Most of my hair is flattened by the helmet, but the ends are slashing, dancing, stinging my arms. His hand twists the throttle again, and the bike lurches forward, gaining more speed, going even faster. “Stop! Knives, please!” I nearly sob. I’m scared. Everything is blurring past us. I can’t see anything.
He slams on the brakes, and the bike fishtails. The smell of burnt rubber surrounds us, along with a cloud of smoke. He pulls off to the shoulder, the bike dipping from pavement to sand. I jerk off the helmet and toss it on the ground. I’m breathing heavily, inhaling dust and smoke from the tires. “What the fuck, Knives? What was that?”
He hops off his Harley, and his cold eyes hit me like daggers. “Isn’t that what you wanted, Mary? Didn’t you want to be free? Don’t you like speed? Don’t you crave the adrenaline pumping in your veins the faster you go? What, you didn’t like it? Was it too much for you to handle? Is it so different from bursting past the cops at 110 mph, feeling the wind in your hair? When you aren’t cozied up in a box of a car.”
“Stop it,” I sound pathetic with the emotion clogging my throat.
He kicks his helmet, and it flies across the desert, landing with a loud smack before it bounces again, this time stopping next to a dead bush. “Goddamn it, Mary!” he roars so loud, I can hear the gravel in his throat as he stresses his vocal cords. His voice carries, and a few crows down the road stop picking at a dead animal and fly away. “I won’t stop it. I won’t stop. You can’t be doing shit like this; do you understand me?”
“I’m not a child. Don’t talk to me like a child, Knives.”
“Then stop acting like one. What the hell is your problem? Why are you doing this? Why act out? Why with the rebellion? Why do you have a death wish?”
“Why do you suddenly care?” I hiss, swinging my legs over the bike and sliding off. “Why do you care what I do? I’m a goddamn adult, Knives. I can do whatever I want. Stop acting like you give a damn when you’d be perfectly happy if I swerved off the side of the road and—”
Before I can say another word, he takes four long strides over to me and shoves his hand over my mouth. “Don’t you dare say another word. Don’t you dare sit there and say what I think you’re about to say. I swear—” He removes his hand and screams in the air, takes out a ninja star, and scratches his beard with it. It’s like the ninja star is his comfort. “You drive me fucking nuts, you know that? You drive me… insane.”
“That’s why you should be happy that—”
He flings the ninja star at me, and I jump. The metal lodges in the metal of his motorcycle right as I flinch. “I said, don’t say another word. God, you think I’m that kind of man? To want you dead? Do you really think I hate you that much? Is that how much you hate me?”
“What? No, I don’t think you want me dead, I care—” I catch myself before I say I care about him. “I would never want you, me, or anyone dead.”
“Well, you know that isn’t the case with me, right? You know that there are plenty of people I want dead, but you aren’t one of them, Mary. Do you want to know why I don’t want you speeding down the road? You want to know why I care?” He stomps toward me again and places his hand on the back of the neck. “This.”
He slams our lips together in a fiery kiss, not giving me a second to think, a second to breathe, a second to figure out what the hell is going on. His palm is so wide, his fingers nearly touch as they wrap around my throat. Knives is telling me he is in control, the way he guides my head, moves his mouth, flicks his tongue.
I’m transported back to Christmas, where I felt his lips for the first time, and I can hardly breathe.
We are horrible to one another, though. I pull back to let him know I want to bring the kiss to an end. I don’t, but I need to. The more I kiss him, the deeper I’m going to feel about a man that isn’t good for me.
I’m not good for him either.
We’re snakes coiling around each other, and the more we fight, the tighter we grip each other. And we are both too stubborn to let go. If we don’t stop, one of us will get hurt beyond repair.
He pulls away and puts space between us, enough to where I can catch my breath without breathing the same air he is. Our chests are in sync as we grovel to breathe. My entire body is hot, his eyes are locked on my face, and his chin is nearly touching his chest. He’s staring at me through ill intentions, wicked eyes, and long brown lashes. His shapely brows are drawn together, and his fists clench at his sides. The pinkness of his lips is heightened from our kiss.
I check out his entire body, slowly dropping my attention to his chest. His nipples are hard, and every time his lungs expand, the shirt stretches over the brute strength of his pecs. I swallow, coating my mouth with saliva as I notice things I tried not to notice before on his body.
Like how tall he really is. And how built and defined his muscles are. And how every time I see him, there’s a new tattoo. And how about the erection tenting his black jeans right now? His cock is traveling down his left thigh, nearly poking out of the tear he has in his jeans. I can see the pale flesh of his leg, the coarse hair that is also on his torso.
“Why did you do that?” I find my voice, but it doesn’t sound like me. It’s hoarse with desire and uncertainty. I lick my lips, and I make my way up his body, but pause on his forearm. There’s a tattoo there that wasn’t there a few days ago. It’s glistening in the sun from ointment, but the further I inspect it, the more I see a pin-up girl.
She’s wearing my leather jacket and my red lipstick.
That has to be a coincidence. No way would he get me tattooed on his body when we can’t figure out how to have a conversation with one another.
“Did you feel it?” he asks. “That moment where everything else faded away. All there was, was me and you.”
I shake my head. I don’t want to admit that I felt the exact same thing, just like I did at Christmas.
“You’re lying,” he says with a smile on his face, as if it doesn’t bother him that I’m denying whatever… this is between us.
It’s hate.
It’s lust.
It’s like.
But it isn’t love.
And if it isn’t love, if it can’t be love, then I don’t want anything to do with it. Nursing a broken heart isn’t worth the tears over a man that can’t commit himself to you, but you knew damn well he wouldn’t be able to.
Yeah, I’m not about to fall down that hole.
There isn’t much I know about Knives, but I know this, he isn’t boyfriend material.
He isn’t husband material.
But if I’m honest with myself, I’m not wife material either.
And what happens when the two clash?
Arguments. Fights. Yelling. He’ll start drinking and call me a no-good, worthless whore. I’ll tell him he doesn’t know how to keep his dick in his pants.
What will we be left with?
Misery.
And my misery does not like company.
I wait for her to say something, anything, but she stares at me with round light brown eyes, frozen next to my bike. She’s a pretty fucking picture standing next to my motorcycle, wind blowing her already fucked up hair from not being brushed over the last few days. The cascading strands fall to her ass, and the breeze picks them up, and they flow to the right, then left. Her lips aren’t red from her lipstick since she isn’t wearing any; they are swollen from our kiss.