15. Aron
ARON
Ilead Riley around the roasting pit, nodding to Attila and the others. We approach a tunnel-like opening, the only way out of the cave complex. My bike is already parked there, two helmets hanging from the bars, her camera and some necessities packed in the two leather saddlebags.
“Wait! We’re going on a motorbike?” Riley stops in her tracks, and her eyes go wide.
“What did you expect? A horse-drawn carriage?” I nudge her forward, but she digs her heels into the ground, resisting me, testing my patience like she doesn’t know what a bad fucking idea that is.
“You said nothing about going on a bike!” she protests, her voice frantic and her body rigid. “I don’t want to!”
She’s too loud. Attila and the men burst out laughing when they hear her.
“I don’t give a shit. You’re coming.”
Where the fuck does she think she is? If I say she’s going somewhere, she’s fucking going. Whether she wants to or not is irrelevant.
I grab her, but she’s refusing to budge.
“No! Let go of me!” she shrieks, and the onlookers come closer, enjoying themselves way too much.
Fuck’s sake.
When I lift her up, she starts hitting me everywhere with her hands. I barely feel the chaotic blows, but someone howls, someone else whistles, and my temper flares.
My hand shoots upwards, and I fist her hair. She yelps as I drag her over the bike until she’s hanging head down, her hips high up in the air.
The men are now cheering loudly and maliciously, but she is quiet, frozen in my hands, trembling.
My eyes stray to her ass, raised up and perfectly outlined by the thin fabric of her trousers.
I’m immediately hard as fuck. My hand tingles with how much I want to slap it.
But if I do that right now, I’ll lose it.
I lean over her instead, her body’s heat tickling my chest.
“Listen to me, Hotshot, and listen well,” I growl into her ear.
“You can be a good girl and get on the bike without another word. Or you can be a bad one, in which case I’ll take these off.
” I brush against her skin as I tug at the band of her trousers, and a fresh surge of lust shoots right into my dick.
“I’ll whip you until you cry, and then you’ll get on the bike anyway. ”
Would I do it? Yes. And I’d enjoy it too. But not in front of this fucking audience.
“Well, Hotshot? Are you going to be stupid?”
Don’t be stupid. Not now.
“I’m not stupid,” she retorts. “Just scared. I don’t like motorbikes, and I wasn’t ready.”
“And are you ready now?”
“Yes,” she murmurs.
My hands close around her waist, and I help her up, turning her around to face me, flushed and a little dishevelled. It would’ve made me happy if she looked thrown off, but she regains composure fast, like she’s used to a lot worse. There’s no fun in that.
“You’re an asshole,” she mutters, and my anger ebbs away.
“Don’t be a brat.”
Something flares in her eyes—surprise and something that’s definitely not fear. But it’s gone before I manage to decipher it.
“Are you going to do as you’re told?”
She nods curtly, not challenging me.
“Come on then.” I hand her a helmet and hop on the bike.
I look at her expectantly to find her studying the adjustment pads with a puzzled frown. She raises her eyes to me. She opens her mouth but then closes it without saying anything, her blush deepening.
My cock is still hard and leaking a torrent of precum, because fuck if I don’t enjoy rewarding this kind of obedience under very different circumstances.
“You can ask how to put it on,” I assure her gruffly. “Come here,” I order her, hating how raspy my voice sounds. “I won’t bite you. Not this time.”
She takes a step, and then another, and my balls nearly explode when I remember what she looked like covered with my cum.
And then she’s right next to me, close enough for me to feel her body’s heat.
I want to put my hands on her bare skin.
I want to bend her over the bike again, but this time to make her scream with pleasure.
Fucking snap out of it.
I help her with the helmet.
“Get behind me,” I order her.
My cock twitches painfully when she does as she’s told. She grabs my shoulders, her hands small but their hold surprisingly firm. I nearly come in my pants from the feel of her warm body pressed against my back.
“Good fucking girl,” I tell her before starting the engine, masking the praise with sarcasm.
The drive is mostly peaceful, just the hum of the bike, the blur of the road gliding beneath us, and the mountains on the horizon—so near and yet so far, forever in the distance and unreachable.
The sun is losing its strength, its descent coating the sky pink and orange. The warm air smells of dew.
I’m driving us down into a serene valley of a few long-abandoned dwellings and long-forgotten fields that have evolved into meadows, scattered with weeds and small yellow blooms.
It would be idyllic if only Riley weren’t so set on trying to crush my ribs, her rigid arms looped around my chest. How does a girl her size have an iron grip like that?
Finally, I can’t take it anymore and on a straight part of the road, I let go of the bars with my left hand to try and loosen her fingers.
At first, I’m surprised when she puts up no resistance. But my shock only intensifies when her fingers intertwine with mine. Her small palm covers the top of my hand, and she wiggles closer to me.
There’s nothing like the roar of my bike’s engine—a noise to drown out all other noises, including the angry voices inside my head, yelling on repeat ever since the bombs fell. But I’m especially grateful for its shield today.
I have no idea what I would say, and no idea what she would say back. But it doesn’t matter because the winds whipping around us make talking impossible.
And here, in this forsaken land, it’s so easy to forget all about the world burning around us. So easy to imagine a different world instead, one without the Radiation Rift, one without vengeance and betrayals. One where she’s just a girl I took for a ride on my bike.
But we can never live in that world. A world like that won’t exist for generations to come. It may never exist again.
Riley and I might be the last generation to remember that world. Perhaps, in moments like these, our shared grief may be stronger than all our differences.
Still, Riley seeking comfort from me like that defies all logic. She should not be doing that. And I should not like it. But robbed of our words, all that remains between us is the truth of our touch and the secret of our silence.