Chapter 25
ABI
We run out of the elevator and into the parking garage with smiles and laughs that we can only control long enough to kiss each other again. I need to feel him, firm and hard where my hands grip his chest, to trust that this is real and not a crazy figment of my imagination.
He stops at a gorgeous black motorcycle that looks like it could eat the road. As he grabs the helmet on the handlebars, I stupidly ask, “Is this yours?”
He pushes the helmet onto my head and begins fidgeting beneath my chin with deft fingers. “Yes, and I can’t wait to have you on it with your thighs locked around my hips as we race off to . . .” He pauses, his focus on the buckle I can’t see. “Wherever you want to go, mia rosa,” he finishes.
It is, I know it. I remember from that first night, feeling the anticipation that he’d stop and we’d ride off into the night together, and then the let down when he’d kept going without me.
But that’s not going to happen tonight. I’m getting on this beast .
. . the bike. Not Lorenzo. Although, I’m probably going to get on him as soon as possible too.
He’s intoxicating. I don’t know how he makes me feel both entirely under his spell and simultaneously in control.
He doesn’t try to wrangle me or make me anything other than what I am.
If I said I wanted to go back upstairs, he’d shove me back in the elevator to make that wish come true.
If I demanded that he take us on a cross-country trip, I’d be over the state line in minutes at the speed he’d drive us there.
Controlled chaos that feels so familiar, but also exciting and fresh because it’s not me against the tide, fighting alone while everyone else judges me as weird.
Rather, it’s me and him, going wherever our whims take us and doing whatever we desire, and all the while, flipping our middle fingers to the world that doesn’t understand.
I literally jump around, dancing awkwardly with excitement, and Lorenzo laughs and pats the top of my helmet. Yeah, it’s mine now. I’ve claimed it and am never giving it back. Certainly not to let anyone else ride with him. He’s mine too.
Sorry, ladies, claiming him, I think, not caring in the slightest that I’m smiling goofily and can feel my face smooshing up against the hard plastic of the helmet. I probably look like I’m squirreling away nuts in my puffed-up cheeks, but it seems like Lorenzo likes my chipmunk cheeks.
“Have you ever ridden before?” he asks seriously, though he’s smiling back at me with a dark gleam in his eye.
I shake my head and the helmet surprisingly stays put.
“Legs go around my hips, arms go around my waist. Squeeze me tight enough that I know you’re with me. Lean with me. It’s like dancing. I’m in charge and you follow. If I lean, you lean, no matter what. If you need anything, pat my stomach and I’ll check on you. Understood?”
He’s in full boss mode, telling me what to do.
Usually, I’d balk at anyone doing that, but in this case, he’s the expert and I will happily take his instruction to keep us safe.
I hold up my index finger. “One thing . . . just so you remember, I’m a really bad dancer, so take it easy on me. But I’ll do my best.”
He smirks that grin that tells me he did not expect me to say that after his safety lesson.
“Mia rosa,” he says on a huff of laughter, “if you don’t wish to dance, then imagine it’s yoga.
” His smile melts and his expression goes lustful.
“No, think of it as sex. I set the pace and you flow with me, trusting that I will get you where you need to go.”
We are so not talking about motorcycle riding anymore. Or if he is, I want to get on . . . now.
“Let’s go!” I nearly shout, laughing as my own echo in the garage cheers me on.
In seconds, I’m sitting astride the sleek machine as it roars beneath us.
I scoot as close to Lorenzo as I can, damn close to being a spider monkey on his back like Bella on Edward in Twilight—don’t judge.
Everyone watched that and imagined themselves on that particular piggyback ride through the forest.
Lorenzo looks back at me, his eyes assessing and his hair curling from his fingers running through it. He squeezes my thigh once, twice, three times before putting his hand on the handlebars.
“Another of many firsts . . . and of lasts,” I think I hear him say, but maybe it’s my imagination. Either way, it’s the truth. Tonight is the first night of many I want to spend with Lorenzo, not as co-conspirators in a scheme or as heated lovers on a vacation without rules but as something more.
I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I have more questions now than I did when Violet told me to come over because she’d done as she promised and handled things.
She’d even jokingly told me that the head-ass-ectomy had been surprisingly easy, given what a mess Lorenzo was.
I’d secretly been glad he was as big a disaster as me.
We ride.
For minutes or hours, I don’t know, around town in some path only he understands.
At first, I’m terrified and hang on for dear life like he’s my sole lifeline to gravity and the only thing stopping me from floating away from Earth.
Eventually, I trust more, incrementally relaxing into his back to simply let the night cocoon us.
I lean with him as he instructed, and as I do better, he goes faster and faster.
I could do this forever.
I feel free. I feel rooted. I feel wild.
I feel chaos both raging and quieting inside me at the same time, which makes no sense but is the only way to explain what I feel.
By letting him take me wherever he wants to, the wind whipping through my bones, I let go of everything and just .
. . exist. It’s peaceful in a wholly unexpected and beautiful way.
We drive back into the city, lights making my eyes squint at the abrupt brightness. Until I see one that sparks a light inside my soul that I can’t ignore.
I pat Lorenzo’s stomach, and he slows instantly, looking over his shoulder quickly to check on me. I point to the yellow sign, and his dark brow lifts in surprise. But he pulls over without question.
Right up until I’m inside the yellow-signed building and sitting in the chair with a tattooed, bearded guy the size of a refrigerator leaning over me. Then the question comes.
“Are you sure about this?” Lorenzo asks. He doesn’t try to talk me out of it, though, and I appreciate that more than he’ll ever know.
“Never been surer,” I reply with a nod. “I’m ready,” I tell Reno, the guy with the tattoo gun.
Reno looks to Lorenzo for confirmation, but Lorenzo’s eyes are locked on mine in awe. “Fuck, mia rosa. You amaze me with the passion for life you have. I want to experience it all through your eyes. See your smile as you greet each day. Feel the depth of your strength. Know the power of your love.”
Reno snorts as he tries to keep a straight face. Guess he’s not a romantic like I am, but as long as he’s got steady hands, I’m good.
The tattoo gun hums with a loud buzz, and Reno touches the needle to my skin. My face is already screwed up in anticipation, my breath locked in my lungs, but it’s . . . not bad. Or at least, not as bad as I expected it to be.
“That’s it?” I ask with a smile.
Reno does laugh at that. “I just started. It’ll get worse before it gets better, but yeah . . . that’s it. Only about forty-five more minutes to go, doll.”
Doll? I’m definitely not one of those . . . unless it’s one of those second-rate Barbies that gets left in the bottom of the bin too long and loses one shoe, gets a bit of chewed gum stuck in its hair, and has uncapped marker ink on its naked body.
Well, actually, that last part does make me a doll in a sense, I guess, because when Reno is done, I’ll have ink on my ribcage, just below my left breast.
“Tell me what I’m doing here again?” Reno says. “Not that I care. I’m just happy to not be doing flash art off the wall or copying something from Pinterest.”
I smile though the pain is getting more intense, a deeper burn rather than a stinging sensation. “The circle represents a motorcycle wheel. Tonight was my first time.”
Reno pauses and looks at Lorenzo again. “She’s riding bitch, I hope?”
I answer for myself. “I rode on the back of his bike, if that’s what that means. But it was awesome . . . a milestone in a lot of ways.” A big moment for more than just me sitting on the back of Lorenzo’s bike, that’s for sure.
The idea that I’m not controlling some huge monstrosity of a motorcycle seems to ease Reno, promptly making me want to march right out and get a motorcycle of my own.
Hmm, that’s an idea. An image of Lorenzo and me riding alongside each other down some deserted road with beautiful leaves all around us fills my mind.
But then I wouldn’t feel the same freedom of just floating along the road tethered to Lorenzo, so I dismiss the idea and decide I don’t care what Reno thinks anyway.
“Hmm,” Reno hums, getting back to work and drawing a hiss of surprise out of me at the return of the stinging. “What else?”
I realize that he’s keeping me distracted, asking me questions that require more than a yes or no answer to keep me focused on something else. Maybe for all his male-assholeness, he’s a semi-decent guy. Or at least a good tattoo artist.
“The numbers across the center of the wheel are the coordinates for Aruba. We just got back. The four compass points are a heart because . . . well, obviously, for my heart. A flower because I’m a floral artist, and the sun and moon are a reminder to live each day to my own standards.
No one else’s.” I explain my reasoning in fits and starts, fighting to stay still the whole time.
“Almost done,” Reno says, and Lorenzo takes my hand, running his thumb in a soothing circle along the tender part between my thumb and index finger.