Chapter 7
SIENNA
I had made several questionable decisions in my life.
Feeding a feral cat deli turkey until he emotionally blackmailed me into relocating him across state lines.
Believing a professor who used phrases like complicated timing and professional boundaries while actively violating both.
Driving a dying truck through the desert with one eye on the temperature gauge and the other on Google Maps like optimism was a fuel source.
But standing beside Mason’s motorcycle with a backpack on my shoulder, a borrowed helmet in my hands, and my nipples already staging a betrayal because the man had said the word hot in a voice designed by Satan’s own acoustics department?
That felt like a new category.
The bike sat in the dirt beside the carport, black and chrome and unapologetically masculine in the least subtle way possible.
It looked less like transportation and more like a threat with handlebars.
Sunlight flashed off the metal. Leather bags were strapped to the sides.
The engine still held a faint warmth from wherever he’d moved it earlier, and the whole machine had a coiled, waiting quality, like it knew I had no business getting on it and was smug about that.
Mason stood beside it, now wearing the grease-stained Henley again, which should have helped.
It did not.
The shirt clung damply to his chest where sweat had darkened the fabric, and because I had already seen what was underneath—tan skin, cut muscle, ink, scars, and the kind of abdomen that made intelligent women forget policy language—I could not unsee it.
My brain had stored the image with alarming efficiency.
Probably in long-term memory. Against my will.
He held out his hand. “Bag.”
“I can carry it.”
“You can barely tolerate accepting oxygen from the atmosphere without arguing.”
“That’s because the atmosphere doesn’t look smug while offering.”
His mouth twitched. “Bag, Sienna.”
My name in his voice should not have felt like fingers dragging over bare skin. It was two syllables. Basic phonetics. Air moving through vocal cords. Nothing mystical. Nothing romantic. Certainly nothing worth the low, irritating pull in my stomach.
I handed him the backpack.
He took it without gloating, which was almost worse, because I had prepared a whole internal speech about male ego and unnecessary dominance. Instead, he turned, secured the bag in one of the saddlebags, then checked the strap with a firm tug. Efficient. Competent. Silent.
Very annoying.
Regan came down the porch steps carrying a water bottle, a travel-size sunscreen, and the expression of a woman trying not to look too pleased with herself. “Helmet first.”
“I know how helmets work,” I said.
Mason glanced back. “You ever worn one?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know how this one works.”
I looked at Regan. “Has anyone told him his bedside manner is medically concerning?”
“Constantly,” she said, handing me the sunscreen. “He doesn’t improve.”
Mason took the helmet from my hands before I could object. “Come here.”
“No.”
His eyes lifted to mine. Green again. Deep, impossible green, made darker by the morning light and the shadow from his lashes.
Not pretty in the polished sense. Worse.
Arresting. Like water trapped under stone.
Like if you looked too long, you’d see something moving underneath that had no intention of being found.
I hated his eyes.
That was a lie.
I hated that I noticed them.
He held the helmet open. “Come here, scientist.”
I stepped closer because apparently my body had decided obedience was acceptable if delivered with sufficient irritation. “Don’t call me that like you enjoy it.”
“Maybe I do.”
“That would require joy, and I’m not convinced you’re familiar.”
“Put the helmet on.”
I took it from him and slid it over my head.
It swallowed the world for a second, padding muffling the porch sounds, the women murmuring behind me, Bandit screaming faintly from somewhere inside the mudroom like a cursed violin.
My hair caught at the collar. I reached up to fix it, but Mason was already there.
His fingers brushed my neck.
I went still.
Not dramatically. Not visibly, I hoped. Just an internal shutdown of several major systems. His hands were rough, warm, and careful in a way that annoyed me more than if he had been careless.
He pulled my hair free from the strap, the backs of his knuckles grazing the side of my throat.
A tiny, involuntary chill moved over my skin.
He noticed.
Of course he noticed.
His gaze flicked from my neck to my face. “Cold?”
I stared at him through the helmet opening. “It’s the desert.”
“Didn’t answer.”
“It was a physiological response to unexpected contact.”
One corner of his mouth moved. “That what we’re calling it?”
“That’s what science calls it.”
“Science blush too?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re dangerously close to losing your passenger.”
“You need a ride.”
“I also need peace, financial stability, and a cat with a less violent worldview. We’re all living with disappointment.”
Behind us, Amber made a strangled sound that was definitely laughter being smothered by a coffee cup.
Mason stepped closer to fasten the strap under my chin.
Too close. His body blocked the sun, and suddenly all I could see was the dark fabric of his shirt, the shape of his throat above the collar, the scar near his jaw, and those ridiculous green eyes focused on the buckle beneath my chin like helmet safety was the most important work of his life.
He smelled like Irish Spring soap, clean and sharp, with mint gum under it. Not cologne. Not the expensive, performative stuff men wore when they wanted women to know they had disposable income. Just soap, mint, leather, sun-warmed cotton, and faint engine grease.
It should not have been sexy.
It was absurdly sexy.
A man should not be allowed to smell like basic drugstore soap and moral danger.
His thumb brushed under my chin as he tested the strap. “Too tight?”
My mouth had temporarily misplaced language.
He looked up.
The eye contact hit worse at close range. Green, steady, slightly narrowed like he was reading a problem he hadn’t decided whether to solve or burn.
“Sienna.”
I swallowed. “It’s fine.”
His gaze dropped to my throat. I felt the movement of my own swallow like evidence. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
My voice came out thinner than I preferred. I cleared my throat and added, “I am capable of identifying airway obstruction.”
“Good to know.”
He stepped back, and air returned like a civil right.
Regan pushed the water bottle into my hand. “Drink.”
“I already had coffee.”
“Coffee is not hydration.”
“It is emotionally hydrating.”
“Water.”
I drank because Regan had the energy of a woman who would pry my mouth open and pour it in if necessary. Mason watched, arms crossed, expression unreadable, which meant I immediately felt like I was performing basic mammalian function under surveillance.
When I finished, he took the bottle, shoved it into the saddlebag, and mounted the bike in one smooth motion that made my brain produce unhelpful imagery.
His thighs bracketed the machine. His boots planted.
His hands settled on the bars. Everything about him changed once he was on it.
Not softer. Not exactly. More precise. Like the bike translated him into a language he trusted.
He looked over his shoulder. “Get on.”
I stared at the seat behind him. “That’s it? No safety briefing?”
“Don’t fall off.”
“Incredible. Very thorough. Did you develop that curriculum yourself?”
“Left foot on the peg. Swing your right leg over. Sit close.”
I stopped. “Define close.”
His eyes held mine. “Close enough not to slide off when I move.”
“I’m not cuddling you.”
“It’s not cuddling if the engine’s on.”
“That is not a legal distinction.”
“Get on the bike.”
I looked at Regan, who smiled with far too much innocence. Amber was openly delighted. Savannah had her phone out, which I immediately pointed at.
“Do not film this.”
She lowered it half an inch. “I was checking the weather.”
“You were absolutely not.”
Evie called from the porch, “Lean with him or you’ll fight the bike.”
“I don’t lean with men I don’t trust.”
Mason’s mouth curved, slow and irritating. “Then trust physics.”
I hated that he had used my own discipline against me.
Fine.
I stepped onto the peg, grabbed his shoulder for balance, and swung my leg over. The second I settled behind him, several facts became immediately, offensively clear.
One: motorcycle seats were not designed with personal boundaries in mind.
Two: Mason’s back was broad, hard, and warm.
Three: there was no dignified way to sit behind a man on a bike without placing your thighs along his hips like your body had signed a contract your brain had not reviewed.
Four: my white T-shirt was still thin, still damp from the earlier heat, and now pressed directly against his back.
My nipples tightened instantly.
Not gradually. Not politely. Instantly, traitorously, with the full enthusiasm of a body that had mistaken humiliation for foreplay.
I froze.
Mason froze too.
Oh no.
He felt it.
Of course he felt it. There was a thin layer of cotton, his shirt, and absolutely no mercy between us.
My breasts were pressed against the hard plane of his back, and every breath I took made it worse.
I could feel the heat of him through both shirts.
The steady expansion of his ribs. The tension that moved through his shoulders when my body betrayed me against him.
My face burned so hot inside the helmet I was surprised the visor didn’t fog.
“Problem?” he asked.
His voice sounded rougher.
Good.
Suffer.
“No,” I said. “Just evaluating the ergonomic nightmare.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious. This seat design is hostile to independent women.”
“Seat design didn’t make you climb on stiff as a fence post.”
“I am maintaining core stability.”