Page 28 of The Girlfriend's Guide to Dating a Biker
“Not my fault,” I breathed. “You hacked me.”
“Yeah?” His mouth was still brushing mine. “You say that like you didn’t hand me the keys.”
And then he kissed me again. Once. Hard. Final.
And pulled away.
Hard reset.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, digging my fingers into the back of his neck. “You can’t just stop like that.”
Jake’s forehead dropped to mine, our bodies still firmly together. His dick was very much still part of the conversation. But his voice? It was all edged restraint.
“Sweetheart, if I don’t stop now, I’m not gonna want to stop at all.”
My body immediately rejected this suggestion.
“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.” I tried to pull his mouth back to me. “And I once considered letting Johnson redesign our security protocols, so that’s saying something.”
He chuckled darkly but maintained the small distance he’d created. “This wasn’t how I pictured our first kiss. I was gonna take it slow. Let you set the pace. Not dry-hump you against a public railing like a fucking teenager.”
I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth. “It didn’t feel teenager-y to me.”
“You think I don’t want to keep going?” he said, voice ragged. “Fuck, I’ve been imagining this date ever since I first saw you. I wanted to take you out. Talk to you. Kiss you slow.” He stopped for a beat, and when he spoke again, his voice was gruffer. “But you kissed me back like that, and now my brain is just porn and fire.”
“Well, it matches mine. So, we could just run with it.”
He exhaled hard and backed away by two steps. They felt like two miles.
“Not like this,” he said. “When I finally get you naked, darlin’, it’s not going to be rushed. And it’s not going to be against a railing where half of Brisbane can drive up and watch us.” His voice dropped to that deep rumble that was high on my ruin-me scale. “I want to spend time with you, Eden. Get to know you.”
I went still like a shutdown command hit everything but my heart.exe, leaving it glitching wildly in the background. Because that? That wasn’t railing banter or filthy-promise dirty talk. That was Jake showing his hand. That was Jake saying this means something to me. And goodness if that didn’t override every last horny synapse in my body.
I still wanted him. Badly. Desperately. But I also wanted this version of him. The Jake who cared about me, wanted to get to know me, and wasn’t just here for the sex.
As I pushed through the lust haze, I realised he wasn’t trying to slow us down to kill the vibe. He was doing it because I mattered to him. Because the moment mattered.
My hormone-drenched brain hated it.
My heart? Kinda loved it.
I took the two steps to bring us back together and curled my fingers into his shirt as I said quietly, “I haven’t had a lot of guys choose to slow down with me. Usually, it’s just fast. They get what they want and move on.”
I swallowed, feeling suddenly shy, which was odd since there wasn’t one ounce of shyness when I was grinding all over him. But this made me feel exposed in a different way.
“I like that you slowed us down.” I curled my fingers tighter in his shirt. “Even if every part of me was screaming Climb him like a tree.”
His eyes crinkled with amusement as his hand slid along my jaw. “Good to know I’m not the only one affected here,” he murmured, and the way his gaze dropped to my mouth and lingered there told me he was still warring with himself over not letting me do that climbing.
His phone sounded with a message, cutting in on the moment.
Frustration flashed in his eyes. “Fuck.”
He let go of me and checked the message. The regret is his eyes when he looked back up was genuine. “I’m sorry, darlin’. This isn’t how I wanted tonight to end, but the club needs me.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. But I’m going to make it up to you.” He brushed his lips across mine once more, the gentle touch at odds with the tension I could feel thrumming through him. “I’ll take you home first.”
