9. Throttle
Chapter nine
Throttle
Lorelei
Rafe’s bike is louder than anything that bright orange has a right to be, and looking at it for too long feels like a personal attack.
“It’s small, it’s loud, and it’s blinding me,” I tell him.
“She’s not small,” he says. “She’s a 2026 Suzuki GSX-8R street bike, and you just insulted her personality. Put some respect on her name.”
“Motorcycles don’t have personalities.”
“This one bit a guy in Reno. Ask around.”
We’re in the far corner of the estate’s east lot, past the garages, where the pavement gives way to a stretch of cracked service road nobody bothers watching. Late afternoon light turns everything gold and a little unreal, the way this whole family makes even ordinary things look staged.
Rafe’s in a faded T-shirt with a rip at the collar, sleeves shoved up, and he’s got that energy he gets when he’s decided something is going to be fun whether or not anyone else agrees.
“Absolutely not,” I say when he holds the helmet out to me.
“You said you wanted to learn.”
“I said that to be polite.”
“Nobody’s ever accused you of being polite.” He grins, unbothered. “Fine. Watch first.”
He swings his leg over, settles into the bike like it’s an extension of his own spine, and something in his whole body changes — looser, faster, more himself than he is anywhere inside that house.
He doesn’t rev it dramatically. Just eases it forward, slow, showing me the mechanics of it, narrating without making it a lecture.
“Clutch, throttle, brake. In that order, in your head, every single time, until it’s not a thought anymore.” He circles back, stops in front of me, and cuts the engine so I can actually hear him. “It’s not about muscle. It’s about not overthinking it. You’re a world-class overthinker.”
“You’ve known me for two years.”
“And I’m still learning fast.” He holds the helmet out again. “Put this on.”
“I liked you better when you were pretending I had a choice.”
“You do have a choice. Wear the helmet or don’t get on my bike.”
“Dictator.”
“Alive dictator.”
I take it from him, and the strap catches under my hair, and after watching me fight with it for a few seconds, Rafe reaches over. “Hold still.”
“I know how helmets work.”
“Clearly.”
His fingers brush beneath my chin while he fixes the strap, casual enough that he probably doesn’t notice how my body reacts, even if I do.
Cassian’s hand around my jaw flashes through my head without permission — silver ring, gold light, the weight of knowing exactly who was behind the mask — followed too quickly by Ash standing close enough in the shop that one more inch would’ve changed everything.
Rafe’s touch is different. Easier. Warmer. Somehow that doesn’t make it simpler.
“There,” he says, letting go. “Now you look dangerous.”
“I look like a bobblehead.”
“A dangerous bobblehead.” He pats the seat behind him. “Get on. We’ll do the first lap together before I let you kill yourself solo.”
I should say no. I’m aware, in the part of my brain that still functions like a normal, cautious person, that getting on a motorcycle behind a boy I’ve spent two years learning to read — Ash’s best friend, a fixture at every family dinner, someone I know better than I know most of this family and still don’t fully trust — is exactly the kind of decision that ends up as a cautionary anecdote.
I get on anyway.
“Hands here,” he says, guiding them to his waist without making it weird. “Hold on for real. I’m not going easy just because you’re new.”
“You better not.”
The engine comes alive under us, and for one second before we move, I feel it in my teeth — a vibration that isn’t quite sound, low and constant, like the bike is breathing.
Then Rafe eases the throttle, and we’re moving, and every thought I had about being careful evaporates somewhere in the first ten feet.
He’s not lying about not going easy. We take the first curve fast enough that I feel my own weight shift, feel the unfamiliar thrill of trusting my body to someone else’s instincts instead of my own, and my arms tighten around him without my permission.
“There it is,” he calls back, voice half-eaten by wind. “That’s the part people get addicted to.”
“What part?”
“Not being in control.”
I don’t have an answer for that. I’m too busy noticing the heat of him under my hands, the easy strength in how he holds the bike steady through the turn, and the fact that my heart is working harder than the speed alone can explain.
We loop the lot twice before he slows, stops, and turns enough to look at me over his shoulder.
“Your turn.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You said that already. Get up front.”
The switch takes some maneuvering, both of us laughing when I nearly catch my foot on the seat. Once I’m settled at the controls, Rafe stays close enough behind me to reach around when he needs to, one boot planted for balance while I get used to the weight of the bike beneath me.
“Clutch in your left hand,” he says, voice lower now, right at my ear. “Throttle’s the right. Don’t grip it like you’re strangling something. It’s not fighting you.”
“Everything about this is fighting me.”
“That’s you fighting yourself. The bike’s fine.”
His hand covers mine on the throttle — not taking over, just steadying, the way you’d hold someone’s hand through the first cold plunge into water.
My pulse jumps before I can blame the bike for it.
His hand is broad and warm over mine. No silver ring, no careful hover an inch from my face, just Rafe, pressed close enough to guide me and apparently completely unaware that my brain has decided to inventory every man who has come near me this week.
“Ease it,” he says. “Don’t yank.”
I ease it. The bike rolls forward, wobbly and uncertain, and I overcorrect twice before something clicks and it just — works, for three whole seconds, my body finally listening to instructions instead of arguing with them.
“There,” Rafe says, close enough that I feel the word more than hear it. “See?”
I see, and I also feel his hand resting over mine a little longer than the lesson requires, and neither of us rushes to move it.
We stop a while later, bike ticking as it cools, both of us breathing harder than the actual exertion should account for. I climb off first and pull off the helmet, grateful for something practical to do with my hands.
“You’re a natural,” Rafe says, taking his own helmet off, hair a mess in a way that shouldn’t be as charming as it is.
“I nearly drove us into a hedge.”
“Nearly. That’s the natural part. Most people don’t even get close enough to nearly.”
I laugh before I can stop myself, and something eases in his face when I do — like my laugh is a small win he’s been quietly chasing since the lesson started.
“Ash would kill you for this.”
Something crosses Rafe’s face and is gone before I can name it.
“Would he?”
“He told me about the condition.”
“Did he.” That gets a real reaction, the words coming out slower than he meant them to.
“Hands off until I knew what this place was. Until I could choose for myself.” I cross my arms. “Sound familiar?”
Rafe looks down at the helmet strap in his hands, and when he looks back up, there's a smile trying very hard not to become a grin.
"Yeah."
"Anything else?" he asks, too casually. "Did he say anything else?"
Ash's hand stopping an inch from my jaw comes back before I can stop it, along with the rag he set down and the space I stepped into.
"No," I say. "Just that."
It's the first thing I've kept from Rafe, and it comes out easier than it should. He studies me long enough to know it isn't the whole answer and lets it go anyway, which is a courtesy neither of us is used to extending.
"So are you breaking his rule right now?"
“It wasn’t a rule.”
I blink at him. “That is exactly what Ash said.”
“Because for once, Ash was technically correct.” Rafe points at me with the loose end of the strap. “It was a condition. You know now.”
“That sounds suspiciously convenient for you.”
“It’s extremely convenient for me.”
I laugh again. “At least you admit it.”
“I’m an honest man.”
“That is aggressively debatable.”
“Still honest.” He hooks the helmet onto the handlebar. “And Ash doesn’t get a vote on what you do with the information once you have it,” he adds, lighter than the words deserve. “That was the whole point, whether he likes that part or not.”
There it is, not a fight exactly, but the shape of one. I decide not to touch that yet.
“Same time tomorrow?” I ask.
Rafe’s grin comes back immediately. “Careful. I might actually start looking forward to this.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late.” He swings back onto the bike and offers me a hand up like the conversation didn’t just grow teeth. “Come on. I’ll get you back before anyone notices how long we’ve been gone.”
I take his hand and climb on behind him, settling my arms around his waist again. This time I know exactly why my pulse jumps, and I know better than to blame the bike for it.
He starts the engine, and I hold on.