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One was churning silver, and one was blue.
He took a cookie, shoved the entire thing into his mouth, and then pulled his helmet over her head. She was temporarily blinded by both shock and the helmet blocking her vision of the world, but he got it settled over her fast enough.
The cookies disappeared from her hands. She turned to see Corey holding up her phone, filming her, with a big grin on her face and the plate of cookies in her other hand.
“Have fun, use a condom,” Corey said.
Another honk sounded, and Corey turned. “I will fucking fight you!” She transformed her face back into a smile and nodded at Hallie. “Have fun, make good decisions. But not too good. Make a story you can tell your kids someday. Okay then, bye-bye now.”
When she turned back to the mystery man, Gunner was pushing down a peg on the bike. “Get on,” he told her.
“But…what do I do with these?” she asked about her cross-body purse and the phone in her hand.
A growl rumbled from him. She parted her lips to apologize, but he pulled the purse over her head, unclipped the strap from both clips, and clicked them expertly to two of her belt loops. He tossed the strap, and Corey caught it. “I used to play softball,” she said proudly after catching it. “Co-ed, freshman year in college. I was second base.”
Hallie pursed her lips against a smile at the excitement in Corey’s voice. Gunner took her phone from her grasp, shoved it down the front of her tank top, and secured it into her bra. She didn’t know why, but that smooth move made her nethers all tingly.
He held out a hand, and this was her last chance to bail. He was a stranger. Not suitable. Terrifying. Strong. Aggressive and violent. But he’d used it for good, and for some reason, she really wanted to go with him.
“I’ve never done this,” she whispered breathlessly as she slid her hand against his.
His grasp was shockingly strong as he helped her swing a leg over the back of his motorcycle. “Boots on the pegs, hold onto my waist, don’t fall off.”
Right. Don’t fall off. She scooted closer to his back and slid her arms around his waist, and then squeaked as he took off through the stale yellow light.
Corey was cheering like a maniac behind them, and Hallie would’ve laughed if her lungs weren’t somewhere on the pavement behind them. Too fast, too fast, too fast!
The wind whipped at her skin, and she squeezed her eyes tightly closed as the town blurred by.
This was what it felt like to be a bullet.
He jerked slightly every time he changed gears, and they flew faster and faster until she couldn’t catch her breath. She clung to him for dear life until at last, he slowed.
After a few breathless moments, she dared to open her eyes, but she had no idea where they were. She gingerly sat up and twisted just enough to see the lights of Laramie far behind them.
“That was terrifying!”
“You feel alive though.”
“Half alive! I thought I was going to fall off!”
“Well, now you can enjoy the ride.”
“What about ‘I’ve never done this before’ did you not understand?”
“All of it. Best way to get you to loosen up is to get you desensitized straight out of the gate,” he called over the whipping wind.
“Don’t you need this helmet?” she asked, concerned. “That was really dangerous.”
“I would survive a crash. You wouldn’t.”
She frowned at his back, then dared to release her death grip on his waist and lifted the sleeve of his black T-shirt up. She could see the exit wound from the bullet he’d been shot with last night. It was red and angry, but it looked half-healed already.
It hit her in that moment how different they were. He really wasn’t human.
When she looked up, she caught him looking at her in the side-view mirror with a look of confusion swirling in his glowing eyes. “It doesn’t hurt.”
Hallie swallowed hard. “I’m glad,” she called over the wind. “I was a little worried.”
