Chapter 2
Reese
There's a freedom on the back of Ramsey's motorcycle that I can't get anywhere else. Wind tears at my clothes, even through the leather jacket he makes me wear, and my whole body vibrates with the power of the engine between our legs. It's fucking intoxicating.
It makes me forget about the grueling practice I just had and the snide comments Oli made about me.
She’s always saying I could never be a ballerina; I am too undisciplined, too heavy.
That I care too much about boys. I don’t want to be a ballerina, so she can take her pointe shoes and shove them right down her throat.
I tighten my grip around his hard stomach, feeling the ridges of his abs under my fingertips. Three quick taps against his side is our signal I want to go faster.
Without hesitation, he cranks the throttle. The bike surges forward, and my body presses harder against his back. The rush hits me like a drug, sending adrenaline racing through my veins. I can't help the squeal that escapes my lips, lost immediately to the wind.
Ramsey's back is a solid wall of muscle against my chest. I press my helmet between his shoulder blades, closing my eyes for a moment to just feel everything—the rumble of the engine, the curves of the road, the heat of his body against mine.
Being here reminds me of the first time I decided to get on the back of a motorcycle.
My sister Reagan's husband-by-force-while-drugged-but-semantics, Penn, had offered me a ride one night after we had dinner together.
I was standing in their driveway, Reagan's old helmet in my hands, trying to figure out how the strap worked.
Penn was leaning against his bike, typing on his phone with that shit-eating grin he always gets when he's stirring the pot.
"What's so funny?" I asked, finally clicking the strap into place.
"Nothing, little hellion," Penn said, his grin widening as he looked up from his phone. "Just sent your picture to mini-me. He's not amused."
Before I could ask what the hell that meant, the roar of another motorcycle cut through the quiet suburban street. Ramsey came tearing around the corner, pulling up hard beside Penn's bike.
The look on his face when he yanked off his helmet—I'd never seen him that pissed before. His blue eyes were practically on fire as he glared at Penn.
"What the actual fuck do you think you're doing?" he'd growled.
Penn just laughed, completely unfazed. "Taking my sister-in-law for a spin. Problem?"
"Yeah, there's a fucking problem," Ramsey snapped, swinging his leg off his bike and stalking toward me. "If you want to ride a bike, I'll be the one doing it. Fucking psycho funhouse over there likes playing with semis, and you won't be doing that."
Penn had just snickered, clearly amused at how easily he'd manipulated the situation. "Told you he wouldn't be amused," he said to me, winking. "Mini-me is so predictable."
I'd just shaken my head, used to Penn's shit-stirring by then. "You're such an ass," I told him.
"And you," Ramsey had said, turning to me, "are never getting on the back of his bike. Ever."
That was the first time I rode with Ramsey, and I've been addicted to the feeling ever since.
Now, as we tear down the back roads outside of campus, Ramsey veers off the main highway onto a narrow road I don't recognize. The pavement stretches ahead of us, empty and inviting, cutting through dense woods with no streetlights or houses in sight.
He slows just enough to glance back at me. I nod, giving him three more taps because I trust him with my life. Permission granted.
The bike rockets forward so fast I have to clamp my thighs tighter around the seat. My arms crush against his waist, fingers digging into the hard planes of his stomach. The speedometer climbs—80, 90, 100—until the trees on either side blur into streaks of darkness.
Holy fuck, this is better than sex. Well, I assume it is; I wouldn’t know because I’ve never had it.
Not because I don’t want to or I’m waiting.
Just when most men touch me I get the ick.
My boyfriend, Justin, doesn’t even mind because he’s on some purity hockey superstition thing that I couldn’t even begin to tell you about because I don’t understand it at all, but it works in my favor.
I watch Ramsey’s hands on the handlebars, veins corded and popping, and I want to know what it feels like to grip the throttle myself.
To have all that power between my own legs, not just as a passenger.
I’m not sure he’d even let me. Or Penn, or any of the Blackwoods.
I didn’t know having a brother-in-law came with a package deal of three extra brothers and a fucking stalker for a best friend, but here we are.
I used to think the whole “overprotective brother” trope was a joke.
That the stories of guys threatening to beat the shit out of a boyfriend were just some posturing, a way to keep high school drama alive through college and beyond.
But the Blackwoods don’t threaten; they just do.
It’s not even personal half the time. It’s policy.
The Blackwood girls are off-limits unless you want to end up on a milk carton.
It doesn’t even matter that my name isn’t Blackwood; I’m actually the only one of the girls that isn’t one.
Ramsey is both the best and the worst of them. He’s never so much as threatened Justin verbally as far as I know, but I’ve seen the way he looks at him. Like a wolf not even bothering to show its teeth because it knows the lamb is already dead.
The road curves hard, the world tilting, and I gasp. My arms go tight around Ramsey’s stomach, and he barks out a laugh that I feel all the way down my spine.
"Scared?" he calls back.
"Not even a little," I shout, but I know he hears the tremor. He always does.
He takes the next turn even faster, like he’s testing me, daring me to scream. I refuse, burying my face between his shoulders and breathing him in until the world slows again.
The sun is gone, horizon smudged with the last of the pink and gold.
He pulls off suddenly into a gravel lot, and I realize we’re somewhere I’ve never been before. It’s a tiny taco stand, tucked next to a chain-link fence and a neon sign that says Tacos El Lobo, and the smell of meat on a grill hits me so hard I almost moan.
Ramsey flips his visor up and twists to look at me.
Even through the helmet, I can see the smirk on his lips.
“Told you I had a plan,” he says, and then he pulls off the helmet in one smooth move, shaking out his wavy hair.
It looks so fucking good right now—clean fade, the kind of line-up that only happens right after the barber, and a few strands falling over his forehead.
I pull my own helmet off, and the world sounds different all of a sudden, like going from underwater to breathing air.
“How did you know—” I start, but he interrupts.
“That you’d want tacos after dance? Because you’re always starving after you work out, and your blood sugar is lower than your tolerance for that boyfriend of yours.”
I snort. “You don’t know everything, you freaking phantom.” My hand whips out to smack his shoulder, but he catches it easily, holding my wrist just tight enough that I could break free if I really wanted, but not so tight that I actually try.
“I bet it’s everything,” he says, and then, softer, “Come on. You wait much longer, you’ll pass out on me before I get food in you.”
I try to act indignant, but hunger is already clawing through my stomach lining. “You’re so dramatic. I had a granola bar at, like, four.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, and you burned through that in the first three miles of ride.” Before I can object, he’s unpeeling my arms from his waist and swinging off the bike.
I exaggerate my limp when I climb off the bike, dramatic as fuck, just to see if I can get a reaction.
Ramsey is already off and standing at my side, hands on my hips like he’s worried I’ll tip over.
He always does this—treats me like I’m breakable, even though I’ve literally danced on a broken ankle before.
He peels my helmet off for me, fingers slipping under my chin and jaw. The way his hands linger does something weird to my insides. He’s my best friend and we’re bestie soulmates and that’s why he’s so protective of me. But sometimes the way he looks at me, I’m not so sure it begins and ends there.
“I’m not gonna faint,” I tell him, even as my knees wobble a little. “I’m a delicate flower, but not that delicate.”
He rolls his eyes, but there’s this tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth that makes me want to poke it. “Says the girl who did seven pirouettes on a sprained tendon because she didn’t want to lose first cast.”
“It was eight,” I correct, and he huffs out a sound that’s almost a laugh.
The parking lot is empty except for a few battered pickups and a single white van with cartoon wolf decals on the side.
There’s a string of lights stapled along the roof of the taco shack, buzzing with a thousand insects, and a couple of faded plastic tables.
The air smells of caramelized onions and slow-cooked meat.
We ditch our helmets on the seat and I stretch, arching my back until I hear a quiet pop. “Stop staring,” I say, heat crawling up my cheeks as I tug the borrowed jacket around myself. “You’re gonna give me a complex.”
“Not a complex,” he says, voice dropping. “More like a reason to throw you over my shoulder and haul you inside.”
The second he says it, my brain flashes to the last time he actually did that.
I’d stolen his phone to see what new techy shit he had on there.
He’d just picked me up and carried me around the kitchen until I was shrieking with laughter, but when he finally set me down, his hands lingered a second too long at my waist. I remember that even more than I remember the phone.
I shake out the memory before it can settle. “I can walk, you know. I’m not made of glass.”
He shrugs, grinning. “Yeah, but you’re fun to pick up. Like those squishy stress balls, but cuter.”
“I’m going to slug you.” I try to sound threatening, but it’s impossible when he’s doing that shit-eating grin. He’s got a dimple, which is so unfair, and it always comes out when he’s winning.
“You ever notice how every threat you make just sounds like foreplay?” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. My face goes nuclear.
“I—shut up,” I stammer, but he just laughs, the sound deep and real. We pass through the haze of grill smoke into the tiny taqueria, and the guy behind the counter perks up when he sees Ramsey.
“Back again! The usual?” the man asks.
“Four asada, two pastor, extra lime,” Ramsey recites, then looks at me for confirmation.
I’m not even embarrassed anymore that he knows my order better than anyone, including my own boyfriend. “And a horchata.”
He adds it without looking away from me. “And a horchata.”
We eat in silence, comfortable silence, and that’s one of my favorite things.
If I want to talk, he’ll talk with me. Ramsey doesn’t usually talk unless he’s absolutely got something to say, but for me, he’ll fucking listen to all the gossip, add his own little opinions and give me the rundown on the latest hockey boy bullshit.
It’s literally the best. But when I just want to be quiet, eat, and decompress, he lets me. He truly is my best friend.
We finish eating, and I’m so full I could die happy.
He puts his hand out for me, palm up, and I take it, letting him pull me to my feet.
He holds onto my hand way longer than necessary as we walk back to the bike, fingers interlocked.
I drag my feet a little, and when he looks back, I make a face like I’m too tired to walk.
“Piggyback or bust,” I declare, and before Ramsey can react, I jump up and wrap my arms and legs around him from behind.
He doesn’t stumble, just grabs my thighs with hands that could snap a grown man in two and hoists me higher.
My chin rests on his shoulder, his sweat-damp skin under my cheek.
I breathe in hard on purpose, making a show of it.
"You smell like a sweaty hockey bro," I say into his ear, but I don't stop inhaling.
He actually smells like leather and something spicy, probably that fancy cologne his cousin Penn got him for Christmas last year.
Underneath it all is just...Ramsey. A scent I could pick out blindfolded in a room full of people.
"And yet here you are, huffing me like I'm a fucking line of coke," he says, squeezing my thighs a little harder than necessary. The pressure makes something low in my belly tighten, and I have to fight the urge to squirm.
"Well, I’m waiting for you to finish walking to the bike. You’re the one who needs to do all the work; I’m just the passenger princess in this piggyback ride."
His laugh is dark and low, sending a shiver down my spine. "Reese, I'll always do all the work. No need to fucking worry about that."
The way he says it—like a promise laced with something filthy—makes my entire body flush hot. There's no mistaking the double meaning, and I’m pretty sure I can't breathe now.
Pretty sure I shouldn’t have opened that Pandora’s freaking box, but I can’t take it back, so I just stay quiet. I know he knows what I’m doing because I can feel his silent laughter as his shoulders bunch up a little bit.
Now I just want to bury my head in my pillow and avoid this whole thing.
Good freaking luck with that.