Page 48 of Dirty Salvation

Her skin bathed in fire everywhere he looked. Her nipples puckered for his hungry attention. It was as if her body reacted all its own accord whenever Rider was around.

Goosebumps broke out along her arms.

She couldn’t take it a second longer.

She watched as a change took place in him in the space between one blink and the next. Gone was the biker president concerned for her safety who’d done all he could to alleviate her fear, to reassure her.

He’d been replaced by someone raw and confident standing grandly before her. His fingers flexed, in turn, it tightened the muscles of his arm.

Beautiful, she thought.

The switch should have intimidated her, after all, men like him had terrorized her mind, but she couldn’t deny feeling a race of sudden excitement.

Anticipation.

When he spoke, his voice rasped raw.

"I do.Again. And I love that your sugary mouth says ‘fuck’ like that. I’ma have you sayin’ it a lot." His honest return cocked her head to the side, a bottle of water stopped halfway to her mouth.

At last, she let it travel all the way, cold water running down her throat in hopes to dampen what he was heating.

"You find it hard to believe I like you and I also wanna fuck you hard? Had you before. They're both not mutually exclusive, Icy. Not crazy to hear I wanna spend time with you, either or get you to come out of yourself, to know you’re safe here. No one would dare touch you." Rider held his head at a differential tilt, glancing up at her though he stood so much taller than she was.

Her face warmed.

Ah, Jesus.

Oh.Well. Stumped.

Zara didn’t reply right away until she’d untied her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

"Experience.” she offered cynically. Testing him. “If you don't want me to pay room and board with me on my back moaning some fake platitudes to stroke your ego, what do you want from me?"

It must be something else.Of course.

Someone like Rider, who could have any woman he crooked an eyebrow at, helping her with no ulterior motive seemed impossible.

He'd just admitted he wanted to sleep with her again. Talons of fervor clawed at her insides, searching his face, she had to wonder was she crazy to want to believe him?

"We could start with everythin’. How 'bout that? Maybe I want everythin’ from you, Zara."

A shudder present in her voice when she could manage to speak.

“That’s not … I… I don’t have everything to offer you or anyone. I told you I was broken."

Rather than touch on what she’d said he told her. “Walk with me, baby." He caught up her hand before she could protest.

Long warm fingers clasping hers gently enough that if she'd wanted she could have easily pulled away. God help her she didn't.

The clubhouse seemed empty today. Hardly any noise came from the rooms when he led her up from the basement, silently tracking corridors. Food smells reached from the kitchen, and someone was running a vacuum inside the storage room direction, but other than that it was a ghost town.

Zara's fingers clutched in Rider's, her first instinct had been to flinch from his touch, logic overriding her apprehension, this man didn't want to inflict pain on her, he was harmless, she told herself, hard to believe, harder to put into practice.

She hated feeling the way she did.

A beautiful man she had once been wildly attracted enough to give him her virginity laid it out clearly, he wanted her still, and she could only blink stupidly looking for his angle.

She didn't get more pathetic than that.Ugh.

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