Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 105813 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105813 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Of all the gorgeous women in Chicago, why me? Why would he pursue one faceless woman? I mean, sure I kept my body in shape and I knew how to tear up a street on the Ducati, but for a guy as secretive as he was…what was he here for? Maybe it was the chase that got him off?
Widening my stance, I raised my chin and met his stare head on. I wanted him to see I could handle him. Wanted him to lean on the throttle and burn away the distance between us. I wanted him to pursue me for all the irrational, menacing reasons that should’ve had me drawing the gun from my back.
The gun he’d placed there with bold, seductive fingers.
What kind of man follows an armed woman home and breaks into her secured garage?
The kind who fucked as dangerously as he lived.
I shuddered, and a warm pulse awoke between my legs. Evidently, my self-preservation had reached an unrecoverable level of failage.
Another rev of his engine, and he zoomed down the ramp. The sudden bolt of the bike unlocked my feet. I shuffled backward, toward the elevator.
He parked beside the Ducati and killed the engine as my back hit the elevator doors. My hand crept over the wall, half-heartedly seeking the up button.
Guards monitored the security cameras. Any moment, a resident could motor by. Maybe they’d recognize him all decked out in his racing leathers. Maybe they wouldn’t. He didn’t seem to care.
With silent steps, he stalked toward me. I might’ve given up my search for that button. I was kind of distracted by the way his leathers stretched over his thighs and cupped the very masculine bulge between his legs. The way he slid off his gloves, finger by finger, and tucked them into the pocket of his jacket. The way his helmet never shifted its focus from me.
His casual gait radiated control, the kind of effortless power that breathed around confident men. His aura was potent and far-reaching, apparently, because I had a heck of a time breathing through its effects.
A few strides away, his altered voice reached my ears. “—not having this conversation. Three feet now. Do you have her RFID?”
What did RFID mean? I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
Reducing the final steps between us, he spoke so low I had to concentrate to hear him. “Cameras down?”
My gaze flew over the garage ceiling. Yeah, there were cameras, but what the hell? He wasn’t holding a cell phone. Was he talking to himself?
He slid a thin flashlight into his pocket. Where had that come from?
I deserted my search for the button. Going up was no longer an option, not if he planned to join me. “Who are you talking to?” I asked, more like a command.
His approach didn’t stop until his chest bumped my helmet and my back pressed against the elevator doors. “Good. Hang tight.” He reached up and pushed a thumb against the underside of his helmet.
I narrowed my eyes. Was his gear James Bondified with a comm device? Did that kind of technology even exist? “What did you just touch under there?” I reached for his helmet.
His hand caught mine, skin-on-skin, and guided it to the button on the wall. No amount of tugging could deter him. On the heels of the attack in the alley, I should’ve been screaming and kicking, but this man had protected me. He was a law breaker, but I didn’t think he’d shove a blade against my throat.
When our fingers pressed the beveled edge, I let my helmet rest against the doors. “What are you doing?”
“Going up.”
“No, you’re not.” For so many reasons. One, he was a criminal. Two, he’d recognize Collin. If my association with the media didn’t make him run, my marriage status would. Three…well, I forgot what three was, but four, he was a criminal.
I inhaled a steady breath to clear my flustered head. He could step into the elevator, but he didn’t have a key card to make it move. Mine was zipped inside the pocket of my jacket, next to my phone.
Leather creaked as he shifted closer, and holy shit, he was hard all over. Like carbon-fiber-muscles hard. Electricity thrummed where the pillars of his thighs bracketed my legs, where his huge hand enclosed my fingers, and where his granite chest pinned my helmet to the doors.
Damn, Collin had been on to something. The strength surrounding me felt superhuman.
Those charged points of connection glued us together in a way that went beyond physical contact. They reached deep, stirring a feeling I’d always hoped existed but had never experienced.
The lub-dub lub-dub slam of my heart pulled me beneath the tide of reason where I floated, for just a moment, in whatever this was. Maybe his heart was as disoriented as mine? I wanted to remove the helmet, lay my cheek against his chest, and find out.