Gosh, his hands were big.

“Right there,” he shouted, and squeezed her calf, and let go. Boo. But at least she understood what he meant: Keep your feet where they are, right on those convenient little rest things I mentioned. As if she’d forget. She’d be following his disgracefully minimal instructions to the letter, thank you very much.

Then he reached back, caught one of her hands, and pulled. Next message, presumably: Hold on to me. He didn’t need to remind her of that, either; she’d watched enough teen romance films to know how one behaved on the back of a hot guy’s motorbike. She committed fully, shuffling closer to wrap her arms around his waist, lacing her fingers over his taut abs. She’d seen those abs naked. He wouldn’t be giving her a ride if he knew that, now would he?

Guilt whirled in her stomach, making her feel slightly nauseous and extremely evil. It was wrong of her, to let him treat her so nicely when she knew he had reason to despise her—actual reason, rather than misunderstandings and awkwardness. She should confess. She had to. It was the right thing to do.

“Ready?” he shouted.

Not in the slightest. “Ready.”

The engine growled. The world began to move. She reflected that her god-awful guilt had been a blessing in disguise because it had distracted her from reasonable concerns about her impending doom. Her stomach lurched even though she knew they were only going five miles per hour, because that was the car park’s speed limit and Red was a very good and rule-abiding superintendent. Under her breath, beneath a helmet that was suddenly far too small, dark, and hot, she murmured, “It’s only five miles per hour. It’s only five miles per hour. It’s only—”

They turned out of the car park and the bike shot forward like a bullet.

“Good Lord,” she shrieked at the top of her voice. She hadn’t thought she could get any closer to Red, but she was now in danger of crawling into his skin. Her grip on his waist had become more of an “iron bar” situation. He probably felt like he’d been strapped into an electric chair on death row. She felt like she’d been strapped into an electric chair on death row, because anything that made her unprotected human body move as quickly as this was clearly a death sentence, and she couldn’t exactly escape by throwing herself off, now could she?

Out of nowhere, she felt Red’s glove-covered hand on hers. He squeezed, once, and she remembered that he was driving, actively controlling the beast beneath her. They weren’t just flying through the world willy-nilly on a murder machine. An odd sort of calm moved through her and she remembered what he’d said earlier. If I die, I die.

If she died, she’d be doing so on the back of an intensely sexy superintendent’s motorbike. Not a bad way to go, all things considered.

The blurry world grew even blurrier as their speed increased. She felt like data lost in the stream. Cars and buildings whipped by, as if the two of them were moving through time and dimensions rather than just space. It reminded her of the way she’d been years and years ago, running through crisp air as if she were flying, the thought of pain and life-changing fatigue never even crossing her mind.

The thrumming heat of the engine beneath her began to feel like a comfort, and then, all at once, like a tease. So did the body in front of her, though he wasn’t doing a damned thing to make her feel that way. It was past time to accept that Redford Morgan made her as hot and bothered as Enrique Iglesias in the “Hero” music video, with considerably less effort. That was why she felt so odd and unsettled around him: because he shoved her into motion the way he had this motorbike, as if he had the key to her motor. Being around him without melting was another bite-sized step of bravery, just like every item on her Get a Life list.

Maybe he could help her come alive. Maybe he could help her with the rest of her list.

She bit her lip and her teeth felt too sharp for her mouth, as if she’d turned into a predator. She couldn’t see a damned thing without her glasses but suddenly it didn’t matter; she had wild eyes, that was all, wild just like the rest of her. Her skin was electrically charged, so she could do whatever she wanted—including make another deal with the boldest man she knew. There was safety in transactional relationships, after all. If he refused to help her, or if he tried and got tired and gave her up as a lost cause, it wouldn’t rip her heart out like every other exhausted abandonment had.

It would just be the end of a deal.

But then she remembered that, when this ride ended, she’d have to confess what she’d done. That she’d invaded his privacy, that she’d practically stalked him. She highly doubted any deals would be forthcoming after that.

Would they?

Pippa had ridden with him once.

She hadn’t liked it, which was fine. Red knew perfectly well that certain thrills weren’t for everyone. The fact that his girlfriend had no tattoos hadn’t bothered him—why would it?—so the fact that she’d hated the bike hadn’t bothered him, either. He still remembered the way she’d stumbled off it that first time, yanking off her helmet so her glossy hair spilled out like a waterfall. He always remembered images like that.

She’d spat, “Never again, Red!” and when he’d laughed, she’d lost her temper and called him an imbecile with dog-shit sensibilities. For some reason, at the time, he’d thought that was a fight with his feisty girlfriend rather than an insult that would gnaw away at something vital in him. Maybe that was his problem in a nutshell: he’d seen cruelty like that as a challenge. And he’d felt rewarded when she wanted him, grateful when she stood at his side with all her poise and polish and easily recognized personhood in galleries where he felt barely human.

So, when she’d posed for Instagram photos on his bike, the one she hated so much, he hadn’t let himself think it was odd. He’d watched her post the pictures with captions implying she was some badass biker chick, and then he’d locked his bike up and gotten in her chauffeur-driven car, just the way she liked it. Everything was for show. He’d been an accessory in more ways than one.

He had no idea why he’d taken Chloe out today. Why he’d agreed to her deal when he knew damn well he could pay for the consultation with actual cash. This was supposed to be his personal pleasure, now, never to be used again. Maybe he was falling back into bad habits, seeing cruelty as a challenge. But everything in him rejected the idea that Chloe could ever really be cruel. And besides, he didn’t see her as a challenge; he saw her as an enjoyable pain in the arse. She made him irritable, yeah, but worse, she made him … curious. Oddly energized in a way he’d been craving, a way that felt so simply good.

And the way she felt sitting behind him right now? That made him satisfied.

Her thighs squeezed him as she screamed, which he liked more than he should. The screaming because it was so wild, so unexpected, and so full of glittering excitement. The squeezing because she was so soft and so hot, plastered against him like they were the only two people on earth. As if his physical fascination with her needed any more fuel. He’d only meant to run around the block real quick, but he was worried that if he stopped now, he might do something awful, like kiss the fuck out of Chloe Brown. And Christ, wouldn’t that be the end of the world?

It would, he told himself. It really fucking would.