I’d never driven a man crazy, before.
He turned around slowly, as if moving his limbs through wet concrete. His head was the last to turn, those blue eyes watching me until they absolutely had to let me go. Then his back was to me, the powerful muscles rising and falling as he breathed.
I swallowed and unwrapped the towel from me. Every square millimeter of skin tingled and throbbed. He’s six feet from me! Close enough that I could hear his breathing.
“You want milk in your coffee?” he asked. He turned just a little to the side, towards where he’d put the cups. I caught my breath. All he’d have to do now would be to glance to the side and—
“Yep. Milk is good. Thank you,” I croaked.
I bent to towel off my legs and feet, which meant taking my eyes off him. Is he looking? I could feel my breasts hanging down—was that his gaze I could feel on them, or just my imagination? My nipples started to pucker and swell. Jesus….
I straightened up. He was facing completely away from me, carefully stirring one of the coffees. Oh. I flushed, embarrassed...and just a little disappointed. He hadn’t been—
Then I saw myself, reflected in the chrome of the Harley’s gas tank. He was staring right at that little, distorted mini-me.#p#分页标题#e#
I caught my breath, found my underwear and pulled it on. I tried to do it matter-of-factly...but when you know someone’s watching you, nothing is matter-of-fact. I felt like a stripper, only in reverse. This is crazy. This is me, the geeky one. The one none of the boys were interested in.
But he was. I could see the back of his head tilt and move, following every shimmy as I pulled my panties up my legs. I felt the heat begin to build, throbbing steadily down my body to pool between my thighs. This is wrong. I should turn around, or tell him to stop watching. But I didn’t want to. I was getting hotter and hotter...and I felt oddly proud.
I reached for my bra, watching him watching me, his eyes locked on the sway of my breasts. I’d always thought they were too big, too much, when they should have been delicate and pert. But he seemed hypnotized by them and that only added to the warm glow.
I swallowed, put on my bra and grabbed the dress. It looked like something a girl might wear to her prom in the fifties: electric blue with a long, flaring skirt and a tight, low-cut bodice. But it was pretty, with stylized flowers embroidered on the front in silver thread. I pulled it on and zipped up the back. “Okay,” I said. “I’m done.”
He slowly turned around and looked.
And looked.
I felt my skin begin to prickle in an unfamiliar but very pleasant way. “What?”
“Nothin’,” he grunted. He sat on the edge of the bed and offered the box. “Hungry?”
I hadn’t eaten since lunch the previous day. When he lifted the lid of the box, the smell that rose up made my mouth water: sugar and caramel, the tang of berries and the thick, rich scent of butter pastry.
There were pain au raisins, the custard smooth and creamy, the fruit succulent and sweet. There were donuts, still warm from the fryer, puffed up and crispy on the outside, luxuriously soft on the inside. And there were my favorites, maple pecan twists, the nuts shining with syrup, the pastry flaking and melting in your mouth. We ate and ate, pastry shards around our mouths, sugar dusting our lips.
When we’d finished the box and drunk the coffee, I flopped back on the bed, arms above my head, grinning from the sugar rush. It was the best I’d felt since the whole nightmare had started. “That was amazing,” I told him. I ran my hand over the too-tight bodice of my dress. “Good job that was the end of the box. Any more and I’d burst out of this thing.”
I meant it as a joke but I caught his eye and saw the burst of ferocious heat there, as if he quite liked that idea. I flushed. Then he seemed to catch himself and stood up. “Time we got going,” he told me gruffly.
I stood as well, dusting crumbs from my dress. “Where are we heading?”
He stared into my eyes for a second and I saw the frustration there, the battle he was having with himself. What’s going on? What isn’t he telling me? “My town,” he said at last. “Where the Hell’s Princes are based. Haywood Falls.” He opened the motel room door and swung a leg over the bike. “Let’s ride.”
13
Annabelle
When we’d fled the bar the night before, I’d been too scared—and too naked—to enjoy the ride. This was a totally different experience.
Carrick stuck to quiet streets and back roads until we hit the highway. A few times we heard other bikes and he held back until they’d roared past. We had a nervous few minutes when we first joined the highway, but after a few miles it was obvious that the Blood Spiders who’d been guarding it in the night must have given up, probably figuring that we’d already slipped past them. It was still early and there was barely any traffic so Carrick opened up the bike and we roared along the deserted pavement.#p#分页标题#e#