And he didn’t disappoint.
"Peace and quiet," he murmured softly, once his bike stopped rumbling and we were left with exactly what he said.
I smiled as I unbuckled my helmet and hopped off the bike with his help. He grabbed food out of the saddlebags, even unraveled a blanket, then laid it flat out on the ground about twenty feet away.
Watching him make a picnic for us, I laughed a little, then whirled around, my skirt catching in the wind as I twirled.
I’d never have done that with anyone else, but the sun was shining on our heads, it was warm and pretty, and I was with one of my favorite people in a secret place where no one was watching.
When I stopped twirling, I found Asher watching me. His lips were curved with amusement, but in his eyes there was something new.
Something… hot.
It surprised me, but it didn’t scare me.
It didn’t have me backing away to the bike and demanding he take me home.
If anything, it had me stepping closer to the blanket he was kneeling on.
I slipped off my UGGs, letting my toes curl into the grass before I sat down on the blanket at his side.
Unsure of what to expect, I waited, only realizing when my lungs started burning that I’d held my breath.
He had a way of looking at me that transcended anything I’d even read about in books, and it made no sense. I wasn’t anything special, but he was. He was beautiful. Absolutely stunning. And that hair… I just wanted to stroke him all over.
I bit my lip as he murmured, "Come on, Keira, let’s just relax, huh?"
Nodding, I carefully unfolded my limbs so that I was lying down on my side, pleased when he did the same. It was… strange.
Good, but strange.
I’d never wanted to do this before.
Never wanted to just be with someone, to have their eyes on mine, to feel the brush of their breath, for their scent to be filling my senses.
Moreover, I’d never felt the power of silence before. It was like it made the space between us vibrate, energy ping-ponging back and forth between us, ratcheting up the tension more and more.
When he reached out, he broke the tension, but his thumb came to rest on my chin.
"You know you’re always safe with me, don’t you, Keira?"
My eyes widened at the question, but the truth spilled from my lips. "Yes. I know I shouldn’t, but I do know that."
"No, you shouldn’t feel that way, but I’m glad you do. If you didn’t, we wouldn’t be here, would we?"
I shook my head. "How did you find this place?"
"You don’t want to know," he said dryly. "But I come here when the noise in my head keeps me awake at night."
"You come out here in the dark?" I whispered, surprised.
A soft laugh escaped him. "I do."
"What if there are bobcats or possums?"
That had him snickering. "They’re more than welcome to come snack on me."
I scowled at him. "Don’t say that."
"I sit on my bike," he appeased. "I thought you’d like it here, that’s why I brought you."
"I’m glad you did."
After that, he brought me there every evening without fail, only not on the weekends when I had things to do for my parents.
Obligations—they sucked.
I wanted to spend every moment with him, every minute of every day as ridiculous as it sounded.
I felt like I couldn’t get close enough, because something about him remained distant.
He looked at me in a way that made me feel as if I were the only thing he saw, but there was that sorrow in him I’d recognized that first day.
I wanted to raze that sorrow into dust.
I wanted to burn it to the ground and replace it with joy and happiness.
Bikers could be happy, too, couldn’t they?
A couple of weeks after Spring Break, which had been torture as I couldn’t see him, I laid in his arms in our spot on the hill. It was getting warmer, but he was like a furnace anyway, and he told me about how his family worked.
The club lifestyle sounded intriguing, a little scary, especially after Sons of Anarchy, but I listened because there wasn’t a single damn thing I didn’t want to know about him.
He explained about how his foster father was a guy called Bear, whose Old Lady was called Rene, and how he had several men in his life who weren’t blood brothers but were regardless. Kinda complicated, but I got it.
Mostly, I was just happy he was sharing this with me. It had taken him a long time to open up about what really mattered to him, and I was content to soak it in like a sponge.
Pressing my face into his throat, I let out a soft sigh as I placed a kiss there.
It was instinctive.
Natural.
As easy as breathing.
But it made him tense up like I’d punched him in the throat.
I stiffened, for the first time realizing how invasive that had been, and I pulled back, cheeks flushing, until he grabbed my hand to stop me from moving away and rumbled, "Keira?"
Mortified, my shoulders hunched in on themselves as I replied, "I’m so sorry, Storm. I shouldn’t have—"
"You should have," he corrected, reaching over to grab my chin and to urge me to look at him. "You have every right to do that, but I wanted to check in with you first."
Surprised, I peeked up at him, and when I saw the banked fire in his eyes, I knew I’d done it.
The sorrow was gone.
At that moment, I was all he thought about, not whatever put that unhappiness in those beautiful green eyes of his.
A shaky breath escaped me as I clambered onto my knees. He tugged on my hand, clearly thinking I was about to leave, but then he stopped when I moved over to him.
Cupping his cheeks, I whispered, "I want you to look at me like that all the time."
His nostrils flared. "I do, I just temper it because I don’t want to scare you."
"You could never scare me, Asher. Haven’t we had this conversation already?"
"I don’t think you’re ready for what I feel for you."
That had a shallow breath escaping my lungs. "Maybe I’m not, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn to be ready."
His lips quirked up at the edges. "You want me to teach you, huh?"
"I wouldn’t be averse to that particular lesson," I told him primly, but I knew my flushed cheeks gave the game away. And if it didn’t, then I pressed a hand to his shoulder and pushed him back onto the blanket.
He eyed me warily, but I ignored his wariness and instead, straddled him the second he was lying flat.
As my ass settled on his thighs, a feeling of empowerment whirred through me.
This strong, powerful, badass biker was letting me sit on him like he was a chair.
I knew I should be nervous. I knew I should be scared. I knew, point blank, I shouldn’t be excited.
With anyone else, I probably would have been a bag of nerves.
But this was Asher and I wanted to unwrap him like a candy bar.
I was more curious about what went on underneath the Henley he wore constantly than I was afraid of what was about to happen.
Because something was definitely about to go down.
Something that I really, truly wanted to be with him.
I rolled up his Henley, revealing abs that I’d only ever seen on posters and in movies, and he let me undress him. Let me unwrap him.