Chapter Twelve
Hazel
I’d almost forgotten how I was going to get to Jay’s warehouse until Reid was leading me across the parking lot to his sleek black bike and motioning for me to wait as he ducked back into his shop. He came out after a few moments, his helmet on with the face visor open and another one tucked underneath his arm.
“You gonna tell me about the scene we’re recreating when we get there?” he asked, smoothing my ponytail over my shoulder and tucking it into the back of my coat before he lowered the helmet onto my head. He flipped the face screen open on mine, his grin widening when he saw I was blushing again. “Now you’ve definitely got me intrigued if you’re blushing that hard. These blushes kill me, Haz.”
“I can’t control it. It just happens. It’s so annoying.”
“Nah.” He reached down to zip my coat, pulling it up until his knuckles brushed my exposed neck. “I kinda love the way you look when you’re blushing.”
“And now you’ve made it worse.”
“You ready to go?” he asked, mercifully changing the subject.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
“I’m gonna help you up first, just hold on to the back of the seat and then once I’m settled, you can wrap your arms around me.” He didn’t even wait, turning me sideways and effortlessly lifting me up while I awkwardly tried to throw my leg over the bike to straddle it. God, I was such a fucking mess. He slipped in front of me in one clearly practiced motion, and I tried to breathe as he reached back toward me with one of his gloved hands .
“Don’t be shy. Wrap yourself around me and hold on tight with your head against my back. When I lean, just move with me and you’ll be fine. Rest your boots on the pegs, so it’s easier to keep your balance.”
He waited for me to get into position, reaching back to squeeze my thigh as he flicked his face screen closed. I did the same to mine and rested my covered cheek against his shoulder blades, trying not to let the vibrations between my legs once the bike purred to life make me do anything embarrassing. I’d already humped the poor guy once; he didn’t need me to do it again.
I was sure he could feel my heart beating wildly as he pushed up the kickstand and walked the bike backward. He definitely heard me squeal when he rotated the throttle and the engine revved, the vibration of his laugh carrying through the material of both our coats.
Trying not to freak out, I closed my eyes and held on tight when he pulled out onto the main road that led toward Butterfly Ridge. It wasn’t a far ride, but it felt like an eternity with my stomach in my throat as he sped up, leaning into turns and winding down the side of the mountain before he dipped toward the valley where our neighboring town was nestled.
Jayden’s whiskey distillery was perched on the edge of town, hovering next to a ridge that overlooked the sprawling valley, the ski resort on a neighboring ridge a few miles away. I’d spent a lot of time there as a kid, learning how to ski with my cousins. I’d never been as good at it as Colette, who was now an instructor, but I wasn’t as terrible as I thought I’d be at it.
When the bike slowed, I took a deep breath, hoping I hadn’t been a terrible first-time passenger for Reid. I’d done what he asked and held him tightly around the curves, but hopefully I hadn’t made it hard for him to breathe, wrapping around him like a koala.
He slowed, stopping near the loading dock at the back of the building and engaging the kickstand. The bike tilted as he climbed off and he held his hand out for me. I guess I’d never taken the time to appreciate it before, but Reid in full riding gear with his helmet on, was kinda fucking hot.
And there was something seriously wrong with me that that was the first thing I thought of as I stumbled off the side of the bike and into his arms. I could feel his laughter more than I could hear it, his hands bracing my arms until I gained my balance.
Once I was steady, he pulled off his helmet, laying it gently on the ground at his feet before he pulled off mine.
“Vibrations throw off your balance?” he asked with a chuckle as he reached back, pulling my ponytail from beneath my coat and giving it a playful tug before letting go.
“Something like that,” I replied, still a little breathless from how much I’d liked it. Both the vibrations between my legs while we rode, and him pulling my ponytail. I wasn’t sure which one was causing the blush to creep up my neck again, but Reid caught it, grinning as he brushed a gloved knuckle over my pink cheek.
“Let me go open the doors and I’ll be back for you and the bike.”
Nodding, I tried to muster the courage I needed to tell Reid about the setting for this scene. Although… Maybe it’d be easier to let him listen to the audiobook and hear it firsthand, instead of me bumbling through an explanation.
He came back a few moments later, leading me into the dark warehouse space, the door clanging shut behind me as I followed him, holding onto both our helmets. My brain was hazy as I stopped when he did, watching him get the bike situated by the back windows that overlooked the snowy woods behind the building.
It was almost romantic, the dark, quiet building, and the man dressed in way too much leather not to be hazardous to my libido. Watching him, I could envision how the heroine in the book was taken by her mysterious rider, seduced by his words and the way he touched her body. How the cool metal against her naked back would have made her desperate for him…
“You okay, Haz?” Reid asked, coming up beside me and reaching down to unzip my coat. I’d completely forgotten I still had it on. While I’d been off in imagination station, Reid had already gotten the tripod and camera set up. He pressed the remote into my hand once he’d pulled my sleeve loose, tossing my coat on top of his next to our helmets.
“Oh, uh. Yeah. Good. I’m good. Why? Do I not look okay?”
He shook his head, an amused chuckle escaping his lips as he grabbed my free hand and tugged me toward the bike. “Spill. What are we doing here?”
Ah, the moment of truth. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and the case with my earbuds, extending the headphones toward him while I tried to get the audiobook queued up to where the scene started. I’d already listened to it an obnoxious number of times, so I didn’t need to, but clearly Reid thought otherwise when he put one earbud in his ear and smoothed the flyaway hairs that’d escaped my ponytail before pressing the other one into mine.
“You ready?” I asked, my voice cracking which made my cheeks flare hotter.
“Go for it.”
As the deep male narrator’s voice started setting the scene, I was almost transfixed by the look in Reid’s eyes as he listened. He only broke my gaze momentarily when the narrator detailed the hero pulling his shirt over his head.
It was like Reid was being led by the audio, stalking toward me and removing my hair tie, running his fingers through my hair moments after it was happening in our ears. When it got to where he slowly unbuttoned the heroine’s jeans, peeling them down her legs before he pulled them and her boots free, Reid followed suit, smoothing his palms up the backs of my legs as he stood back up, pausing briefly to rub his thumb against the scar on my calf.
But I didn’t have time to focus on how it felt to have his hand there, Reid only hesitating for a moment when the narrator described taking off her shirt in the audio before he pulled mine over my head in one smooth motion .
We both listened, staring at each other as the narrator cursed when he took in what the heroine was wearing, Reid following suit with a rumbling, “Fuck, look at you.”
The heroine looked away, embarrassed, and I did the same, Reid’s thumb on my chin stopping me from breaking his gaze entirely.
When the hero picked her up with his hands clasped on the backs of her thighs and carried her to the bike to rest her on the seat, Reid did the same a few moments later. He tipped me backward toward the handlebars, urging me to straddle the bike. The leather seat was still warm underneath me as his rough palm traced down the center of my chest. When the hero’s hand slipped beneath the lace of the heroine’s tiny thong, Reid didn’t follow suit with that one, but he effortlessly lifted my hips before he straddled the bike and settled me onto his lap, my legs draped on either side of him.
Closing my eyes tightly, I tried not to hyperventilate as Reid’s fingers traced my body, lingering on the edge of the lace covering my breasts, and tracing the boning down the front of the bustier to tickle the sensitive skin near my belly button. I shifted, sighing as the lace of my thong pressed tighter against where it was barely covering me, the firm leather of Reid’s pants providing just enough friction until I was almost as aroused as the moaning heroine in my ear.
Reid’s fingers dipped just beneath the edge of the lace, pulling back and snapping the elastic to get my attention. My eyes flickered open to meet his, the pupils almost blown as he stared down at me. I wondered if he was as aroused as I was simply by listening and almost reenacting the words playing in our ears.
But then I noticed his lingering look at the remote clenched tightly in my hand, and it was a rude awakening that yet again I’d gotten distracted by the moment and wasn’t taking pictures like I was supposed to. Using my thumb to depress the button, I watched Reid as he continued following the motions of the man in my ear, touching me where he touched her, pressing his hips into me when the hero pressed his into hers.
“ Good girl ,” he whispered, moments before the hero echoed the same words, but there was no way he could have known that he was going to say them.
This suddenly felt way more complicated than it’d felt even yesterday, because it didn’t feel like Reid was faking the way he touched me, especially when his thumb settled over the damp panel of my panties, pressing in and making me gasp, my back arching at the same time the heroine’s did in the story.
Rocking my hips into his subtle movements, I tried to keep myself from spiraling, but I couldn’t help it, my pulse racing as I barreled toward a very familiar yet also unfamiliar sensation. Not that I hadn’t come before, I wasn’t that inexperienced. It was that I’d never come with someone.
Fumbling high school boys and my only boyfriend in college had never actually gotten me there, and I’d been too embarrassed to tell them they hadn’t quite completed the task with their mediocre attempts at third base. That was probably why I’d never let things progress further. What was the point of them stealing home if they were only going to be scoring a run for the home team? Okay, maybe my baseball metaphors needed a bit of work. But who could blame a girl when an extremely hot, leather pants wearing, tattooed God was between her thighs going where no man had gone before.
Reid was getting me there embarrassingly quickly, with only a few strategically placed motions of the pad of his thumb on top of my panties. I wasn’t sure if he knew what his thumb placement was doing; he was just listening to the directions in his ears. But when I gasped, my back arching and my hair flowing out behind me over the handlebars like a waterfall of fire, there was no way he didn’t realize that he’d just given me a very real—very unexpected—happy ending.
When I came back to earth, my eyes widened as the narrator was about to bend the heroine over the side of his bike, the sound of him unbuckling his belt pushing me into action. Ripping the earbud out of my ear, I threw myself forward and grabbed the one out of Reid’s, clasping them both tightly in my hand.
“Hey,” his deep voice whispered, a certain amount of mirth in his tone. “That was just getting to the good part. Maybe I wanted to finish.”
My eyes widened even further at the thought of him finishing.
“Not like that. I wanted to finish listening, dirty girl,” he teased, his laughter jostling me against his chest.
“Not gonna happen,” I giggled nervously, enjoying it entirely too much as his long fingers danced up my spine and dug into my loose hair. They massaged my scalp, and I fought the urge to rub up against his chest like a cat. It was bad enough I’d just rubbed my kitty all over the pad of his thumb until I came. “I think we’re done here.”
“Do we have to be?” he asked, tracing his nose along the side of my cheek and resting his lips on the sensitive skin behind my ear. He wasn’t quite kissing me, but this didn’t feel like how friends should touch each other. And that’s all we were.
Friends. We were friends. Friends don’t hump other friends, right? Well, except friends with benefits, but judging by the last two encounters we’d had, Reid wasn’t getting any benefits.
Not that I hadn’t imagined giving them to him.
“ Reid ,” I whispered breathily, my fingers creeping up his chest and brushing over one of the piercings I’d discovered were sensitive yesterday.
He growled, his fingertips digging into my skin. “Don’t say my name like that, kitten. It makes me want to do bad things to you. And you’re not mine.”
“I’m not anyone’s,” I replied softly, enjoying the way he shuddered as I played with the ball on the end of the barbell beneath my thumb.
“Not yet.” It was so quiet I wasn’t sure if he meant for me to hear it, but it had me disentangling myself and sliding off the side of the bike anyway. He'd been right. There was someone else. And it wasn’t fair of me to be behaving like I had been. But I didn’t want to stop. With either of them.
Reid was quiet behind me as I got dressed, and when I turned around, I figured out why, because he was nowhere to be seen.
The scene of the crime was still there though, the tripod with the camera still aimed at his bike, the sunlight streaming in the window backlighting the tableau. I pressed the button still clasped in my hand, the camera beeping instead of making the quiet click it normally did.
Growling under my breath, I stalked to the camera, flicking open the compartment for the memory card, but I already knew it wouldn’t be there. Reid had stolen it before he escaped, sort of like he was stealing my will to resist him with every moment we spent together.
Part of me wished I’d never decided to stop avoiding him, but the other part was reminded why I hadn’t when he walked toward me a few moments later.
We were both quiet as we picked up the equipment, packing things away and putting on our coats. Reid brushed my fingers away as I tried to line up the parts of my zipper, pulling it up for me and running his thumb along the side of my cheek before he turned and walked back to his bike.
I held the back door open for him as he wheeled it outside into the parking lot. Quietly taking his hand after he’d gotten his equipment strapped to the back of the bike, I climbed on behind him before we each put on our own helmets.
Wordlessly, I wrapped my arms around him, and he took off, his bike navigating the trip back over the ridge much quicker than I would have liked.
Reid was silent as I climbed off the back, pulling off his extra helmet and handing it to him before I made a beeline for the back door of the bar without a backward glance.
The engine revved behind me, and I turned in time to see him gun it out of the parking lot and toward the mountains, clearly eager to get away from whatever had happened between us earlier. I knew we were skating very close to the line of taking things too far, but I also didn’t really care.
Which wasn’t like me. I over thought everything. I should have been freaking out, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to do something fun for once. And it’d been a hell of a lot of fun to strip down and have Reid lay me out over his bike as a very naughty audiobook played simultaneously in our ears.
Trying not to obsess about it, I escaped into my studio, sketching out the rough outline of the scene we’d made earlier. I’d have to fine tune it once he sent me the pictures. If he sent me the pictures this time. Maybe he was regretting volunteering to help me with this project after all.
But as I laid down my digital pencil and opened my email app, the pictures were waiting for me. There wasn’t any witty commentary in the subject line or body of the email, but knowing Reid, I unlocked the screen of my phone and opened our text thread.
Reid: Stop overthinking things. Just needed to clear my head earlier, so I didn’t follow you back into the bar and do something we’d both regret. Let me know when you need my services again.
I didn’t hesitate to type out a reply.
Hazel: If you regret helping me, then maybe we should just stop while we’re ahead.
Reid: I don’t regret helping you. Not for a moment, kitten. I would regret taking things farther than you’re ready for, even if you think you are.
Hazel: Things that are freely given shouldn’t cause regrets.
Reid: But sometimes they do. And I never want you to regret being my friend again.
My heart sunk at his choice of words. Being Reid’s friend wasn’t all I wanted to be, but sometimes you needed to focus on the things that were possible, not things that would never happen.
Opening my text messages, I composed one to a man who was a possibility for me.
Fourteen: Anything fun happen today while you were marking things for people?
Seven: Not anything as fun as thinking about you all day. I missed you today.
Fourteen: So much same. How many days left?
Seven: Twelve, not that anyone is counting.
But I was. And despite the disappointment at how the afternoon turned out, I was going to focus on getting through twelve more days until I could meet the man who wasn’t conflicted about wanting me.