I looked down to where the real Ox straddled a real Harley. The cartoon looked sensible by comparison. I’d wondered how on earth such a big guy could ride a bike and the answer was, simply, he has a very big bike.#p#分页标题#e#
The Harley must have been custom-built for him. It was longer, wider, meaner. A rhino could have ridden it and not have looked out of place. Ox just about fit.
The event was pretty simple. Ox rode all the way from the top of the twisting mountain road to the bottom at breakneck speed. There was a sweepstake with prizes donated by local businesses: the winner was the person who guessed closest to the exact time. After six years, it had gotten pretty serious, with a big digital clock linked up to the Sheriff’s speed trap hardware at the finish line and hundreds of sweepstake entries. Mom sold hot dogs and there were commemorative t-shirts, too. All the money raised went to the kids’ ward at the medical center.
“And he organizes all this himself?” I asked Carrick.
He nodded, sliding an arm around my waist. “We all help out, but it’s a him thing, not a club thing.” He looked at Ox. “I know...he doesn’t seem like the type. But he likes kids.”
I smiled. I was enjoying getting to know them. Mac, Hunter, Ox, Viking...the bikers who’d scared me so much when I first walked into the clubhouse were starting to feel like friends. And with Mom around, it almost felt like a big, weird family. “Gentle giant with a heart of gold, huh?”
Carrick gave me a look. “Not so gentle when he gets riled. Don’t ever make him angry.” He used the arm around my waist to hook me around so that I was facing him, then pushed the hair back from my cheek. For a second, he just looked at me. I could feel myself flushing. I still wasn’t used to the way he looked at me: those intense blue eyes eating up every detail, drinking me in like I was the best thing he’d ever seen. Then the lick of raw heat that let me know he was imagining stripping me, hurling me on the bed and roughly taking me, his stubble scratching my cheek as he pounded into me from above or his breath hot in my ear as he slammed into me from behind—I swallowed, a wave of heat racing down my body to pool in my groin.
When he looked at me like that, with those eyes as clear and blue as the sky, it seemed like everything was perfect. But inevitably, his eyes would cloud with pain. Something he was remembering, something that was eating away at him from the inside. That thing he’d done that he thought made him irredeemable. The one he still wouldn’t share, the one that meant there was still distance between us.
He slept like a baby in my arms each night but, if I woke and went to the bathroom, I’d sometimes return to find him in the midst of a nightmare, face so contorted in hate and disgust that my chest clenched up tight. But when I woke him, he’d refuse to talk about it.
Mac passed us, his cell phone clamped to his ear. “One minute!” he announced. “They’re all ready at the finish line!”
Carrick glanced at him and I saw his face tighten. He and Mac had had a shouting match just after we returned from my old house. Mac had been mad that Carrick had gone off on his own again and Carrick had snapped that he’d do what he wanted. It had been three days and they still hadn’t made up. I’d seen how close the two of them were. It must be killing them to be at each other’s throats. And I knew that I was part of the cause.
At least there’d been no more attacks by Volos. Everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop but there were enough armed bikers attending today’s event that I felt safe. Even the Sheriff’s department was there, since they’d had to close the road. Sheriff Harris had been looking into Volos for us but so far had drawn a complete blank: no one had any information on the guy.
Ox started his bike, sending plumes of blue-gray smoke into the air. Its massive engine made the air throb and the pavement shake. The crowd whooped and roared.#p#分页标题#e#
“Ten seconds!” yelled Mac.
Ox revved his engine. The crowd cheered and started a countdown. “Ten! Nine! Eight!”
Carrick leaned in to kiss me before the start. For a moment, our problems were forgotten. It only needed a brush of those hard Irish lips against mine to make me forget everything. He kissed me hard, then teased me. His tongue licking along my upper lip...and then he sucked it into his mouth and nibbled it in a way that made my whole body lift and quiver.
“Seven!” yelled the crowd. “Six!”
Carrick’s hands slid down my shoulders, down my sides and grabbed my ass, pulling me closer, my body fitting so neatly against his, like we were designed to fit together. What had started as a quick kiss became something else: his hands were possessive, locking me against him, and there was nowhere I would have rather been in the world.