One foot in front of the other, chin high. Eamonn’s hand around hers gave her strength. Word had spread; curious and dismayed faces peered out of offices, and people passing in the hall stopped and turned to look, sympathy warring with an apparent fear of contamination. There were a few people Nell might have wanted to say goodbye to, but she couldn’t go looking for them, and she couldn’t think of what she’d say anyway.
They walked through the reception area, where Lila looked troubled as she waved goodbye. “I’ll miss you, Nell,” the receptionist offered with a weak smile.
“No, you won’t,” Nell said, feeling tired. “But that’s okay.” At Lila’s nonplussed look, she shrugged. Why pretend? Eamonn pushed open one side of the heavy glass double doors, and Nell passed through the Wildforest Vacations office entryway for the last time. Then she turned back and called to Lila, “I’m taking your advice, though. Just so you know.”
Lila’s eyes shot to Eamonn and she giggled, cheerfulness restored to her face. “Have fun, then. Take care, Nell. Bye, Easy!”
In the elevator, he held her. Just held her, as he pushed the P button to take them to the parking level. “I have my bike here today. Are you okay to ride with me? You’ll hold on?”
“You don’t have to take me home. I’ll be fine,” she told him, pushing herself away from the comfort of his arms as the elevator doors opened.
“Fine or not, I’m not just going to put you on the bus.”
Nell blinked at him in the dim light of the parking garage. “Don’t you have to go back up there?” She tried to remember what he’d said to them as he was walking her out, but it all seemed to blur in her memory and she only had the haziest sense of how the previous half-hour had unfolded.
He chuckled. “I think you might have missed one small fact about me, babe. I don’t need that job. Uncle Tommy thought it would be good for me to do something with my days while I figured my next steps out, and I agreed because Mom wanted me to and I honestly wasn’t doing anything much else.” They reached his bike and he took the two helmets out of the top box, holding the spare out to her. “Ride with me?”
She didn’t have it in her to push him away. Why not get a lift home? A little bit of speed and thrill on the back of a bike might blow the cobwebs out of her mind. “Fine.” She took the helmet and put it on while he transferred her things into the top box and kicked the empty cardboard box into a corner. And when she settled herself behind him on the big motorcycle and wrapped her arms around his waist, the world felt a little less dark.
The last time she’d been on his bike, she’d been focused on not getting close to him. This time, she snuggled into his back and let herself savor the feeling of having his hips wedged between her thighs atop the smooth purr of the motor. In all the mess — the humiliation of walking out with her cardboard box and everyone staring, the sudden financial vulnerability, the sick fear of losing her apartment and being unable to pay for training if she didn’t find work soon, and the anger that she hadn’t been able to protect Jessalyn and had lost her own position for it anyway — it couldn’t be wrong to take comfort in holding close to Eamonn’s fine body for a short while, could it? Just for the ride home. And maybe the night, if he’d stay? Her guts cramped in visceral, achy need. No more waiting.
Unexpectedly, Eamonn turned down a side street and pulled over. They were nowhere Nell recognized as being part of her route home. Still astride the bike, he pulled his helmet off and gestured for her to do the same. “I was thinking,” he said, turning his head to look at her over his shoulder. “If I take you back to your place, you’ll just worry, right?” Then his voice deepened, and his eyes met hers with unmistakable desire. “So, you wanna come home with me instead?”
“You’re asking me to stay the night with you?” she clarified, as the urgency inside her turned into a swarm of fiery butterflies.
“Yeah. Let me be your distraction.”
She nodded slowly. I want to have the whole night, he’d said, at least the first time, and I want you to walk like you’ve been well fucked the next day. And the way he was looking at her now told her he meant to give that his best shot. “Okay.”
“Good. Helmet on and hold tight. I’m going to go fast.”
She locked her arms around him, letting the adrenaline wash through her as he pushed off and picked up speed. The big bike hugged the road and screamed around corners, faster than Nell had ever experienced on the back of a motorcycle. Did he mean to give her a thrill, or was he just eager to get to their destination? Either way, it made her heart pound as the air whipped around them and she felt the muted thunder of the engine and Eamonn’s masterful control of all that speed and power.
On a tree-lined street with modern brick townhouses and gated driveways, they slowed. One of the gates opened, the wrought-iron halves sliding apart on tracks in the pavement, and Eamonn turned the bike into the driveway, coming to a stop in front of the garage door
