Mr. Bossy was here, and he’d warned me I didn’t know what I was getting into. I’d bought the ticket for this ride and was going to have to deal with the unexpected.
“How long?” I asked.
“One week. The week we both lost.”
I went to retrieve my things from the car. A saddlebag and a backpack wasn’t much room, and I had to make some trade-offs to make things fit. A trip on a bike was a lot like camping, I decided—only the essentials came along. But I wasn’t going without fresh panties for each day.
His sister’s cat was near the door as Luke held it open for me.
“What about Racer?”
Luke closed the door. “Brook is due back tomorrow. I sent her a text. She can pick the thing up.”
That was better than leaving him alone for a week. “I need to tell you some things,” I said as I cinched the saddlebag closed. I feared he might change his mind once he knew the truth about me, and better now than when we were a hundred miles from here.
“No you don’t.”
“But—”
“Red.” He stopped me with a single word. “Tell me, is your problem really bad?”
I nodded. “The worst.”
“Then for one week, it’s just you, me, and the wilderness. Nothing else. We’ll have plenty of time for the real world and your problems when we get back. Try a few days of not being Debbie Downer. Give yourself permission to enjoy life. For one week, don’t let it corrupt your mood. We’ll deal with it when we get back.”
Less than a half hour later, I was hugging Luke on the back of his bike.
He lifted an arm and pointed at a deserted storefront as we passed it. “See that place?’
“What about it?”
“When I save up enough, that’s where I’m moving my business. It’s got a roll-up door in the back and plenty of space.”
“What are you going to call it?”
“The Wrench Works.”
I hugged him tighter. “Sounds good.” I had no doubt he’d achieve his dream.
“What’s your dream?” he asked after another mile of road.
I hadn’t given much thought to anything except surviving. “I dunno. Maybe have my own store.”
We left town, and the countryside whizzed by. The feel of being wrapped around him with the bike vibrating underneath us and the roar of the engine in my ears slowly cleared my head.
“Enjoy life,” he’d said, and with the wind whipping by, riding behind Luke fit that criteria. Maybe the prospect of putting Debbie Downer away for a week had made me Delirious Debbie, but I was up for the experience.
I hugged him harder. “Thank you for this.”
Chapter 27
Debbie
After well over an hour on the bike, Luke turned off the main road onto a smaller one, and then left that for a gravel one. “It’s not much to look at,” he warned me.
“I think it’s pretty here,” I assured him. I’d never been so far from a city, and now I recognized the allure of being away from civilization. No city lights, no buildings, no people—just nature.
The gravel road deteriorated into something resembling two side-by-side goat paths. Luke maneuvered around holes that would have stopped my car cold.
“My little oasis in the woods,” he announced when we reached the end of the road and a small cabin.
The whole time I’d been clamped against him, all I could think about was how he’d made me feel our one night together—before I’d been an idiot and left the best thing to ever happen to me. Now I couldn’t wait to experience an entire week alone with this tattooed beast of a man.
He unlocked the rustic wooden door and let me inside. “It isn’t large, but the roof doesn’t leak, and most important, it’s all mine.”
“Anyone else nearby?” I asked.
Luke spun me around and his powerful arms took me in. “No. You can scream as loud as you like.”
The naughtiness of the implication sent sparks to my lady bits.
He smiled and gave me a squeeze before he crossed the room. The window on the far wall put up a short fight, but he muscled it open. “There might be something to drink in the fridge,” he added before going back outside.
The breeze from the window swung the door closed.
I looked around the inside of the small cabin and out the window to the back. “This is beautiful,” I said to the empty room. In the old fridge, I located a few beers and pulled two out.
Luke kicked against the door.
I opened it to find him with his hands full. “Sorry, the wind is not helping.”
He smiled. “I agree; it is beautiful up here.”
“You heard that?”
He set the things down and tapped his ear. “Good hearing, remember?”
I nodded and set the beers down. “You think I’m going to scream?”
His eyes lit up as I approached. “It’s only a question of how loud.” He wrapped me up and squished me to him. “You feel positively delectable.”
I pulled myself up a little as I speared my hand through his hair. “Isn’t delectable a taste, not a feeling?” My mouth found his. It was impossible to keep the kiss simple and short, impossible to hold back. Anything but a total scream session was out of the question.
He gathered me in his arms and carried me to the couch, lying beside me. He released the hooks at the back of my bra through my top as his tongue ravaged mine, and he moved to cup a breast in his hand, teasing my nipple with his thumb. Our mouths remained locked together, our tongues dueling for position—teasing and stroking as lovers did, even though I’d only had the one night with him.
He tasted of raw power and sex. His hair and neck smelled of masculine pine, like the forest around us, which lit my body up. I could only hear the blood rushing through my veins and his breathing as our kiss grew more sensual, more tingly, more intense, more all-consuming. I’d never been kissed like this before, like I belonged to a man.
With the fire of lust in his eyes, he pulled away from my lips. “You’re overdressed.” He pulled at my top, and I wiggled out of it.
I fumbled to work the buttons on his shirt and giggled. “This is hard with one hand.”
He lifted up and pulled his shirt off. Finally we were skin to skin as he flung my bra away.
As we renewed the kiss, I clawed at his back. All the while he was busy, cupping and massaging my breasts. Rolling my hardened, sensitive nipples between his thumb and forefinger, sending continuing shockwaves through me.
Luke, the nipple master, broke the kiss to move his mouth to my breasts and take over where his fingers had left off. His breath on my skin was hot as a hand moved between my thighs, urging my legs apart.
I whimpered in response and rubbed his hard cock through his pants. The reaction was immediate. He quickly unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, pushing them down enough to gain access. His hand slid inside my panties, and his fingers found their way through my curls and began gliding along the length of my wet folds, again and again. He dipped a finger into my entrance before circling my clit.
I arched into his hand, seeking more pressure.
He continued to lick and suck at my nipples as a finger entered me, moving slowly in and out and around, farther and farther. His thumb found my clit, and he alternated kissing and sucking my nipples, then blowing softly, the cool air on my wet skin bringing shivers. A second long finger joined the first as he stretched me.