Page 10 of Submit (Two Wheeled Psychos #3)

The door from the garage into the kitchen slams closed behind me with a rush of the cold winter air that followed me in.

I’m shaking my head in annoyance at myself and thanking God that the stupid cop didn’t see my face.

The fact that I don’t have plates on the bike is a miracle too.

The last thing I need is to get pinched for indecent exposure.

My membership at Kelly’s would be stripped from me, and my stupid face would be all over the news.

Billionaire sex fiend caught peeping in neighbor’s windows. Perfect, asshole.

Slamming my keys down on the marble countertop, I yank off my gloves with my teeth and toss them aside too. I’m more miserable now than when I left the house, and hard too. So fucking hard.

“Fuck.”

Mabel meows at me, rubbing herself on my pant cuffs, looking up at me, and I swear I can see the disappointment on her silver face, as if she knows what I was up to.

“Don’t even say it.” I say, picking her up, bringing her fluffy body up to my cheek and rubbing on her. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

With a quiet mew and a rumbling purr, she squirms against me, giving me the affection I should be getting from a certain brunette with emerald eyes.

She’s a warm comfort, but not enough to calm the shit still raging through me. The bike ride didn’t do what I wanted it to, and looking in the weasel’s windows surely didn’t do anything good for my demeanor.

“I need to work out. Maybe that’ll help.” I say to the cat, setting her down on the counter then stripping off my coat and shoes.

It only takes a couple minutes to retreat to my room and change into gym shorts, a tank, and trainers then jog down the steps to the in-home gym that resides next to my playroom in the fully furnished basement. I’m setting up my first rack in no time and sweating within moments of beginning.

I love my gym, with its thickly padded flooring in a dark grey, and the plain, white, utilitarian walls.

The rows of machines I own is impressive, and I know how to use each one of them to their peak designed performance.

The muscles that ripple under my skin are testament to the amount of time I spend down here, lifting things up and setting them down over and over again.

With the crap in my mind, the workout will need to be to failure, or until my brain is mush and the only thing left of me is a sack of tired bones that will hopefully fall asleep without too much trouble.

I start bench presses, until my arms shake and my chest burns, then move to weighted squats, then butterflies, doing rep after rep until everything burns and the sweat drips off the tip of my nose, splattering on the tips of my sneakers.

Punishing myself I keep going until everything is numb, my body, my brain, my heart, if I even have one of those.

I’m killing my body, just to end the thoughts in my head, the ones where I should have, could have, but didn’t.

It isn’t like me to not just take what I want.

I’ve never held back before, and it’s pissing me off that when it counts, I’m doing it now.

As I press the weights, and grunt out my frustrations and pain, all I can think of is her and how badly I want her, even though I know nothing of her except that she’s with him.

I guess that’s enough to make my hero complex kick in.

It feels like more than that though, almost like an obsession.

She’s in my mind all the time since the first night I saw her in that alley.

And I’m pining over her, me, the man who always gets what he wants.

“Fuck.”

~~~

“You look like shit.” My V.P. and best friend Daniel says as I flop down in my chair behind the large desk in my office, rolling my eyes at the early morning disturbance.

“Yeah, you look stunning too.” I grumble at him, tossing my briefcase in the footwell of the desk, and clicking on the monitor of my computer.

“I always do.” He says, rubbing down the front of his navy suit jacket, brushing away imaginary dirt. “Maybe if you actually played at the club instead of staring at some chick with Tyler you’d relax a little bit.”

“Shut up.” I bark at him, turning away from him and his peering glance at my sharp tone.

The park outside is busy with people walking and running, and nannies pushing strollers.

It’s a warm morning for winter, and everyone except me is out there taking advantage of it.

I did ride the bike in this morning though and parked it myself.

I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ride.

I was in a better frame of mind after some sleep, but Daniel is already changing that.

“Ooohhh, I hit a nerve.” He chuckles and sits down on one of the couches, crossing his legs, staring at me in the reflection of the glass I stare out of. “She something to you?”

“Not yet.”

“Ahhh. A conquest. Nice. Just don’t let her fuck up your mood while you’re here. I need you fully on board with us.”

“When have I ever let a woman affect my work?”

“Touché.” He laughs, leaning back with his arms relaxed over the back of the seat. “You ready for Miami?”

“Fuck yeah.”

Sighing I put my shoes up on the glass and push myself backwards, mimicking his relaxed posture, even though inside I feel anything but.

I’m about to leave for my long-awaited trip tomorrow, and I still haven’t made a move with the woman I’m obsessing over.

I don’t want to leave her here with him, without me around to swoop in if necessary.

I’ve already planned on returning to his window tonight, to watch over her, to make sure he doesn’t take it too far, but the reminder of my trip puts a damper on that plan. I need to pack, and to get the bike loaded up for shipping.

“Good. A little track time and some Florida sun will do you some good. You look like death warmed over.”

“I love you too bro.”

“You’d better.”

The room falls silent when he strolls out, leaving me alone to my thoughts and daydreams. My eyes vacantly scan over the people outside as I picture her out there as one of them, enjoying her day, basking in the winter sun and unseasonably warm air.

Even in my mind she’s stunning, more so than in person, and I know it’s the unhealthy draw I have to her that makes her a goddess in my thoughts.

“I’m royally fucked.” I sigh to myself, running my palms down over my face briskly, trying to scrub away the fog that she casts over me.

The day speeds by, with phone calls and emails that never seem to want to end.

I answer ten and ten more come in. Ashley keeps me on my toes with notes and papers to sign, each time giving me a look of disdain when she comes in to my office with something else for me.

She’s upset, and rightly so. I know she can feel the shift in me. She can read me like an open book.

At five on the dot, I close my ledgers on my desk and grab my briefcase, shaking off the day and smiling to myself about the coming trip.

I really want to feel the bike between my thighs as I tear her around the track.

I long for the feeling of my knee pad scraping the ground in the turns, and the rush of the speed that could easily kill me with one wrong move or lean.

“One quick check in with her, and I’ll go.” I promise myself as I stroll out to the garage and mount the bike that will, in 24 hours, be racing around in the hot Florida weather, warming my cold winter bones.

Sliding my briefcase into my backpack, I slam my helmet on my head and fire up my girl, loving the way she vibrates my nuts against the gas tank.

The ride to Tyler’s house is uneventful, and nice, with the wind blowing past me, the cars quiet as I weave between them, and the stoplights all being green as I work my way through the city, up the hill, and into our neighborhood.

The sun is setting already, with the winter night shrouding the sky in the dark purples and blues that will soon turn black. It’s the perfect cover for my peeping as I park the bike at the curb and make my way back through the snow-covered lawn to where I stood less than a day ago, watching.

She’s not in the study, and the lights are off. The house looks dark, still, and silent, but I can feel a presence inside. I can feel her, and only her.

“Are you alone in there my little bunny?” I ask the glass in front of my face, pushing away from it to move around the side of the home.

My shoes crunch in the frozen snow, and my breath wafts out like little plumes of fog from the seams around my visor.

I’m cold now that the night has fallen, but I’ll gladly take the chill if it means I get to have at least one look at her.

My gloves scrape against the siding of the house as I make my way towards the back and out of prying eyes in the front.

I don’t want to have to run from the cops again, right before I need to drop the bike off at the airport to be loaded into the container.

The quiet and sad sounds of her voice make me stop in my tracks.

She’s singing something somber yet sweet and melodic, and it’s coming from the window right in front of me.

Peering in past the frilly curtains, I see her, naked as the day she was born, toiling away that the kitchen counter.

Her nude ass is jiggling as she croons out her song and stirs something in a big metal bowl.

She’s a sight for sore eyes, except for the shackles that chain her ankles together like a fucking slave.

Leaning against the sill, I look in and down, seeing a chain that runs from her cuffs to a deadbolt on the floor.

She’s attached to it like a dog tethered to a post in someone’s back yard.

Nothing more than an animal, and that is unacceptable, especially when I see her reach the end of the chain and stop dead.

Her face falls and her song stops, and her hair drops into her eyes that shed a single tear. She’s crying at her captivity, and it breaks the organ in my chest that barely beats, except when I look at her.

“Fuck this.” I growl to myself, storming away from my view and finding the back door that leads directly into the kitchen where she’s chained.

The door knob wiggles in my grasp but doesn’t turn. It’s locked. It gets her attention though, and the bowl falls from her hands, clattering to the floor when she looks and sees my helmeted head bobbing in front of the lightly draped window in the antique door.

Batter spills out of the bowl, coating her legs and feet, spreading across the floor, making a mess on the front of the cherry wood cabinets.

The surprise in her emerald eyes turns to fear when she registers the mess, instantly grabbing at a towel hanging from the front of the oven door.

She drops to her knees and cries violently as she wipes at the spilled mixture, spreading it around more than cleaning it up.

The terror in her is palpable, and I can’t bear it. I don’t know what he’d do to her if he came and saw the disaster of his kitchen, but I know it wouldn’t be good just by her reaction to it. I need to get her out, and now.