CHAPTER ELEVEN
Layla
Being on the back of Sean’s custom Harley is a sensation I simply wasn’t prepared for.
He tells me where to put my feet and what not to touch because it’s hot.
When I take my place behind him, his heavy hands squeeze the outsides of my knees and he tugs me closer in one fluid movement.
I let out a little yelp with the action, and when he’s satisfied with my position, he pats one hand on my leg and then moves it up to his grip.
Another caveman-like action that doesn’t fail to make my heart rate sputter.
There’s just something so unabashedly masculine about him.
So sure and confident. When he starts his bike, my arms wrapped around his firm waist, the heavy, methodic rumble is almost comforting.
But the way it feels when I lean my head against him and breathe in his sinful scent is intoxicating, and for this one moment, I give in.
It actually feels good to have someone to lean on.
My breasts press into his back, and the warm leather of his cut brushes my cheek.
I’m holding on tight but not tight enough that it could ever hurt a man of his size, so I find it confusing when I feel him tense under my arms. I know enough about the human body from my studies to know he’s harboring some kind of pain in his lower back.
I remember the scar I felt under my fingers and wonder what happened to him.
Sean reaches back and slides his open palm from the top of my thigh all the way down to my knee, giving it a light squeeze before he lets go, and I shudder from the steadying gesture.
“I’ve got you. Let’s fly, little dove.” He gives me one slow smirk over his shoulder, and the completely fucked-up thing is, I know he does have me.
The wind whips my hair around my shoulders as I watch city workers water the hanging baskets of flowers on the lampposts outside the quaint little shops that make Harmony a summer destination.
I must admit that this is worlds better than taking the bus.
But I know I’ve thoroughly lost my mind getting on his bike when Sean passes the turnoff for my street.
I panic for a moment when I realize I don’t know where he’s taking me, but a few blocks later he backs his bike into an open spot in front of The Henhouse, a charming lunch bistro off Main, and pops his kickstand.
“What are we doing?” I ask, working at the clip on my helmet as I get off the bike. Sean follows suit and stops my fingers from fumbling. He undoes the clip gently and pulls the helmet from my head, letting it hang from his grip.
“We’re eating.”
“I was going to go home and have leftovers and a bath,” I tell him.
“No leftovers.” His eyes simmer behind his words. “I’m buying you lunch.”
I look up at his face—the look he’s wearing isn’t stern, but his eyes are, and I am starving. All I had a chance to eat this morning before I left was Greek yogurt. He probably somehow knows that too.
Sean leads me with a hand on the small of my back to a booth.
This isn’t the type of place where you wait to be seated.
Thankfully he’s behind me, so he can’t see that the moment his hand connected with my back my nipples hardened to points.
As if my body is addicted to his touch exactly the way he thinks it is.
I clear my throat and try to get it together, sliding into the booth across from him.
“People don’t just meet and do things like this, you know. It’s unstable behavior,” I tell him, picking up the menu from the table and beginning to flip through it.
He doesn’t pick his up, he just leans back and watches me. I run my eyes over the choices and try not to feel the heat from his gaze. It’s an impossible feat.
“Says who?” he asks.
“Pardon?” I ask.
“Who says it’s unstable to know what I want?”
“Everyone.”
“Everyone doesn’t have to live my life, or yours, so fuck them,” he tosses back.
I don’t really know what to say in response, but I’m saved by the server as she approaches the table. She’s maybe my age, with long dark hair and ocean-colored eyes. She sort of looks like my high school best friend, Brinley, who lives in Atlanta, only not quite as soft and innocent-looking.
“The usual, Ax?” she says as she eyes me up, then turns her pretty eyes back to him. He doesn’t even look up at her.
“Yep,” he says. “Two of them, and one San Pell and one coconut water,” he adds.
Now I know he’s a stalker if he knows I used to drink San Pellegrino when I could afford it.
He takes the menu from me and hands both his and mine to the server.
She scurries off with a look of disappointment on her face, and I take a minute to look at him through her eyes.
His veiny, corded forearms rest on the table, and the spread of ink there interests me.
The intricate designs and numbers, mixed with phrases in cursive.
My eyes move to the cross on his finger, and I again wonder who the hell this man is at his core, because I truly couldn’t figure him out if I tried.
“How do you know I’ll like what you ordered?” I quiz him, giving into the moment, resting my chin on my palm.
“Because it’s the best burger in town, and they hand-cut their own fries.”
My stomach growls in response.
Sean grins. “See?”
“You don’t even know me, yet you know way too much about me. How is that?” I question, folding my arms over my chest.
“I don’t know it all yet, but I will,” he hedges as I watch him shift in his seat a little as a knot forms between his brows.
“What hurts?” I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me as the server comes back and places two glasses on the table. She sets my San Pellegrino down and an organic coconut water for Sean.
I watch with curiosity as he moves my glass in line with his, then picks up the bottle of San Pellegrino and pours it into my glass.
When he sets the bottle down, he turns it so the label faces me, then pours his coconut water into his own glass, doing the same with his bottle, facing the label toward him.
“The chivalrous biker who drinks organic coconut water? Interesting,” I muse.
“It rehydrates me after a workout,” he says without looking up, and I admit to myself this is not what I expected when I saw him walk through The Palm Club’s doors last night.