Page 31 of Nitro
Before I could answer, he moved. Torin swung the ZX out of the bay and rolled it over to where his Harley waited, chrome catching the glow of the overhead lights. Then he turned to me, one brow arched. “Your call. Back of mine…or on your own.”
I should’ve chosen the ZX. My independence demanded it. But when my gaze locked on his—dark and steady—I heard myself say, “With you.”
His grin flashed, slow and dangerous. “Good girl.”
The words shouldn’t have made me melt. But they did. Especially when he patted the seat behind him, casual and commanding all at once.
“I haven’t been on the back of anyone’s bike since I was a kid. Not since I learned to ride on my own.”
The admission dragged up the old memory of my father steadying the handlebars of that clunky dirt bike. For one fleeting afternoon, he’d been a decent dad. But like everything with him, it hadn’t lasted.
I shoved the thought down before it could fester because this wasn’t the same. Torin wasn’t the kind of man who gave you a taste of stability only to rip it away. I had the feeling that when he put a woman on his bike, it was a vow.
His eyes gleamed with approval. “Then I’ll be your first in this, too.”
My cheeks filled with heat at the reminder of the sexier firsts I’d shared with him. “Mm-hmm.”
He swung a leg over the Harley and glanced back with a grin. “And you’ll be the first woman I’ve ever put on the back of mine.”
That admission hit me like a spark catching tinder. He didn’t hand out pieces of himself freely. Which meant this was more than just a ride. It was a claim, public and undeniable.
Sliding onto the leather seat behind him, I wrapped my arms around his waist. Heat radiated through his cut, the hard muscle beneath pressing against my palms. When I rested my cheek between his shoulder blades, the world narrowed to the steady thrum of his heartbeat and the scent of leather, fuel, and Torin.
The Harley rumbled to life, the vibrations shooting through me as he guided us out of the garage. Cool night air whippedagainst my face as the city blurred past. Neon lights faded into dark stretches of highway, the roar of the engine drowning out every doubt I’d been clinging to.
Pressed against him as the world rushed by felt like the safest place I’d ever been. His hand brushed mine once, a silent reassurance, and my chest squeezed so tight I thought it might break open.
I had thought I needed distance. But the longer I held Torin, the more I understood that running wouldn’t make a difference. I was already his.
14
NITRO
The street hummed like an engine idling before it ripped loose. The Florida heat hadn’t let up all day, and by nightfall, it was clinging to the asphalt, shimmering under the crooked streetlamps that lined the abandoned strip of road we used for races when the speedway wasn’t the place. Smoke curled from grills set up by locals, music thumped heavily out of open trunks, and engines revved as crews tuned and teased their machines for the run. It was invite-only, the kind of thing you didn’t stumble into unless you knew the right people.
And everyone here tonight knew the Redline Kings owned this pavement.
I parked the Harley at the edge of the lot and let the engine tick down. Jana swung her leg off the back, boots hitting the ground with a sound that cut straight through the chaos in my head. She wore cutoffs that left too much pale skin for my peace of mind and a black tank top smeared with grease from earlier at The Pit. Hair tied up, fire-red strands still falling loose, freckles catching the light like they wanted to be counted one by one. She looked like temptation with oil under her nails.
She also looked like she belonged here.
“Crowd’s bigger than I expected,” she muttered, scanning the rows of cars, the clusters of drivers and their crews.
“They heard about you,” I explained, my voice low, and my eyes never leaving her. “Girl shows up and smokes half my rookies and a couple of veterans? Then does it again, over and over? Word spreads.”
Her mouth twitched, half pride, half nerves. “Good.”
Good. She was hungry for it. That was the piece of her I recognized right off the bat—the obsession, the way the noise of the crowd faded when you slid behind the wheel or gripped a set of handlebars. That tunnel vision meant nothing else mattered but speed.
I slung an arm over her shoulders and steered her toward the line where Gauge was checking tires and Drift was leaning against the hood of Jana’s car like he owned it.
“You break it, she’ll break you,” Drift warned me with a grin.
She shot him a look sharp enough to peel paint. “If you don’t move your ass off my car, I’m pretty sure he’ll be the one breaking you.”
The brothers laughed. I didn’t. I was too focused on her as she slid behind the wheel, helmet loose in her lap, eyes fixed down the strip of road like it was hers already.
When the starter dropped the rag, she launched. Smooth. Clean. Like the car was an extension of her body. She didn’t just drive fast—she dominated. Every gear shift was instinct, every line she took was perfect. She hit the end and came back grinning, fire in her cheeks, freckles glowing like embers.
