Experimenting With Ed (12 page)

He was watching her walk away, his normally impassive face stripped of its usual stoic mask. Claire blushed, flustered by the naked longing in his gaze. In a second it was gone, leaving her wondering if she’d imagined it.

“What?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing.” Darting into the bathroom, she closed the door and leaned back against it. Blowing out a hard breath, she pushed away from the door. Her five minutes of shower time were ticking away. She’d have to stew over this later.

* * * * *

The sky was just one shade lighter than charcoal when they left the room.

“I’ll never be able to follow a protein-bar diet after this,” she told Ed as they mounted the bike. “I don’t know if there
is
such a thing as a protein-bar diet, but if there is, I definitely don’t want to do it. In fact, I never want to eat another protein bar again.”

Instead of starting the motorcycle, he turned around to stare at her. “You don’t need a diet. You’re tiny.”

“I’m just saying that I never
could
—”

Ed cut her off with a hard, short kiss.

She blinked at him for a few seconds. “You did that to shut me up, didn’t you?”

Instead of answering, he just smiled as he pulled on his helmet.

Claire scowled. “Don’t misuse your power, little grasshopper.” Lifting her helmet, she was about to put it on when the door to the neighboring room opened. A balding, sleepy-eyed man emerged, tugged from the room by a tiny leashed dog. She smiled in greeting but the man just stared at her, his mouth open a little.

With a shrug, she put on her helmet and Ed started up the bike. It was probably too early for the guy. If she hadn’t been woken up by a wild bout of ass sex and a shower, Claire probably would’ve been too sleepy to respond to some stranger’s greeting too.

Shifting, she grimaced.
Liking it rough is all well and good in the moment
, she thought,
but it’s a different story after straddling a motorcycle shortly after.
She frowned, wrapping her arms around Ed’s middle as he turned out of the parking lot. As far as philosophical sayings went, that one probably needed a bit of work before it would catch on.

Despite her soreness, though, and the excess of protein bars
and
the cold, Claire felt a strange sense of contentment. A big part of that, she knew, was because Ed had pulled out two brand-new toothbrushes earlier that morning from that magical pack of his. She’d squealed her delight and thrown her arms around his neck.

“You found room for both toothbrushes
and
lube?” she’d asked, impressed. “The man knows how to pack!” He’d given her a sweet, almost bashful smile and she hadn’t been able to keep from kissing him.

Running her tongue over her now minty-fresh teeth, she gave him a squeeze of thanks. His confession from the night before fluttered at the back of her mind but she pushed it away. She wasn’t ready to think about what he’d told her. She was already sore and cold and hungry—there was no reason to add confusion to her list of complaints.

Ed said something she couldn’t understand, since the wind snatched away what wasn’t muffled by his helmet.

“What?” she yelled.

“I said, ‘shit!’” He turned onto a paved county highway and accelerated.

Uh-oh.
“What’s wrong?”

“Cops.”

Her arms tightened around him. Her heart beat a fast rhythm, making it hard for her to catch her breath.

“Don’t be—”

“Scared,” she finished for him. “I know. Don’t worry about me. Just concentrate on driving fast and not killing us. I’ll…meditate back here or something.”

The bike kicked up another notch as he rounded a curve.

“Fuck!”

Claire heard that one just fine. Peering around him, she saw the pavement ended, changing to gravel. Squeezing her eyes closed, she ducked back behind Ed, wishing she hadn’t looked.

The bike hit the gravel, shooting rocks and dirt up behind it. Gritting her molars together, Claire hung on. Barely slowing, Ed made a turn, leaning so the ground came terrifyingly close to their knees. With a tiny moan, she clamped her eyes closed again.

After only a few seconds, she had to open them again when she realized it was worse not knowing what was going on than guessing how close to death they were. The harvested fields on either side of the gravel road blurred as they flew past, making her realize just how fast they were traveling, so Claire concentrated on the back of Ed’s coat.

Unable to resist, she twisted her head to look behind them. Through the dust cloud kicked up by the bike, she could see the distant flicker of red and blue lights. Claire bit her cheek to hold back a whimper.

“Hang on,” Ed ordered, and she tightened her arms even more. If
Ed
was telling her to hold on, she knew this was going to be rough. He whipped the bike into another turn, left this time, and she choked back a scream when she couldn’t see a road—pavement, gravel, dirt—it was just weeds.

Her body was tossed forward as they dived into the roadside ditch and then immediately back as Ed steered up and out, speeding along the edge of the field.

“Oh help,” Claire breathed as the bike hit a rut, tossing her up. She hit the seat again with a pained gasp. The field ended and they sped into a farmyard, swinging around a barn and across the mown grass of the yard toward the dirt driveway. Cows bunched in a muddy lot stared as the motorcycle whipped by them.

“No barbed wire. No barbed wire. No barbed wire,” she babbled, squeezing her eyes closed again. When the bike went over a bump and accelerated, she opened her eyes to find Ed was on the driveway, headed toward the gravel road running in front of the farm.

Claire exhaled, so happy to be on an actual road that was intended for vehicles again, she didn’t even mind how the speed of the bike turned the pine trees to her right into a solid band of deep green.

Her relief was short-lived. Ed took a sharp right into the trees. With a yelp, Claire gripped him tighter and tucked her knees in closer to the bike.

“This is not a road,” she muttered as branches slapped her arms and legs, whisking against her helmet in a way that made her happy her head was covered by something hard. “This is a deer path. Motorcycles should not be on deer paths.
We
should not be on— Ow!” A dip in the path dropped the bike out from under her. She followed a half second later to land hard against the seat.

By the time they emerged from the trees, they’d bumped over enough tree roots and protruding rocks for Claire to be swearing she’d
never
have sex again, just in case she’d have to go on another run-for-her-life motorcycle ride afterward.

“I don’t care where he wants to stick it,” she growled under her breath as the bike rolled through the weeds toward yet another gravel road. “The answer’s no. Even if he
is
so incredibly hot it hurts to look at him. I don’t care. Funville is closed. This hurts too freaking much.” As if on cue, the back tire hit the edge of a rut, slamming Claire’s abused crotch onto the bike seat yet again. “Ow.”

Once they turned onto the gravel road, it was much smoother than their cross-country jaunt had been. It led to a blessedly paved county road, which, ten minutes later, brought them to a state highway. Only then did Claire relax a little, exhaling for the first time in what felt like hours.

“Nice driving,” she told Ed, giving him a squeeze. He just nodded in response and switched lanes to pass a semi.

* * * * *

They didn’t stop until they’d reached a bullet-pocked sign pronouncing they’d reached Deer Pines, population sixty-seven and a half.

“Who’s the half?” Claire wondered out loud and felt Ed shrug in response, slowing the bike to a crawl. He passed an ancient gas station and a squatty, salmon-colored building proclaiming itself to be “The Pink Store”, before turning onto one of two parallel gravel tracks choked with the brown remains of the past summer’s weeds.

The driveway, if it could be called that, stretched between two houses before disappearing into a stand of evergreens and birch trees. Ed followed the tracks into the shadows of the trees as Claire tried to peer around him to see where they were headed. She managed to see past Ed’s bulk and get a glimpse of the cabin before he passed it, pulling to the far side of a pole barn.

Pulling her helmet off, she looked around but couldn’t see much from this location—just trees and the dark green side of the shed. With a huge effort, she slid off the bike and onto her feet, her knees wobbling beneath her. She hurried to grab Ed’s arm before she collapsed in a heap.

“Okay?” he asked. She noticed sourly he didn’t seem to have a hard time standing.

“Just give me a second,” she told him.

“Took you long enough.” The stranger’s voice snapped Claire’s head up and she took an automatic shaky step toward Ed.

“Had to detour,” Ed told the enormous blond man who was leaning against the corner of the pole barn, watching them. “Cops. Someone saw her.”

“Oh!” Claire didn’t know why she hadn’t put it together before this. “That guy at the hotel—sleepy and bald—he recognized me!” She frowned. “Jerk. Can’t believe I smiled at him and he called the cops.”

Ed scowled at her. “Quit smiling at people.”

“Can’t help it.” She grinned. “See?”

With a sigh, he turned back to the blond man. “You have room in there for the bike?” Ed asked, jerking his head at the pole barn.

“Do I have room?” the stranger scoffed. “Of course there’s room. What kind of sloppy packrat do you think I am?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and disappeared around the front of the building.

“Better now?” Ed asked as she released her hold on his arm and stood on her own.

“Yeah,” she told him, taking a couple tentative steps. It was true. Although she was still walking like a drunken sailor who’d just finished an all-night horseback ride, she didn’t feel as if her legs were about to collapse beneath her anymore. Each step was steadier than the one before until, by the time she rounded the corner to join the blond man at the barn door, Claire felt relatively normal.

She stepped out of the way so Ed could roll the bike inside before ducking in after him and looking around. There was a pristine workbench in one corner and an older model pickup on the other side. The rest of the building was empty and eat-off-the-floor clean.

“You’re definitely not messy,” she told the blond. “Or a packrat.”

“Thanks?” he said, and she grinned. Next to Ed, the guy seemed positively chatty.

“Thanks for letting us stay for a few days,” she continued. “I’m Claire and you’re Darwin, I’m guessing?”

“Yep.”

“Nice to meet you, Darwin.” She eyed the glossy paint job on the pickup. “I like your truck.”

“Thanks.” He actually grinned at that and Claire hid a smile. Obviously, the truck was the path to his heart.

“Helmet.” Ed held out his hand and she handed it over, extremely happy to see the last of the helmet—and the bike—for a while, at least. Her hands flew to her hair. After going to bed with damp hair and no brush to speak of, plus a major case of helmet hair, Claire didn’t even
want
to know what was happening on top of her head right now.

“Sorry,” she said to Darwin, trying to smooth down the strands. “I must look really scary right now. I didn’t have time to pack after my apartment building started on fire. Actually, before my apartment building was
about
to start on fire, I mean.” She made a face. Her looks were one thing, since she really couldn’t control that, but there was no reason she had to sound like an idiot.

When Ed tossed his pack over one shoulder and steered her toward the door with his other hand, she went willingly, grateful for the interruption. If there’d been another two seconds of silence, she knew she would’ve started babbling again. Claire decided to blame everything stupid that had just emerged from her mouth on her lack of sleep.