Welcome to Sugartown

causing the blue dress to pull against her ass and ruck up a little higher. Holy shit, I’m headed into boner territory. I tilt my head to the side and admire the view before the swinging doors make it disappear completely. Next thing I know I’m staring at 5’3 of pissed off waitress.

Aaaaaand there goes my boner.

The friend, Hannah, or Hailey, or something, gives me the double finger point between her eyes and mine, universal code for “I’m watching you.”

Crap, did every girl within a 10 kilometre radius suddenly start PMSing the minute I walked through the door?

I’m trying real hard not to laugh, so when she vocalises what her hand gestures apparently didn’t convey I bite down on my cheek hard enough to taste blood. Chick’s like a shark, though. I swear her eyes narrow when she scents my blood in the air.

“Okay.” I say, ’cause I know she’s waiting for me to say something and, to be honest, that’s all I got.

“I’m glad we had this little talk.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Wait.

What the fuck?

Did we even have a conversation? This chick’s messing with my head. She’s also kinda creeping me out, so rather than sit here and risk her boiling my bunny while I wait for Ana I grab my helmet and my jacket, throw a twenty on the table and head out to get my bike.

“See ya round.” I call as I’m exiting the pie shop.

“Not if I see you first, Elijah Cade.” She singsongs back and I repress the urge to run for my life.

A minute later I’m parked in front of her garage as Ana comes down the stairs wearing jeans that cling so tight to her legs and arse that I can clearly see all the places I want to put my mouth and hands. She’s also rockin’ a barely there singlet top that I have no doubt I could see right through if it got wet.

God, I hope it rains.

Holy mother of whoring nuns she’s hot. Fuck! I haven’t just crossed the border into boner territory, Mr Happy’s erected a tent from my jeans and is setting up camp there.

I clear my throat, shift in my seat and hope like hell she doesn’t notice the raging hard-on before she gets on the bike. Once she’s positioned behind me she won’t see a thing. Her hot little body will be pressed into my back, her legs wrapped around mine … shit. Wrong thing to think with a hot girl in front of me, and a boner the size of Everest. And no, that’s not an over exaggeration, my man meat is huge.

“You okay?” Ana asks. Shit. I hate it when I get so lost in my head I forget what’s going on around me.

“Yeah,” I say, glancing down at the gravel beneath my bike to keep from gawking at her. “Just tired. Been a really long day.”

“Right, well, let’s get you sorted so you can hit the hay.” She smiles, but it’s nothing like the look she was giving me inside. Did I offend her? Crap. Why the hell are chicks so hard to read? In an effort to make things right I add, “Your pie is awesome, by the way.”

Fuck. That sounded completely suggestive.

“That didn’t come out right.”

“It’s okay. My pie is awesome,” she says playfully as she backs away from me. Something in her expression makes me want to chase her.

“I have no doubt,” I whisper, and then loud enough so she can hear, “Are you getting on, or are we gonna play chasies all night, Ana no last name?”

“Oh, I have my own ride.” She lifts the roller door to the double garage where a beat up Holden, a Fat Boy on pits and a shiny yellow geriatric-looking Vespa sits. Ana dons a matching yellow helmet and buckles it beneath her chin.

“That’s your ride?” I’m having a hard time keeping the smugness from my smile.

“Uh-huh.”

“Alright, then,” I say, trying not to laugh. A massive grin breaks out on my face.

Ana’s scowling. “What?”

I hold up my hands to ward her off. “Nothing. Just, you do know I have to meet this guy tonight and not next week, right? Are you sure your little grandma bike is gonna cut it out there on the open road?”

“Hey! This ‘grandma’ bike could run rings around your decrepit little tricycle.”

“Tricycle?” I laugh at the righteous indignation on her face, the sheer determination in her gaze that says she’d like to hand me my arse on a plate. I kinda want to let her. I stroke my bike lovingly. “This is a precision instrument of speed and t—”

“Toy parts?” she asks as she hops on her scooter, kicks out the centre stand and revs the engine.

“Baby girl, nothing about me or my bike is childish.” I smile, but there’s an edge to it.

“We’ll see.” She edges the Vespa forward so she’s directly in front of me.

I rev my engine, pull on my helmet and slam my aviators into place.

“And I’m not your baby girl.”

Ana fishtails in front of me, kicking up a cloud of grey dust and gravel in my face. I shake my head and jet after her. I’m gonna have that girl naked beneath me before the week’s end.

Chapter Three Ana

I look at the clock once more. You know? Just in case someone miraculously invented a time machine and I find myself somewhere back in time before three am. The ceiling fan whirs overhead and the summer heat has sweat sticking my PJs to my body. I kick the covers to the end of my bed and resolve not to think about what it is I’m thinking about: Elijah Cade.

Although, if I have to think about Elijah, it’s kinda nice to remember the look on his face when he finally caught up to me last night.

“I take it back,” he’d shouted over the roar of our engines. “That’s sure as shit no grandma bike.”

The look on Elijah’s face when I left him in the dust was priceless. I mean, yeah, I drive a Vespa, but my dad custom builds and restores Harleys. If he couldn’t get me on a “real” bike he at least had to modify it so that I wouldn’t be a laughing stock. He souped-up the engine one night while I was asleep, a fact I was not too happy about as it voided my warranty, but I guess when your dad’s the best mechanic in the state little things like null and voided warranties never really come into play.

I’d given Elijah a smug smile and he’d shoved his sunnies back into place and sped off in front of me, copying my fishtail manoeuvre to a tee. I was so not having that, and I’d let him know by overtaking him at every possible turn. Of course, we’d been speeding and we’d overshot the turn-off by about ten km, but it had been so nice just to drive and play that I couldn’t have cared less.

An almighty crack of thunder had made me glance up at the storm clouds overhead, at which point I’d decided I didn’t want to get caught in the rain and I’d let Elijah zoom past me, only to turn around and head in the other direction when he thought he had me beat. It had been a good five minutes before I’d seen him slip in behind me again and maintain a steady speed. When we’d reached the river, or as close to the river as the road would take us, I’d walked him through the rocky, overgrown trail and down the steep sloping bank. From the obscurity of the trees, I pointed out “Big Gay Bob” and hightailed it out of there, before my dad or the dragon could see me.

“You’re not gonna stay?” Elijah had said.

“Nope.” I’d called over my shoulder.

“What if I get lost?”

I’d turned and walked backwards without any fear of falling or making a complete dork out of myself. I knew that terrain like the back of my hand. When I was younger the bikers would drag their kids along to those bonfires. I knew every twist, turn and protruding rock of that path. “Then you’ll have a really long trek back to your bike.”