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How did I get here?
Honestly.
I was not the girl who hung out at the bar and caught the eye of the hot group of guys.
And to top it all off, the hottest guy was sitting next to me willingly. FLIRTING WITH ME!
“Well, Dove and I are only here until Monday, and then it’s back to reality.” A reality that did not have hot bikers in it. Or really any type of fun.
“More book stuff tomorrow?” Aero asked.
I shook my head. “No. All the book stuff is over. We just decided to stay an extra day to relax. We figured we might as well treat this like a vacation.”
“Just where are you two from?” Aero asked. “This place is pretty fucking cool, but I don’t think a ton of people would pick this as their first choice for a vacation, though that might be because I’m from Texas. It’s my home, not a vacation spot.”
“Uh, the Arkansas side of Texarkana.”
“No shit,” he laughed. “Well, then, I guess maybe this could be a vacation spot for you.”
“Where are you guys from?” I asked. I hadn’t been able to look at the patch on his back to see where his club was located.
“Mt. Pleasant.”
Well, that was not what I expected him to say. Mt. Pleasant was only an hour away from Texarkana. I thought for sure they were from the Houston or even the Dallas area. “What are you doing here?” I asked. A resort-like this was not where a motorcycle club normally hung out.
“We had a charity run and decided to spend the night here before heading back tomorrow.”
“I bet you guys were pretty surprised when you saw there was a book signing going on.”
Aero chuckled. “Yeah, you could say that. Though none of us really knew what the hell was going on.”
“And for it to be an MC signing to boot is such a huge coincidence.”
Aero nodded.
“Kind of got me looking to see if any mafia guys are running around, too, since you guys are here,” I joked.
“Probably are, babe. Not like they run around with signs around their necks saying they are in the mafia.”
“You mean like having a patch on their back saying who they are and where they are from?” I joked.
He tipped his head. “You got me there, babe. I guess we could have taken our cuts off, but we’re not ashamed of who we are. The Iron Fiends are a well-known and respected club in Texas.”
“Nah, everyone still would have known you were an MC. You have that look to you.” I swiped the last bite of my mozzarella stick through the marinara and popped it into my mouth. “Wild and carefree.”
“I thought you were going to say dirty and unkempt.”
I scoffed and shook my head. “Hardly.” Trust me, Aero looked anything but dirty and unkempt.
“So what is your deal, Sloane? I know you’re into books because of the huge ass wagon full of them you were hauling around, but what else are you into?”
“Uh, working?” I laughed. “If I’m not reading, I’m working.” Seriously, that was my life. Work and reading.
“And what kind of work do you do?” he asked.
“Uh, well, I work in a factory. I’m one of the machine operators.” It was not at all a glamorous job, but it more than paid my bills and supported my book addiction.
Aero sat back and shook his head. “You just keep throwing curveballs at me, babe. I thought for sure you would have said librarian or something like that.”
Oh, I had thought about being a librarian before, but I would have had to go back to school, and the pay at the factory was a lot better. Besides, I probably would have gotten fired being a librarian because I would have read all day and not actually worked. When books were at the ready, it was hard for me to resist them.
I shrugged and pushed my plate away. “I think I spend enough time with my books the way it is. I think if my job was being surrounded by books, I would never be in reality.”
“Nah,” Aero shrugged, “I think you’ve got a pretty good grasp on reality. I mean, you are sitting here with me right now and not reading a book.”
“Yeah, but sitting here with you seems like I’m in one of my books,” I pointed out. “You have no idea how many times I have read about the shy girl being swept off her feet by the dangerous biker.”
“That just goes to show all of those books you read are based on reality.”
I quirked my eyebrow. “You really don’t understand what I read.”
“Tell me,” he countered. “Tell me what you read that makes you want to be in a book rather than sitting here with me.”
“I never said I would rather be reading than sitting here with you,” I protested. I had specifically said that being here with him was like a book coming to life.
“Okay, okay, you didn’t say that, but you obviously would rather be reading ninety percent of the time.” He nodded to my shirt.
I looked down at my chest and cringed. I’d Rather Be Reading was plastered across my chest. “It’s just a saying,” I laughed sheepishly. “I mean, who wouldn’t rather be reading than, say, being at the dentist?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Tell me about your books, babe,” he insisted.
“Uh, really?” I had never had someone ask me to tell them about my books. Sure, I had book friends on the internet whom I talked to about what I was reading, but someone who was physically sitting across from me? Never.
“Yeah.” Aero signaled to the waitress. “Can we get another round?” he asked.
“Sure, sugar,” the waitress called.
I waved my hand. “Just water for me, please.” I did not need my head to be foggy with Aero sitting next to me. I still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t a dream and wanted to do everything I could to stay asleep.
The waitress nodded and headed over to the bar.
I tapped my fingers on the table and looked around at everyone talking and having a good time.
“Sloane,” Aero called. “You better start telling me about your books, or I’m going to have to creep into your room and start reading them for myself.”
Yeah, that was not going to happen. “Uh, well, I like to read a little bit of everything, though they have romance in them. Bikers, cowboys, billionaires, and, uh,....” I trailed off and swallowed my words.
“And what?” he laughed. “You’ve got me intrigued, babe.”
“Shifters and aliens,” I mumbled.
Aero tipped his head to the side. “What? Did you just say aliens?” he laughed. “Like E.T.?”
I shook my head. Not at all like E.T. “Um, no.”
He leveled his gaze on me. “Spit it out, Sloane, or I’m heading to your room.”
He wouldn’t find an alien book in my room, but he would if he scrolled through my Kindle. “It’s a niche genre, Aero.” And a damn good one, but one that most people who didn’t read romance would not understand. Hell, even Dove didn’t know about the hot blue aliens I loved.
Aero scooted his chair back, but I grabbed his arm.
“Where are you going?” I demanded.
“To your room, unless you tell me about the aliens,” Aero whispered.
I closed one eye and winced. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
He shook his head.
I squeezed his arm and leaned toward him. “You don’t play fair, Aero.”
“I never said I did, babe.”
I sighed and scooted my chair closer to him. “They’re romance books, but they have....”
“Aliens?” Aero guessed.
He was half right. “Blue,” I whispered.
He tipped his head to the side. “Blue aliens?”
I nodded and looked around. I knew I wasn’t the only person in the room who read alien romance, but it was still a weird thing to admit out loud, especially to a hot biker sitting next to you.
He furrowed his brow. “Blue aliens do it for you?” he asked. “I thought I’d heard it all, babe, but you just blew my mind.”
I closed my eyes and wished for that hole to open up and swallow me whole again. “Can we please not talk about this?” All of the words coming out of my mouth sounded ridiculous for someone who didn’t read romance. “It’s not as weird as it sounds. It’s more about the story.”
“You know that’s what guys say about porn, right? They are in it for the story.”
I opened my eyes and laughed. “You mean the two minutes in the beginning where the hot plumber guy knocks on the door ready to hook up the washing machine but instead ends up hooking up with the lonely housewife.”
He winked and pointed at me. “That one is my favorite. Though I do like a woman broke down on the side of the road, and a handsome stranger comes along and helps clean out her carburetor.”
“Oh, god,” I moaned. And now I was talking about porn plots with Aero. Could this get any stranger?
Aero winked and sat back to let the waitress set down our drinks.
“Can I get you two anything else?” she asked.
Aero shook his head. “We’re good.”
The waitress smiled at Aero, but he didn’t take his eyes off me. “Just let me know if you need anything.” She emphasized anything with a brush of her hand on Aero’s arm and drifted away.
That was the type of woman for Aero.
Not a book nerd who likes blue aliens.
“I have a feeling the books you read are just like porn,” he interrupted my thought.
“Some books are, and there isn’t anything wrong with them.” I had quite a few of those books on my Kindle, too. I just tended to lean more to story-driven books.
“I don’t think I have ever been more shocked when talking to a woman than I am right now, Sloane. I think you are going to say one thing, and then you say the exact opposite.”
“And what is it you think I am going to say?”
He shrugged, “Not what you’re actually saying.”
I laughed and took a sip of my water. “You’re funny, Aero.”
“And you have my full attention, Sloane. That has never happened before.” He leaned forward and held my hand in his. “Something about you, Sloane. Something I don’t know what it is, but I know I don’t want to lose it.”
Holy shit balls.
I kept my hand in his, but I nervously glanced around.
My eyes connected with a woman sitting two tables over, and my heart about beat out of my chest.
Winter Travers was watching Aero putting the moves on me. She tipped her head to the side and smiled slyly.
She gave me a thumbs-up and nodded.
Oh god.
“I wonder where Dove is,” I blurted out. “I think I should go find her.”
Aero held onto my hand and kept me in my seat. “She’s at the bar with Dice. He’s keeping an eye on her.”
“But I don’t want to leave Dove alone,” I insisted.
Aero nodded behind me, and I turned to see Dove at the bar with a group surrounding her. “Is that Kristine Allen and her hubby?” I whispered. And the hell of it was that Dove probably had no clue whom she was talking to.
“No clue who that is, babe, but she looks like she is having a good time. Besides, Dice will make sure she is safe.” He squeezed my hand, and I turned back to him. “Which brings me to asking you how you got here?”
I raised my eyebrow. “Huh? What do you mean?” Why did he want to know how I got here?
“Who traveled with you?” he asked.
“Um, Dove?” I hitched my thumb in her direction. Did he really not know the answer to that question?
“Two women traveling alone is not a good idea, babe. You never know what could happen.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nothing is going to happen, Aero. Haven’t you heard the saying of staying chunky and you’ll be hard to kidnap?”
“What the hell do you mean by chunky?”
“Um, well.” Did I need to spell out to him that I was not the ideal weight for a woman? Not even close to it. “It’s not a secret that bigger women aren’t as, well,” I cleared my throat, “susceptible to kidnapping.”
“If you’re about to tell me that nothing would happen to you because you think you’re overweight, I will personally show you everything you are worthy of, and it will take days till I am done.”
Whoa.
WHOA.
“I, uh, what? You can’t say that,” I hissed. Only the men in my books said that.
He sat back and shrugged. “Just did, babe, and I’m not just talking. You should not be traveling by yourself. There are a ton of fucked up people in this world who would take you without even thinking about it.” He took a sip of his drink. “Me included.”
“Is this where you show you’re the bad guy?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “No, this is where I show you I am not the type of man to fuck around with.”
Total fuck around and find out vibes.
Full-body chills coursed through me.
Whoa, boy.
“This might also be where I need to figure out if I should run or not,” I mumbled. This was getting intense, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
Aero’s eyes connected with mine. “You can run, babe, but I’ll find you. You showed me too much of yourself for me to just walk away now. I don’t know what all happens in your books, but you’ve got the biker’s attention.” He leaned forward and licked his lips. “Now, what are you going to do about it?”
*
