Page 80 of Brewing Up a Bad Boy

“Moon fairy. I’m not sure I can live without you.”

Her eyes went wide.Fuck.This wasn’t the way he planned it.

Twenty-Two

Couldn’t live without her.The words echoed through her joy-soaked mind as she was plastered to his back on the Ducati. The blue moon was large and full, casting the two of them in her glow. Every nerve in her body buzzed from the quickie on his bike and the energy she’d gotten from being with Liberty and Sera.

Right at the edge of her subconscious was just the tiniest—like barely present—strand of fear. He’d uttered the words and then let them fall, hustling her into the helmet and onto the bike. He’d been quiet on the ride.

The light of the moon showed signs that fall was around the corner. The fields had been harvested and no longer overflowed with berries and other summer crops. Some of the branches of the trees they flew past on his bike weren’t as full as they had been just a week ago.

Fall beckoned. It was time for Ali to go back to the UK. He didn’t have a permanent visa. He couldn’t just decide to stay.

Did he think she’d go back to England?

Would she if he asked?

The scary part was that there was a version of herself that would be tempted to, no matter that she’d built the woman she was today in Birch Lake. That her life, her business, the family she chose, were all here.

But he wasn’t. He was temporary. Except that comment...did that mean he wanted more?

It felt like the questions were going to burst out of her if she tried to stymy them for much longer. Being hesitant wasn’t unlike Ali when he was trying to figure something out.

But her silence was another matter.

Be present. Make your own choices. Don’t assume.

Those were things she kept writing in her journal, but somehow that little ribbon of fear had kept her quiet for far too long.

Until she couldn’t take it anymore.

“What did you mean?” she asked at last.

The words felt like they were ripped from the very deepest part of her psyche, but they came out all cool, as if she hadn’t spent the past ten minutes trying to figure out the best way to ask them.

“How many ways could you take that?” he asked back, his voice a low rumble in her ears.

“Alistair. We have history, and I want to know what you meant.”

“I was in the moment,” he said.

“So it was just a really good orgasm for you? That’s why you can’t live without me?”

“Fuck. Can this wait until we aren’t on the back of my bike?” he asked.

“No. I mean, you could refuse to talk to me, but right now, it’s all I can think about.What did Ali mean? Is he saying he wants to be back with me? Is he still leaving at the end of September?”

The bike accelerated down a straightaway, and she held him close, excited and also a tiny bit scared by the speed. When she squeezed him tighter, he slowly pulled to a stop. “I’m sorry.”

He put down the kickstand, and she hopped off the bike, not as gracefully as she’d hoped. She took off her helmet and handed it to him. “What was that?”

He shook his head as he leaned against his bike. Closing her eyes, she told herself this was a conversation that was too important for her to be distracted by the hard-to-read emotions on his face. “Me trying to outrun both of us and this conversation. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well, you did. Does that happen a lot?” she asked, suddenly worrying that he was reckless when she wasn’t around. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d have stopped if she hadn’t been on the bike.

“Not recently.”

“Ali...”

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