Chapter 11
“Get dressed. Come.”
Gunner fills the doorway, his tone making my pulse skip. His bedroll is already folded against the wall. My body hasn't stopped humming since the wall last night, since his hand between my legs, since I came apart against his palm fully clothed.
He disappeared into the night hours ago. I heard footsteps fade down the service stairs sometime after midnight, though I couldn't track exactly when. Now he's back, and his words carry the weight of something that matters.
"What time is it?" I grumble.
"Get dressed," he repeats.
"Not until you tell me the time."
He sighs heavily before answering.
"Five-thirty."
"Five-thirty on a Sunday morning," I grumble, but I can't help smiling.
It's a small victory, but I'll take it. I pull on my jeans without further questions, my t-shirt, my shoes by the door.
The bathroom mirror catches my reflection for a heartbeat while I brush my teeth: hair loose from sleepless hours, eyes too knowing for the girl who used to teach ballet in Pristine.
He's already in the hallway when I emerge.
I follow him down the service stairs, past the flickering bulb on the second landing.
The bare concrete echoes our footsteps. His shoulders carry tension beneath the black t-shirt, the kind of coiled energy that says whatever he's about to show me has been building while I waited in his bed.
The loading dock hits me with industrial cold from refrigeration and concrete, the underbelly of La Sirena that guests never see. My breath catches. Against the back wall, a canvas tarp covers something motorcycle-shaped. The silhouette alone makes my chest tighten with possibility.
He walks to it with purpose, pulls the tarp off. The canvas whispers away to reveal what's underneath.
A Triumph Bonneville T120.
The sight punches through me. Black paint so perfect it looks wet.
Chrome polished until it throws back distorted reflections of us both, me frozen in shock, him standing smug beside me.
The seat leather has been restored, rebuilt.
Someone's hands have been all over this machine, coaxing it back to life.
The tank gleams black with a small Triumph logo.
Chrome exhaust pipes catch the overhead fluorescents like jewelry.
"For you."
The words land between us. Factual, no ceremony. But I understand what they mean before I've finished hearing them. This is a gift. From my captor. The man who took me from my home is giving me a motorcycle.
I move closer, reading what care looks like in metal and leather. Every surface polished to mirror-brightness. Every part aligned perfectly. Nothing mis-fitted or forced. This took time. Patience. Love, even, if a man like him can love a machine.
"When did you—"
"Two weeks ago. Estate sale, came in pieces. Been working nights."
The arithmetic lands in my stomach, cold.
Two weeks of nights. While I slept in his bed overhead, while he refused to look at my face during the day, he was down here in the dark rebuilding this machine.
For me. The contradiction makes my chest ache.
A man restoring beauty with the same hands that refuse to touch me unless his control snaps.
Building me freedom while keeping me captive.
"I don't know how to ride."
"I'll teach you."
The simplicity of it. Like everything between us isn't completely fucked. Like he didn't have me against his kitchen wall last night, like we're normal people and this is a normal gift and learning to ride won't involve his body pressed against mine for hours.
We wheel the bike into the empty back lot behind La Sirena.
Fifty by eighty feet of cracked asphalt, empty at this hour.
Miami humidity already thickens the air despite the early hour, making everything feel close and damp.
I straddle the bike, hands gripping the handlebars.
The machine feels massive between my thighs, all that potential power waiting to be released.
"Ready?" His voice comes from beside my ear, closer than I expected.
"For which part?" The question is out before I can think better of it, loaded with more meaning than I intended.
His hand tightens on the back of the saddle. That's his only answer.
He stands beside me, one hand steadying the seat, and begins with basics: ignition sequence, finding neutral, the satisfying click when I shift into first gear. His presence radiates heat in the humid morning.
"Clutch. Squeeze slowly." His breath warms my neck. "Too fast and it stalls."
I release too quickly. The engine dies with an angry shudder. Heat floods my cheeks, frustration mixed with awareness of him watching me fail.
"Again." Patient. He reaches past me to restart it, his chest brushing my shoulder. Even through this nothing-touch, my body remembers. My nipples tighten against my bra, responding to his proximity alone.
Second attempt, another stall. My jaw clenches. On the third try, his hand covers mine on the clutch lever, demonstrating pressure. "Like this. Gradual."
His fingers over mine. Rough, scarred, warm. The same fingers that made me come last night. Memory shoots straight to my core, wetness gathering instantly. I manage the clutch properly this time, trying not to think about how my body is already preparing itself for him.
"Throttle. Small movements." I twist slightly, feel the machine respond beneath me, powerful and eager. "Good. Now balance."
I'm a dancer. Balance is the language my body speaks fluently. Within minutes I have it, weight centered, adjusting naturally to the bike's subtle shifts. He walks beside as I practice slow circles, his hand occasionally touching the seat for stability, each touch sending awareness through me.
"Brakes. Front and rear together." His hand covers my right hand briefly, showing the pressure. "Don't lock them."
Every touch carries weight. These hands that have refused me, that broke against me, that know exactly what they do to me. My body notes each contact while my mind pretends not to notice the growing ache between my thighs.
Gear changes next. First to second, back to first, finding the rhythm. His hand touches my left foot once, correcting placement on the shifter. The brief contact of his palm against my ankle sends a jolt through me. "Feel the rhythm. The bike will tell you when."
Forty-five minutes pass in a flash. My thighs ache from gripping the bike, my hands are steady on the controls, my body has learned this machine's language. Sweat gathers at the small of my back despite the early hour.
"You're ready."
He doesn't get a second bike. Instead, he swings his leg over behind me.
Everything changes.
The pillion seat takes his weight. Suddenly his thighs bracket mine, his chest presses against my back, his hands rest at my waist. Light at first, then firmer when I click into first. We're closer than we've been since he carried me up from the alley.
Closer than the wall, because this will last hours instead of minutes.
Hours of his body surrounding mine, holding me, guiding me.
I release the clutch and we pull onto the street.
His body engulfs me completely. Chest sealed to my back, thighs pressed against mine, hands at my waist, his breath near my left ear through the helmet.
He guides with pressure instead of words: fingertips at my right hip for right turns, left hip for left, a tap at the small of my back to slow.
We navigate wordlessly through Little Havana's awakening streets, past windows beginning to glow with morning light, into Coral Gables where mansions sleep behind their gates, onto Old Cutler Road heading south toward the green canopy and the coast.
The wind hits my body like freedom after days of walls.
The engine vibrates through the seat, through my thighs, through my core.
Every lean into curves presses him harder against me.
The speed makes me feel alive in a way I haven't since I danced on stage.
But it's his body I can't escape. His weight, his heat, the way we move as one machine through each turn.
The way he trusts me to control this power while he holds on.
This is the space my mind finally unlocks what I've been avoiding. The wall surfaces in pieces as we fly down the empty road:
The first aid kit on the counter. His shirt coming off, revealing scars and ink and a body built for violence.
My thumb on his Saint Michael tattoo, patron of warriors, patron of justice.
Thirty seconds of sustained eye contact that felt like drowning.
His hands closing around my wrists. Walking me backward those three steps.
The cool kitchen wall against my spine, grounding me.
His mouth at my throat, teeth grazing skin. His hand between my legs through denim. The pressure, the rhythm, the way he knew exactly where to touch. My fist in his hair, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. The desperate sounds I made.
God, the way I shattered against his palm. Fully clothed, standing up, coming harder than I have in years.
I consider what I should feel: violation, anger, fear, the need to escape, to report, to resist. The proper responses of a kidnapped woman. The responses that would make sense to anyone outside this bike, outside this strange push and pull between us.
Then what I actually feel: hunger. Need. My hand pulled him closer, not away. I finished tending his wounds because I wanted to, not because he commanded it. I came apart willingly. Enthusiastically. Desperately. And I want it again.
The revision crystallizes as we speed down Old Cutler Road, trees blurring into green walls on either side: Gunner believes he's the monster the world named him. The Army discharge, whatever it was for, branded him in his own mind.
But they were wrong.