Page 32 of When We Were Reckless
“Mason called me yesterday. He thought it would befunif we all hung out together. Is that a problem?”
“No. Why would it be?”
“I don’t know.” He jerked his chin at me. “You tell me.”
God, he looked so arrogant. And so beautiful. With the morning sun on his golden-tanned face and his eyes so blue. His jacket fit like a glove, molded to his broad shoulders and tapering down to his narrow waist, and he was standing in front of his big black motorcycle, looking so impossibly cool.
I just wanted him all to myself. But I couldn’t say that, could I?
I couldn’t tell him that I dreamed about him last night. Or that he was the hero in the story I was writing. Or that I’d killed off his ex-girlfriend, cackling like a lunatic while I’d been writing that scene.
I took a deep breath and let it out, gearing up to make myself vulnerable and be honest with him. “Yesterday when I saw you… you were nice. And today… you’re acting like…” I averted my face to hide the hurt expression. I didn’t even have a word for it. Had Jesse always been this moody? I guess I’d never noticed it before.
He crossed his arms over his chest, so closed-off and aloof with that same arrogant look on his face like he was looking down his nose at me. “How am I acting?”
How could I talk to him when he was acting like this? I couldn’t. “Just forget it. Let’s just go.”
Without further prompting, he put on his helmet, straddled his bike, and started the engine.
Two minutes later, we hit the road, and I vowed just to enjoy the day. So what if it hadn’t gone according to plan? So what if he was acting like a dick again? It would be fun to spend the day with my brothers. If worse came to worse, I could always catch a ride home with them.
The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and I was on the back of Jesse’s bike, so I needed to shake it off and channel all my good vibes.
My arms were wrapped tightly around his middle, my chest pressed against his back as we took the winding back roads instead of the highway. Although I suspected he was holding back, not riding as fast as he usually would, we were still going fast.
I’d wanted to ride on the back of his bike for so long, and it was just how I imagined it would be.
I felt so wild and free. Reckless and a little bit dangerous.
Holding onto Jesse like this, straddling a bike, with all this power between my thighs and the vibrations of the engine shooting straight to my core… God. Now I understood why motorcycles were so sexy.
For a moment, I closed my eyes and pretended that he was mine and I was his. And that he’d look at me and think, “She’s the one. The girl I’ve been waiting for all my life. And all along, she had been right in front of me.”
When I opened my eyes, reality hit me.
I needed to get it through my head that I wouldneverbe that girl to him. And with the way he’d been acting lately, I shouldn’t even want that.
When we got to the lake, I would just do my own thing and avoid him as much as possible. If he’d rather hang out with a bikini-clad blonde with big boobs, far be it from me to get in his way.
I deserved better, and that’s what I had to keep reminding myself. I refused to become one of those girls who let herself get treated like dirt just because they had a stupid crush on a hot guy.
If he wasn’t going to play nice, then why should I?
Chapter Twelve
Jesse
Quinn had lied to me.She. Lied. To. Me. I fucking hated being lied to.
Of all the people in the world, Quinn was the last person I’d expected dishonesty from. But history had proven that I wasn’t the best judge of character.
“He… he forced me,” Alessia said, her chin quivering, eyes filled with tears as she stood in front of me on the driveway, wringing her hands.
I still had the condo in Temecula, the one we used to live in together. She’d been waiting for me when I got home from a thirteen-mile trail ride on my mountain bike. I’d been trying to shake off the dejection of my second eighth-place weekend in a row. To say that my Supercross season wasn’t going well was a massive understatement.
And now she was telling me this?
“Nate wanted to win so badly that he would have done anything. And he knew… he knew that if he went after me, it would mess you up.” She wrapped her hands around my biceps and looked up at me with her big brown eyes, pleading with me to believe her.
