Kristen Ashley - Motorcycle Man

* * *

I was being lifted and I opened my eyes to see weak light in the room.

It was dawn.

My arm automatically slid around Tack’s neck and I whispered, “Tack.”

“Sh, baby,” he whispered back, walking and carrying me.

I pressed my forehead into his neck and sighed.

Then I felt myself going down and I was in my bed, head on my pillow. I turned to my side and my eyes slid to him to see Tack standing beside the bed pulling the covers over me.

“Are you leaving?” I asked quietly.

“Got things to do,” he answered just as quietly.

“Okay,” I whispered, my eyes drifting closed and, as they did this, I felt the sweet sweep of his thumb across the apple of my cheek.

Then I felt his presence leaving me, my eyes drifted open and I saw he’d almost made it to my bedroom door.

“Tack?” I called, he stopped and turned.

“Yeah, baby.”

“Thanks for dinner.”

He grinned and it was no less sexy when I was half asleep.

“You’re welcome darlin’,” he replied and I grinned back as my eyes drifted closed again. Then I heard a muttered, “Pepperoni next time,” before I fell back to sleep.

I was in my office at Ride. It was the Thursday after the second Saturday night I’d spent with Tack. The second Saturday night I’d mistaken him for my motorcycle dream man. The second Saturday night where I made the way wrong decisions and acted so stupid I’d humiliated myself.

Four and a half days of nothing from Tack. Not one thing.

This did not mean I didn’t see him. I saw him. I saw him roaring in on his bike. I saw him standing outside the Compound talking to his biker brethren. I saw him working in the garage.

I did not see him anywhere around me. He didn’t come into the office and he didn’t pay another surprise visit to my house. But he was at Ride and he was either doing a bang up job of avoiding me or he forgot I existed.

Now I was a slut and an idiot and I decided that being a slut was more fun. A lot more fun. Being an idiot, melting toward Tack, letting him in over beer, pizza, sad movies and snuggling on my couch only to have him shut me out was not fun at all.

He’d used me. He needed a place to crash that Naomi couldn’t find so he showed at my door with pizza and turned on the biker charm to get what he needed to keep clear of his crazy, bitchy, stalker ex-wife.

And I’d let him. I’d even thanked him for a dinner I didn’t want to eat in the first damned place.

Yep. Totally an idiot.

My cell chirped on my desk, I picked it up, saw a text from Lanie, flipped it open and read it even though I knew what it was going to say.

Did you give notice yet?

This was the same text she sent six times a day, every day, since Tuesday when I realized that I’d been an idiot with Tack (again) and I’d shared this knowledge with her. She went from thinking he was a jerk to actively hating him. This was not surprising. This was what best friends did. Before Elliott, I’d done the same thing with numerous boyfriends of Lanie’s.

No, I texted back.

Five seconds later, I received, I’ll pay for your yoga classes until you get a new job.

Yesterday, she started an incentive strategy. We were up to once a month facials at her favorite salon, weekly invitations to Takeaway Thursday at her and Elliott’s place and now yoga classes.

I’ve applied three places. Give it time. I sent back.

Is he there today? She returned.

He was. He was currently in the garage working on that kickass red car I noticed no one touched but him. He was also currently avoiding me or forgetting I existed. It was nearly two in the afternoon. I’d heard him roar in at nine forty-five (I’d heard it and like the idiot I was, whenever I heard any bike roar in for the past four and half days, I’d looked), he’d sauntered into the garage and I hadn’t seen him since.

Yes, he’s here. I told Lanie.

I’m emailing you your letter of resignation now. You just have to print it, sign it and give it to him. Easy. Lanie replied.

She’d written my letter of resignation. Totally Lanie. I smiled at the phone. Then the door to the garage opened, I looked up and Tack stood there.

Damn.

I felt my smile fade and my throat clog at the same time my palm itched to find something to throw at him.

He walked right to my desk, eyes on me, hand to his back pocket and he said, “Do me a favor, babe. I’m starved. Go out and get me a sandwich.”

I stared up at him as he pulled out his wallet, opened it, yanked out some bills and tossed them on the desk in front of me. He was shoving the wallet in his back pocket when my throat unclogged but that itch in my palm intensified.

He hadn’t said word one to me after barging into my place and pretending to be a decent guy. Four and a half days later, he strolls in and tells me to get him a sandwich?

“Pardon?” I whispered.

“A sandwich. Roast beef and swiss. Get me a bag a chips and a pop while you’re at it. Don’t care where you go.”

“Pardon?” I repeated and his eyes narrowed.

“A sandwich, Red. Roast beef and swiss, chips and a pop.” When I simply continued to stare at him and said not a word, he added, “Jesus, you want me to write it down?”

My stare turned into a glare and I snapped, “No, handsome, you wrote it down, I wouldn’t be able to read it and I’m not getting you a sandwich. I have things to do. If you’re hungry, jump on your bike and go get your own damned sandwich.”

Then I turned to the computer and opened up my e-mail in order to find Lanie’s resignation letter because I was done with Ride Custom Cars and Bikes but mostly because I was done with Tack, the big, fat jerk.

“Say again?” I heard Tack growl.

“You heard me,” I bit out and clicked on Lanie’s e-mail.

“Babe, look at me.”

“Kiss my ass,” I replied, double clicking on Lanie’s attachment and ignoring the sparking, scary biker dude vibe that was suddenly saturating the room.

“Red, look… at… me.”

I looked at him, or, more accurately, glared at him.

“You got a problem?” he growled.

Did I have a problem? What a jerk!

“Yes,” I told him. “I have a problem.”

“What’s your problem?”

What was my problem? Ohmigod!

I didn’t know what to do. I was so angry, I couldn’t think. Anything I could say would expose too much. For some bizarre reason, I fell in love with him over tequila and really great sex. Then I fell out of love with him because he used me and he was a jerk about it. Then I started to fall back in love with him while he was using me again, being the jerk he was. In the meantime, I knew he slept with at least one other woman. And all I got out of all that was a lot of hassle, two beers, two slices of pizza and a number of really great orgasms.

Without any way to explain it and not put myself out there, I stated, “My problem is none of your business.”

“You made it my business by telling me to kiss your ass.”

“If you have an issue with the way I communicate, Tack, fire me,” I retorted.

“Jesus,” he crossed his arms on his chest then asked rudely, “You on the rag?”

I felt pressure build in my head and fired back on a near shout, “No! And if I was, that wouldn’t be your business either.” The pressure kept building and it forced me out of my chair, it forced my torso to lean across the desk toward him and it forced out of my mouth, “In fact, nothing about me is any of your business. I’m in a shitty mood and it’s none of your business why. So, if you’re hungry, go get your own stupid sandwich. I’m busy.”

Then I sat back down, turned to the computer and without reading the letter, I moved the mouse so the cursor on the screen was at the print button and I clicked. As I did this, through the pressure in my head and the thundering of my pulse beating in my wrists and neck, I heard Tack moving through the room. It wasn’t until the room darkened that what he was doing penetrated. But I had no opportunity to react before my chair was swiveled around forcefully making my body sway with the movement. Before I knew it, my head was tipped way back because Tack, hands on the arms of my chair, was leaned deep into my space.

“Explain the attitude, Red,” he ordered, his voice a low, angry rumble that I felt pulsating against my flesh.

“Are you insane?” I cried.

“Explain the fuckin’ attitude, Tyra.”

“Move away!” I demanded then I gasped because he didn’t move away.

No, he pulled me out of the chair to my feet. Then, I kid you not, his fingers curled into my skirt at the sides, he yanked it up so roughly my body jolted and my breath caught, then I felt his hands at my ass where he lifted me up, twisted and planted me on the desk. Reflexively, to stop from toppling back, my fingers curled into his tee as his hands left my ass. They went to the insides of my knees and forced them open. I gasped and then my back was flat on the desk. His hips were between my legs. His torso was pressed deep into mine. One of his hands was forcing my leg to curve around his hip and the fingers of his other hand slid into my hair, fisted at the back and his face was so close, it was all I could see.

“Ohmigod,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

“I’m teachin’ you a lesson,” he growled. “You do not test a man like me, Tyra. You’ve never had a man like me so you gotta learn. You do not test a man like me.”

My arms were crushed between our bodies and I uncurled my fingers from his tee and pressed them flat against his chest as I whispered, “Please, get off me.”

“You want this,” he informed me.

I pushed harder against his chest. “Please, Tack, get off me.”

It was like I didn’t even speak when he went on, “I want this.”

“Please,” it was barely audible, “you’re scaring me.”

That penetrated and it did it in a way that made him even angrier. I knew it because I saw it on his face, in his eyes and I felt it in the air around us.

“Do not be scared of me, Tyra. Don’t you ever fuckin’ be scared of me.”

“Tack, you just manhandled me onto my desk,” I pointed out carefully.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I answered and it wasn’t a lie but that also wasn’t the point.

“Right,” he growled. “Now tell me what your fuckin’ problem is.”

“Um…”

His chest pressed deeper into mine. “Tyra,” he rumbled his warning.

“Can we continue this conversation maybe, erm… standing up?”

“I tried that, didn’t work. Now I’m tryin’ something else so talk to me.”

I sucked in breath as I stared into his eyes.

Then I whispered, “No.”

His eyes blazed into mine when he warned on a scary whisper, “I told you not to test me.”

“And I told you my problem was none of your business.”

“If it isn’t my business then keep a hold on that attitude, babe, and don’t make it my business.”

“Okay,” I thought it prudent to agree.

“I’m thinkin’ you don’t get this but when you turn off Broadway into Ride, you drive into my world. My world is different than the world you live in. Unless I allow the parts of it I like, you don’t get to live like you live in your world when you’re in mine. And when I’m in yours but you’re with me, you live like you’re in mine. Do you get me?”

I didn’t, actually, not at all. I still nodded.

He examined my face then with a suddenness that I again lost my breath, his body was gone. He yanked me to my feet, tugged my skirt back down then turned away.

I sucked in another breath then nearly choked on it when his eyes hit the computer monitor and they narrowed. Then his head turned toward the printer, his arm reached out to nab the paper on top, he turned it over and in about two seconds, I watched his jaw turn to stone.

Uh-oh.

“Tack –” I started on an exhale and then he was on me again, this time he rounded me then moved in. I retreated fast, bumping into my chair which rolled away and then bumping into the wall where he pinned me with his body.

“I don’t accept,” he growled into my face.

I stared up into his and stammered, “Wha… what?”

“Your resignation, Red.”

Oh boy.

“Tack –”

His hand came up, his palm warm against my jaw, his fingers curving around my ear and neck and his face got even closer.