Page 32 of The Fractured

Kira smiled. “So am I, Seb…”

That smile of hers was dangerous. Beautiful and heart-stopping, but dangerous when it came to my thought process.

I cleared my throat. “Right.”

“Yeah.”

We looked at the street where the rain was easing. There was a pleasant kind of awkwardness between us. The kind that might end in laughter if we played it right.

I smiled at her again. “We should go.”

The ride back to her apartment was filled with tension of the good kind. The good but dangerous kind that I should avoid if I wanted to be a friend. But her legs in those jeans, on either side of mine as she held me from behind and we sped through the streets, wasn’t helping. Neither was the way her hands were placed on my chest as she held on.

How many times had I picked her up from her SDV meetings without reacting like this? My body had suddenly forgotten how to act because of some heavy rain, damp clothes, and a cramped stoop.

It wasn’t her fault I couldn’t get my emotions or feelings in check.

A thought suddenly had me glancing at my lap. I sighed when there wasn’t anything obvious.

Yet.

“Shit,” I muttered against the lining of my helmet.

Just get her home, say goodbye, and leave. Easy.

As we pulled up outside her apartment, the rain returned, falling in fat drops across my visor as Kira climbed off the bike.

She pulled up her visor, squinting as the rain got heavier. “I can’t let you ride home in this. It’s too dangerous.”

I pulled up my visor and glanced at the road, now a sleek black surface.

“Come up and dry off. I could make us coffee or something.”

There was no twisting my arm when it came to her.

“Alright,” I shrugged, playing casual as I climbed off the bike and walked it into the one-way street running alongside the apartment building for shelter.

Every inch of us was soaked with rainwater, which caused the walk inside and into the elevator to be full of squeaking shoes and awkward adjustments to our clothes. Kira was the first to laugh about it when we got into the apartment, ringing out her hair over a pot plant as she watched me struggling to pull my jacket off.

“Here,” she smiled, coming up behind me in the living room. She took hold of the jacket and tugged firmly while I pulled until the sleeves slowly released my arms.

She hung the jacket over one of the kitchen stools to dry before returning to me.

“Thanks.” I rubbed my bare arms, unable to think of anything to say. Me, the guy who could never shut up, had nothing to say to this pretty girl standing in front of me.

When Kira removed her knit sweater, revealing a top that clung to her body the way my T-shirt had done to mine, I suddenly didn’t know how to think straight either.

Kira was fit and curvy in all the right places, showcased by the tight wrap of her wet clothes. I knew she did yoga, and the yoga had paid off tenfold.

Why did everything have to look so good wet?

Stop thinking with your dick!

“I have a radiator in my room. We could dry off and get warm.” She gestured to her door, sitting on the right side of the living room.

“Yup, sounds good. Radiators are good.”What the fuck?

Kira half smiled and led the way into her room.