Taming Blaze Read online

  No, I thought. Hell, no. You need to turn around and get back on the bike, head in the opposite direction from her. "Yeah, it’s no big deal."

  "That would be great."

  I watched her from behind as she walked ahead of me into the gas station, jeans practically painted on her ass. I stifled a groan. I needed to stop thinking with my dick.

  Dani slid into the booth in front of me, the scarf that had held her hair back gone now. Her dark hair fell around her face, the other scarf still tied around her neck.

  God, she was even more gorgeous with her hair down like that. I felt weird sitting across from her. This place didn't seem right for her- little rich girl in a shithole diner with a dirty biker. She was beauty, and I was the beast.

  I felt my stomach rumble. I'd had coffee this morning, but there was nothing else in it to soak up the alcohol from last night.

  "So," she said. "You in the habit of rescuing girls on the side of the road?"

  "Nope. You in the habit of taking rides from dirty bikers?"

  Dani shrugged. "You seem harmless."

  I laughed. I'd never been called harmless in my life. This girl was either really naive, or she was completely delusional. "That's not something anyone's ever called me."

  Dani opened her mouth to say something, when a waitress, a woman who had clearly seen it all, interrupted, setting down two empty cups and filling them with coffee before we had even asked.

  "You two ready to order?" The waitress looked from me to Dani, her face expressionless, and snapped her gum loudly before pulling a pen from behind her ear.

  "Sure," Dani said. "Three eggs over easy, bacon, hash browns, and toast. Oh! Can I get a side of pancakes too?"

  "My God." I said.

  "What?"

  "Nothing,” I said. “Just wondering where you're going to put all that food."

  She shrugged. "A girl has to eat."

  I looked up at the waitress. "Same, please." After she left, I turned my attention to Dani. "So you know your way around bikes and you eat like a horse. You're different from the chicks in convertibles I usually rescue."

  “Well, I have to stand out somehow, right?”

  “I don't think you have any trouble standing out.” I had a hard time believing she had the ability to blend in.

  “Neither do you.” She paused, reaching for the sugar container and pouring an ungodly amount of the stuff into her cup before looking up.

  “You got any room for coffee in there with all that sweetener?”

  “Yeah, I like a little coffee with my sugar,” Dani said. Her sugar. I could picture what having her sugar would be like. I pushed the thoughts out of my head. Behave. She’s not some road ho.

  “So what's a girl like you crying about on the side of the road, anyway?” I don’t know why I asked. I sure as shit didn’t want the waterworks to start again, but she seemed more pulled together now.

  Dani looked up, a flash of anger in her eyes, probably at me for butting my nose in where it didn’t belong. “Just having a shit day, that’s all.” She paused, and the anger was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “You know when you have one of those days where things just keep going wrong?”

  “A girl like you has shit that goes wrong?” I smirked, unable to help myself. She was driving a fifty thousand dollar car, and I was willing to bet her clothes cost more than most people made in a week. Sure, I was going to give her a ride back to her car since, let's face it, she was good looking, but she didn’t exactly get my sympathy for her rich girl problems.

  “Not really. Probably just hormones,” she said, shrugging.

  She was lying. That was interesting. Maybe there was more to her than met the eye.

  "What's that supposed to mean, anyway- a girl like me?" she asked.

  "Come on," I said. "You’re not stupid. What do you think I mean?"

  Dani looked at me, eyes hard, like she was daring me to go on, and I kept pressing forward, a bull in a china shop. I’d certainly been accused of being that in the past. "A rich girl like you? Problems? Come on."

  A dark expression crossed her face, and she clenched her jaw, the muscles in the sides of her face rippling. Then the cloud passed. "First world problems, I know," she said casually.

  She had more control than I had, not rising to the bait. I'd give her that. I didn't know why I cared, though, why I was baiting her.

  "So what are you doing," she asked. "Sunday joyride?"

  The waitress set our plates between us, and I waited until she left to answer. Meanwhile, Dani dug into her food like she hadn't had a meal in days, and I stifled a chuckle.

  "Something like that," I said. "I'm headed back to L.A."

  Dani looked up. "You're from L.A.?"

  "Yeah, thereabouts. Headed back to my club. Why, are you going that way?"

  "Farther south," she said. "San Diego."

  "Why are you up here?"

  "School. Stanford."

  "Well la-de-dah." I whistled.

  “I know, I know,” she said. “Privileged.”

  “Pretty, rich, and smart, that's what I was going to say.”

  “So is that your job- your motorcycle club? Or something you do for fun?”

  “Both,” I said. “Something I do full-time.”

  Dani's eyes lingered on my cut, and I could see her squinting at the patches, reading.

  “Vice-President,” she said. "One percent." She took a huge mouthful of pancakes, and I couldn't help but think about her mouth around me instead of the fork. Goddamn it.

  “Yeah, it means we’re not weekend warriors who-”

  “I know what it means,” she said, interrupting.

  “Sure you do,” I said. “I bet you've watched all the seasons of Sons of Anarchy."

  She smiled, condescending. “You’re not the first biker I’ve ever met.”

  I laughed. “Your boyfriends at Stanford don’t count, sweetheart.”

  Dani shrugged, sipped her coffee. “The M patch there- you deal meth? Weed?” She watched me carefully for a reaction. “No,” she said. “That's not it. M is for murder, right?”

  I watched her soak up her yolk with her toast casually, like it was every day she ate with an outlaw biker in a diner. She was right. Perceptive. But she probably watched a lot of television.

  “So you watch a lot of Sons, then, huh? Got a biker fetish?" I asked.

  “Never seen it,” Dani said, biting her toast.

  “You hang around a club or something?” I knew that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t the type.

  “Nope,” she said. “I've just known some bikers, that’s all.”

  She was interesting, that was for sure. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d look like naked. I wanted her on my bike again, arms wrapped around me. Hand wrapped around my dick.

  I cleared my throat. “It’s getting late,” I said. It was late afternoon, and it would start getting dark soon. I needed to hit the road. “You ready to roll?”

  Rinsing my hands in the bathroom sink, I patted a few stray pieces of hair into place. I pulled the scarf down on my neck, examining the bruises starting to form on my skin, morbidly fascinated with the marks. Damn him, I thought. Fucking Billy. I was going to be stuck wearing scarves for a week now. I looked like a forty-year-old soccer mom.

  Who cared what I looked like, anyhow? It wasn’t like I needed to impress the biker out there waiting for me. Blaze.

  He was sexy though, the way he looked at me like I was a piece of steak and he was a hungry dog. Ravenously. He didn't think I saw, but I caught him staring at me. He'd jerked his gaze away, a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  But I'd felt a thrill catching him staring, there was no denying that. I bet he's great in the sack. Bad boys like him usually were. Like Billy. That's what I need. Another bad boy. No, not like Billy. Billy wasn't a bad boy. Over privileged asshole, yes. Not an alpha male in the same way this guy was. Blaze.

  This guy was a different kind of bad boy. More dange