Chapter Fourteen
SAGE
Two Days Later
By Sunday afternoon, the clubhouse parking lot is already filling with bikes.
Brothers drift between rows of Harleys with beers in one hand and helmets in the other, the familiar soundtrack of laughter, engines, and Deek arguing with somebody about something carrying across the asphalt in a way that’s become strangely comforting over the past few months.
The Sunday ride.
It doesn’t matter where they’re riding.
It never really has.
Somewhere along the way this stopped being about motorcycles and started becoming about the people waiting beside them.
Ghost is already outside. His cut is on, helmet resting on the seat of his bike while he crouches beside it, checking something I can’t see.
He glances up as I walk over, his eyes finding mine for exactly long enough that something warm stirs low in my stomach before he straightens. “Sage, you’re with me.”
I widen my eyes. “What?”
He hooks his helmet over the handlebar like the conversation is already over. “You’re riding with me.”
I fold my arms. “Ahhh, no, I’m here to hang out with my girl, Marley, today.”
Ghost shakes his head. “Already spoke to her. She said you’re cleared of maid of honor duties, and you’re on the back of my ride today.”
“Was there a meeting where everyone voted on that while I wasn’t looking?”
“No.”
“So, this is just dictatorship?”
He shrugs, a small smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. “It is what it is, Objection.”
I snap my head around to face him. “Did you just call me Objection, or are you objecting?”
“You object to everything I say, so the name fits.”
I huff, folding my arms across my chest. “I do not!”
“Case… in… point.”
I roll my eyes. “That was not an objection.”
“No?” He chuckles.
“That was me correcting you.”
He leans back against his bike, folding his arms against his chest. Fuck, he looks sexy doing that. “You see the problem?”
I stare at him for a beat, probably because I’m dazed at how fucking good he looks. Then I shake my head, coming back into the moment. “Goddammit! I hate how much sense that makes.”
“I know.” He grins his cocky smirk, the sexy, arrogant prick.
“I still don’t like it.”
“Noted.”
Dropping my arms back down to my sides, I huff, jutting out my hip. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”
His eyes meet mine, and he tilts his head. “Maybe a little.”
I groan, throwing my hands in the air. “You’re insufferable.”
“Probably.” He lifts the spare helmet from the seat and holds it out to me. “Come on.”
I eye it suspiciously instead of taking it. “I have a perfectly good motorcycle, you know?”
“You do?” he asks like this is news to him.
“And you’re still making me ride with you.”
He simply nods. “Yes.”
I stare at him. He stares right back, completely unbothered.
I groan, glaring at him now. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I’ve heard.”
“You’re not even pretending this is a discussion!”
“It stopped being one a while ago. Objection.”
I let out an exaggerated sigh. “You know what? I object!”
“I imagined you would,” he says, forcing the helmet into my hands as he stands from the bike. I take the helmet from him, brushing my fingers against his for the briefest second, feeling that shot of electricity running through me from his touch.
“You’re annoying,” I say, but my voice is weak from the adrenaline coursing through me.
“Also noted,” he states, his green eyes locked onto mine so intensely my knees feel weak.
I point at him. “One day I’m going to win one of these.”
He turns, then glances over his shoulder, looking at me. “Maybe.”
“You don’t believe that for a second.”
He shakes his head. “Not particularly.” He gestures to the helmet, then points to my head. “Come on.”
I eye the helmet, then him. “That’s suspiciously close to asking.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Humor me.”
I blink. “You feeling okay?”
“I’m fine. You feeling okay?”
I huff, ramming the helmet onto my head in annoyance. But not real annoyance, because secretly, I love sparring with him. “Just peachy!”
The fake argument earns a glance from Koa halfway across the parking lot before he wisely decides to mind his own business.
“You’re an asshole,” I mutter.
Ghost chuckles, sliding onto the bike. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I’ve called you worse.”
He waggles his brows. “Oh, I know.”
“You realize this means you don’t get to complain when I spend the whole ride criticizing your cornering.”
“I look forward to it.”
“Liar.” I shake my head, smiling despite myself, and climb onto the back of his bike. The seat settles beneath me, and for a second, I sit there, suddenly very aware of how close he is.
He reaches back without looking. His gloved hand finds mine. “You’re gonna have to hold on to me, Sage.”
“I know how motorcycles work, dipshit!”
“I wasn’t talking about the motorcycle.”
My heart stumbles as he lets go of my hands, leaving me no chance to think of anything clever to throw back at him. Coward.
I slide my arms around his waist instead, my hands finding his stomach beneath the weight of his cut, and the first thing I realize is how naturally I fit there.
The second is how impossible he is to ignore.
The solid warmth of his body beneath layers of leather and cotton.
The steady rise and fall of his breathing.
The faint scent of leather, cedar, and whatever soap he uses somehow smells exactly the way Ghost should.
Safe. I rest my cheek lightly between his shoulder blades, telling myself it’s because it’s comfortable.
Not because holding him like this feels far more right than it probably should.
His hand settles briefly over mine where they’re clasped around his waist, just a light squeeze. Gone almost as soon as it’s there, but it is enough to send another ridiculous flutter through my chest.
The engines roar to life one after another until the entire parking lot vibrates beneath us, fifteen Harleys waking the afternoon with the deep, familiar thunder that somehow always settles something inside me instead of stirring it.
Brothers slip into formation like they’ve done it a thousand times before, each bike finding its place without a single word needing to be spoken.
Ghost eases the bike into gear, and I tighten my arms around his waist without thinking.
He reaches back long enough to give the top of my hand the briefest squeeze before returning both hands to the handlebars—the gesture lasts barely a second. And somehow I feel it all the way to my heart.
The clubhouse gates slide open and, one by one, we roll out onto the highway, the line of motorcycles stretching across the asphalt like a living thing finding its rhythm.
Vegas lingers behind us for a while, casinos and glass towers slowly shrinking in the mirrors until they’re swallowed by distance, replaced by wide-open desert and an impossibly endless sky.
I’ve always loved this part. The moment the city finally lets go. Out here there are no ringing phones, no board meetings, no funding applications waiting in my inbox, no anonymous messages sitting in the back of my mind like goddamn poison.
There is only the road.
The wind pushes against my helmet, tugging loose strands of hair from beneath it while warm desert air slips through the gap at my collar. The smell changes, too, with less exhaust, more dust, dry earth, and sunbaked sagebrush carried across miles of open country.
Without really thinking about it, I let myself relax against Ghost’s back.
My cheek settles between his shoulder blades.
He’s warm beneath the leather of his cut, solid and steady against me as the bike rolls on.
I can feel every shift of his body before the motorcycle responds, like they’re speaking the same language.
Nothing about the way he rides is rushed or showy.
It’s smooth, controlled, almost effortless, and I realize I’m not holding on because I’m nervous anymore.
I’m holding on because it’s him.
Watching him work is one thing. Feeling it from here is something else entirely. With every shift of his weight, subtle correction through the corners, and smooth roll onto the throttle coming out of a bend, there is never a moment where I wonder what he’s going to do.
He already knows.
And somewhere over the last few months, without me even realizing it was happening, I’ve stopped wondering too.
I trust him. The realization arrives so quietly it almost slips past me.
Not just with the motorcycle.
With me.
With my life.
With Piper.
With every broken, messy part of myself I’ve slowly been handing over one piece at a time. The thought should probably scare me. Instead, it settles somewhere deep inside me, warm enough that I catch myself smiling into the back of his cut where nobody can see it.
Almost as though he senses it, Ghost reaches down without looking, and his gloved hand finds mine where it’s wrapped around his waist. His thumb brushes once across my knuckles.
Just once.
A tiny, absent gesture that lasts no more than a heartbeat before his hand returns to the bars. His attention settles back on the road ahead.
Mine settles right where it belongs—around him.
For a while, that’s all the world is.
Blue sky stretching forever overhead. Red mountains rolling by in the distance. Fifteen motorcycles carving their way across the desert.
The steady vibration beneath me.
The man beneath my hands.
Then, something changes.
It’s so subtle I almost convince myself I’ve imagined it. The easy rhythm beneath my cheek shifts by the smallest degree, his shoulders settling into a familiar kind of focus that has my attention before I even know why.
His helmet tilts a fraction.
Left mirror.
Right mirror.
Then left again.
His breathing stays steady, but something in the set of his shoulders changes, a quiet tightening I don’t think anyone else would notice unless they had spent enough time holding onto him to learn the language of his body.
I lift my head, curiosity replacing comfort as I follow the direction of his gaze.
At first, I don’t see anything beyond the familiar staggered line of brothers stretching behind us, chrome catching the afternoon sun in quick flashes of silver.
Then, movement.
A flicker of black in the distance.