Seven #3
I pull up to the edge of the sidewalk she is on and her whole group starts catcalling me as I get off the back to meet her.
I don’t recognize a single one of them but she could easily have just made friends with them tonight.
“You ready?” I ask after I pull off my helmet.
I take in her outfit again and I’m unsettled to let her get on the back of the bike with little to nothing on.
I unzip my jacket and hold it out for her to put on.
She just stares at me through the visor of the helmet she is now wearing.
I didn’t have to help her into the helmet much the first time I had her on the back of my bike and I didn’t help her at all this time.
I wonder if she usually dates guys with bikes and then I have to shove that rising jealousy down.
“What are you doing?” She asks as she makes no move whatsoever to put the jacket on.
“Have to protect your pretty face” I tap the helmet, “And big heart.” I tap over where her heart rests. “Put the jacket on.” I work hard to keep my voice level but not controlling. Mia hates being controlled.
That seems to do the trick, her cheeks lift with the satisfaction of me calling her pretty.
After both of her arms are in the much too long sleeves, I pull her close to me and zip the jacket all the way up to her chin.
She is drowning in the leather but I don’t think she’s ever looked more sexy than right now.
I help her onto the bike and get my own helmet on.
She wraps her arms around me easily and without hesitation.
I’m learning that the proximity for us isn’t the suffocating part.
It’s the way the silence between us feels peaceful.
We both crave noise and distraction but when we are together, the quiet doesn’t feel overwhelming.
“Bad date again?” I finally break the comfortable silence. We have been riding around aimlessly for roughly thirty minutes. Each lost in the vibrations of the bike and the lights that blur around us. I don’t know for sure she was on a date, but I assumed.
“Hmm?” Her voice is distracted. Like being on the back of my bike carried her thoughts and released them in the wind around us.
“Heard you have had a string of bad dates. Was this another one?” I question again.
I feel her perch up closer to me and she leans carefully to look at me. Like she could see my thoughts written on my face through my visor.
“Have you been keeping tabs on me, Oliver?” She purrs. I admit that I was a little nervous she would have a sharp reaction to my asking about her date but she holds nothing but amusement in her tone.
“You’re always in my periphery. You know that.” I never have a problem being excruciatingly honest with this girl.
She sighs and I feel a heaviness in between my shoulder blades as if she was resting her forehead there through her helmet.
“Men seem to lack the ability to be intriguing.” That is how she chose to answer my question.
It isn’t a direct confirmation of the date ending badly but it is enough to know that there wouldn’t be a second. At least with this one.
I choose to stay silent the rest of the drive to her place. The next question I want to ask her, I need to have the ability to watch her eyes when I ask it. Her eyes never betray her.
She slips off the back with precision and secures the helmet into the net at the back.
She flips her head from side to side and loosens her curls from traveling.
She unzips my jacket as I get my own helmet off.
I balance it on the back before shifting to look at her.
She steps forward slightly and I reach out to slip my finger into one of the big pockets of her cargo pants and pull her flush against me.
Giving her the power shift so she is looking down at me from the edge of the sidewalk and I am still sitting.
Her hazel eyes are gold tonight like the light that bleeds out of her.
“Ask what you want to ask.” Her eyes hold steady as she waits for my words.
“AJ said you were having a dry spell. Which I find very interesting since I remember exactly how wet and dripping you were for me.” I love that I don’t have to hold in the way I speak to her. She can handle anything.
“You still didn’t ask anything.” She points out, still waiting.
“You weren’t interested in any of them?” It is a simple question and one that I don’t have a right to know a full answer to. She doesn’t owe me anything. But I want to know.
She just smiles and her eyes glimmer. She reaches into her pocket, never breaking eye contact with me until she is holding out a tube of lipgloss.
She bends over my leg to reach eye level with my side mirror and slowly paints her lips her favorite shade of red.
She stands back up and leans further into my body, reaching up to play with my chain.
Something she tends to do right before doing something that lights my blood on fire.
She moves the collar of my shirt and with a measured breath, kisses my skin, impressing the very trace of her lips on my skin.
She gives me one final look before saying, “None of them.” I watch her walk away, leaving me behind as a small victorious smile lifts my lips.