Page 35 of Untouchable

“Don’t stop now, that’s a good ass song,” Mikey says. He and Bodine throw their arms over the gate to lean on it like they have nowhere else to be.

“How you doin’ hot stuff?” My head snaps over to Mikey just as Tabitha, lucky for everyone, answers him.

“Soaking up some vitamin D with my girl, drink in my hand, and not a bad view… I’d say I’m pretty damn good.” I turn back to Katarina as the two of them continue ogling each other.

“I thought you were going to be ready.” Everyone stops and looks at me, probably shocked by my lack of amusement that she and her best friend are having a pool day when we were supposed to leave an hour ago.

“You were late, the pool was empty and I was hot.” She crosses her arms with an attitude.

“Sorry about that, the stooges took a bit longer to get out of the house today than I thought.” She smirks at me, pulling a black band tee over her head.

“I thought you guys were musketeers, not stooges.” She bends over to grab her denim cutoffs and I look over to see Mikey and Bodine checking her out.

For fuck’s sake, shemustknow what she’s doing.

“You ready?”

She slides her feet into a pair of white flip-flops and lets her long blonde locks fall out of her claw clip. “Yeah, just have to grab my bag and my boots and I’m all set.”

She gives Tabitha a long hug, kissing her cheek and whispering something we can’t hear before heading our way.

“Bye boys,” Tabitha sings, lowering her sunglasses to glare directly at me. “Be good to my girl.” Mikey and Bodine assure her that we will, though I wonder why she looked atmewhen she said it. The gate squeaks when Katarina pushes it open and we follow her to the front of the building.

“Two minutes.” She turns to walk away and I whistle for her to come back. She stops abruptly, turning slowly to face me again. Her eyes are set in a glare until she sees the coffee I brought her in my hand.

She gasps, skipping over to me. “My hero.” She goes to pull it from my hand but I don’t let go, teasing her with the rejection of caffeine. Instead of putting up a fight like I expect, she leans forward and takes the straw in her mouth, taking a long sip before letting go.

I stand here, dumbfounded, as I hold her drink for her. “Delicious,” she whispers, winking at me before she backs away to get her stuff from the house.

This is going to be a disaster.

When she returns from inside, her hair is tied with my bandana again, her aviator sunglasses are perched on her nose and she’s wearing her favorite heeled combat boots. I never understood the termsexy as sin, but the way this woman looks makes me want to do downright unholy things. She takes her coffee from my hands and shoves her duffle bag against my chest, taking the straw in her mouth and chugging every last drop.

“Damn girl, you planning on just running next to us the whole way?” Bodine teases, as she tosses the cup in a trash bin along the sidewalk.

“No, but I wasn’t going to let perfectly good coffee go to waste and our road captain here seems to be in a rush, so...” I glare at her demotion remark and she gives me a playful smirk.

“Here.” I grab the helmet I got for her and a look I’m unfamiliar with spreads across her face.

“You did this?” She takes the helmet from my hands, looking at the wordLittle Reaperwritten—rather sloppily—in silver sharpie along the sides. I shrug it off, feeling the weight of two unwanted stares from behind me.

“Didn’t want us getting them mixed up.” I shrug, taking it from her hands and placing it on her head.

“But, yours has an Ace of Spades etched into the back.” I know she’s looking for an explanation. A reason why I made the extra effort to put the nickname—that only I call her—on her helmet, but I don’t have one. Other than I wanted to, so I did.

“Tight enough?” I ask, and she wiggles her head around to test it out.

“Yep.” Her eyes meet mine and I hate the way it makes me need to catch my breath.

“Good, let’s roll.” I sit down on my bike, refusing to look at Mikey and Bodine right now. When Katarina slides on behind me and wraps her arms around my waist, I have to fight every natural instinct in my body telling me how good it feels. I start up the bike, Mikey and Bodine doing the same, and we pull out of the lot.

Highway to nowhere, here we come.

CHAPTER 20

Katarina

“DIBS ON 12!”

---