Page 9 of Burning Love (Looking For Love #7)

YOUR ARMS AROUND ME

“ T hat’s what you’re wearing?”

The next morning, Talia looked down at her shorts. She’d pulled her car into the mall parking lot next to Jace on his motorcycle. “What’s wrong with them? You’re wearing shorts.”

“Mine come to my knees,” he argued. “Yours barely cover your thighs.”

“It’s the longest pair I have. It’s too hot to wear jeans and my longer ones were dressier. I thought it’d look funny having nice pants on riding a motorcycle.”

“I’d feel more comfortable if you had pants on the first time.”

She pointed her finger and squinted one eye at him. “You’re not very good at giving instructions.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll go buy something now. Come on.”

“I have to go with you?”

“Yep,” she said, grabbing his arm. “It’s your punishment for not telling me exactly what to wear.”

At the end of their date last night, Talia had made up her mind.

She wanted to give this a shot, see where it might lead.

He wasn’t the commitment type; he’d been upfront about that.

But maybe that was okay. Maybe what she needed right now wasn’t promises, but a little fun—something spontaneous to balance out the constant grind of chasing the next chapter in her career.

When she’d told him she wanted another date and asked if they could go for a ride, he’d smirked at her. She knew what he was thinking.

Maybe she was too.

No way she was putting out that fast regardless of how smoking he was.

He offered to pick her up and she’d quickly said nope. Not that she cared if her mother saw her on a date, but she didn’t need her mother to lecture her on the motorcycle.

Not to lecture her about an older guy either, so it was for the best right now.

They entered the mall and walked past several stores.

“They have jeans in the last three stores we passed,” he said.

“Not brands that I like or wear. I know what I want. If I’m going to get a pair, I might as well get ones that I’ll wear again.”

He barely held back the roll of his eyes, but not the sigh.

She patted his cheek.

“Make it quick.”

“You think I’m high maintenance, don’t you?”

“I was going to reserve judgment on it, but the longer we stay in here, the quicker I’ll make that decision.”

“In there,” she said, pulling him into American Eagle. It’s not like she was going to drop two hundred dollars on jeans, but she liked these and had her eye on a pair.

She grabbed a pair of baggy jeans with rips in the knees and ran into the dressing room.

“Nope,” he said when she came out.

“What’s wrong with them? They are cute.”

They were low rise, fitted to her hips and then extra wide and baggy on the way down, several tears on the thighs and knees. It’d make them feel cooler on this hot day too.

“They are,” he said. “They look cute on you and would look even better with that tiny crop top.”

She snorted. “I’m not sixteen.”

He shrugged. “Just saying. But for riding a motorcycle there is too much material. You should have something more fitted to you.”

She moved over to the jeans on the wall. “Any other requirements before I pull them off the shelf?”

“These look baggy but not too bad,” he said. He was looking at a picture of them. “They’ve got holes in them.”

She laughed, found her size, and pulled the straight jeans down. “Tears, not holes. It’s your lucky day they’ve got my size and I don’t own these yet.”

She put them on, they fit pretty cute if she did say so herself. They even looked better with the canvas sneakers on her feet than the first pair did.

Rather than take them off and purchase them, she walked out to get his stamp of approval.

“Perfect,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She shook her head and went back to the dressing room to get her things and put her shorts back on, then went to the register to pay.

“I need to run to the bathroom to put them on now.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t keep them on to pay for them.”

“Because she wouldn’t have been able to get the magnetic tag off if I had them on.”

“Oh,” he said. “I wasn’t paying much attention.”

They found the bathroom, she ran in and swapped her shorts for the jeans and then brought the bag to her car. Her small purse was over her chest holding her phone, wallet and fob for her car.

He handed her a helmet and she put it on. He adjusted the strap. She liked how close he was to her face and wished the helmet wasn’t in the way. She wouldn’t mind leaning in for a kiss.

She’d been disappointed he hadn’t even given her a kiss after their date. For a man who made it clear his relationships were mostly about sex, she couldn’t understand what was holding him back from something as simple as a lip lock.

He got on the bike and patted the seat behind him, so she climbed on.

“Do I just put my arms around your waist?”

“Yep. You’re not experienced enough to hold on to the bars.”

She turned and saw the metal bar behind her she could reach around to hold on.

“I’m not complaining about touching you.” She climbed on and leaned forward to say that in his ear before he put his helmet on.

“I’m not complaining about having your arms around me.”

His body was solid beneath her arms, the heat radiating from his skin doing more to ignite her blood than make her sweat. It wasn’t just warmth. It was something deeper, stirring inside her.

She shifted on the seat to get close to him, her inner thighs around his hips, her crotch against his ass.

Damn, this was sexier than she thought it was going to be.

She flipped the visor down, he started the bike, and the engine rumbled to life.

He took off slowly in the parking lot and she let out a screech. He stopped. “What’s wrong?”

He’d shouted that over the engine. “Nothing,” she shouted back. “It startled me.”

“We are just going to drive around the parking lot first. If you don’t like it, I’ll bring you back and we’ll figure something else out.”

She found that super sweet and considerate on his part.

By the time he came back to her car, she had the hang of it.

“Keep going, I’m good.”

They left the mall and went through town, then got on the open road.

She didn’t know how fast he was going and she didn’t want to look.

At least fifty-five since that was the speed limit.

The wind was slapping against her bare knees from the tears in her jeans. They might have even opened up some more too. Guess she should have thought of that.

But when he pulled off the road onto the side and cut the bike’s engine, she couldn’t hold it in—laughing hysterically as she peeled the helmet from her head.

“Are you okay?”

“That was fabulous,” she said. “I didn’t realize how freeing it would be. Now I get it.”

“Yeah. It’s not always the best ride if the conditions aren’t great, but today there wasn’t much wind.”

“What do you drive if you can’t bring this out?”

“I’ve got a truck.”

“I should have figured. You seem like a truck kind of guy.”

“It’s handy to have when you’re doing construction.”

“Good point.”

She swung her legs off the bike and stood up. He grabbed her quickly before she crumpled down.

“It takes some getting used to,” he said.

“I’d like to. This was fun. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

“No problem,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what you had planned today.”

“Not much. Maybe we can get some dinner again if you want. My treat. Or I could cook for you at your place if you don’t mind.”

“You don’t want your mom to know you’re with me?” he asked.

She winced. “It’s not you. It’s the bike.

There are things she’ll have to warm up to.

Remember, her husband died in the service.

She’s pretty open-minded about a lot of things, but she worries about safety.

Rowan said he was going to get a motorcycle, that it was easier to get around Long Beach on it. ”

“It would be.”

“My mother almost brained him. Whether he bought it and didn’t tell her, I have no idea and I wouldn’t ask. I don’t want to be responsible for accidentally slipping and getting him in trouble.”

“I can’t imagine what it was like growing up with that many siblings.”

“Do you have any?”

“No. I’m an only child. It was me and my mother before she died. That’s a lie. My father had two daughters, so I’ve got two stepsisters I didn’t know about until I met him.”

She nodded. “And then you went to live with your father. Your mother never married?”

“She did,” he said. “She was married at the time she died, but Jeremy and I never connected, and he didn’t want me.”

Her jaw dropped. “That’s horrible.”

He snorted. “Yeah. When she realized she didn’t have much time left, she started to search for my father. All this behind my back. DNA and everything was verified and then a month before she died, I was told about it, and walked out the door and there he was waiting for me to meet.”

“You had no warning or notice?”

“No. Nothing. All I knew was that the guy’s first name was Dean and he didn’t want me either.”

“Yet he wanted you when he thought you’d be alone?”

“He had no clue I existed. Yeah, he wanted me when he found out. He had some explaining to do to his wife and other kids. Let’s say it was a shock for us both.”

She moved over and gave him a hug. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

He returned her hug. “It’s fine. I survived.”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning back and shaking her head. “I don’t think you did.”