Chapter Seven
Death By Snow Shovel
Shiloh
Carrying a snow shovel on the L was just as weird as I thought it would be. Luckily, I didn’t have to be at work until four, which meant I skipped both morning and evening rush hours on the public transit, so stares from my fellow commuters—what few there were—was totally manageable. I also made sure I arrived at Buzzby’s an hour before my shift so I could dig out my poor little pickup, in part because I was worried about its battery, and in part because I didn’t want any help from a certain customer who habitually showed up after the sun was down.
Romeo.
Honestly, I didn’t know what to think of him.
I wasn’t an idiot. Clearly the man had some connection to the biker world, even though his clothes had led me to believe otherwise. The man who’d approached us—Radar—had said Romeo wasn’t wearing his colors. I knew enough about biker slang to know “colors” meant a cut or jacket that declared what club the wearer belonged to.
Club, I thought derisively, not bothering to stifle a snort as I shoveled heavy, plowed snow and ice away from my truck. That was just a euphemism for gang. Every biker was a damn dirty gangbanger on wheels, and not one of them had ever bothered to grow up beyond the frat house, party-hound age. They scoffed at the law and thought they were somehow entitled to crap on everybody else because they could ride a two-wheeler. BFD. Chimps could be trained to do that much. They weren’t special. They weren’t rock stars. They were dangerous, self-important bullies, and some of them could even fall under the category of domestic terrorist.
I hated them all. Hated.
Except…
Romeo hadn’t approached me as a badass biker who thought he was entitled to own the world, or at the very least own the highly exclusive real estate that existed between my legs. What had Radar said? Romeo had been dressed like a civilian, maybe even kicked out or excommunicated, or whatever. So, what did that mean, exactly? Maybe Romeo wasn’t a biker anymore?
Maybe.
And maybe pigs could fly.
Wishful thinking wasn’t going to keep me safe from a world I’d sworn to stay far away from, I thought, grimly trying to break up blocks of plowed snow that had been packed like concrete around my truck’s front bumper. I’d had one terrible brush with that world when I was eighteen, and I considered myself lucky to have gotten out alive. If I never saw Romeo and his perfect, angular jaw and sea-colored eyes again, it would be too soon.
“Well, this is a surprise. I thought your shift didn’t start until four.”
My blood turned as icy as the compacted snow I was trying to break up.
Holy crap.
I’d manifested Romeo just by thinking about him.
Turning slowly—mainly because I didn’t want to turn at all—I faced Romeo as he climbed out of his truck and headed in my direction. Before I even knew what I was going to do, my hand flew up, palm out.
“Stop right there. Don’t come any closer.”
He stopped, his breath making vapor trails in the icy breeze. “You gotta be kidding me. What did I do?”
“You know.” I straightened to full height and gripped my snow shovel with both hands. “You’re a damn dirty biker, and I hate all bikers.”
“Just so you know, that’s discrimination.”
Was he fucking kidding me?
“But I’m a big enough man to not hold that against you. I get that you have your reasons.” With a one-shoulder shrug, he turned to the back of his truck and hefted out a snow shovel. “By the way, how are the gloves working out?”
Horrified, I glanced down at the best gloves I’d ever owned. “I’ll give them back to you as soon as I’m done digging out my truck.”
“Don’t bother, they won’t fit me. And as long as they’re protecting you from another bout of scary-looking frostbite, that’s all I care about.” He took a step in the direction of my pickup, then stopped with a long-suffering sigh when I side-stepped, blocking his path. “So, what are you doing, Shy? Are you threatening to beat me up? Challenging me to a fight? Offering death by snow shovel? Seriously, what are you doing?”
Um, good question. What was I doing? “I’m defending my territory.”
“It’s a parking lot.”
“Then I’m… I’m defending my truck. And I’ll defend it to my last breath.”
“Cool. Defend away. All I’m interested in is attacking the snow that’s currently burying it.” With that, he strolled over to the passenger side like he didn’t have a care in the world, nor a belief that I’d cave his head in like I desperately wanted to. “I like how you park like a guy—backing in, so you can head out fast.”
“I…” I stared at him as he started to uncover my pickup, when that was the last thing I wanted from him. “Stop. I don’t want your help. Go away.”
“You do know your battery’s probably dead, right?”
Shit, shit, shit… “That’s none of your business.”
“I brought cables. You know, just in case you were in need of a jump.” I watched chunks of snow go flying as he tossed it away from my little pickup, making more progress in a few seconds than I had since I’d gotten there. “It might take a while to get it going, but don’t worry. I’m good with my hands. One way or another, once I jump-start things I’m positive I can get that motor going like it’s never gone before.”
I had to be insane to think he wasn’t just talking about my pickup. “I’m not talking to you.”
“Then,” he went on, “once I finally get things sparked back to life, I’m going to let it warm up nice and slow. No rush. Just let the heat build up naturally until the whole system’s purring. It’ll be a thing of beauty.”
Seriously, was he talking about the truck? Or me? “I’m also not listening to you.” Liar, my brain quietly taunted me. Despite my greatest efforts to ignore him, I still hung on his every word like the idiot I was.
“Things are icy now, and I get that.” More snow flew as he made quick work of digging the passenger side of my truck out. “But you’re a native Chicagoan, Shy, just like me. You know ice always melts in the end. It just can’t stand up against the heat.”
“Shut. Up.”
“Why, Shy girl?” He paused in his shoveling, straightening to his impressive height with both gloved hands propped up on his shovel’s handle. “Was it something I said?”
At my wit’s end and not trusting myself to say a word—because part of me was already feeling the heat—I scooped some snow off the hood of my truck, crushed it haphazardly into a ball and threw it at his smug, perfect face with everything I had.
His look of shock was supremely satisfying.
His last-second dodge was not.
“Oh, so you’re challenging me to a fight, after all? Okay, then.” Looking like a kid at Christmas who got the one toy he’d asked for, he dropped his shovel, scooped up a bunch of snow and headed for me. “It’s on. Winner takes all.”
Eek.
I flipped snow at him with my shovel—most of which he dodged—before backpedaling hard and fast to the driver’s side of my pickup, because he was coming at me like a man on a mission.
And that mission was my annihilation.
In my haste to escape I dropped my shovel, which was good, because it freed up both hands to throw more snow at him. But my snow-throwing skills weren’t the greatest under pressure, so I wound up throwing snow at him without compacting it, which was basically like throwing flour at a runaway train. Then I tried the truck’s door, only to find I’d locked it like the good urban-dweller I was. I let out a growl of pure frustration and backed up some more along the pickup’s small payload, randomly tossing handfuls of snow I scooped from the truck toward his face, hoping I’d at least blind him a little.
Nothing slowed him down.
Retreat was the only thing I had left, so with one last fistful of snow tossed at his face, I half-ran backwards toward the back of my truck, only to stumble over something buried in the snow. My startled squeak echoed in my ears as I fell backward, hoping against hope the snow would cushion my fall. I squeezed my eyes shut in anticipation of the impact, when strong arms came around me and twisted. The impact wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought, since I landed on my side, wrapped up hard against Romeo’s body.
Because he’d saved me.
And now I was in Romeo’s arms.
Right where I didn’t want to be.
Or so I told myself.
“Let go.” I sounded breathless, and while I hoped it was from trying to bury him in snow, I suspected it was because his arms were around me and I liked it way too much. “Let me go.”
“You need to cool down.” His wicked grin was the only warning I had before he unexpectedly tugged on the back of my collar and a handful of snow slid down my neck.
“Ugh… Damn it, you assho—”
His mouth came down on mine, swallowing the rest of the insult. Everything logical in me screamed to fight him off; heaven knew I didn’t want to want this man. He was trouble. He was dangerous. He was probably a criminal.
But…
He was also irresistible.
It was pitiful, how quickly my feeble resistance crumbled into straight-up hunger. Desperately I told myself it was all right to want the physical body while rejecting the man behind it. After all, it was one hell of a body. Any female with a pulse would be drooling over him, with his broad shoulders and slim hips, thick arms that flexed with sculpted muscle, and hands so big a woman knew she was seriously being held by a man.
And then there were those size sixteen feet.
Yeah, I could allow myself to get into a body like that, while ignoring the man inside of it. Sure I could.
Sure I could.
I never noticed when my hands stopped pushing him away and started pulling him close. All I knew was that I was sorry I still had gloves on so that I couldn”t feel the cool silk of his hair as it sifted through my fingers. I could still feel him with my mouth though, and what I felt was both sin and heaven combined. His tongue plunged into my mouth in a way that I knew without words he wanted to plunge another part of his anatomy into me. Feeling how much this powerful man honestly desired me was everything. It kicked off a physical ache to have his cock buried all the way to his hilt inside me, and that sudden need stunned me on so many levels.
That I could want any man after what I’d been through.
That I could want Romeo like that, when I knew he couldn’t be trusted.
That deep down, some part of me must trust him already to want to make him a part of me.
And throughout all of this, here I was, remarkably un-freaked out.
Maybe it was because having sex with him wouldn’t mean anything, I thought in the dark recesses of my mind. As long as I remembered who and what he was, I could enjoy him without allowing him to touch the real me. Wasn’t that how bikers treated their women? As far as I was concerned, turnabout was fair play in this game of Fuck But Don’t Feel. I could do it if he could, and that was undoubtedly what he was going after now.
He wanted to fuck my body without feeling anything for me, Shiloh, the person. And I…
I wanted the same thing.
Maybe after all was said and done, I might even be able to work him out of my system.
To my delight, he retreated just enough to take my lower lip between his teeth before sucking on it like it was his favorite candy. The love nip was a sweet sort of pain to endure, and I couldn”t stop my low moan of pleasure. My intimate folds throbbed while my panties became soaked with wet heat, and it was all I could do to stop myself from grinding my hips against his in mindless hunger.
“I like that.” The sound of his voice startled me. Not because it was so rough with desire it was borderline unrecognizable, but because I had almost convinced myself that he was nothing but a body I wanted to use for my pleasure. His talking and having opinions like a fully actualized person messed with that fantasy in a big way. “I like it when you moan, Shy. Tells me you like what I”m doing.”
“I like the kissing.” It took all my willpower to look him in the eye while keeping my emotions trapped under a block of ice. “Not the talking.”
“Is that your way of telling me to shut up?”
“Most men in your position—almost lying on top of me—aren”t usually big on talking.”
His grin went into eclipse so fast it startled me. “Don’t talk about other men when you’re with me. Don’t you ever do that.”
“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t talk about,” I returned immediately, making sure we both knew where my boundaries were. “I’m not your property.”
“We’ll see about that.” A flash of movement seemed to catch his eye, and he glanced up just as my manager, Dubya, poked his head out of the glass door.
“Um… are you all right, Shiloh? Because if you’re all right after that fall, you, uh… probably should get up now. Okay. Thanks.”
“Translation—Buzzby’s employees shouldn’t fuck in the snow for all their patrons to see,” Romeo remarked while Dubya beat a hasty retreat back into the diner. With a sigh, he rolled to his feet and reached out a helping hand to me. “If I’d been in his shoes, I straight-up would’ve told us to get a room like the smartass I am.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” And it seemed like just the ticket to get him worked out of my system. Obviously he was in my system, considering how instantly I melted for him with just one kiss. Maybe once I got him into bed and did my best to screw my brains out with him, I’d get my fill and move on from a man who clearly was a bad fit for my quiet little life. “I work tomorrow, but not until four. What are you doing tomorrow morning?”
His brows rose. “Are you serious?”
I shrugged and focused on brushing the snow off instead of the outlandish words coming out of my mouth. “Why not? If you’ve got a problem with scheduling things like when to have sex, welcome to the 21st century. Everyone’s busy. That’s why we’ve got calendars on our phones.”
“Five minutes ago you weren’t talking to me.”
“That was five minutes ago. And you’re a great kisser.” When in doubt, stick with the truth.
“Uh-huh.” Once again he had that look in his eyes, like he was playing chess while I was playing checkers. Then he roped an arm around my shoulders and steered me toward the diner. “Let’s get you inside before your boss calls the cops on us. And don’t worry about your truck. I’ll have it dug out by the time you’re ready to head home tonight.”