“Are you ready now?” Bear asked after a while. He lifted me up off the chair and set me down on my feet.

“Depends? Where we going?” I asked, standing up and taking his hand. Bear dragged me over to the driveway.

“I’m taking you for a ride,” Bear said, gesturing to his bike. Before I could think of what he was asking, he was already shoving a big round helmet with a plexi-glass face guard onto my head.

“I bet you are,” I said, my words muffled through the helmet. “But where are we going?”

“For fuck’s sake, Ti, always with the questions,” Bear said, and although his words were angry, I could tell he was trying to hide a smile. “Can’t you just do what you’re fucking told for once?”

“I could, but where would the fun be in that?” I asked, sticking out my tongue and inadvertently licking the inside of the helmet. I couldn’t see through the face guard because the helmet was too far down on my head. Bear must have seen his error because he pulled it back up until I could see his beautiful face looking down at me and laughing as he adjusted the chinstrap. He tapped the top of the helmet when he was done and it echoed in my ears.

“Where’s your helmet?” I asked through the enormous fishbowl surrounding my head.

“Right here.” Bear lifted out a small black helmet that looked more like a plastic jock strap and set it on his head. His hair poked out the side when he secured the strap.

“How come you get to wear that small one and I look like I’m preparing for a moon launch?” I asked.

Bear chuckled. “You’re precious cargo, baby. Gotta protect what’s mine,” he said smoothly, lowering his voice in the way that made me swoon like an idiot and want to offer him up anything I had in order to hear it again.

Damn him.

“Have you cleaned this thing? I don’t want to catch some oral venereal disease from any of its former wearers.”

“Baby, trust me, no one has ever worn that before,” he said through a laugh. “I had Wolf pick it up this morning just for you.” He winked because he knew exactly what he was doing to me, and I melted like the girl I was at the thought of him sending out his new VP just to get me a helmet for our ride.

Bear straddled the big shiny bike and patted the small space on the seat behind him. “I’ve never ridden on the back of a bike before,” I admitted, unsure of how exactly to get on, or where to put my hands.

“Climb on behind me,” he ordered, firing up the bike. I’ve heard Bear’s bike before and I knew it was loud but standing next to it was an entirely different experience. The ground rumbled under my feet. My entire body hummed to life as Bear revved the engine in a way that had me pressing my thighs together. “Ti, Bike, now,” Bear said, growing impatient.

I climbed on as best I could, but with Bear’s big body already on the bike it was hard to maneuver my short legs over the wide seat, but I managed to do it without kicking him in the head or falling off the other side.

Winning.

“What do I hold on to?” I shouted. Bear leaned the bike to the side and kicked up the stand, he reached back and grabbed one of my arms, bringing it around his waist.

“Hold on to me, Beautiful.” His words dripping with innuendo, made me want to get back off the bike and jump back in bed. Even over the noise of the engine, there was no mistaking the wicked intensions in his voice and I couldn’t help but think what a long ride this was going to be.

I wrapped my other arm around him and settled my hands low on the bare skin of his hard stomach, right above his belt. His abs flexed under my touch and I felt him suck in a sharp breath.

It was my turn to chuckle.

Maybe it would be a long ride for Bear, too.

He started off slowly, easing us down the driveway at a snail’s pace and keeping his movements slow. That’s when I noticed Pancakes keeping pace beside us until Bear twisted the throttle and we rocketed forward, leaving poor Pancakes to watch us leave from where he’d stopped at the end of the driveway.

Riding on the bike was nothing like I’d expected.

The wind. The speed. The adrenaline.

It was too much and not enough all at the same time. “Wooooooohoooooo!” I shouted, unable to help the excitement bubbling up inside of me.

It ended as quickly as it started as I quickly recognized the route Bear was taking. I’d hoped it was just a coincidence and that at any moment he was going to take the next exit. But when we passed the familiar cross on the side of the road and the WELCOME TO JESSEP sign, the dread settled in.

It was the last place I’d ever thought Bear would take me. As we sped down the dirt road that led to the even smaller dirt road where the Andrews Farm Road sign had been eaten entirely by the overgrown orange tree behind it, my stomach began to twist. I clutched onto Bear’s stomach tighter, digging my nails into his abs so he could feel how his choice of outing was affecting me. It was on this road where Bear had been shot and where he’d crashed his bike and killed two of his former brothers.

By the time we made it down the long gravel drive and parked in front of the little white house from my childhood, I felt downright nauseous.

The paint peeling off the siding seemed to have spread from just the side of the house that faced the sun, to every side. Most of the shingles were now missing. The grass below the front window now covered most of the dirty glass, completely blocking the fact that a window existed behind it. It seemed so much more rundown than the last time we’d seen it, but that wasn’t possible.

It had only been days.

“Why are we here…again?” I asked, ready to move forward and so tired of being stuck in all the crap that the house represented to me. I didn’t want to be there.

Bear got off and untied his chinstrap, setting his flimsily little helmet on the seat in front of me. He held out his hand for me to grab and I shook my head. “Nah uh,” I said, unwilling to move off of the bike and fogging up my helmet from the inside. “Tell me why we are here first.” I rung out my hands and nervously pulled on my fingers.

“Why do you think we’re here?” Bear asked.

“Honestly? I don’t know.” I looked at the broken screen of the front door and took in the uneven front porch. “I hate this place,” I said, and I meant it. There were very few things in the world I could say I honestly hated, and that poor excuse for a home, which held nothing but bad stacked on top of bad, was one of them.