Page 19 of Jingle Belle's Biker

How do I know this? I don’t really understand, except that I feel it on a deep marrow level. Maybe it’s the quiet self-confidence. The comfortable in his own skin that he has about him.

Or maybe it’s my girl brain parts that are hooked into hormones that are addled by him.

I almost laugh, blaming my knee-jerk reaction to him as some kind of ancient mating thing. Hell on wheels.

“Are you gonna stand there all night?”

“If you won’t take money,” I say, “then what about beer or dinner or something?”

He goes into the kitchen, and a glass clinks. Then he comes out with a beer in one hand and a glass in the other. He holds out the glass of amber liquid.

“Jamaican rum. Good stuff. You don’t seem like a beer drinker.”

The heat burns up under my skin again, and I take the glass, still standing in the same spot. “More wine than anything.”

“Wine snob?”

“White in the summer and red in the winter kind of snob.”

He laughs. “Allow me to broaden your horizons.” Then he catches my gaze. “You don’t have to have it.”

“No, I . . .” I swallow. “Thank you.”

I take the glass from him, our fingers touch and slip against each other in a spark of warmth.

“Bribes, murder furniture. What else do you do?”

“I teach second grade.” Then I realize how that sounds, and I take a deep sip of the rum. It’s burned sugar and spice on my tongue, and I take another mouthful. “Not about murder.”

“Hey,” he says, sipping the beer, “I’m not judging, it’s never too early to start. But I might take you up on dinner, unless you’ve somewhere else to be?”

“Uh . . . no, no . . .” Thoughts I shouldn’t be having start to weave through my brain, of touching his naked chest, seeing if his skin is as warm as I think. If the muscles beneath are as hard as they seem, as delineated. And beneath that beard, his cheeks are chiseled, his mouth?—

He’s staring at me.

I shift on the floor, my sensible shoes suddenly as unbalanced as a pair of six-inch stilettos.

“Just cataloging what I have.” No way am I telling him I was just going to have a salad of leaves and tomatoes. “We could have pizza and a salad?”

“No, I’m asking if you want to join me. I was gonna make tacos.”

“The point of the invitation?—”

“Bribe,” he says.

“Invitation is me cooking for you. I’m not great, but I’m decent.”

“I’m changing the rules. You can help.” He pauses. “If you want to spend some time with me. If you’re not afraid.”

“Of you?” I force a laugh. I’m not scared of him. I’m scared I might jump him, but I don’t think he’d hurt me. “Please.”

“Okay then.”

“I have, uh, tequila.”

His gaze rakes over me. “You don’t look like a tequila drinker. Actually, you don’t look like much of a hard liquor drinker.”

I raise my glass and finish it with only a little splutter. “Yummy, see? You don’t know much about me.”

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