Romance: JADEN: An MMA Fighter Romance (Bad Boy Tattoo Romance) (New Adult Pregnancy Short Stories) (27 page)

“Is that your new defense mechanism to keep the world at arm’s length? Snipe at it constantly?”

“Who said anything about arm’s length?” I asked incredulously. “I enjoy having life right in my face.” While it wasn’t true, Christian couldn’t search my soul for the lie in this light. It was still too dark, though it was light enough to look like a very cloudy day.

“Such an uptight do-gooder like you?” Christian asked, coming closer once again. I swallowed, realizing that we were alone for the first time since that night.

No. If it had been wrong the first time, it was doubly wrong this time. Our parents were getting married, and I couldn’t have these kinds of feelings towards my step brother. It shouldn’t happen. “Why am I even still here talking to you?” I asked, annoyed.

“That is a good question,” Christian said. There was only a foot of space between us now, and one more step would have me knocking into the rocking chair that sat in the corner of the porch, back banging against the house. It didn’t want to wake Mom or Charlie and have to explain what exactly I was doing out here. So I held perfectly still. “What are you doing here?”

“Christian,” I started, all intentions to tell him to get away or I’d spray him in the face with the Mace in my pocket, but the words faltered as his question became a breath of hot air against my cheek. He was much too close for comfort, much too close indeed. But I couldn’t find the energy or the will to make him back up.

I opened my mouth to say something else, but then his scent hit me. It was the exact same smell that I had smelled on my very first night with a man: a mixture of leather, old spice, and something uniquely masculine that I couldn’t place and most definitely couldn’t replicate. It was Christian’s specific smell, something that he would always have and that I would always secretly hope to smell in another man as I leaned forward to hug them or bury my face in their chests. I hadn’t in all of those years we had smelled apart.

That smell completely destroyed any residing tension, leaving me pliable and soft, ready for him to do anything. He could as me to strip and dance naked in the moonlight, and as long as that heady scent was in my nostrils, I would do so.

Luckily, all he did was reach forward and run a finger down my cheek, dragging it along the corner of my lip and then up my jaw to tuck a loose strand of curly hair behind my ear. “I’ve changed, Tara. If you’d take the time to notice, I’d let you see this side of me I only discovered months ago.”

“Changed?” I asked, and my voice was damnably breathy.

“I don’t want this life. I understand where Charlie is coming from when he says that he’s tired of being the big, bad biker. Riding has been my one and only dream; I saved up for months from my first job to buy my Harley Davidson, but now I find that it doesn’t bring me as much pleasure as it once did, riding alongside criminals who have always been against the law. I want to do something else, something that involves someone like you and a house and maybe in the future some kids.”

I was speechless. I knew that I should say something, correct him, but I couldn’t find the words. They were gone from my head, and I was left with only three: he wants me.

Before I could even respond, make logical sense of my own world, he was speaking again. “Let me show you how to fly.”

I knew he meant a ride on his bike, of course. He couldn’t get me to go on the thing for the night we had spent together. That had been my firm deal. I would go with him to wherever he wanted, just as long as I didn’t have to ride that disaster waiting to happen. All through the ride in the cab to the bar and restaurant he had taken me to for our date, I had recited the horror stories I’d heard about bikers falling off of their bikes and being unable to function properly ever again. I remembered how he had just laughed and told me to take a chill pill.

I should say no. That would be what I would always say, no questions asked. So why was I hesitating so much?

Christian reached out a hand, palm facing up. The contours and highlights of his fingers were turned into a foreign creature by the angle of the moonlight, flesh shifting into hills and valleys of nearly-colorless skin.

Before I could even logically tell my brain no, I found my own hand lifting and reaching forward. My fingertips brushed against his palm, rough and calloused from years of hard work and clamped around the bike, and doing God knows what else. They were also strong and sure, and something that I felt that I could trust.

What was with me tonight? Christian wasn’t safe, and he most definitely couldn’t be trusted. He’d get me killed just as soon as he would protect me.

Before I could yank my hand back and say that I’d changed my mind, Christian had pulled me forward. We went quickly down the porch steps to where Christian’s bike sat alongside Mom’s subdued sedan, gleaming like a thing of beauty and power.

He sat down on it, swinging a leg over as if it were as easy as sitting up in bed. I knew that it was a deceitful motion; balancing and making sure that everything was just right to avoid falling over was not stable or easy. He pulled me on before I could find my voice to protest, and I found that perhaps it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be in the first place.

When Christian wrapped my arms around his torso, I finally found my voice. “Is this a good idea?”

“If you want to stay alive and in one piece, then yes, this is wise.” He revved the engine at the end of that note, and I found myself clinging to him as the bike suddenly jumped forward like an overeager horse ready to go on a long gallop. “Lean against me,” he said as we pulled out of the driveway. “And lean into the turns so that I can make the full turn as easily as possible.”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me and carefully laid my cheek against the cool material of his leather jacket.

After the initial fear, I relaxed into the ride. He was right, with the wind against my face and the feeling of going much faster than we actually were, it felt akin to flying. I found myself closing my eyes, imagining that there wasn’t this metallic contraption of death underneath me, that it was only me and Christian. We flew through the night, lights flickering past like willow-the-wisps that grandma used to tell me about.

The miles were eaten away from his truck. I could feel the shift of Christian’s muscles as he turned the vehicle and adjusted slightly against my fingers every time he made a slight movement. He may not have had the carved-out muscles of a fitness model, but he was still well-built, and I could feel the sheer power contained in his body as he moved as if he and the bike were one.

We reached the city limits within no time and were speeding past, outside of the houses and the lights into the empty highway. No one was out so late and it felt eerie to be in the town that had always bustled with life my entire youth so utterly empty.

We must have ridden for an hour, though it could have been much longer or much shorter. I lost track of time after quite a while, simply appreciating the feel of the wind against my face, the whip of my hair behind me and the almost burning warmth Christian’s heat provided me.

However, the cold began seeping in as the night grew older, and the early morning crept closer. When Christian began feeling me shake, he turned around.

“I’ll get you back.”

His voice was a shock after the silence, and I remembered why I hadn’t wanted to come on his bike ever. The shaking intensified with my fear, and I think that I tightened my arms painfully around his midsection. “Please do,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut the entire way home.

My legs shook as I got off of the bike. Christian grinned at me as I turned around to face him. “How was it?”

“Terrifying,” I said flatly, though it wasn’t completely true.

“You enjoyed it for half of the time. That reminds me of our date.”

I felt whatever openness that had been left between us slam shut. “We do not talk about that night,” I hissed, stomping forward so that I could poke a finger into his chest. “Ever,” I added for emphasis, jabbing my finger into his sternum once more.

Christian blinked, and for a moment I saw surprise before he managed to hide it behind an expression that looked somewhere between a grimace and a smirk. “Whatever you say, Princess.”

“And don’t call me that,” I snapped, turning away to go back up the stairs.

“Cherry,” he called as I opened the door. I turned to look at him, hoping that he could feel my glare from across the distance that spanned us.

That night, I dreamt of flying.

###

In the morning, I nearly had a heart attack as the full ramifications of my actions hit me. I remembered each and every sharp turn Christian had made, wincing as I envisioned the bike spinning out of control and waking up in the hospital with a tube in my mouth and Mom’s worried face above me.

Everyone else was already downstairs by the time that I mustered up the courage to leave my room and face Christian after last night... whatever it had been. I still wasn’t sure what exactly had happened between us, but I was dead set on pretending that it hadn’t.

“Good morning,” I growled, slapping a few pieces of bacon and some scrambled eggs onto my plate.

Mom looked up from stirring cream into her coffee and Charlie turned his newspaper page. Christian appeared around the corner of the kitchen door, grinning at me.

“Hey, sis,” he said, putting emphasis on the familial term. I glared at him. As if I needed to be reminded that what I had been feeling last night was wrong.

“So,” Mom said after a few moments. “Did you enjoy your ride last night?” she asked, her gray eyes boring into mine. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or not.

I bit the inside of my cheek. “It was terrifying.”

Charlie flipped another page.

Mom suddenly smiled. “I’m so proud of you, honey. You did something that you’ve always been scared of, and that is a good first step towards not being an obsessive, paranoid person that I know that I didn’t raise you to be.”

I rolled my eyes after she looked away and then glanced over at Christian. “Trust me,” I said dully, looking straight into his eyes. “It won’t happen again.”

I couldn’t help but notice the small flicker that went through his gaze at those words. Mom got up with a disappointed sigh and went to put the creamer back into the fridge.

“How exactly is it that you know Christian?” Charlie asked without lowering his newspaper.

I looked at the front page, imagining burning through it with my gaze, and then I really looked at the picture.

Those eyes, I had seen those eyes too many times in my nightmares to forget them.

That face had been snarled in anger the last time I had seen it, and then blank in death. I let out a noise that was somewhere between a strangled gasp and a sob as I realized who exactly it was who was staring out at me from the newspaper.

Still Missing: 23-Year-Old Man’s Disappearance Still Unresolved, was the headline. Charlie finally lowered the paper and glanced over at me, raising an eyebrow.

I felt the blood pounding through my veins. No, no, no. I had already been through this. Christian had promised that if I kept that information about him shooting the man to myself that no trouble would come of it; that he would take care of it.

I glanced over at Christian, who had looked up at me the moment I had made that terrible sound.

“We’ve known each other since grade school. We went to the same elementary and high school. Of course I wouldn’t have seen her in junior high because we moved,” he said quickly, giving me a look that said, pull it together.

“Yeah,” I managed weakly. Charlie glanced between the two of us, his sharp eyes missing nothing. Though they were a different color than Christian’s, I had the feeling that they could rend my defenses apart just as easily as Christian had always been able to do with a simple look.

The sudden urge to throw up became prominent in my mind and body, and I quickly shoved myself away from the table.

“Please excuse me,” I said breathlessly, and ran into the kitchen because the bathroom was too far away. I didn’t have anything in my stomach, so only bile came up, but the ripples and wrenching sensations that went through my stomach were terrible and violent. At some point, I realized that tears were streaming down my face.

“Honey!” Mom said, placing her hands around my shoulders. “Tara, are you alright?”

I couldn’t stop the dry heaves, and I couldn’t answer her questions. I couldn’t let her know that I was so shaken by a simple newspaper article, and I couldn’t let Christian know that I was still affected by him that night. There were so many things that I couldn’t do, so many things that I wasn’t allowed to do. The weight was sudden and oppressive, and I needed to sit down. I quickly sank to the floor, burying my head in my hands. Mom continued her frantic fluttering asking if I was okay and if she could help in any way, any way at all.

I just shook my head, attempting not to sob out loud. A few moments later, burning hot, calloused hands wrapped around my upper arms and drew me into a standing position. I should have moved away from Christian in that moment; it would have been the right thing to do and I was angry with him for not taking care of the situation like he said he would, but I found that I couldn’t do anything but sag against him as he said something to me over and over in a soothing voice.