AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I almost slip off of him as I startle. “Jeepers,” I mutter, dazed, and he laughs as he deposits me on the ground. I have wobbly boat-legs from being carried like a koala and I almost trip over my own feet as I step around him.
Then I see it.
“Ohhh no,” I say, backing up immediately, and therefore slamming right back into Tate’s torso. He doesn’t mind at all, and he wraps his arms around my middle, pulling me against the rigid planes of his chest.
“Why not?” he asks, his teeth finding their way into the side of my neck again. If Tate was a vampire, there would not be a single drop of blood left in my mortal vessel.
“My mom will kill me,” I say, horror seeping into my blood-stream as I take in the sight.
“Your mom’s not here,” he replies, his voice husky.
“The spirits will send for her when they see this. She’s probably already on her way.”
Tate’s gigantic motorbike is parked up on the drive. It’s a blood-curdling monster and it’s sexy as hell, but my mom will literally disown me if I so much as touch it with a stick.
I go to turn around but Tate has other ideas. The broken proximity barrier has unleashed three years worth of longing and his body has no intentions of leaving mine. He’s rubbing circles on the side of my stomach with the arm that’s wrapped tightly around my tummy, and his other hand is slowly travelling downwards, just about to push its way underneath my zipper-
“Tate,” I hiss, and his hand magically moves to the other side of my stomach. “We areoutside,” I continue, and I can sense his smile pressed against my cheek. For some reason I can feel it pressing way further south. I scan the houses opposite Mitch’s but I can’t see anyone peering out of their windows, thank God.
“Open the box,” he murmurs, and for the first time I notice that the box he had brought into the kitchen is sat next to the motorbike. There’s no writing on the cardboard – it’s simply a plain brown cube – but I can take a pretty good guess at what’s inside.
I step away from Tate’s body so that I don’t arch my ass directly into his crotch as I lean forward to rip open the box. I pull the top folds open and then push back the boards tucked beneath. I stand upright and look down at it.
“Is it… baby pink?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.
Tate steps around me, suppressing a flushed self-satisfied smile, and he pulls the helmet out of the box. Very baby pink.
“Cute,” I say. Then add, “Where’s mine?”
He laughs and steps up to me, ready to place the helmet over my head. Hence the reason behind no glasses, I guess.
I step back but he keeps up with me. “You know I can’t go on that bike. Why don’t we just eat here?” I plead.
He shakes his head. “We can’t eat here, because if we’reherewe won’t be eating.” His eyes scroll down my front and they linger over the top button of my jeans. “Well,youwon’t be eating,” he adds quietly.
Crikey. I hop from foot to foot. “It’ll have to be somewhere close by,” I specify. “Like, a five minute drive.” The thing is I actually really want Tate to take me out on his bike. I know that when my mom comes home the opportunity won’t arise again so I don’t want to miss it, but I also don’t want to be naïve and reckless. Okay, I don’t want to betoonaïve and reckless.
He runs a hand through his hair. “But then that means that I can only take you to the diner,” he says, his voice a little disappointed.
“I’ll take the diner,” I concur and I step up to him so that he can put the helmet over my face. Before he does he leans over to peck a kiss on the top of my cheekbone. I squeeze my eyes shut as if that will help to quell the warmth that just spread across my chest.
“We have to get going before it rains,” he says, slotting the helmet over me. It’s really heavy and my curls are kind of in my eyes, but I can see Tate’s mouth lifting slightly at the corners as he looks at me wearing it. He heads to the garage to pick up his own helmet, he shrugs his jacket on again, and then he walks over and lifts one thigh, settling into a straddle over the seat. He turns his face to me before he puts his gloves and helmet on. “Get behind me, Backpack,” he teases, and I teeter for a few seconds before I move to him, placing my hands on the expanse of his shoulders as I fit myself against his back. I never realised how wide this seat would be and I now fear for exactly where the reverberations from the tyres are going to be hitting. As soon as I’m on, Tate grips my hands and pulls them tight around his middle. “Don’t for one second think of letting go,” he commands, and then he fits his own helmet on his head, and kicks the bike to life.
*
When Tate parks outside the diner in Phoenix Falls’ town square I rise from the bike with all the grace of Ariel experiencing land for the first time. I feel like I’ve been rubbed raw. Tate unbuckles the strap under my helmet, pulls it off my head, and then laughs at my expression, which is reassuring.
He pulls me into the swell of his bicep and I gratefully melt into him as he walks us towards the diner doors. When we stepinside, it’s rammed. I didn’t expect it to be, but I presume it’s because it’s the holidays. All of the red pleather booths seem to be full but there is one free stool in front of the counter, so Tate steers us towards it, and pushes me down so that I’m sat astride with my back to his torso. The lighting is low and shady-dive-bar red, so when I turn my head to look at Tate standing behind me I feel like I’ve fallen into one of my unhinged Tate Coleson sex fantasies.
His arms are blocking both sides of my body, fists clenched on the counter in front of me, and his chest is pressing into my back.
“Don’t you want to sit?” I ask, even though I don’t think that there is another free surface available in the entire restaurant.
“I’m good,” he replies tersely, and his eyes stay on mine as he picks up a menu and slides it in front of me. His sudden mood-shift makes me anxious, because it makes me doubt the scepticism that I have been having about myself, but I try to put it off as him being hungry. I glance at the menu and I can tell from the mirror behind the counter that his eyes are still on me. My cheeks flush under his scrutiny but once I decide what I’m ordering I turn to him again and hold out the card.
He doesn’t take it.
My panic is really mounting now. Maybe he took me here to murder me. Did he think that confiscating my glasses would debilitate my body entirely?
