Page 56 of The Jester and His Outlaw: Part One

“Yep, good to go. Are you sure you want me on the back of your bike? We can always take my Jeep.”

He lowers his voice as he takes a couple of steps closer to me. The sweet scent of candy wraps me up like a hug, and I have to stop myself from closing the distance between us. “No offense, but my bike is a lot faster, and I don’t want your tags involved in anything.”

A rush of adrenaline catches me off guard, and I have to place my hand on the mirror of my SUV to keep from fainting. The hint of danger mingling with that statement has me excited while a little edgy. What are we getting into? Should I be doing whatever it is we are doing? Are we going to be running from the cops?

“What are we doing?” I ask, more breathy than I want to sound. I swallow and press my hand to my chest to calm my racing heart.

“Do you trust me?”

“Trusting you is one thing, getting in trouble with you is another.”

He presses closer, confidence oozing off him. “We won’t get in trouble.” He smirks, and it makes my heart stop.

“You informed me that your bike is a getaway vehicle. That screams trouble.”

“If I told you we won’t harm anyone or steal anything but we may have to run from the cops, would that make you feel better?”

“Run from the cops? Are you insane? We can’t run from the cops, Riggs.”

“Sure we can, that’s why we’re taking my bike and not your SUV. It’s big and clunky and slow. On my bike, they’ll never catch us.” I glare at him for talking about my SUV like that.

“You say this like you have experience.”

He evades my statement, continuing to smirk as he taunts me with his icy blues. “Your choice.”

I can’t ignore how good my pounding heart feels and the surge of adrenaline already fueling me. My life has been so boring and anticlimactic lately. Maybe I need this outing. I might regret this decision, but I do trust Riggs. He has already proven he wouldn’t let anything hurt me and we weren’t hurting anyone. However, he didn’t say what we were doing was legal, either.

He tilts his head to the side with a closed lip smirk and a raised brow, urging me to make a choice. “If you’re not into it, we can go sit on the balcony of my shitty apartment building and get high, or we can take a chance and do something adventurous.”

“I didn’t peg you for the adventurous kind.” His brow furrows, and he breathes a soft laugh.

“I’m not all the time. Occasionally, sure.” He pauses and I see through his eyes that he’s hesitant to say his next statement. He scrunches his lips and turns his head side-to-side with minor disbelief. “There’s something about you, Charley.”

I’m shocked, raising my brows, my eyes wide. What is that supposed to mean, and why do I shudder at his intensity? “There’s something about me? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Are you trying to say I’m a bad influence?”

“Hardly. I’m sureIwill always be a bad influence onyou.”

“Hey!” I scoff, batting at his chest. He freezes at the touch, peering down at my hand. I draw it away, but he wraps his gloved fingers around my wrist, swallowing thickly, and places it back on his chest. He exhales long and slow, drawing comfort from my touch. His eyes fall shut briefly.

After a moment, I finally regain my voice and peel my eyes from watching the soft skin of his neck glide over his muscles as he moves. “I can be a bad influence. I bought pot last week, and I’ve had my fair share of drunk nights.”

His heart races beneath his pec as he increases his pressure on my hand, not willing to let me go just yet. I let him, wanting to touch him as well. I’ve been compelled to do it so many times and now he’s making me, neither of us mentioning what’s happening between us.

“I’m sure you have, Mandy.”

I shoot him a blank look and wrinkle my nose. His gaze catches on the center of my face, blinking to my mouth and back up. Adoration tilts his lips, lost in his own little bubble as he watches me talk. My heart skips to its own rhythm, and my mouth is so dry it’s as if I’ve licked cotton balls. Contact with him is so foreign and unexpected it’s throwing me off.

“Mandy has been on many, many adventures,” I explain. “She will have you know—” He moves another inch closer, and I lose all train of thought. I blink to clear my vision, to make sure that he indeed closed the gap between us.

Wait, is he going to kiss me? I mean, not like I’m complaining. Who wouldn’t want to kiss Riggs, but are we there yet? I shake my head to clear my thoughts and Riggs snaps out of his spell as well. He releases his grip on my hand and I instantly miss his warmth, the chaotic beat of his heart as he peered into my soul.Imade his heart beat that way. Average old Charlotte Miller threw Riggs Sutton’s heart out of rhythm.Who woulda thunk it.

“I want to take Charley on an adventure because there is something about Charley that makes me feel like maybe tomorrow won’t be so bad.”

CHAPTER26

I’m lost in Riggs’confession when he takes me by the hand and leads me up the rickety stairs I watched him ascend the other day. My chest is thumping in the best way, so hard that I’m sure Riggs can feel my pulse where our hands connect.

He had to collect a few things before we could go, and he wanted to get me some gloves and a jacket to protect me should the bike go down.

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