Jay Crownover - Riveted

The leather creaked as she wiggled into place with her legs clamped around the outside of mine and the soft press of her breasts into my back. Her hands slipped around my waist like she had held on to me a thousand times before when in reality today was the most we had ever touched. I knew why I was compelled to keep my distance. Once her palms flattened onto my abs under the material of my open leather jacket and the soft whoosh of her exhaled breath hit the back of my neck I knew I would never be able to sit on this bike again and not feel her there behind me. She was going to be a memory I couldn’t shake.

“Yeah.” She breathed deep and low, her chest rising and falling where it pressed into me. I had to bite back a groan as her fingers curled into my tense stomach muscles. “The summer right before I started high school he got into an accident on his motorcycle. A truck changed lanes and didn’t see him. He was thrown over a hundred yards and had to be airlifted to Denver General. He was fortunate he had his helmet on or else he wouldn’t have made it.”

I could feel a tremor move throughout her tiny frame as she recounted the story. I turned to look at her over my shoulder and noticed the corners of her mouth pulled into a frown. “He’s lucky, then.”

She lifted a shoulder and let if fall. “He survived, but he’s been in a wheelchair ever since. So yes, he’s lucky, we all were because he’s a great dad, he was before and he continued to be after the accident, but our family was changed forever.”

We stared at each other for a long, silent moment. Sometimes it felt like it was easier to communicate with her through a look than it was through words. It wasn’t lost on me that she had survived something horrifying and life changing at the hands of the very machine she was currently propped up on. The amount of trust and faith she had to have in me in order for her to agree to ride for days on the back of something that had almost taken a parent from her was humbling and terrifying. I hadn’t done anything to earn that kind of conviction from her but now that I knew I had it I was going to do everything in my power to live up to it.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you on this trip, Dixie. I promise that you will be safe with me.” I meant it. I would keep her safe from everything, including me and the way it was impossible to ignore the heat of her pressed against the plane of my back.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to go with you if I didn’t believe that you would take care of both of us, Church.” Her voice was quiet but I heard the truth in her words loud and clear.

I cranked the key in the ignition and let the growl of the V-twin motor drown out the sound of the taunting voice in the back of my head chanting the word “friend” over and over again. I might have to tattoo the damn reminder on my forehead before we crossed the state line.

She was cute. She was curvy. She was sweet and sunny … What she wasn’t was a chick I could take to bed and walk away from no harm no foul, and I needed to keep that in mind even as she flipped me a nervous grin in one of the mirrors that jutted off the handlebars. Everything about Dixie Carmichael screamed forever, and I knew probably better than anyone on this planet that forever wasn’t something that was real, no matter how good you had it. Forever was an illusion that soft hearts and warm brown eyes built dreams around. It wasn’t something a man that knew how quickly everything could be ripped away and shredded to pieces put much stock in.

It also surprised me that Dixie had been through something that very easily could have crippled someone else and she was still nothing but sunshine and roses. I on the other hand took life’s unexpected misfortunes and let them mold me into a man I could hardly stand to face most days.

I wanted her because she was Dixie and there was something about her that shed light on all the dark places I’d been living in for so long, but I knew with every fiber of my being I didn’t deserve her and that if I wanted what was best for her I wouldn’t let either of us believe for a single second that I could keep her.

It was late afternoon by the time we got on the road. The fall sky went dark early as we headed out of the city and into the endlessly flat landscape that was everything east of the Rockies. When the sun went all the way down Church stopped at a truck stop a few hundred miles from the Kansas border and ordered me to put on a pair of leather riding chaps that zipped up the outside of my legs and buckled around my waist. It wasn’t that cold, but there was definitely a nip in the air as the wind rushed past us on the highway. I didn’t think I needed the leathers but there was something about the look in his eyes as he ordered me to go put the stiff garment on that made me swallow any argument I was going to give him. The blue in his eyes burned and there was heat in his eyes that wasn’t from the air slapping across his stern face. I never considered myself a leather kind of girl but apparently Church had different ideas about that.

I took the leathers from him as he turned to top off the tank. The truck stop was busy enough that it took me a few minutes to maneuver my way across the parking lot and around to the side of the building where the sign indicated that the restrooms were. I found myself quickening my pace as a couple of truckers leaning against the side of the building tracked me under the bills of their stained hats. I didn’t like the way they looked at me and I really didn’t like the way they looked over at Church.

I could have pulled the chaps on while standing in the parking lot but all that vibration and rumble underneath my backside meant Church was going to have to get used to stopping every few hours so I could use the restroom, just like I was going to have to get used to the questioning and not altogether friendly looks that were being fired his way. If he was one of those guys that was determined to make the best time from point A to point B with as few stops in between as possible, he was in for a rude awakening. And I may have stretched the truth a little bit about how recently I had had my rear end planted on the back of a motorcycle.

In high school I’d dated a wannabe rebel without a cause that rode a busted up Victory that he swore would be worth a fortune when he fixed it up. It hardly ever ran and when it did it crawled rather than roared, but other than that I tended to avoid anything that drove on two wheels instead of four. I’d let Brite take me home after work a few times when my car was in the shop and I’d ridden with Rome a time or two when he wanted me to go with him for stuff related to the bar. My dad’s accident hadn’t exactly put me off of motorcycles, but I was very cautious and careful about getting on one, and my willingness to do so was directly related to who was driving the machine. I had never done a long road trip on the back of a bike before and so far I was a fan, but that might have been directly related to the fact that I got to spend hours upon hours clutching Church like my life depended on it, because it kind of did.

I’d wanted to have my hands on the man in a totally inappropriate way since the first time I laid eyes on him, so there was no way in hell I was going to squander the opportunity to touch all the places that I was supposed to be touching as I curled into him and held on for dear life. He felt just as hard, just as hot, just as heavenly as I always figured he would, and I was really starting to resent the soft cotton of the long-sleeved T-shirt he had on for keeping all that golden skin from my fingertips. I wanted to scratch my initials into his abs and rub my palms all over the carved ridges that flexed and bunched under my hands every time he changed lanes or looked over his shoulder to check on me. I already knew Church was built like a mythical deity, but having the fact confirmed for hours upon hours as muscle moved against me was making me twitchy and damp in places that weren’t exactly comfortable against rough denim.