, she didn’t get a chance to think anymore because he was suddenly on the bike with her and the motor had started and he was revving the hundred horsepower and . . . “Ohmygod, what are you doing, let me off!”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you,” he said and revved the engine harder.

She tried to scramble off the back but couldn’t work out how to do it without smearing herself down the side of the rapidly heating exhaust pipe. She yanked off her helmet and yelled toward where his ears must have been under his helmet, “I said, let me off.”

Rusty let the bike idle and twisted in his seat as much as he could. Pulling off his helmet he looked her in the eye. “You need to be able to at least sit on a bike, and you need to get to the garage. But if you don’t want to ride the bike, you don’t have to.” The implication was there, clear in his words and his face told her he would be disappointed. She realized she’d be disappointed too. About not getting her chance with Grim, about not getting a shot at some TV work that might one day fill her bank balance and fit her aspirations a whole lot better than working at the bar would, and also about not being tucked up behind Rusty on his big . . . Nancy. The final thought was enough to shake her out of her panic-induced fear-freeze. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. “Will you promise to go slowly?”

“Glacial,” he said.

“And not take any risks?”

He held back a smirk. “By not taking any risks, do you mean not overtaking grandmas who drive slower than snails?”

She nodded tightly.

“If you say so. Slow and steady wins the race, right?”

“Exactly,” she said and before her brain kicked in to remind her that she currently had a throbbing pile of metal ready to drive her to her death between her legs, she pulled her helmet on.

Rusty must have grasped the shortness of the window of opportunity and pulled his own helmet on just as fast. Then, true to his word, he rolled, super slowly, out of the Wilde’s Hotel parking lot and onto the road.

To say Beth held on tight to his leather jacket was an understatement. If she could have welded her hands to his waist she wouldn’t have had a better grip. But after a while, Beth risked unclenching her face and opened one eye to see what the world looked like as it whizzed by. Her helmet was still pressed into his back and she didn’t unlock her arms, but the universe didn’t end. Buoyed by her success, and the fact that watching things go past rather than approach made her feel a little ill, she loosened her grip and straightened her head. Raised up on the back portion of the bike seat, Beth could see over Rusty’s shoulder, just, and what she saw shouldn’t have had much of an effect on her. But she caught her breath and held it, only letting it out slowly when Rusty took a corner.

The road stretched out in front of her in a sweeping curve. It was the same view as it would have been in a car only it wasn’t. Without a windshield, the world was right in her face. The road a deeper color, the trees flying by, breathing sculptures intent on reaching their limbs higher, and the wind, the wind was a living thing that took her breath and threatened to keep it. That tugged at her dress, at her skin, at her whole self and wanted to fling her into the sky, across the road, through the trees. The wind on the back of Rusty’s bike should have terrified Beth into a screaming fit, but instead it woke her up and made her want to sing. Her deep-seated fear about her past didn’t rear its ugly head, warning her off. Instead, it joined in the party and wanted to dance.

This was like flying, like soaring Riding like this made her feel free the same way she did when she was lost in a part that fit her like a glove. She could be another person, a truer version of herself, and with the solid hulk of Rusty in front of her to hold onto, she felt, incredibly, safe.

When they pulled into his garage she almost bounced off the bike.

“Slow enough for you? No one died and no grannies were insulted by being overtaken.” Then Rusty did a double take of her face before a smile spread wide across his. “You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

Beth tried to frown. “No. I didn’t. It was terrifying.”

His smile spread further and his dark eyes glinted. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? It’s terrifying and electrifying and fucking great all rolled into one?”

Beth couldn’t control the edge of her mouth and she felt the smile slip out before she could stop it.

“I knew it. It’s always the ones who protest about hating it so much that turn out to be daredevils.”

“Agreeing to try out your bike hardly qualifies me as a daredevil.” She tried to be stern, but it didn’t wash, the excitement was still caught up in her throat and her voice came out squeaky.

“Indeed,” Rusty said, a chuckle underpinning his words. “Note to self: Beth Ravens is wholesome, doesn’t like speed or motorbikes or anything to do with risk.” Then his tone changed. “That’s why she flew halfway across the world to throw everything into getting into a profession that chews up more women than tourists taking pictures of the Hollywood sign.”

“Touché. But I still say I’m wholesome.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Tomato, tomahto.”

Pulling herself up to her full five-foot height, Beth stood as tall as she could. Not nearly a patch on his six-two frame, but still, she looked him in the eye. “If you want to follow the song and call the whole thing off, just say it.”

“Is that what you want?”

It was do or die time. There wasn’t much more she had left to lose. “No.”

“Good. Let me show you around.”