A Wifey for the Bad Boy(5)

Samantha rolled her eyes as she looked back towards the front. How had  she allowed such an eager to please bike boss rule her life for the past  two days? He was completely wrapped around her finger.

"This is me," she said, stopping at her door. "But then, you knew that."

Abel didn't answer, but said instead, "How about that dinner? It doesn't have to be today," he said quickly. "But, sometime."

"And why would I," she asked, sticking her key in the lock. "Go on a date with you?"

"I'll stop the hunting party for your brother," he promised.

Samantha frowned, and half-stepped into her apartment, hanging on the  doorway. "Isn't that a bit of an empty threat? You touch him, I hate  you."

"He still owes me money," Abel said, and Samantha raised an eyebrow at  the hand that he had moving around in his coat pocket. Was he fidgeting?

She sighed. "One date, and you never touch my brother again."

"Deal," he beamed at her. Samantha blinked back, immediately regretting her decision.


       

   






Chapter 4

"It's Harley-Davidson."

Samantha stared at the curved bike parked before her, the matt black  color of it reminding her of the bat mobile. And just like that crazy  contraption, she had no interest to get Abel's motorcycle.

"Black, just like all my other bikes," he boasted, patting the leather  seat. "But this one is my favorite. It's a V-rod, my heaviest bike at  six hundred and sixty-six pounds. Goes from zero to sixty in three point  fifty-nine seconds," he said, snapping his fingers happily.

Samantha tried to ignore the fact that his bike weighed the same as the  number of the beast, and instead focused on the helmets that he was  holding under his arms. "Is one for me?" she asked, pointing to them.

"Oh, yes," Abel smiled, and he tossed the red one to her. She barely  caught it, and he chuckled. "I'll be driving, so don't worry."

But that was exactly why she was worried. "Where are we going again?" she asked, not that Abel had told her even once.

"Somewhere special," he promised. "Now, c'mere," he said, climbing onto  the bike. It barely moved under his weight, and he patted the small  space of leather in between his thighs.

"Uh," she said. "Don't the extra passengers usually sit on the back?"

"Not on the V-rod," he smiled. "Too easy to slip off."

While it was true that the small curve of metal just after the indent of  the seat was tiny, she still felt like Abel wasn't being entirely  honest. Sighing to herself, she pulled on the helmet and walked over.

She'd never ridden a motorcycle before, and she climbed onto it with  numb legs and a shaky hand. Abel kept the bike steady, and he guided her  gently into the place that he'd spread himself to make room for.  "Ready?" he asked, his voice muffled from the helmet.

"Yup," she called, grabbing onto the handlebars. Abel laughed and patted  her hands towards the middle so that he could grip them properly, too.

Samantha had never liked motorcycles. How Abel had convinced her to ride  his she didn't know, and she had to force herself to stop thinking  about the death rates and statistics. "Here we go!" Abel yelled, and  with a flick of his wrist the engine roared to life. Samantha jumped,  the vibration of the engine making her whole body thrum.

Knocking the kickstand up, Abel hollered something else, and then they were off.

Samantha quickly found herself clinging to the bike's seat with her  thighs, feeling oddly like a roller coaster rider without a safety bar.  Her only consolation was Abel's hard chest at her back, and she let  gravity push her into him without a care, her reservations thrown out  the window as they raced down the street.

"Lean left!" Abel suddenly yelled.

"What?" she called. But then the whole bike was falling, and she  squeezed her eyes shut, and she allowed her body weight to shift to  –  of  all things  –  the ground.

They rode like that for miles, and Samantha would've sworn that they'd  spent an hour on the road, at least, when the bike's engine finally  hummed down low, and she could open her eyes again.

"Ta-da!" Abel announced, kicking the stand down as he let the bike sag  onto it, parking them. He'd taken her to the city's lake, just beneath  the old oak tree. Perhaps it was just coincidence, but a woolen blanket  was sitting a few feet away, right where she used to study during her  senior year of college. Abel either didn't notice her look of confusion  or didn't care, and he proclaimed, "A picnic under the stars!"

As if Samantha would have let him take her anywhere after dark. "It's  three in the afternoon," she said, climbing off with a scowl. Abel just  laughed, and helped her before getting off himself.

"Oh, almost forgot," he snapped his fingers, turning back to the bike.  Clicking a button, the seat flew up, and Abel pulled out a small cooler.  "Hope you're hungry," he held it up.

Samantha held back an eye roll and walked over to the blanket, crossing  her legs as she took a seat. Abel placed the cooler in the center, and  dropped to the grass in a heap, his leather pants creaking as he moved.

"Okay," he said, counting them off as he pulled them out. "We've got bruschetta, French bread, strawberries, watermelon … "

They were all her favorite snacks. "Abel," Samantha said, looking up at him. "You're kind of a stalker, aren't you?"

"Sorry, is there something wrong with asking a friend what his sister would like to eat?" he replied innocently.

"You and James aren't friends," she said dryly.       

   





"Better friends then enemies," he winked, smiling.

"So," she said, watching as he took a paper plate and set to cutting up the bread. "What's your endgame, in all of this?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, his eyes on the knife in his hands.

"You know," she said. "Me."

Abel stopped, and looked up. "I love you," he said simply. "I want to do whatever you'd like until death takes one of us."

That again. Samantha huffed, and crossed her arms. "Abel-"

"I know," he said, waving her off as he got back to work. "I've heard it  all before, in my own head. ‘How could you like someone you haven't  even met?' ‘You don't even know her.'" With every word, he was slamming  the knife against the bread, yanking the slices off to drop them onto  the blanket. "But I do know you," he said gruffly, taking a plate. He  laid out three pieces of bread and put a spoonful of the red bruschetta  mixture on each. "I know all about you."

"But not from me," she said, awkwardly accepting the plate.

"No," he agreed. "But from someone who knows you just as well as you do."

"Yeah?" she asked, tearing into a slice. "And what did James have to say  about me? That I'm easily manipulated?" She hadn't talked to her  brother since he'd tried to sell her out to both Wood brothers.

"That you're kind," he said, putting the knife down to pick up the box  of strawberries. "That it's not that you can't turn away someone in  need, it's that you won't." Sighing to himself, Abel shrugged, and said,  "The girl that your brother described …  Well, I couldn't help falling in  love with her."

"I'm not perfect, you know," she grumbled.

"Oh, that much I do know," he grinned. "You're quiet, when you're unsure  of your situation. And submissive  –  not at all like the fiery woman  that your brother had assured me you were." Sliding over to Samantha's  side of the blanket, he said, "All this I learned on my own, and I  welcome all of it."

"Even though I'm not fiery?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Are you kidding?" he asked, bending his head near her ear. "You're too hot for me to even begin to handle."

Samantha tried to ignore the way that Abel's hot breath puffed against  her neck, sending shivers down her spine, but it was impossible. How  long had it been since a man had paid her compliments? Since someone had  noticed her rather than her body  –  pudgy and flabby and entirely too  gross for someone to deal with.

And yet, Abel was fit. He was tall and muscular  –  hell, the man was  sexy, especially on that deathtrap of a motorcycle. And, for some reason  or another, he wanted her.

"You know," Samantha said, turning her head to tell him off, but Abel moved first.

He kissed her, a light peck on the lips that made her blink. His blue  eyes had her in a trap, and she didn't move away, something he seemed to  take as a good sign. He kissed her again, a deep, hungry kiss that  nipped at her bottom lip.

Samantha had never been kissed, not like that.

She wasn't sure what to do, and so she just sat there, her heart jumping  into her throat while her brain fizzled out on what the next plan of  action should be. Luckily, Abel seemed to know what he was doing, and he  quickly noticed her distress.