by Regina Cole
And she’d be right. This wasn’t the smartest decision she’d ever made.
The SUV rumbled down the path into a clearing clogged by a bunch of cars. As the engine cut, Mia was already out the door, glad to finally have her body to herself again. She would refuse to be wedged up against Handy Chris on the way home. No matter how cute he was, he didn’t understand the word “no”. But if he kept it up, she’d explain, and he wouldn’t like her definition.
“Hey, Mia, wait up,” Chris called from behind her, and Mia’s fists tightened as she kept walking.
“Oh, let her go. She’s not any fun today.” Petra’s voice floated to her. “Come on, I’ll keep you company.”
Mia shook her head as she stalked toward the road, following the crowd of people. This was stupid. She shouldn’t have come here. She should’ve stayed in the bar and tried her luck with the bartender. At least then she’d be ignored and alone in a bar instead of out in the middle of Freddy Krueger’s backyard.
Loud cheers came from the crowd as a flashy red Corvette rumbled down the country road, stopping just at the edge of the grove of trees. Off in the distance, Mia could make out a car parked sideways at the end of the road. A blue Bugatti stopped beside it, the driver hanging one elbow out the window as he waved to the crowd.
A familiar voice laughed behind her, and Mia glanced back. She resumed walking in the opposite direction, wanting to put distance between herself and Chris’ gang of friends. She might have to ride back with them, but she didn’t have to stand with them and listen to Petra complain about how prudish she was. She wasn’t a prude, but damn it, she didn’t want to be pawed.
She’d only been walking for a few minutes when a hush fell over the crowd. She cast a glance back over her shoulder, relieved when she couldn’t see Chris or Petra anymore. The only vehicle nearby was a motorcycle, and the guy who stood beside it wasn’t even looking her way. Good. She’d kind of struck out on making new friends today.
She looked down the road at the starting line. A guy stood in front of both cars, less than a hundred yards away. He was dressed in baggy jeans, a nice button-down and a huge silver chain. Obviously the master of ceremonies. He flashed a big grin.
“Hey everybody, are you ready?” he shouted.
A giant cheer followed his words. Mia crossed her arms and leaned back against a tree. A few rich boys and their toys, revving engines to see whose dick was bigger? Not really her scene.
“This race is one lap. Down Farriss Road, right onto Packhouse, right onto Graceland, which loops onto Farriss again. Total distance is two miles. First one back to start is the winner.”
The MC paced in front of the cars, working the crowd as the engines revved. His mouth was moving, but Mia couldn’t really make out what he was saying anymore, as the cars and people competed for who could be the loudest. With a grand gesture, the MC pointed at the Corvette and the bystanders went wild. But when he pointed at the Bugatti a few seconds later, they went absolutely nuts.
“Ridiculous,” Mia said as she kicked a pinecone. “Why the fuck did I agree to this?”
Even as she bitched aloud, she couldn’t help but admire the beauty of both cars. She liked to go fast. Hell, who didn’t? But she’d never be able to afford a flashy car like that, not by piercing for a living. She loved what she did, but it wasn’t exactly the most lucrative career.
A beautiful girl stood beside the MC, a flag in her hands. He moved aside, and the energy of the place was humming now as the crowd anticipated that scrap of fabric dropping. She held it high for one beat, two, and then it dropped.
The cars took off, their back tires smoking and the crowd screaming.
Mia’s breath caught in her throat as she watched them tear past her. God, they were fast. Flashy and powerful. Made her wonder what it’d be like to go that fast, just once.
But then, out of the corner of her eye, a blue light caught her attention. She stared off into the distance but it didn’t disappear. It got larger.
The cops were coming to break up the race. This was illegal, wasn’t it?
Mia’s stomach dropped. “Oh shit.”
Garrett scanned the crowd from his position a little ways down the stretch from the starting line. There weren’t many spectators, most of them crowding by the cars, drinking, partying and generally having themselves a ball. He nodded to Quentin, who’d parked his bike in the thick of it. The signal passed from Quentin to Trent, and then to Reg, who was somewhere behind the Bugatti.
And then Garrett waited. While Art’s supposed friend and right-hand dealer drummed up the crowd, Reg was scoping out the lay of the land. More than anything, Garrett needed to know where Art Ford was hiding. What he was up to tonight. There had to be more to this than a simple race. The recurring theme with Artie was always drugs, money and influence. So what did he stand to gain with this little performance?
Garrett grunted. He’d know soon enough.
The return signal came only a second later. Quentin’s right hand raised and fell twice.
Disappointment tensed his shoulders. Art wasn’t driving; Garrett had expected he wouldn’t be. The coward wouldn’t risk his own hide, even for this kind of show. But the signal meant he wasn’t in the car, and he wasn’t in the thick of the crowd on the sidelines.
Where the fuck was that asshole?
The starting flag dropped and the cars took off, but Garrett wasn’t looking at them anymore. He was staring into the woods across the road, beyond the spot where a woman was propped against a tree, watching the race. The moonlight was glinting off something far behind her in the trees, but he couldn’t tell what. He stepped closer, trying to get a good look.
That’s when the woman took off, running toward the crowd.
“Shit, it’s the cops!” The cry came from his left, and chaos ran through the spectators. They clambered over one another, sprinting for their vehicles as sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer with every second.
Garrett didn’t pay attention to any of them, instead hurrying across the road to stare into the near-darkness. Was that a car in the woods? A black SUV maybe?
Only a half second later, the headlights flashed on and the SUV rumbled to life, barreling straight for the road. Garrett ducked behind a tree, glad he’d worn black leather tonight. Between that and his dark-knit skullcap, it was likely he hadn’t been seen. He gained his feet just as the vehicle turned onto the road and a pale white face caught his eye.
“Goddammit, it’s Ford,” Garrett hissed as he sprinted for his bike, weaving through the traffic that was now pouring onto the road. He could make it, he could follow him, see where he was going—
Just then, the woman who’d been standing with her back against the tree ran down the other side of the road.
“Wait for me!” she yelled, waving her arms wildly at a departing SUV. “Petra, Chris, wait!”
But the vehicle didn’t stop, just kept rolling down the road as if the nearby blue lights were after them alone.
Garrett swung his leg over the bike, looking back to the road. Ford’s truck was still there in the distance. On his bike, he could probably weave through the traffic, catch up with him, blend in…
“Hey, somebody!” The woman drew near, still waving at the traffic, a frantic look on her face. “Don’t leave me here, please! My ride left me! I don’t even know where I’m at.” She had long black hair that curled and moved like a wild thing as she turned her head this way and that; full, pouting lips and expressive eyes that raged at the fast-moving cars. She was beautiful. She was alone…abandoned.
Garrett frowned. God damn his sense of chivalry.
He kicked the bike into gear and barreled straight across the road, not paying attention to the vehicles that had to slam on their brakes to prevent a collision. He slid to a stop just beside the woman and held out his hand.
“Come with me.”
She reached for him, then hesitated. “Really? Who are you?”
“I’m your ride out of h
ere. Get on, the cops are coming.”
She glanced to her right, where the sirens were screaming louder than ever. He could even see the blue lights reflected in her eyes—a deep green, at his best guess in the flashing light. Her fists tightened at her sides, and when she took a deep breath, he was impressed with his fortitude, not even glancing at the way her cleavage swelled at the top of her burgundy neckline. Well, not glancing long, anyway.
“I hope I don’t regret this,” she said as she grabbed his hand.
He steadied her as she climbed onto the bike behind him. Her thighs gripped his and her hands locked around his midsection. He tensed his abdominal muscles and revved the bike’s engine. “Hold on tight.”
He kicked the bike into motion and they joined the flow of traffic. Garrett smiled at the feel of wind on his face and the feel of hot woman behind him. He was almost sorry he couldn’t see her now, that wild hair streaming behind them like a living flag. Her face was plastered against his back, and her thighs were clamped so hard against his that he couldn’t help but imagine what it’d be like to have her beneath him.
Maybe later, he thought with an evil grin, swerving into a gap between two cars, a gap almost too small for his bike. For now, they had to get the hell out of there without being arrested.
They tore off into the night, driving much too fast. Exactly how Garrett liked it.
Chapter Three
Mia held tight to the guy as he weaved the bike in and out of traffic, the long country road clogged with other drivers with the same idea they had—to get out as fast as they could. Her heart thudded against the guy’s back, and she tried really hard not to think about how firmly muscled her rescuer was. Good grief, it was like hugging a rock.
She turned her face into his back to get the wind off it, and breathed him in.
Mmmm. He smelled clean, with a hint of musky cologne. Her belly stirred. Man. He smelled like a hot man.
Chill, Mia, you don’t know that he’s single.
She ignored the inner voice and adjusted her grip around his stomach, indulging her fingertips in a brief moment of subtle wandering. Good lord, washboard abs. The man was ripped.
And he just might be a serial killer. You don’t know shit about him.
His voice interrupted her internal argument.
“Traffic’s slowing,” he yelled over his shoulder. She peeked to the side, and sure enough, brake lights were flashing ahead. “Roadblock, I’m sure.”
“I need to get back into the city,” she shouted.
“We’ll have to go another way. Hang on.”
“What?”
He didn’t answer, just pulled a U-turn then and there with absolutely no warning. She squeaked in alarm, gripping him tight to keep from sliding off the back of the motorcycle. As he sped in the opposite direction, and Mia’s heart had descended from its position in her throat, she yelled at him.
“A little warning would have been nice!”
“Those cops are looking for information, and if they saw me, they’d assume they could get some. Unless you’ve got another ride home, you’re going to have to trust me to get us out of this.”
Mia swallowed hard. She didn’t have another option, and she knew it. Calling Jules or Matt to pick her up would be mortifying, if not the final straw that killed her job at Drama. And she couldn’t afford that.
They rode for miles under the full moon, trees and fields surrounding them. But just when Mia thought they might be getting close to civilization again, more brake lights flashed in the distance.
“Motherfucker,” her driver cursed. “This isn’t going to work. Hang on.”
This time, at least, she was ready for the bike’s maneuver. She gripped him tightly, using her legs to clamp herself still.
“What are we going to do?” Mia yelled toward his ear. A little hoop dangled there, flashing in the moonlight.
“Just a second,” he called back, and in a moment he’d steered them off the road onto a narrow dirt track between thick stands of trees. He cut the bike’s engine and held out a hand to help Mia off first. She hated to admit it, but her knees were sort of weak from the adrenaline and the bike’s vibration.
The quiet was almost deafening, there beside the road. The cars still blinked off in the distance, such a ways away that they were totally alone.
And no one can hear you scream, her subconscious whispered insidiously. With a mental punch to shut up the doubting bitch in her head, Mia turned to her rescuer.
Good god—and she’d thought Chris was a beautiful man? This one had him beat. A slight cleft in his strong chin was offset by a pair of lethal dimples. He was wearing a black knit cap pulled down over his ears. But what had her transfixed wasn’t his yummy five o’clock shadow, or the fact that his nose was just a little bit crooked. It was his eyes. In the moonlight, they were clear as glass and pale as smoke.
They seemed to look right through her.
“Sorry about yanking you around back there,” he said, dismounting from the bike and then pulling off his gloves. “I should have slowed down a bit.”
“No, it’s okay. You saved my ass.” Mia tried to tear her gaze from his eyes, but she couldn’t. God, they were incredible. “If not for you, I’d probably be sitting in the back of a cruiser right now. Thank you.”
He nodded, giving her a smile that deepened those dimples. Mia clamped her legs together to keep the throbbing to a minimum.
“It was my pleasure.” He moved to the edge of the trees, looking over at the cars that were still sitting down the road, a half-mile or more away. “We’ve got a problem though. It looks like they’ve blocked both directions.”
“Shit,” Mia said as the gravity of the situation hit her. “How am I supposed to get back to the hotel?”
“Where are you staying?”
“The Sheraton,” she said without thinking, and then winced. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that. Hey, just out of curiosity, you’re not a serial killer or anything, are you?”
She’d hoped he would laugh, but he just shook his head.
“Not me. I used to be a cop, actually. Garrett Long.” He stuck out his bare hand and she took it automatically.
She gasped aloud as his skin came into contact with hers. Oh my god, it was like being shocked by a faulty wire, but in a delicious way. The electricity sizzled up her arm and down her body, focusing its energy on her tight nipples and deep in the well of her belly.
“I… I’m Mia,” she said, tossing her hair like nothing had happened. “Mia Bartholomew.”
“Well, Mia,” he said, dropping her hand after a heart-stopping moment, “we’ve got three choices. Choice one, we can go get in line and chat with the cops, which will probably land you in the police station. They can’t arrest you for attending a street race but they can keep you for questioning, and that can take hours. Two, we can cut through the woods and go around all this mess to get back to the city. Which would also take hours. Three, we can hole up in a nearby hotel for the night and wait them out. The roadblocks will be gone by morning.”
Mia bit her lip as she considered. On the one hand, she sure as hell didn’t want to end up in a police station. After her slightly light-fingered teenage years, which still seemed to crop up at the most inconvenient times, she wasn’t exactly a fan of being questioned. On the other hand, she didn’t know Garrett at all.
But then he scratched his stomach, and she caught a glimpse of those abs.
Her eyes bugged.
When she could think again, she plugged in her million-watt smile and took Garrett by the arm.
“Hotel it is. Lead the way, biker boy.”
* * * * *
As they pulled into the parking lot of a sleepy little motel just on the outskirts of Riverville, Garrett tried hard to keep his mind on the mission.
He’d been so close and hadn’t even known it. He should have at least gotten the plates of that black SUV, but he’d been so distracted by the woman behind him that he’d let the b
astard get away. Self-disgust rose in him, but then she shifted on the seat, rubbing her thigh against his ass, and the emotion turned into something else entirely.
Lust.
She was gorgeous, and he’d have had to be dead or blind not to notice. She was short but thick, all breasts and hips and softly rounded thighs. And that hair—good god. It had a mind of its own, especially after the wild motorcycle ride. It was like a storm cloud of curls, and his fingers itched to bury themselves inside it.
Garrett stopped the bike in an open parking spot beside a bevy of Coke machines and Mia jumped off. Mia. Beautiful name for a beautiful woman.
Cool it, asshole, he snapped inwardly. Focus on what you have to do.
He yanked the keys from the switch and dismounted, turning to Mia when she cleared her throat.
“I’m really sorry,” she began, not looking at his face. “But I just have my ID and about twenty bucks in my pocket. So, I don’t have any money for this.” She gestured at the hotel.
He crooked a half-smile. “It’s no problem. You want me to get two rooms, I guess?”
“Oh god no,” Mia said, finally looking directly at him. “That’ll be too much money. I don’t mind. Hell, you haven’t killed me yet, right?” She laughed, but it was a nervous, high thing.
He took pity on her. “Listen, like I said, I used to be a cop. Atlanta PD. I don’t have a criminal record, I don’t shoot women and I’m not a creep. Here.” He tossed her his cell phone. “You can call anyone in that address book, and they’ll tell you.”
She looked at the expensive phone then back at him. He waited, not speaking just looking at her. Finally, she tossed the phone back.
“I trust you. It’s crazy, but I do.”
He held out his hand. “Then come on.”
She took it, and they walked to the hotel lobby hand-in-hand, like lovers instead of complete strangers.
