a coltective gasp, as if they’d witnessed something strange or horrible.
A pair of heavy leather biker boots landed on the sidewalk right next to Eden.
Chapter 2
The punk leaned over Eden, extending his hand for her to grasp. She fixated on the shiny steel bar pierced through his nose as if a bullring waiting for tether. His smile was wrinkled. It didn’t meet his kaleidoscope eye. Nothing on his face was cohesive.
He did not speak, yet the eye not covered with the patch screamed at her. The promise of something vast and unfamiliar shouted from that eye. It frightened her.
And it compelled her.
She’d almost touched that feeling once. A year ago. Joy.
The crowd again gasped in unison as rubber peeled across the asphalt. Out of the corner of her eye, Eden saw a motorcycle do a one-eighty. The rumbling steel bike approached the accident too quickly. Surely it would crash—
The rear tire stopped two feet from her legs.
The white-haired punk snarled and leaped away from her. It was a physically impossible move, because he soared straight up through the air, flipped in a backward somersault and landed on the other side of the crashed cab.
“My lady, take my hand,” commanded the black-leather-clad motorcyclist. “If you want to be safe.”
Too much happening. So much to register. But Eden heard safe and scrambled to her feet.
Yet she looked to the punk, standing poised to leap upon the hood of a stalled car. Still, his eye beckoned.
I can give you what you seek. If you dare to take it.
“Now, my lady!” the rider insisted.
Shaking from shoulders to legs, wanting to scream, and wondering why she could not physically make a sound, Eden was tugged onto the motorcycle behind the imposing man.
She recorded sensations only. The rough slide of leather under her palms as she groped to wrap her arms about his waist. The burn of the exhaust cylinder when she initially put her shoeless foot right on it.
The intense realization that the man was solid, hard and all muscle. Yes, safe.
The rider gripped her by the ankle and pulled her foot higher to hook behind his booted foot. She sucked in a gasp as his fingers clasped about her bare flesh. At this frantic moment it was too strange to feel desire, yet she did.
The command he projected with the protective move melted her resistance. The world wobbled and skinned her face with brisk air as the motorcycle sped away from the scene of the crash. She clung desperately, crushing her cheek to the supple plane of his leather-clad back.
She didn’t know who this man was, but he’d taken her away from the other man who had looked like a junkie. A man whose hand she had almost taken because the unspoken promise in his gaze had reached inside and touched a part of her she’d thought buried.
Had she heard him say, “I can give you what you seek"?
How could he know what she wanted? Half the time she didn’t know what she wanted.
Safety was fore on that unknown list, and she grasped it, if only for the moment.
“Stop ahead on Eleventh Avenue,” she yelled. Eden could barely hear her voice. She doubted he could hear her over the roar of the motor. “Please!”
He reached back to slide a hand along her thigh. Her skirt road up high and his palm burnished her flesh. It wasn’t a suggestive move, but more to ensure she was still there. Safe. The tingling desire she’d felt when he’d touched her ankle returned. The touch ignited beneath her skin, shimmying adrenaline and a frenzy of want to her belly.
So this was what the damsel felt like when rescued by the knight?
She’d take it.
Guilt reared up too quickly. They’d ridden away from those injured at the scene. But she’d heard the ambulance. The driver, and any others who may be injured, would be taken to the hospital.
And what of her? Beyond a few cuts she hadn’t a more serious injury. What hurt was that damned spot on her arm where the man had licked her. If she were not clinging for life to her rescuer, she’d be scratching.
The motorcycle veered right sharply. Squeezing her thighs against his to hang on, Eden recognized the Chelsea Piers. The area boasted a lot of new developments, but as well, many unoccupied warehouses and storage facilities were badly in need of restoration.
They drove through a narrow warehouse door and into a dark, empty storage room three stories high.
The motorcycle stopped and tilted left as the driver let down the kickstand. Eden slid off. Before the man could speak, she rushed him, threading her arms about his chest and squeezing.
“Thank you,” she said. She pushed away and stepped back, sliding her palms down her hips.
“Sorry.”
“No need for apologies, my lady.”
“It was a reaction to being rescued. I don’t normally hug strangers. I’m just so thankful.”
“This is not a rescue.”
“Seriously? What is it? You got me away from that freaky guy.”
“He will come to you. I will be waiting.”
She scratched her forearm. Cautious to keep the man in view, she scanned her surroundings. The door they’d rolled through was her only way out.
She noticed his curiosity as she scratched. Eden tugged down her sleeve, embarrassed when she should only be thankful she was safe. But was she? He’d said this wasn’t a rescue. So what did he intend to do with her, alone in this abandoned building?
She wasn’t about to stick around to find out. Reaching up under her skirt, she claimed the blade tucked against her thigh.
Eden dashed toward the open doorway bursting with a shock of orange from the setting sun.
Just as she slapped a palm against the rough wood door frame, a huge body slid before her. Eden’s entire body slammed into the unmoving force of man. He was a head taller than she, and twice as wide.
“I prefer you remain in here, my lady.”
“Yeah? That’s what scares me.”
Pushing from his solid chest, Eden stepped away, knife held before her in warning. She’d taken a self-defense course and was prepared to stab if necessary.
But how big could a man be? He filled the doorway.
The low sun behind him glowed about his figure, giving him a remarkable aura, almost heavenly. Black tousled hair shimmered blue and swept low near a square jaw. A line of dark beard, trimmed thin, framed his jaw and lips. A sexy soul patch marked a smudge from his thick lower lip down
