Page 29 of The Opposite Effect

I squint my eyes when flashing orange lights impede my vision as I glide my bike down the side alley of Inked. Even with my vision hindered by bright lights, I can’t miss the panicked expression on Clara’s face as she pleads with a gentleman wearing a pair of grease-stained overalls.

I park my bike next to a tow truck that has Clara’s BMW sitting on the tray and switch off the ignition. Clara’s panic hits an all-time high when the second man with inky black hair clamps a set of safety chains onto the tires of her pride and joy.

Since Clara is so immersed in pleading with the middle-aged gentleman, she fails to notice me approaching. “I sent a check yesterday, I swear,” she says, her begging eyes locked onto a man who has ‘Jim’ stitched on the upper left side of his overalls. “If they just waited a day or two, this whole situation could have been avoided.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I don’t make the rules. I just enforce them,” Jim replies while flicking the ash from his lit cigarette onto the ground. With a nudge of his head, Jim gestures for his employee to hop into the cab of the truck. “If you’re going to rack up thousands of dollars in credit and cannot make a payment, you have to be prepared for the repercussions,” Jim reprimands Clara while tearing out a sheet of paper from his extensively used tow slip pad. “If you can come up with the payment they’re requestingby Monday, call the number at the bottom of the slip. If not, your car will be auctioned.”

Jim gives Clara an apologetic smirk before he climbs into the cabin of his tow truck and drives down the street. Clara’s chest thrusts up and down as she watches her beloved car become nothing but a speck on the horizon.

An ear-shattering scream expels from her lips when she spins and crashes into my chest. Snapping her eyes shut, she inhales a large breath as her hands scan the ridges of my chest and stomach.

A few inches lower and she’d discover the knee to the balls she struck me with two weeks ago didn’t sustain me any permanent damage.

“How long have you been standing here, Brax?” she questions with her eyes still shut as tight as a bank vault.

I smirk. “You can tell it is me just from feeling me up?”

Quicker than a flash of lightning brightening a blackened sky, her eyes pop open. “I was not feeling you up.”

“Yeah, you are.” I nudge my head to her hands still plastered across the ridges of my stomach.

She freezes for a second in shock before she yanks her hands away as if scorched by an open flame. The tears glistening in her eyes prevent me from issuing a smart-ass remark to her absurd reaction.She was touching my stomach, not my cock, for crying out loud.

After running her sweat-slicked hands down the front of her designer dress, she turns her wide eyes to mine. “Have a pleasant evening.” She cringes at her poor choice of words before she storms down the sidewalk.

It takes a minute for the reality of the situation to dawn on me.

After clenching my fists into firm balls, I hotfoot after her. “My warning still holds credit. If you get on a bus, your asswill be fired,” I state.

Clara’s quick strides to the bus shelter come to a dead halt halfway down the sidewalk. Her shoulders rise and fall as she inhales a large breath before she spins around to face me. “You just saw my car towed away, right?”

I nod.

“Then you know I have no other way to get home than to take the bus,” she continues before crossing her arms over her chest.

The nod of my head converts to a shake. “You don’t need to catch the bus. I’ll take you home.”

Her lips quirk as her perfectly etched brow curves high. “Do you have another mode of transportation that has more than two wheels?”

I crack a smile at the sassiness in her voice. “No,” I reply with a brisk shake of my head.

Her brow arches even higher. “Then I’m taking the bus.”

“Like fucking hell you are,” I shoot back, my words flying out of my mouth like daggers.

All the high-spiritedness in her face drains, making way for the well-worn angry mask Clara usually wears. “You may be mybosswhen we’re inside those walls,” she spits out while pointing to the doors of Inked behind my shoulder. “But you have no power over me on this sidewalk.”

The stern mask she’s wearing slips for the quickest second when I take a step closer to her. “Are you sure about that, Princess?”

She squares her shoulders and looks me dead in the eyes. “Certain.”

Not thinking of the repercussions my actions could cause to my business, I seize her elbow and drag her toward my bike. The clicking of her heels drowns out a small portion of her incessant rant on my beastly demeanor.

The angry sneer in her tone changes to panic when I snag myhelmet out of the saddlebag and place it on her head. When squealing brakes shriek over her blubbering, Clara cranks her head to the side in just enough time to see bus 57 pulling away from the curb.

Realizing the next bus doesn’t arrive for another forty minutes, she swings her eyes back to me. Her pupils are massive, nearly swamping her entire cornea. “I can’t, Brax… oh God. I can’t,” she mumbles with her eyes fixated on my bike.

She shakes like a leaf when I ignore her continued protests by lifting her in my arms and plopping her onto my seat. She looks prepared to flee, but her panic has rendered her motionless. I open my mouth, planning to deliver some reassurance to the dark cloud of fear forming in her eyes, but my words fail when my eyes zoom in on the indecent amount of her smooth thighs her new straddled position has exposed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as provocative as a princess on the back of a Harley—my Harley.

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