A Is for Alpha Male (10 page)

Obviously I would have to wait though, because he pulled off his hat, hooked it on a fence post next to us, and then put his matte black helmet on.

Faded jeans, his black t-shirt, and a matte black racing helmet. Sweet, baby, peach fuzz headed Jesus, he was gorgeous.

“Climb on, Hales,” he said loudly enough for me to hear through my helmet. “I’m gonna sit behind you and we’re going to have a little lesson.”

It seemed innocent enough until I straddled the seat of the four-wheeler and then felt his thighs envelop me from behind.

Good God, everyone should ride four-wheelers with the guy they liked.

Seriously, do it.

Oblivious to my sexual fantasies, Danny dove right into teaching me the workings and dos and don’ts, touching each of my corresponding body parts as he explained. “Okay, Hales. Let’s start with the most important thing. The clutch,” he said, laying his big palm across the back of my left hand and squeezing.

“You’re going to control it with your left hand by squeezing like this,” he showed me by making my hand mimic the motions. “It’s all about feel, so it might take you a minute to get used to it.”

“Next is the shift pedal,” he stated, taking his hand off of my hand and splaying it on my thigh. “You’re going to control it with your left foot, and it’s an upshift, so you lift up to shift.”

“Dumbing things down a bit, aren’t you,” I somehow managed to accuse. “I think I got the shifting up part from the word ‘upshift’.”

Rubbing his hand up and down my thigh, where it was
still
taking up residence, he said, “Better safe than sorry, baby doll.”

I took a minute to soak up the fact that he had given me an endearment (Yay!), and then got back to listening as he continued his explanation, figuring we’d get to the riding part faster if I cut the commentary down about five notches.

“You need to pull the clutch in to start it, anytime you want to stop, and of course, to shift.”

He gave my thigh one last delicious pat, and then moved on. “The next most important thing is the brakes. Your right hand controls the front break, and kind of like a bicycle, you need to be cautious when you use it.”

His right hand wasted no time finding my right thigh, the motions of this hand a practical mirror image of his left one. “Right foot controls the rear brake.”

Unable to stay quiet for any extended amount of time, I mocked, “Well, great, Dan-o. I know how to shift, and how to stop this sucker, but I’ve got no idea how to start it up or how to go.”

As if stimulated by my snarky comment, his left hand met my left thigh again, and simultaneously, both of his hands squeezed, his thumbs stroking the worn denim of my jeans.

“Patience, Hales. I’m getting there. Once we start it up, you won’t really be able to hear me anymore.” I figured that was true enough, and once again I reminded myself that if I didn’t stop talking, I’d never get to go fast.

Fortunately, all thoughts of speeding up the process fled as soon as he got close, and somehow managed to whisper through our helmets, his voice a lower tone associated with seduction. “Besides, haven’t you ever heard anticipation is half of the experience?”

Hot damn.

A shiver racked my spine, and I tried hard to camouflage it. But it was tough since his body was plastered against the back of mine.

His hard chest seemed to lean forward, deeper into my body, immediately after the shiver.

I thought maybe he was feeling it too, being overwhelmed by a powerful sexual cloud like I was, but before I could do an assessment, he went back to explaining.

I guess I was swimming in this cloud all by my lonesome.

“To go, you just push down on this lever with your right thumb, and you’ll need to ease off of it when you shift. As for starting it, you need to pull in the clutch,” he said while pulling my left fingers in around the clutch, before continuing, “Flick this little switch to on, and then push this ignition button.”

The four-wheeler roared and rumbled to life, and I instantly understood why the instruction had been done with it turned off.

Meanwhile, after sitting here for so long with my helmet on, even under the relatively weaker power of the morning sun, I was sweating bullets.

Danny took over at that point, getting it warmed up and ready to go, but still allowing me to go through the motions by using my hands as extensions of his own.

He eased my hand off of the clutch, forced my right thumb to push down on the gas, and off we went. I was barely going at all, and I wasn’t doing it myself, but it was exhilarating nonetheless.

Part of it probably had to do with the scrumptious, large man at my back, but whatever.

Danny pulled in the clutch with my left hand, eased my right thumb off of the throttle, and nudged my left leg with his to tell me to lift up on the shifter with my left foot.

I did as suggested, Danny made me reverse all of my previous motions, and just like that we were in a different gear!

He went through the motions with me several more times, making me shift all the way through the gears, gradually getting faster and faster, and then shift my way back down.

When he finally took his hands off of mine to let me do it on my own, I was more than excited.

I got all the way into high gear, and I was tearing through the field at break neck speed, with the wind in my face, and adrenaline at an all time high in my veins.

It was freeing and fabulous, and I decided I wanted to do this every day of my life.

Unfortunately, when Danny shifted a little behind me and settled both of his hands on the tops of my thighs, settled in and snug in order to enjoy the ride, my concentration went right down the shitter.

It might not seem like it, but there are a crap ton of things that you have to remember to do at once, and with a hot guy snuggling into your back, arousal takes the place of coordination as your number one skill.

At least, it did for me.

So when I kept going full speed, not really watching where I was going, but instead concentrating on the heat of Danny’s hands through my jeans and trying to will away the fabric, Danny started yelling through his helmet behind me. “Butch! Butch!”

My fog addled brain tried to comprehend, but his speech was muffled and my cognition wasn’t firing on all cylinders. So like a lunatic, I kept right on going full speed and questioned, “Butch? Who is Butch?!”

I didn’t think I knew a “Butch”, and Danny sure as hell hadn’t mentioned him in the last day and a half. I didn’t know who he was talking about.

“Butch, not Butch!” Danny yelled.

Jesus, was this Butch guy so important that we really needed to be talking about him right now? I was in my Speed Racer zone!

“Who in the fuck is Butch?!” I yelled back, the wind whipping by violently as I charged on straight for the pond in front of me.

“Butch!” Danny screamed one more time.

I rolled my eyes in my helmet, but Danny had had enough, knocked my hands out of the way, and grabbed the clutch, working the brakes at the same time, bringing us to a stop about a foot shy of plunging into the water.

Oh.

Whoopsie.

That was close.

Still amped, Danny whipped off his helmet and shouted, “Clutch, Hales! I said ‘CLUTCH’. Why the hell you would think I was talking about some guy named Butch, I have no fucking idea.”

He took a few deep breaths, and I did the same. Except my deep breathing probably had more to do with the fact that he was hot when he yelled than his did.

“From now on, I think it’s a good idea if I drive and you just ride with me,” he said, this time with a fluffier, more conciliatory voice, but the same hyped up energy.

Climbing off, taking off my helmet, and facing him, I tried not to look too disappointed because I
had
just royally messed up, but I really liked being in control and doing it on my own.

I must not have done a good job of masking my emotions (my lip might have quivered just a little), or maybe Danny could just read me really well, because he took one look at me, took on a look of softness, and muttered, “Alright, I might have another solution where you can still ride one all on your own, but I won’t lose years off of my life worrying about you.”

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeehhhh...Winganinganing.

That was the sound of me on my baby four-wheeler, hauling ass along the trail while Danny putted along on his full grown four-wheeler in front of me.

This one was yellow and practically identical to Danny’s in every way, except it was about a fourth of the size, had no fancy clutch and shifter, and only went about half the speed of its Daddy.

It wasn’t what I would describe as “Badass”, but it
was
the perfect solution.

WHEN WE PULLED up back at the house after riding the trails for almost an hour straight, I jumped off of my four-wheeler, ripped off my helmet, forgetting to be careful of my earrings (Ouch!), and ran over to Danny, paying no attention to the fact that I looked like I had been dipped in a vat of sweat (Ick!) and my hair was no doubt disheveled beyond repair. I was also fairly certain I had melted mascara running down my face, waterproof or not, and my bra was officially vacuum sealed to the underside of my breasts.

“Oh. My. God. That was the fucking
best
! I seriously want to do this every day of my life! And the baby four-wheeler is officially mine! Got me?”

He smiled so big that his dimples almost took over his face. “It’s all yours, Hales.”

I noticed vaguely that he was also sweaty, but it was more of a glowing, beauty enhancing sheen, and less of the used hard and put away wet variety.

“Good because I will fight someone to the fucking death if they try to challenge me,” I threatened, not sounding like much of a threat at all.

Danny bit his plump bottom lip, smirked a little, and shifted my ponytail that had come forward, back and off of my shoulder. “I don’t want to break your heart, but no one is going to challenge you for that four-wheeler. It’s kind of the runt of the litter. The black sheep of the four-wheeler family.”

That was a little disappointing, and kind of sad for the cute little baby four-wheeler, but I rallied, stating, “Okay, that’s fine. No, not fine, it’s good. Less mess for me. Blood stains are hard to get out of laundry from what I hear.”

Danny nodded, a really knowing nod, like maybe he knew how hard blood stains were to get out.

I guess he was a single guy. He was bound to end up bleeding at some point and then have no woman to help him use the Shout to “Shout it out”.

I was lost in my thoughts, so it was a surprise to see Danny off of his four-wheeler, in front of me with amusement painted on his face, and beckoning, “Come on, Hales. Let’s go get cleaned up and see what Wade and your mom are up to.”

That was probably a good suggestion. With all the mayhem that was me, nearly escaping disaster, having to add another four-wheeler into the mix, and then actually getting to ride, we had been out here and gone for close to three hours.

And I was a sloppy, sweaty, sticky mess. Not exactly the condition I liked to be in when trying to lure a guy into my trap.

I nodded, did a little run and skip combination to catch up to him, and then fell in step beside him as we walked to the house. Admittedly, I took two steps to his every one, as I was about a foot shorter, but I could tell he was forcing his long legs to move at a snail’s pace so that I’d have a fighting chance at matching his speed.

We ate up the distance silently, but the remainder of my elation was still written all over my face and in the bounce of my step.

Instead of going back in through the front door, we went straight to the screened in porch on the back where we had left Wade and Allison.

Thankfully I didn’t have to scratch my eyes out, since they were still in their own, separate chairs, and not in some God-awful compromising position.

Compromising would be good for Allison, but me finding her in it would be very, very bad.

As Thomas Jefferson said, “Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of not finding one of your parents in a naked clench.”