JAX: MC Biker Romance (New Adult Contemporary Bad Boy Romance) (3 page)

“The kind of bike ride that ends in sex?”

I froze. “Oh my god.” My eyes widened. “I hadn’t even thought about that. Does he expect me to have sex with him on his motorcycle? Around his motorcycle? In general?” Then, after a second’s pause, “Do I want to have sex with him?”

Melissa leaned against my door frame. “Only you can answer that one, honey.”

I unfroze and shook myself out of my haze. “I mean, I don’t not want to have sex with him. Have you seen him?”

Melissa grinned and nodded. “Every night in my dreams.”

“But, I barely know him. And, you know how attached I can get.”

“Que sera sera, darling,” she said, coming toward me and putting a hand on my shoulder. “But, this is some que that I think you should be serving. Get a sweater on and get out there!”

She gave me a hearty smack on the butt and put my phone and keys into my hand. “Call me if there are any problems. I’ll be there to pick you up faster than you can moan the word, Jax.”

“Melissa!”

She shrugged, smiling. “Just being supportive.”

Then, I was hustled out the door, my heart thundering in my chest. Oh god.

I thought about taking the stairs down, but my legs were too shaky now. The elevator it was, again. It felt too fast this time, but I managed to get myself together in the time that it took. Then, it was one foot in front of the other to the front door, and then I was standing across from Jax again.

I crossed, my hands thrust firmly in the pockets of my hoodie.

“Hey.”

He smiled. “Hey.”

He put a hand on the back of my waist and began to guide me toward the parking lot of The Cruise. Even through the material of my sweater, I could feel the heat–his heat. I thought it might make me explode.

How was I going to survive being pressed up against him on a motorbike?

“Ever been on a bike before?” he asked.

I looked up at him, and I was sure he saw the trepidation in my eyes. “Nope.”

“Well, just hold on tight and nothing bad will happen.” He winked, “unless you want it to.”

I gulped, laughing nervously. I had to get it together. Somehow, someway, I hadn’t been so weird that I’d scared him off yet… keyword: yet. But, there was only so much Annabelle-LeRange-weirdness that any one person could take, and surely, he was approaching his threshold.

He led me to a big, black Harley, and handed me a helmet.

“Safety first,” I said cheerfully, officially becoming even more weird.

Jax just chuckled. “That’s my game. Safety.”

He lifted his leg and straddled the hog, and I got on behind him, resting my arms by my side.

“You have to get closer, sweetheart.”

I inched up a little bit, the front of my body nearly touching his. His arms reached back and pulled me flush against his back, and I let out a little gasp of surprise. I could feel his amused laugh rumble through his back.

“Now, put your arms around me.”

I circled my arms around his waist, though didn’t squeeze. Jax didn’t correct me, so I figured that was probably a fine way of doing it. Then, his bike roared to life, and he kicked up the stand and we began to roll forward. I understood why he let me hang on so loosely. Instinct immediately had me squeezing him for all I was worth, clinging to his body like a sloth to a tree.

We started out slow as we left the parking lot, but as soon as he hit the road, we were off like a shot. The wind blasted me, and I kept my face tucked in behind his shoulder. At first, I didn’t want to see the world as we passed it. I was trying to adjust to the feeling of riding a rocket, and anyway, it was nice just to have my face against Jax and inhale his smell… and god, what a smell… tobacco mixed with something masculine and thick that I couldn’t get enough of. I inhaled and I inhaled again.

When I looked up to get my bearings, I half expected us to be somewhere secluded. I thought that maybe he would drive to the beach or into the woods, but we were smack dab in the middle of Kingston. He wove the bike through back streets, so we didn’t get caught in traffic, but it was always well lit with lots of people around.

He was doing it for me.

What other explanation would there be? It would probably be way more fun to just rip down some old service road or something like that, but Jax was keeping us within view of other people because he had sensed how nervous I was. I liked that.

We cruised down Harton Street, which was bordered on one side by Harton Street Park. The other side had an old drive-in diner. You couldn’t get car service anymore, but they still only had outdoor seating. I brought my face as close to his ear as possible.

“Hey, can we stop here?”

He nodded and pulled in, parking in one of the stalls near the back.

Taking his helmet off, he turned his head and said, “You hungry or something?”

I slunk my helmet off too and hopped off the bike. “They have the best soft-serve in the city here,” I explained.

Jax laughed, the sound of it dark and melodious. “You want to get ice cream?”

My brows met on my forehead. “Yeah.”

He wore a bemused grin as he rose from the bike, but didn’t elaborate as to what he found so amusing. Fine with me. I was just happy we had come to some neutral ground.

“Do you want any?” I asked, fishing out some change from my pocket.

He shook his head, but walked up with me, then thrust some cash at the cashier when I went to pay. The ice cream was less than two dollars, but I thought it was nice anyway. Then, we walked to one of the metal tables on the patio. I perched on top of it, and he leaned beside me; we must’ve looked like quite a pair.

“So, you like ice cream,” he observed. “What else do you like?”

The question didn’t have any sexual undertone to it, but nonetheless, it had my mind going decidedly elsewhere.

“Most things, to be honest. It’s a much shorter list if you ask me what I don’t like.”

The corner of his lip twitched up. “What don’t you like, then?”

I licked at my cone and thought. “Long lines, people who walk slow…”

“Those are things everyone dislikes.” He angled his body toward me and stared down into my eyes. “What do you not like?”

I blinked, surprised by his sudden bout of seriousness. “I don’t like how nervous you make me.”

“Then, stop being nervous.”

“Do I have a reason not to feel nervous?”

He leaned down and took a lick of my ice cream; all the while not breaking eye contact with me. I don’t know why, but it was hands-down the hottest thing I had ever seen in my life. I nearly dropped the damn thing.

“That all depends on you,” he said.

Heat flashed through me. It wasn’t just my face from the blush that attacked me. It was everywhere—especially between my legs.

“What do you not like, Jax?”

“I don’t like that I can’t get you out of my head,” he replied. “Ever since I saw you at the bar that night, I’ve been wondering about you.”

Jax, the biker / sex god wondering about me? Was he sure he was thinking of the right person?

“What have you been wondering?”

He laughed. “Everything… more than I should be wondering.”

I took a big bite of my ice cream. He looked down at me, a twinkle in his eye. I smiled balefully.

Swallowing, I said, “What should you be wondering?”

“What you look like naked.”

“And, you’re not?”

He smirked. “Of course I am. But, I’m also wondering what kind of food you like and other mundane shit like that.”

I laughed, long and hard. He said it so casually, but I could tell it genuinely vexed him. He furrowed his brow at my outburst.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not laughing at you.” I kind of was. Well, I was laughing at the situation. But. was I about to reveal that to him? Hell no.

He smiled.

“My favorite food is pizza,” I said. “I know that’s really childish, but shit it’s good.”

He nodded. “Pizza is pretty damn good, can’t deny that.”

Then, we began to talk. We stood at that drive in for an hour just chatting about our lives. I learned that he and his father ran the Brixton Motorcycle Club, and that they had a bike shop in Malton like something out of Orange County Chopper.

I told him what I had taken in school and where I wanted it to take me. He seemed genuinely interested in my ambitions, which I think was because they were a novelty to him. I’m sure he had ambitions, but it seemed like he hadn’t encountered anyone recently who dreamed about traveling and working on farms all over the world.

“Why farms?” he asked. “That’s what I don’t get.”

I shrugged. “Hard work is good for you. And anyway, I feel like that’s the best way to get to know the locals anywhere; learn the language, eat the food, get the culture. It just seems like the ideal experience.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve traveled all over America and Canada,” he said, “but I’ve never been on a plane.”

I stared at him with wide eyes. “You’ve ridden your bike everywhere?”

“Mhm.”

“That’s so cool!”

He chuckled. “Maybe I’ll take you sometime.”

That little suggestion had me feeling weak all over again.

We were still talking away when the drive-in closed, which meant it was midnight. I couldn’t believe that we’d spent the last three hours just driving around and chatting. And, I knew we could continue doing so if we really wanted. There were places all over the city that we could go, but I was tired and ready to snuggle up in bed and think about what the hell had happened tonight.

I asked him to take me home and he did so without even trying to convince me otherwise. I liked that. I’d been out with pushy guys before who had berated me for liking to get a decent night’s sleep, but Jax, whatever his end game might have been, was happy to let me decide for myself whether it was time to go home.

We rumbled to the front of my apartment building, and both dismounted. I handed my helmet back to him and shifted from foot to foot. I wondered whether I should invite him inside or not. If I did, there would be no going back. I knew that I’d end up doing the horizontal tango with him without delay, and it would probably be great.

But, when I looked up and met his stare, I knew that I’d be beyond hurt if I never heard from him again. Maybe we had bonded tonight, but I’d been in this situation before, and I wasn’t willing to put myself through that for one night of passion, even as amazing as it might have been.

“Thanks for the ride, Jax.”

“Thanks for coming.”

I saw the fire deep in his eyes. I knew he was about to kiss me, and I knew that if I let him, it would be game over for me.

So, I turned and walked away like a little scared bitch.

Chapter 5

Jax

Annabelle would be the end of me. With her perfectly curved little lips, and her big, green eyes, and her addictive sweetness, I knew I hadn’t had enough of her. And yet, I still hadn’t tasted her. She’d walked away from me, eventhough I could see in her eyes how much that killed her. And then, she’d disappeared into her apartment, and I hadn’t seen her since.

Granted, it had only been two days, but I was still on edge come Saturday night, and it was a bad night to be on edge. A few of the guys from Halberton MC were in The Cruise when I rolled up on Saturday. It wasn’t worth picking a fight over, but it had the whole club agitated. What kind of game were they trying to play? First, they creeped into our territory with their disgusting fucking drug ring, and next, they tried to hang out at our bar? I eyed them warily as I went in, but didn’t say anything.

I wasn’t going to start a fight; not tonight, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to welcome them with open arms. And, they weren’t going to get table service. I could tell by the looks they were giving Mandi that they had figured that much out already.

I leaned up against the table where Ronnie and the others were sitting. Gus was off down the coast this weekend checking in on a project. That was probably good. The last thing that old man needed was to get his ass thrown in jail for murder, and with all the stress he’d been under, the cockiness of the Halberton douchebags would have put him over the edge.

“You see this shit?” Ronnie said.

In the face of our enemies, all of our disputes were apparently resolved.

“Yeah, I see it. They said anything?”

Graham, the youngest, and yet cockiet guy in our club, scoffed. “As if they’ve got the balls.

I chuckled. “What would you do if you were them, Gray? Walk right up and introduce yourself?”

He nodded. “Hell yeah I would. That’s respect. They’re showing nobody respect right now—especially not poor Mandi.”

Mandi had been with a few of the guys over the years. She was under our protection almost more than anyone else in this bar because we all had a sweet spot for her. Watching the two douches by the bar make rude gestures behind her back was seriously trying my patience.