“Here he comes.” Virginia wraps a liver-spotted hand around my arm and points her filmy eyes at the vacant street. “Hear that?”
All I hear is the too-damn-early squawk of birds telling me to go back to bed.
“He’s bringing the marijuana into our neighborhood.” The saggy skin on her neck quivers. “I just know it.”
A smile struggles behind my pinched lips. When my hundred-and-ninety-year-old neighbor isn’t complaining about the Bosnians moving in with their pink flamingos and loud music, she’s fretting over alleged drug activity. I love Virginia dearly, but her over-imagination is horribly discriminatory.
For the past few weeks, she’s had her floral smock all twisted up over the tattooed devil on a motorcycle who rides down our block. She can’t see two feet in front of her, but her hearing is sharper than a bat. And she says he’s coming.
A gentle fog blankets the sleepy road. The giant oak trees and quaint brick bungalows in this neighborhood date back to the 1920’s, as do most of the residents. Since I’m the only one under the age of seventy, they all come to me when there’s a problem. Last week, I spent an entire afternoon chasing a poor squirrel out of Jackie’s basement. And Wilson, the Vietnam vet who lives across the street, needs help programming his TV on a weekly basis.
I still don’t hear the offending motorcycle, which Virginia claims rattles her fine china before the Lord has risen for the day. She also swears the pot-smoking heathen tries to run her over when she steps off the curb. Of course, she chooses to alert me of his misbehavior at six every morning.
Seeing how I’m not an early riser, I’m prepared to do anything to put an end to her banging on my door.
So here I am. Armed with coffee—I can’t function without it. Standing in my front yard—it’s cold enough to freeze my tits off. Dressed to kill—I know how to rock a slouchy crop top and cheeky boyshorts.
The plan is simple. I’ll wave down the biker with a little flash of skin. He’ll pull over because he’s a man. We’ll have a friendly stop-pissing-off-my-neighbors conversation, and I’ll be back in my warm bed in no time.
“I’ll take care of it, Virginia.” With a grip on her bony elbow, I guide her across the driveway.
Her house slippers shuffle along the pavement, chafing my patience. By the time I coax her into her home next door, I’m shivering so violently my bones hurt. I consider slipping back into my house to pull on some leg warmers, but an engine rumbles in the distance, maybe two…three blocks away.
Curling my hands around the warm coffee mug, I tiptoe through the chilly grass and step into the middle of the empty street. The gray sky casts the fog in a wintry glow, making it feel colder than it should in late September.
The purr of the engine grows louder, and after a few shivery breaths, the motorcycle thunders like a black stallion out of the mist at the end of the street.
I’m hoping for a bald, grizzly-bearded biker dude. Never met one I didn’t like.
He motors toward me, straddling a beast of a bike and maintaining the prudent speed limit. Heavy boots, faded denim, and a black leather jacket come into view, but that’s where the stereotype ends. Beneath the half-shell helmet is a young, clean-shaved face and huge brown eyes.
At twenty feet away, I know I’m in trouble, because this man is fucking gorgeous.
It’s his smile. A heart-thudding, sexy-as-fuck, world-changing smile that shines from the inside out. It lifts his cheeks, illuminates his entire expression, and damn if I don’t feel it pulling on my own lips.
He slows his approach and stops on the curb beside me. With his eyes on mine, he turns off the engine and kicks a leg out, balancing the bike between muscular thighs wrapped in frayed jeans.
I float toward him, and his gaze follows, tracing my face as if absorbing every detail. We’re both smiling, locked in a wonderfully bizarre introduction.
Our eyes dance over each other, greeting, exploring, and connecting in a moment of silent fascination, where time and words are inconsequential. I hear the crescendo of possibilities, feel the vibrations answering inside me, and everything just…clicks.
His grin, complete with dimples, grows impossibly wider as I drink him in. Golden complexion, pillowy lips, straight white teeth, square jaw—every symmetrical feature renders a sculpture of masculine beauty. Carved to perfection, rebellious around the edges, and flirtatious without opening his mouth, oh baby, he’s all that and a lit fuse on dynamite.
“I expected the black jacket, shit-kickers, and faded jeans.” I step close enough to feel the heat of his body. “But those dimples…”
“If you pinch my cheeks and tell me I’m adorable, you’ll never see them again.” Amusement gleams in his eyes, but something else sifts through his gravelly voice, something dark and sinful. “Christ, your smile is beautiful.”
“Thank you for giving it to me.”
He gives me more than a smile. The look that follows marks the before and after in my life. The air ceases to exist, and the only thing between us is the anticipation of what is coming. In that flicker of time, with something as inconceivable as a look, he claims me, owns me, and ruins me for all others. It’s a look so defining it puts quotation marks around mine, his, us, and forever.
My pulse pounds. My skin tingles, and a cocktail of desire circulates and multiplies in my blood. This is it, the suspended moment I will forever remember. The one that determines my ultimate happiness or demise. The pinnacle point that reveals who I am and what I want.
He releases the chin strap of his half-helmet and lets it dangle against his neck. “You’re shivering.”
Am I? I snap out of my daze and lift the mug to my lips. “Are you married?”
“I will be.” Resting a leather-sleeved forearm on the gas tank, he leans in. “Does five o’clock tonight work for you?”
I sip the coffee and hum. “Is that a proposal?”
“It’s a foregone conclusion.” He rubs his jaw with a gloved hand. “I always wondered what you would look like.”
“You wondered what I would look like?”
“My forever.”
His response triggers giggly chemicals in my brain, but I do my best to behave like a twenty-four-year-old woman.
“I can’t tell if you’re being sincere or fucking with me.” I wish the coffee would kick in so I could keep up. “I’m leaning toward mental patient. Did you escape the hospital on your bike?”
“Mental patient? You’re the one standing in the street, freezing your ass off, and smiling like you were waiting for me.”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Perfect,” he murmurs, his gaze transfixed on my mouth.
I bounce on my toes, trying to work some blood into my iced-over muscles. “We need to talk.”
His eyes fly to mine. “Is that right?”
“Yep.” I roll back my shoulders. “It’s about to go down.”
“I can’t wait.” He grins.
“Hold this.” I hand him the mug and reach for the lapels of his motorcycle jacket.