The event was held on the spacious grounds of a private estate near the ocean. The terraces were hung with colorful lanterns that bobbed in the breeze. Tall heaters warmed the outdoor air, and the soft sound of waves lapping against rocks provided a murmuring backdrop for the constant chatter.
The constant, maddening chatter.
Thank God for Serena. For her clear voice, her jasmine fragrance. With her hand still tucked in the crook of his arm, he kept her pressed close to his side. Knowing she was with him felt like a lifeline, but it was more than that.
She seemed to get that he was having trouble, and stepped in to fill the gap. She covered for him a few times, repeating a question that he’d missed, cuing him to laugh when he was a step behind.
Also, she was just so glowing and vibrant, a ruby-haired flame who outshone every other woman in California. When she’d walked out of the room, with that slinky dress and that sexy sway, his heart had nearly stopped.
An added bonus—she drew attention away from him. With Serena chatting next to him, he didn’t have to say much, and he was deeply grateful for that. How many times could he field the same questions over and over?
Like the retirement question. Serena figured out a way to rescue him from that one. “His family needs him,” she started telling people. “Especially his father, who recently got diagnosed with a heart condition. When family calls, it’s hard to say no.”
Bethany flitted by, took one look at Serena snugged up against his side, with that peony in her hair, and veered another direction.
“You are a goddess,” Griffin murmured in her ear. “How did I get so lucky?”
“Anything for my favorite bodyguard.” She smiled at him, her eyes smoky and huge and glorious. He could lose himself forever in those eyes.
A tuxedoed waiter stopped next to them, holding a tray filled with tiny crackers piled high with salmon roe the color of tiny glossy persimmons.
They both helped themselves, then exchanged a wary glance as soon as the waiter had left. “On three?” Griffin said.
She nodded, and they both popped their crackers into their mouths at the same moment, then laughed at each other’s expressions as the salty, unfamiliar flavors registered.
He was finally starting to enjoy this party—just a little—when everything changed.
“Alison Riggs?”
Serena spun around, napkin still balled in her hand.
Alison? Had Griffin heard that right, or had his left ear betrayed him?
A man stood before them, scowling at Serena. He paid no attention whatsoever to Griffin. With his salt-and-pepper hair, perfectly tailored suit and oddly colored tan, he looked like someone he might see on a cable news channel talking politics.
“What are you doing here? Up to your old tricks? Heard you ran away to the mountains.”
“Oh, hello, Senator.” Serena looked several shades paler than she had a minute ago. “It’s…I’m here as an invited guest, it’s nothing to do with you.”
The man finally looked at Griffin, who took Serena’s hand in solidarity.
“Watch out for this one,” he growled. “Whoever you are, you deserve better. There, you’ve been warned.”
He stalked away from them, joining a woman who shot a contemptuous look at Serena as the two of them turned their backs.
“What the fuck?” Griffin muttered. He wanted to go after that man and make him eat his words. But on the other hand—Alison?
Serena squared her shoulders and adjusted the flower in her hair. He could practically see her pulling her armor into place, making herself strong. The effort tugged at his heart.
“Long story. I’ll explain it to you later.”
“Speaking as your bodyguard, do I need to beat him up?”
She gave him a wavering smile. “That would be a very bad idea, but I love you for thinking of it.”
More waiters brought more trays of appetizers and more drinks. A photographer took a photo of him with a bottle of Blast Off halfway to his mouth, then another one with him and Serena, each with a bottle, toasting each other.
And the entire time, the senator’s words kept echoing in his brain. Up to your old tricks. Alison. Watch out for this one.
And he thought he was keeping secrets.
Finally it was time to go. His head ached from the effort of holding his focus amid the voices swirling around him. He barely managed a goodbye smile and a handshake for his Blast Off rep.
“Leaving already? I thought we were doing shots later.” Jesus, Griffin could barely remember the guy’s name. He just wanted to get out of there.
Once again, Serena stepped in. “It’s my fault, I have a pounding headache. Griffin’s being a perfect gentleman and taking me home.”
“Rogue, a perfect gentleman? Guess I’ve seen it all now.” The rep—Brian, he remembered now—gave him a fist bump, while Griffin tried to remember what he’d ever done to make the guy think he wasn’t a “gentleman.” People saw what they wanted to see, apparently.
In the quiet of the limousine, he sank back and closed his eyes, beyond relieved to be away from the cacophony. Serena didn’t say anything once they were settled in. She gazed out the window as the charming streets of Santa Barbara slid past. Maybe he wouldn’t have to explain what was going on. Maybe they could simply retire to their own rooms and never speak of this night again.
But then he wouldn’t be able to ask her about “Alison” and the senator.
By the time they got to the hotel, he was in a horrible mood. Serena was the only good thing in his life lately, and now it turned out she wasn’t even “Serena.” Awesome.
As soon as they were inside their suite and she’d kicked off her shoes, he went to the bar. “Would you like a drink? Red wine? Grapefruit vodka?” He cracked open a can of ginger ale. “Maybe some truth serum?”
“No need for drugs, I said I’d explain.”
“Then go ahead. Alison.”
Bristling, she perched on the arm of the couch and rubbed her right foot. “If anyone should take a dose of that truth serum, it’s you. What aren’t you telling me, Griffin? Something is going on with you and you’re keeping it under wraps. But I know something’s wrong.”
He frowned at her as he brought her a glass of ginger ale, which she ignored. “This is what you do, isn’t it? You attack so you don’t get hurt.”
“I’m not attacking you. That’s ridiculous. I kept covering for you all evening long.”
He put the ginger ale on the coffee table in front of her. Spiky energy poured off her, as if she’d turned into a porcupine in a sexy black dress. “Have it your way. But you could at least tell me which name is the real one, Alison or Serena.”
“The real one? You think I lied to you about my name?”
A peony petal had drifted onto her bare shoulder, and he reached toward her, past the prickliness, and gently lifted it away with his finger.
He caught her shiver, and then her attempt to hide that reaction before he saw it.
And something clicked. Bravado, that was Serena. She used bravado to take on the world when she felt most vulnerable.
His heart cracked open. If anyone could relate to that, it was him. “Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. You hung in there with me all night long. You should know what’s going on with me. I want you to know.”
And he did, but damn, it was hard.
He drew in a deep breath, struggling for how to put this, how to reveal something so personal. And then she spoke, her tone somewhere between defiant and confidential. “Wait. Let me say this first. Alison is my given name. It’s also my professional name, and it’s what I used when I lived in San Francisco. But Serena is my middle name and it’s what my father always called me. I love the name Serena, it gives me strength. I think about Serena Williams, how incredible she is, how strong. So lately I’ve been going by Serena.”
She was still massaging her foot with one hand, almost absently. He came around to sit next to her on the couch, then g
ently tugged her off the arm and onto the cushions.
“Here, put your feet up, let me do that.”
“You’re going to rub my sweaty feet?”
“It’s the least I can do, after everything you did for me tonight. And after I was kind of an ass.”
He sat on one end of the couch, giving her plenty of room to stretch out, and put her feet in his lap. Her legs were bare, and he took a moment to thank the warm Santa Barbara fall weather for that.
As he flexed her foot back and pressed his thumb into the arch, she sighed and settled herself more deeply into the cushions. “That’s incredible, Griffin. Wow.”
He massaged her in silence for a moment, almost as if he was establishing a connection with her that went beyond words. Maybe they could simply do this, communicate by touch and osmosis, rather than having to break through his comfort zone of silence.
Her eyes opened, a sliver of rich brown shining through her lashes. “You can trust me, Griffin,” she murmured. “Whatever you want to tell me, it stays here.”
His gut knotted. “I do trust you. It’s just…it’s hard to say out loud.” He drew in another deep breath and plunged off the cliff. “Something’s gone wrong with my hearing. Just the left ear. It’s dead, essentially. A dead ear, that’s what my audiologist said. They don’t know why. I got an MRI, in case it was a tumor.”
“Oh my God.” She started to sit up, but he urged her back down.
“It wasn’t. They have no idea what’s causing it, which means they can’t fix it. I’ve had so many injuries in my life—broken bones, sprained tendons, tissue damage, concussion. The doctors always knew what to do about those. Not this. Not a clue.”
She watched him steadily, her hair partially loose from its knot, surrounding her vivid face. “So—no hearing aid? Surgery? Nothing like that?”
“I tried one, and it didn’t work. No sound to amplify. There’s another type they tried out on me—it sends the sound over to the other ear—but that didn’t work either. It just confused my brain.” He attempted a smile. “My brain’s easily confused, it turns out. There is an implant that might work, but it might not. Most people with this condition just learn to adapt. Unexplained unilateral hearing loss. That’s what I have.”
“So…this is why you had trouble at the party.”
“Big groups are a nightmare. One-on-one, or with a few people, I’m fine. Some people I hear better than others. Like you.”
She smiled at him almost tenderly. “Never been grateful for my loud voice before.”
“It’s not loud, just clear. It’s perfect.”
“Is this why you quit racing?”
Trust her to connect the dots so quickly. “I was having trouble during races because I’m used to processing sensory information a certain way—it’s just automatic. But all of a sudden everything was off. Sounds didn’t come in the same way, and I was always overthinking everything, trying to make sure I didn’t miss something from a gear change or someone riding up on my shoulder. I could probably retrain my brain, in time, but it kept getting worse and I didn’t want to crash or risk anyone else’s life out there. It’s dangerous enough when you have all your wits about you. When you’re always looking over your shoulder, second-guessing yourself, it’s ten times as bad. I actually…”
He shook his head, amazed at how many words were pouring out of him. Turned out it was a fucking relief to get this off his chest. “I emailed a rider on the women’s tour, she was born deaf and she kills it out there. I told her what a hard time I was having and she explained how being deaf actually helps her because she can focus more easily. But she learned to ride as a deaf person. For her it’s all about the vibrations the bike is making, that’s how she knows when to switch gears and so forth.”
“That’s fascinating.” Serena shifted as he found a tense spot on the ball of her foot. “I had no idea there was a deaf motocross racer. I actually had no idea there was a female motocross racer.”
He shrugged? “Why not? Women kick ass on the tour. Plus they have to put up with idiots, so more power to them.” He smoothed her Achilles tendon, pinching it between his fingers.
“You know, I’m a little confused,” she said softly, as she tugged her lower lip between her teeth. “Why are you so worried about telling people that you lost the hearing in one ear? It’s almost like you’re embarrassed.”
“I am,” he said promptly.
“But why? It’s just a…thing. A medical thing. Medical things happen to everyone. It doesn’t make you—”
“I’ll tell you what it makes me,” he interrupted, voice harsher than he’d intended. “It puts me at a disadvantage. It makes me vulnerable. If the guys on the tour knew, they’d use it against me in competition. If my family knew, they’d feel sorry for me. If the town knew, I’d no longer be Griffin the celebrity, I’d be a laughingstock.”
She sat up, pulling her foot out of his hands. “That’s absurd. No one would laugh at you.”
“I’m a professional athlete in a macho sport. Guys look up to me. Kids ask me for autographs. They put me up on a pedestal and I’ve always tried to live up to that. That’s why I don’t drink. I want to set a good example. That role model piece is important to me. But now…”
“Now, what? So you can’t hear out of one ear. So what? I bet you’re not the only one in the world this has happened to.”
“Millions have the same problem. I’m just a statistic, I get it.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “I don’t want people to look at me like I’m a pity case. ‘Did you hear about poor Griffin? He was at the peak of his career, but now you can sneak up on his left side and he won’t even know you’re there. Some hotshot motocross dude I am.”
“Oh my God.” Serena rolled onto her knees and crawled across the couch to him, her dress riding up on her thighs in the process. He tried not to notice, but there was no chance of that. “You’re the one turning yourself into a pity case. Okay, maybe some people will gloat because they were jealous of you to begin with. Why would you care about them?”
“It’s not so much them as the kids…”
“Okay, let’s talk about the kids. What if some of those kids are deaf? Do you want them to think that losing your hearing is embarrassing? Something to be ashamed of?” She was so close he could smell her fragrance, the last fading hint of jasmine, mingled with perspiration from the long night.
“Of course I don’t. But Jesus, Serena, I’m thirty, not sixty. It’s fucking embarrassing. It’s not…”
“Sexy?” She lifted her eyebrows at him.
He laughed. “Yeah. It’s not sexy.”
“Yeah, but you are, Griffin Rockwell. You can make it sexy.”
“Excuse me?” He swung his head to look at her. Her hair now trailed in long rich strands alongside her face. He noticed a bit of stray mascara that had migrated to the skin near her eye, and reached over to brush it off.
She was so caught up in making her point that she didn’t even notice. “Yes. Quite frankly, you could make anything sexy. Even riding around a mud bath in a helmet.”
He laughed, and some tight constriction inside him loosened just a bit. “You don’t find motocross sexy?”
“I’d never even heard of motocross until Jake showed your last race at the bar. It didn’t look like anything to me, just these crazy people on motorcycles sliding around in the mud. But—” She shifted a little closer to him. “I thought your post-race interview was sexy.”
“Oh really? Is that why you turned up your nose at me the first time we met?”
“Actually, yes.” She grinned at him. “Wouldn’t want you to get any more arrogant.”
“Arrogant?” He snorted and reached for a lock of her hair, tugging it lightly. It felt alive and vibrant, just like her, sliding through his fingers like water. “Those days are over, that’s for sure. But getting back to that sexy part…”
“Well, you didn’t come across as full of yourself, even though you’d just won. You had st
reaks of mud on your face and your hair was poking up every which way—total helmet-hair. But you had those smoldering good looks going for you, and you said nice things about your opponents, and you called it a grind it out kind of victory and then some black guy tackled you from the side.”
“T-Rex. Yup. I didn’t even hear him coming.”
“And you were both laughing and it was obvious that he was super-excited for your win and that you were really good friends.”
“Best friend, I’d say. It’s usually us against the rest of the field. We trade off wins, more or less. Traded.” He still couldn’t get used to that past tense part.
“So that was incredibly sexy. You didn’t seem like an arrogant ass who lorded it over the others. If one of your opponents was that happy for you, you must be a good guy.”
“I thought chicks went for the bad boys. That’s what I was told when I first put on a motorcycle jacket. Are you telling me all these years of motorcycle riding have been wasted?”
She laughed and danced her fingers across his jacket to the buttons of his dress shirt. One by one, she undid them, slowly, sensuously. “Absolutely not. You’re the perfect combination. Rogue on the outside, sweetheart on the inside.”
“Sweetheart.” He savored the word, trying it on for size.
He didn’t hate it.
He shifted her onto his lap so she straddled his thighs. She adjusted immediately to the new position, as if that was where she’d wanted to be all along. With his shirt now mostly unbuttoned, she traced her finger through the hair on his chest. Her touch was maddening, light and teasing. She was drawing him in, slowly but surely, enveloping him in a cloud of temptation.
He ran his fingertips up the outsides of her bare arms and watched goosebumps follow in their wake.
“You should definitely trust me on this whole issue of ’sexy.” She opened another button, leaving his entire chest bare down to his leather belt. “I have sort of an artist’s eye. So I know a sexy man when I see one.” She spread her hands across his chest, skimming over a raised scar from an old burn, when he’d taken a spill and hit the hot gas tank of his bike.
The Rogue Page 11
