and found him graceful and in complete control of the black custom Harley. With all his muscle and sinew, the guy was like a panther in motion. But he was too tall, too handsome and way too male. He might present himself as a white knight dipped in black leather, but in his presence she was experiencing a moment of moral and physical weakness.
It was a well-known fact that looks could be deceiving, so why the hell was she on this bike?
For the life of her, McKenna couldn’t find a reason for that.
Her old partner at Seattle PD would have rolled his eyes mockingly when catching sight of this guy, suggesting that a package like this one was bound to be bad. The nurses on her shift at the hospital would have drooled.
So, okay, he appeared to be physically perfect. The odds of this biker being merely a Good Samaritan without an agenda of his own rang in at about fifty-fifty. Granted, she’d been near enough to fainting on the street corner to have seen the lights dimming, and there was no way she could have made it to her car. But did that justify accepting aid from a stranger?
Other then Derek Miller, her ex-partner both on the force and in her bed, she hadn’t allowed herself this close to a bad boy without flashing her badge. Yet McKenna was pretty sure she had never wrapped her arms around anything so fine as this specimen.
“You can slow down now,” she called out, wondering if she had a subconscious motive for accepting this lift. Could she possibly use this stud to punish Derek for not being the right man for her? By flaunting someone in front of Derek who was in no way right? The exact opposite of right?
No. That wasn’t it. She’d never been the type to rub things into a partially closed wound. And Derek had, at one time, professed to love her.
“Fifth and G,” she repeated. “Half a block down.”
The guy glanced at her when they stopped for a red light. “All right,” he said, rocking the windblown look with deep auburn hair only a few inches long that smelled like dangerous forbidden detours.
His worn leather jacket, soft against her cheek, had a logo on the back that she was too tired to lean back and examine. Anyway, it was probably best if she didn’t know what he was up to when he wasn’t volunteering to help ladies in distress.
Adding to the cliché of guys on bikes these days, her white knight had tattoos. Rounded edges of fine black scrolls were visible at the nape of his neck. Some sort of Celtic design, she guessed, and no big deal since she also had a tattoo.
In spite of not quite believing that she had accepted this guy’s offer of assistance, she wasn’t a complete idiot. McKenna felt relatively safe on the bike. The knife in her pocket was for protection. She also knew how to get an arm around this guy’s throat if he misbehaved. For some reason, though, she had a feeling he was okay, and was sincere in his wish to help her out of a jam. In this case, McKenna preferred to trust her instincts.
When the bike swerved to the right, she hung on. But after they reached her destination, getting away from him would be the smart thing to do. And also the sensible move, since she was already imagining what a night with him might be like, and how he’d look without the leather—buck naked, bronze, intimidatingly perfect.
Would she stoop to that?
If times were different... If she was different and didn’t know better, due to the things she’d witnessed both as a cop and in the ER, she might have taken this guy up on a night in the sack just for the hell of it. For reliving the thrill of her days on the force, when adrenaline surges were a coveted daily rush.
For a minute, she wanted to forget about taboos and melt into a guy’s capable arms, free to express herself with a stranger in ways she never would have dared to address with Derek. She had been strong for so damn long. She wanted to experience what a man like this, with a body like this, could do to make her forget the nightmares. Only with a stranger could she indulge in that kind of vulnerability.
Pressing her face against his broad back, McKenna shut her eyes, loving the feel of the wind in her hair, hoping her instincts were right. This really had been quite a night. She was holding on to the sexiest man on the planet, who was also the kind of man all mothers warned their daughters to avoid.
Help was on hand, though. There would be plenty of cops to give reality a push when they reached the destination she’d chosen. She would wave goodbye to this guy, and he’d leave.
“Thank you,” she shouted, leaning with him as the Harley swept around a curve. “I mean it.”
He nodded.
Fifth and G was the location of the latest crime—the place where the last poor young man in the emergency room had got his throat slashed. Detective Derek Miller, in his recent career advancement, would have taken charge of the scene, and he would see to it she ended the night without making a bigger fool of herself.
With that in mind, McKenna almost regretted the thought that this handsome hunk of manhood, with his big serious eyes and body like leather-coated sin, might have given her a second wind on a mattress. And that he might have provided her with something to look forward to now that her more dangerous days had been left behind, along with her gun and her badge.
“You’re sure this is the place?” he asked in a deep, silky tone as he pulled over to a curb marked off-limits by a length of yellow crime tape.
“I’m sure,” McKenna replied. What she wasn’t sure about was how she’d get off the bike now that she’d arrived, and if she even wanted to, good intentions and common sense aside.
Seriously, it wasn’t like her to be torn on issues of safety. Strangely enough, she had begun to feel safe with her arms around this stranger’s waist. Safer than she’d felt for a very long time. And that was a surprising revelation.
“I’m guessing you don’t live here,” he said, looking around.
“No. A friend of mine will take over from here. I appreciate your help in getting me this far.”
“Your friend is Detective Miller?”
“How did you know that?”
He swiveled to hand her the cell phone she’d forgotten about. “You called him in front of me.”
Losing the phone had been another unacceptable mental lapse and a slip in her safety net. Just how badly was she looking for trouble? She hadn’t made any effort to get off the bike, a fact her biker would have noticed. She was sending mixed signals, damn it, and for no good reason.
“Maybe you could call the detective over,” her companion suggested with his eyes trained on her. “Or maybe you’d like me to do the honors?”
“I’ll find him on my own,” McKenna said. “I’m not sure he’d like you.”
“I’m quite certain he wouldn’t,” he agreed.
Easing back, McKenna checked out the logo on his back. Blood Knights didn’t sound good. But it wasn’t any local gang she was familiar with.
“What do you do, other than riding a Harley?” Her former cop tone came through on that question.
He shrugged. “I travel.”
“That’s all? You don’t work?”
