Page 7 of Colvin
“It’s all right. I carried you to your room and then I watched the rest of it to make sure the good guys would win the day.” He was cheerful.
“And did they?”
“Of course. Always.”
Over breakfast he tried to get her to reveal what she’d planned for them to do today but Ivy grinned and shook her head. “You’ll see.”
They left the hotel, Colvin carrying a stasis equipped picnic basket which room service had delivered with the breakfast and which Ivy insisted they needed for their day to be complete. She led him in a direction Colvin hadn’t gone before, leaving the resort itself and entering an employee only area. Ivy kept going until they reached a warehouse toward the edge of the cluster of buildings.
“Should I be prepared for Security to come arrest us?” Colvin asked as she flashed her employee badge and entered a complicated code into the portal control.
“Trust me. This is unusual but I sent my boss a quick note about what I had in mind and he had no objections.” The door opened as she finished speaking and she led him into the warehouse. The lights came on as they walked and he saw all kinds of equipment, building supplies and sealed crates neatly stacked on pallets.
His curiosity grew the further they walked until they went around a corner and he stopped dead, staring at a line of ten of the top-rated AGcycles in the Sectors, all gleaming chrome and polished black surfaces, speed and maneuverability implicit in the lines. As if mesmerized he went straight to the nearest one and checked the high performance machine out. “Where did these come from?” he asked over his shoulder.
“We have grand plans for the resort to expand and offer all kinds of activities and events in the future, including the chance to ride AGcycles for recreation and possibly racing. The plans have been put on hiatus while other items got prioritized but we’d already ordered the cycles because we got a great deal on them. They’ve been here in stasis and when you were talking about your year of traveling on Ardanna as a biker, I remembered we had them. I believe they’re fully energized and ready to be ridden. There are helmets and leather jackets in the locker over there.”
“You’re going to ride with me?” He glanced away from his examination of the engine pod.
“That’s why I wore jeans today,” she said, patting her jeans-clad thigh. “I’m going to be a biker babe.”
Colvin laughed at her lighthearted assertion. “It’ll be my honor to have you on the back of my hog. No woman has ever ridden one with me before—I never met a woman I wanted to give that place.”
Ivy’s cheeks warmed and she knew she was blushing. “Now I’m honored. I always wanted to ride an AGcycle and today I’m going to risk it.”
“I’m a safe rider,” he said with an air of injured pride. “My hair’s shorter and I’m a few decades older and allegedly wiser but I haven’t forgotten how to ride. Some skills never leave your muscle memory. But where are we going? Cruising the streets in the resort will be short and boring, let me tell you.”
“Remember yesterday when we were flying? All those miles of empty road off to the east? Those are in place to support the future developments I spoke of earlier. You’ll be able to open the throttle and let the bike go to the red line if you want.”
“And you’re on board for that?” He raised one eyebrow in skepticism.
“Right now, as a total novice, sure, why not? A thing is only worth doing if you can do it well. And I know a private beach where we can have lunch and take a swim if we want, before coming back to the resort.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He rose and came to her, taking her hands in his and kissing her on the lips. “I can’t ever thank you enough for arranging this.”
She was tempted to pursue the moment and turn it into a much more intimate kiss, but then she broke it off and stepped back. “My pleasure. If you’re going to match with an IDA employee you might as well get the extra perks and access. Did you pick your machine?”
Colvin walked along the line of AGcycles and retraced his path to the first one. “This girl looks ready to run for us.”
“Good. If you can strap the basket to the bike, I’ll open the lockers and we can pick helmets and jackets.” She went to the lockers lined up against the wall and opened the first one. With a chuckle she took out a bright pink helmet with the resort’s mascot Mirminny on the side in yellow and purple. “I think this one is a good choice.”
“For you maybe.” Colvin stalked over to join her and reached past her into the depths of the locker to extract a plain black helmet in his size. “I’m not wearing the damn cartoon on my head, not even for you.”
The jackets were still in their stasis wrappers ready to be sold and it took a few minutes to go through them and find two which would fit. “I do have to pay for the jackets,” Ivy said as she was putting hers on. “But not to worry, it’s at a discount and I needed a new jacket anyway.”
“I’ll pay for them,” Colvin said. “This is for my benefit so the charges are mine to handle.”
“It was my idea though.” And what a great idea it was too, she thought, studying Colvin in his jeans which hugged his thighs and didn’t leave much to the imagination when it came to what he carried between them, tee shirt which stretched tight across his muscular chest and biceps, and the black jacket. The man might be older than her usual type to swoon over but he was built and he was hot and she was probably the luckiest girl in the matching pool. Today was a day to discard her inhibitions and live a little.
Live a lot actually.
When they were ready, Ivy opened an access door to the outside and Colvin fired up the AGcycle and exited the building on a cushion of antigrav pulses. She shut the door and hurried through the warehouse to join him out front.
“Two things today,” he told her before she got on. “Hang on to me tight and lean when I lean. Otherwise your only responsibility is to have fun.”
Ivy was sure the most ungraceful thing she’d ever done was the way she climbed onto the seat space behind him. She wasn’t exactly sure what to expect and the whole idea of riding in an open vehicle at high speed seemed quite dubious to her now but she put her arms around his waist as ordered. He pulled her closer until her body was molded to his back. Even through the leather of their jackets she felt her breasts compressed against him and a tingle went through her. Then he revved up the engine and took off at a fairly slow speed, heading for the complex of roads in the undeveloped section of the resort. At first she was afraid to watch the pavement flashing by underneath them and hung onto him as if she was in mortal danger but gradually as she gained confidence, she began to look around and marveled at how close everything was and how much a part of the world she felt, unlike riding in a groundcar.
The AGcycle was designed to do short stints of antigrav flying but it also came equipped with a powerful fusion engine for actual road running and the designers had made an outstanding effort to give the bike the sound and feel of the old time ‘hogs’ on pre-interstellar Earth, built by their parent company for centuries. The engine rumbled and the bike vibrated as Colvin went faster and faster. The vibrations set off a pleasant ache in Ivy’s core and she had to fight the arousal or risk an orgasm then and there.
