Brawn: Lethal Darkness MC (6 page)

He turned the bike on. It came roaring to life between my legs. The engine growled like a massive monster, snarling, spitting heat and vibrations out in every direction. Compared to it, I felt small and fragile. But somehow, Micah seemed even more comfortable in its presence. Instead of shrinking him, it made him seem bigger, more powerful. It fit him.

I shivered. The thoughts running through my head made no sense and yet I couldn’t do anything to stop them. Wild, unbidden thoughts came one after another without pause.
Micah touching me. Micah kissing me. Micah slowly peeling my jeans down my hips as I lay on my back in front of him.

The sudden jolt of motion brought me back to reality. Micah had pressed the clutch and rolled quickly onto the throttle. The bike shot out from the sidewalk onto the asphalt. It took me by surprise. My hands flailed in the air. I felt myself tipping backwards, my center of gravity sending me over the rear of the bike. Just before I completely lost balance, I found a grip on Micah’s leather jacket. I pulled myself upright.

What was that bouncing in his back? Oh, he was laughing at me. “Hold onto me,” he said over the low growl of the motor. “Put your hands on my sides.”

I couldn’t believe that I’d almost been tossed off the bike just seconds after we started moving. I put my hands on either side of his torso. Through the slick leather jacket and the t-shirt he wore underneath, I could feel his muscles flexing as we took every little bump in the road. The smooth hills of his abs were hard beneath my fingertips. He must be absolutely ripped.
Of course
, I thought to myself sarcastically,
just what he needed: another element to add to his perfection
.

We picked up speed and I found myself clinging tighter to him. The wind whipped by. It blew my hair out behind me and tugged at my clothes with sneaky little fingers. As scared as I was, though, there was a little part of me that was loving the sensation of the vibrating motorcycle between my legs and the solid, unyielding muscles of the man in front of me. It settled into my bones in a way that just felt
right
.

We snaked down a quiet side street and then emerged onto a long avenue free of any traffic in either direction. Micah brought the bike to a smooth stop in the middle of the blacktop. He twisted around to look back at me.

“How was that?” he asked.

“Okay,” I said with a hint of uncertainty in my voice.

“Well, that was just the warm-up. Now we can really have some fun. Are you up for it?”

I wanted to bite my nails, but I forced myself to keep my hands on his sides. Touching his abs wasn’t such a bad alternative. “I guess,” I said.

He could tell I was fearful. I expected him to make fun of me, to tease at how clearly afraid I was of this powerful machine and its mysterious, cocky rider. But he surprised me. His face looked somber and deadly serious. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll never let you fall.”

He gazed at me after he stopped talking. His words hung between us in the quiet night. His face was a foot away from mine, maybe less. For one crazy second, I thought he might kiss me. I wasn’t sure yet what I’d do if he tried.

But he left that question unanswered. He turned back around to face forward and revved the engine a couple times. It thundered down the empty avenue. Then, he let go of the clutch as he yanked back hard on the accelerator. We took off like we were shot out of a cannon.

The night was flying past me on either side. Buildings and transmission lines looked like blurs. My eyes were tearing up from the wind. In front of me, Micah let loose a wild, delirious howl. I wanted to laugh and scream at the same time. Instead, I did neither. I just held on for dear life.

“Do you trust me?” he roared over the deafening engine.

“What?” I yelled back.

“I asked if you trust me!”

“I just met you!”

“You either do or you don’t!”

I hesitated. I’d barely known this man for a few minutes, and yet here I was, desperately hanging onto him as we rocketed down the street at over a hundred miles an hour, if the speedometer was to be relied upon. But he was right.
You either do or you don’t.
I knew which one it was.

“Yes!” I yelled. “I trust you!”

His entire frame tensed beneath me. I didn’t know what the hell he was about to do, when all of the sudden he jerked back. The front wheel came off the ground. I couldn’t even scream anymore. This situation had gone from ridiculous to flat out unreasonable. There was no possible way I could be awake. I was either dreaming or in a coma or dead, and this was all a figment of my imagination. It just defied common sense to think that I could ever be on the back of a motorcycle with a stranger, doing a wheelie at top speed at midnight. No way. Paris Jenison would never be here.

But I was.

# # #

The silence when Micah cut off the engine was weird. The sound had worked its way so deeply into my eardrums during our short ride that I’d completely forgotten what it was like to not have that deep rumble surrounding me at all times.

We were back outside the clubhouse. The party had died down some. I saw people leaving in ones and twos, most of them on very unsteady feet. It had all the signs of a successful party.

Micah leaped off, then turned and offered a hand to help me down. I leaned against it as I climbed off unsteadily. My legs felt wobbly on solid ground.

I fished my phone out of my back pocket to check the time. I saw that Katy had texted me nearly half a dozen times since we’d left. The vibration of the bike must have masked my phone buzzing. I flicked through the messages.

Are you okay?!?

Let me know when you’re back!!

Go get ’em tiger ;) xxxx

Paris!!! Where are you??

Text me when ur back here <3

I texted her to tell her that I was back. She immediately replied,
Thank god!! We went to get pizza. Be back in fifteen minz. Love u.

I tucked my phone away again and looked up at Micah. He was studying me with a cool gaze.

“Have fun?” he asked softly.

I nodded my head yes. “Thanks for the ride,” I said.

“My pleasure. Do you want me to take you back to your friends?”

“They went to get pizza,” I explained. “They’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I see.” He drew in a slow, steady breath, then released it. “Well, I don’t want to leave you standing out here alone. Not safe for a pretty girl like you to be by herself with all these drunk assholes around.”

“Didn’t you say you were one of those?” I joked.

“Guilty as charged,” he said with a grin. He fell silent. His eyes never wavered from mine. They were steady and calm. The vibe rolling off of him was the same—unrelenting, powerful, irresistible. He was so close that I could smell him. Leather and whiskey, the smoke of the motorcycle engine, and underneath, a different scent, subtler and more masculine, that came in and out, teasing me. It was like a drug. I felt dizzy. Whether from the ride, the shots, or Micah himself, I wasn’t sure.

“I’m glad I met you,” he said in a quiet voice.

“I’m glad I met you, too. I don’t get out much.”

“Well, good thing you chose tonight.”

“Yeah. Good thing.”

Then his hands were on my hips and his lips were on mine. It was as sudden and stomach turning as the acceleration of the bike had been. But this time, my feet were planted firmly on the earth. So why did I still feel like I was racing through the night?

He tasted exactly like he smelled, the same swirling combination of dark and light, strong and soft. His beard rasped against my face, but his fingertips rested gently on the waist of my leather jeans. Even in my ridiculous heels and with him folded over towards me, I had to stretch to reach his mouth.

His tongue slipped past my lips and touched tips with mine. It was an easy, gentle kiss. I was surprised by how deft he was with his tongue. I would have thought that he would attack me, dominate me right away.

But he didn’t need to. He claimed me without any show of power. A simple kiss and the last of my resistance fell away.

He pulled away slowly, but his hands never left my waist. “Do you want a drink?” he asked me.

I nodded, unable to find the words. He took my fingers in his grasp and led me back inside the clubhouse.

Indoors, there were a few groups of late night survivors scattered across the various chairs and booths dotting the room. Most people were deep in the stages of alcohol- and drug-fueled mania, quickly hurtling towards sleep or unconsciousness. I saw many couples with their tongues down each other’s throats. There was even a threesome in one corner. A heavily pierced Lethal Darkness member was locked in a three-way kiss with two scantily clad brunettes. As we passed by, I saw the girls slip their hands down the front of the biker’s jeans.

I drew closer to Micah. This was so far out of my comfort zone that I couldn’t even begin to decide what I should be feeling. I was rattled, I knew that much. But it was hard to say whether I’d been that way from the start or if the man holding my hand had been the one to shake me out of what I considered normal. After all, I was clinging to him like it was the most natural thing in the world to be doing—him, Micah Youngblood, the president of the Lethal Darkness MC, owner of a Greek god’s body and an archetypal bad boy’s face. If only Daddy could see me now.

I shuddered. I hadn’t thought of Daddy all night. On the way over, Katy had made me swear up and down that I’d do everything in my power to banish all thoughts of Papa T’s revenge, to file it away in the “Worry About It Later” folder in the back of my head. For the most part, I’d done a good job of that, albeit not without significant help from my friend Jack Daniels. But now, with the wind of the bike and the thrill of Micah’s kiss coursing through me in equal measures, I was having a hard time keeping much of a lid on anything at all.

I followed Micah to the corner of the bar where we’d taken the shots earlier. He retrieved the same bottle of whiskey and went to pour two more drinks, but he paused halfway with the bottle lingering in the air.

“I forgot—you don’t like this stuff, do you?”

“Not my favorite,” I admitted shyly.

He screwed the cap back on and tucked it away again. “Yeah, I should probably lay off it, too. Killed my old man and it’s certainly doing its best to lay me down in the dirt right next to him. I’ve got a bottle of wine in my room, if that’s more your speed.”

“That sounds good,” I said.

But instead of turning and taking me to his room, Micah paused for a second. He eyed me with an unreadable expression on his face, then suddenly reached out to pull me against his chest and kissed me deeply once more.

I melted in his arms. His warmth, his strength, surrounded me and took me in. My mouth went soft to accept his teasing tongue where it flicked against my teeth. His lips were surprisingly soft.

Then, just as suddenly as he’d kissed me, he pulled away. Only an inch, though. Just enough to introduce the tiniest sliver of air between my mouth and his. He stayed close enough for our breath to mingle in the space there, for his eyes to consume almost all of my field of vision. When he spoke, his voice was a low growl.

“Listen, Paris,” he said. “If you were any other girl, I’d have you bent over in my bed right now. I wouldn’t have bothered with all this bullshit—the bike, the kiss, all that. No, I’d have cut straight to the chase and ripped that silly little shirt right off you, left your ass raw and red from a good spanking. And I might do that to you anyway. But I’m not gonna rush it. I want to take my time with you. You’re not like the others. When I make you come, I want to
remember
it.”