“No, it’s okay,” I said quickly, hoping Mr. Hot Bod wouldn’t change his mind about giving me a ride. “I’ll try riding the bike.”
I’ll try riding you, sexy . . .
Wow. Those kind of pervy thoughts weren’t like me at all. Painter winked and I would’ve fainted on the spot if I wasn’t so damned healthy and not the fainting type. Shame, too, because he’d totally catch me with those muscular arms of his. I could sense it. I gave him a little smile, hoping I wasn’t coming off as dorky.
“You watch yourself with her,” London snapped, crossing her arms and jutting out a hip. I stared at her, shocked—that wasn’t like Loni at all. Had she just ruined it for me?
Painter raised a brow.
“Fuckin’ priceless, prez,” he said, then smiled at me again, a smile so beautiful that it made me dizzy. You’re dizzy because you have a concussion, my common sense pointed out.
I gave it a mental finger, because fuck common sense.
“You comin’ or not?” he asked, swaggering over to his bike and climbing on. Deliberately avoiding London’s gaze, I followed him, hopping up behind before he had a chance to change his mind.
“Hold on, babe,” he told me, his voice low and smooth. Like whiskey. Not that I drank much whiskey, but I’d had some at our high school graduation party, at the beginning of the summer. Putting my hands up, I touched the sides of his hips hesitantly. He caught them, pulling them tight around his stomach. I could feel his hard abs through the thin fabric of his shirt, and smell the leather of his motorcycle vest thingie. My entire front was leaning against his entire back, and I felt dizzy again. Then he reached down and touched my knee, giving it a quick squeeze.
Oh. My. God.
• • •
The ride took about ten minutes. Ten glorious minutes that included a short stretch of highway as we left Coeur d’Alene behind, which meant we got to go fast. Then he was pulling off and parking in front of an old farmstead that had a well-lived in, well-loved kind of wear around the edges. He turned off the bike, and the sudden absence of noise and vibration left my ears ringing. We sat there for a minute as I collected my thoughts. He touched my knee again.
“Gotta let go if you want off the bike, babe,” he said softly.
I jerked my hands back instantly, wondering how big of an ass I’d made of myself. Then I was scrambling to get off, looking everywhere but his face because I couldn’t bear to see him looking disgusted, or worse yet, sorry for me.
“Come on,” he said, touching the small of my back gently, guiding me toward the porch. “I’ve got the code to get you inside. You can go crash for a while, get some rest.”
“Thanks,” I said, daring to look up at him. His eyes were everywhere, scanning the yard for what, I had no idea. Five minutes later we were upstairs, looking at what had to be a girl’s bedroom.
“You can stay in here, Em won’t mind,” he told me. “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”
“Who’s Em?” I asked.
“President’s daughter,” he answered, and his voice held a hint of something. Not sadness, but . . . something. “She’s a little older than you, about my age. Get some rest.”
I waited until I heard his footsteps going down the stairs before I pulled off my jeans and climbed into the bed. My head really was hurting now, and while they’d given me pain meds at the hospital, I wouldn’t be able to take another dose for a while longer. Lying there, I stared at the ceiling, wondering what Painter was doing downstairs.
Did he have a girlfriend?
Right, like it even mattered. He’d been sweet to me, but he was probably sweet to little old ladies, too. Guys like that didn’t go for girls like me.
Girls who were nothing.
The thought hurt, but eventually I drifted off. When I woke it was nearly five. Wandering downstairs, I found Loni and Reese sitting in the living room, her perched on his lap as they talked quietly.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” I said, feeling like an intruder.
“Don’t worry about it,” Reese replied, sounding resigned. Loni pushed off him, then came over to study me carefully. She was shorter than I was, and I felt awkward and gawky next to her.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, her eyes sharp.
“Good, my head hardly hurts at all,” I said, and this time it was the truth. “Although I’m starving.”
Then I snapped my mouth shut, because it sounded like I was begging for food, which I guess I was. I mean, I was sort of trapped here, out in the country at a strange house owned by a man I didn’t even know, and whose only tie to me was that he was sleeping with my best friend’s aunt.
That’s pretty damned tenuous.
Loni smiled. “If you’re hungry, that means you’re healthy. I picked up some new clothes for you earlier. They’re in the bag.”
She pointed to a Target bag sitting on the floor next to the stairwell. I’d just leaned over to grab it when Painter walked into the room from the back of the house.
“How you doin’?” he asked.
“Better,” I managed to reply, feeling shy.
“Get changed and we’ll go out to dinner,” Reese announced. “It’s been a long day.”
“Okay,” I said gratefully, then ran upstairs to put on my new clothes. Hopefully Loni had gotten me something cute.
• • •
Painter invited himself along with us, which pissed Loni off for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. I knew she was protective, but it wasn’t like he was doing anything.
Sure, he’d insisted that I ride with him to the restaurant (which kicked ass, I might add). And he was sitting next to me in the booth, his thick, male thigh pressed up against the side of mine, which gave me little flutters and chills. A couple times he leaned over to ask if my food was all right, and when we finished he draped his arm across the back of the booth, right behind my head.
I’d sat there, wanting him so bad it took everything I had not to shiver. I’d have given anything to kiss him. At one point he even reached down and gave my knee another of those little squeezes, nearly giving me a heart attack.
Loni glared at him throughout.
Reese rolled his eyes and ordered another beer.
Afterward, Painter gave me a ride back to Reese’s house, and I swear if he’d asked me, I would’ve done anything for him. To him. But he didn’t . . . Nope, he just dropped me off.
But as I got off his bike, he tucked a strand of my hair back behind my ear and skimmed his fingers across my cheekbone. I really did shiver then, because how could I not?
• • •
Two days later I was bored out of my mind.
I’d found myself in a weird limbo out at the Hayes house, because I had no transportation or way to get to work. There wasn’t anyone to talk to, either—Reese and Loni were gone most of the time, her working and him doing club stuff. There had been some big party the night before, but yours truly wasn’t invited.
Instead I just sat around, waiting for something to happen. Reese still made me nervous, but I trusted London and it wasn’t like I had any other options. Even the money I’d managed to hide from my dad was gone, burned up in the explosion. Now all I had were the clothes Loni had given me.
Two pairs of panties. One bra. A pair of shorts and a pair of jeans, two tank tops and a sweatshirt.
That was it—the sum total of all my worldly possessions.
I needed to take action, figure things out . . . But when I tried to talk to Loni and Reese about the next step, neither of them had time for me. Loni had work stuff, Reese had club stuff, and they both just kept telling me to rest up and let my head heal.
A girl can only rest so much, though.
That’s why I was just sitting on the porch Saturday afternoon, trying to read when I heard the bikes coming. Now, if I’d learned anything over the past two days, I’d learned that there were always bikes coming and going from Reese Hayes’s house, so I didn’t think too much of it when I saw the motorcycles turn into the driveway. Then I recognized one of the riders as Painter, and my heart clenched. (Okay, so it wasn’t my heart that clenched, it was something centered a lot lower in my body, but don’t judge me. Painter was the kind of hot that no sane woman can resist. It never occurred to me to try.)