Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
A longing in my heart, a deep ache, reminds me that I no longer have that feeling.
And I’d do anything to get it back.
Keeping my head low, I walk past the bar but stop when a loud but husky laugh travels in my direction. It’s not aimed at me, but it stands out from the rest of the chatter around me. It’s familiar in some way. I tilt my head to the side and listen as I pair up a voice to match that laughter. It’s a deep, throaty voice. I’d know it anywhere. It’s the same voice I heard at the fountain. It was the man who spoke to me.
I turn quickly, lifting my head and looking over to where the sound is coming from and my eyes fall on the most gorgeous, rugged, familiar biker I’ve ever seen. It’s him. The man from my show. The man who was following my bus. The man who spoke to me. Maverick is the biker who has been following me? I’m so lost, so caught up in staring at the gorgeous, mesmerizing man, that I don’t realize my face is now in full view.
“Scarlett Belle?” a female says, and then her screech can be heard through the entire bar. “Oh, my god, it’s Scarlett Belle!!!”
I take a shaky step back as heads start swiveling in my direction. Maverick’s head jerks up, and his eyes lock on mine. Those incredible green eyes pierce through me, and I can’t move. A group of girls start throwing back their chairs as they stand up. They’re going to rush me, and I literally have nowhere to go. This is bad. I’m not supposed to be out here.
I’m frozen in the spot.
I should not have come out alone.
Before my brain can process what to do, Maverick walks over to the low brick wall topped with a garden that separates the bar from the sidewalk, puts one hand on it, and swings over top of it as if he jumps things like that for a living. His boots hit the ground with a thud, and then he’s striding toward me. He’s a whole lot bigger when he’s walking at me like that and, suddenly, I’m a little concerned.
I don’t know him.
What if he’s a stalker? A killer? A rapist? God. I didn’t think this one through.
I take a step back and go to raise a hand, but he reaches me just before the girls hit the sidewalk, drops his shoulder into my belly, and launches me into the air, then he moves with quick strides toward the dark road. I’m in complete shock and am unable to do or say anything. Is he carrying me? Oh, God. He’s carrying me. I squirm, but it makes little difference to him. He reaches his bike, tosses me onto my feet, throws a leg over it, and barks, “Get on.”
I open my mouth, close it, then open it again.
“No,” I screech.
He gives me a narrow-eyed look. “I’m not a rapist, a killer, or a stalker. You either get on the bike with me and I’ll take you back to where ever you came from, or you go and face them.”
He jabs a thumb toward the massive group of people rushing toward us.
God dammit. He knows I don’t really have a choice. Facing a group of people like that on my own would end so badly. Probably worse than getting on this bike with a stranger. At least he’s only one person. I can run away from him. Them, on the other hand, not so much.
I throw my leg over the bike, and he starts it up. It roars to life with an angry growl that I can feel travel right from my tip toes to the top of my head.
“Hang on, darlin’,” he barks. “I don’t ride softly.”
Shit.
I wrap my arms around the big, strong biker and he spins out onto the road with an angry roar. I scream, pressing my face into his back and clenching my eyes shut. I can smell the leather of his jacket and feel the strong ridges of his body beneath my fingertips. But I don’t open my eyes. Not right away. For a while, I just hang on, terrified, worried about falling off, going over every horrific scenario that could possibly happen right now.
Then something happens.
We’re on the road. The wind is ripping through my hair, trailing it back behind me. The bike is rumbling beneath my body. And I lift my head from the stranger’s back and breathe in the crisp night air that fills my lungs. I feel the way it tickles my skin. I feel his leather jacket beneath my fingers. I feel ... free.
So. Incredibly. Free.
~*~*~*~
I don’t know how long we ride. It isn’t long, or maybe it just feels like it isn’t because of the rush coursing through my body. But, eventually, we come to a stop at a beach. It’s dark out, only the streetlights shining down over the well-worn pathway running along the soft sand. I can hear the waves crashing against the shore as soon as the bike stops.