Page 56 of Twisted Mates

“You okay?” I ask as if I have no idea what just happened upstairs.

“I’m good. Just ready to get out of the house before I end up rearranging Clayton’s face. I can’t handle another argument with him.”

The tension in the house is more than enough to have me jumping off the couch and bounding out the door. Pushing the terrible thoughts from my head, I hurry toward Xander’s truck, but he makes a negative sound deep in his throat that has me pausing. I look back at him and he kicks his head to the side. My gaze darts to the sleek black motorcycle sitting just outside the garage. Don’t get me wrong; the machine is cool, but it also screams “death trap.”

“I don’t know about that. You hear about people getting hurt all the time on motorcycles,” I say.

“You hear about humans. Good thing we’re shifters,” he replies, holding out a black helmet to me.

I stare at it for a second, but he doesn’t give in, so I take it with a playful narrowing of my eyes. “Fine. But don’t kill us.”

He hooks his fingers into my beltloops and yanks me toward him. I yelp and he steadies me with a hand on my waist. “Trust me, baby; I have no intention of harming you. Ever.”

My breath catches and I place my hand on his chest, my gaze softening. “I know. You’re the only one I trust right now, Xander,” I whisper. And I mean it. I mean every word.

“Good.” He takes my purse from me and places it in a compartment under the seat. “Now get your gorgeous ass on the bike and hang on tight.”

I salute him and swing my leg over the seat, patting between my legs for him to sit. He gives a curt nod and straddles the leather. I grip his hips and press my thighs to the outside of his. He takes my hands and pulls them around him until my helmet rests on his back. My heart pounds in my chest; I can’t wait to get away from this house, away from Clayton.

“Don’t let go,” he says, his voice sounding from the speaker beside my ear.

“I won’t,” I say, jumping slightly at the unexpected sound.

As we speed along down the highway toward the coastal side of the state, I lay my head against his back, enjoying how close I am to him. Something about the vibrations of the motorcycle between my thighs and the fact that they’re pressed right next to his has me getting more and more aroused by the second. I inhale and exhale once, twice... I need to calm down.

The drive is long and beautiful, surrounded by trees and mountains, but there’s not much else between our house and the destination. I get bored pretty quickly with nothing to look at, and my thoughts drift back to the conversation I overheard between Xander and his stepfather.

I know the consequences for being sexually intimate with another shifter’s mate. It has happened a handful of times in our pack, and it’s one of those crimes that is highly looked down upon. It’s not spoken of often, and you don’t want to be associated with anyone who is convicted of such a “heinous act,” as the Assembly elders call it.

But this is a different situation. Kai has pretty much rejected me. It’s not like he’s returning to claim me, or that he’s off somewhere licking his wounds, waiting for me to appear, begging for him to come back.

However, Clayton doesn’t see it that way. He doesn’t even see Kai leaving as a rejection. And before today, I didn’t think Clayton knew anything was going on between me and his stepson. Now that I know he’s at best suspicious of it, and at worst, certain because he saw it with his own eyes... I am horrified that Xander and I are both in danger. His punishment would be worse than anything Kai would do to me. He would be sentenced to death. It’s an outcome I can’t risk. I just can’t.

“Alexia?” His voice coming from inside my helmet startles me from my thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“You need to stop to go to the restroom?”

“Yeah, that would be great, actually.”

After we stop to pee and stretch our legs, it’s not too long before the trees begin to give way to more suburban scenery. The weather feels warmer, and I know we must be getting close. But all I can think about is the way he feels between my legs and how I’m not supposed to feel like this. I’ve never been so horny in my whole life. Right then I wonder if something is wrong with me—why am I getting turned on by a motorcycle?

But it’s not the bike or simply my raging hormones. It’s Xander.

He has thrown my world off its axis. Never did I think I would fall so quickly and so thoroughly for another person. I am well-aware it’s only been a little over a week since we reunited. But somehow, in that span of time, he has become my sun, and I’m blissfully trapped in his gravitational pull. We’ve violently collided over and over again, and I still don’t understand his orbit. He doesn’t know all the things that make me sparkle or what has thrown me into a deep dark hole. I’m dying to know everything about him and for him to learn all there is about me. I want to study his universe, and I want him to make me his.

I’m in so deep with this man. So. Fucking. Deep.

“Ready to go over the bridge?” he asks through the speaker.

I gulp. “Bridge?”

He chuckles. “Well, bridge-slash-tunnel.”

My eyes widen even though he can’t see me. I tighten my grip around his waist. “Oh, no. You mean the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.”

“That’s the one.”

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