“I only have my bike. Do you want me to get you out of here?” His voice is steady and full of confidence and concern. I look into his eyes and latch on to the intensity like a life raft and let the security I find there pull me to shore.

“Yes, please.”

I let him guide me farther up the street toward where a motorcycle is parked in an empty lot. The shaking in my bones won’t subside, and the anticipation of sitting on the back of a motorcycle only makes it worse.

He holds me by the hand and steadies me as I straddle one leg over the bike. “Be careful. The exhaust right here is really hot,” he says as he points to a big silver pipe on the side.

“Thank you,” I mumble.

He holds the handlebars of the bike as he steps over in front me, straightening it and making me latch my arms around his waist. My breath hitches as the deafening roar of the engine rumbles through my body.

And suddenly we’re moving. I’m still holding tightly to his waist, but the more we move, the more my body relaxes against his. Leaning through the turns and accelerating down the street feels like we’re flying together. The humming power between my legs ignites a heat there that makes me suddenly feel powerful and alive.

We ride for longer than I expect, and it doesn’t take me long to realize that I don’t need to hold so tightly to his waist. Our bodies move together as the bike carries us, our balance meeting in the middle keeping us in place through the stops and turns.

This is surreal. I’m on the back of his motorcycle. My boy, the one I’ve waited years to finally talk to. He’s here, and my body is pressed up against his.

I lean my cheek against his back and let my arms ease their grasp. My fingers are gentle against his stomach as I feel his tight muscles through his thin T-shirt. I can feel him tense under my touch as we glide along together through the night, and it starts to feel as if with every mile we take together, we’re erasing the darkness of what just happened on the beach.

3

Logan

Her tight grip around my waist has me distracted. New riders always think they have to squeeze onto the person in front of them on a motorcycle, but when she clutched onto my body, I figured it was about more than the motorcycle.

Shit, I don’t know how to handle a girl who’s just been manhandled by a drunk pig. I couldn’t even imagine. What I do know is that I could easily drop her off and go back to find that punk and pummel his face into the concrete to see how he likes to be treated like shit.

But I could tell by her response that she doesn’t want to go home, and I’m not about to leave her alone somewhere. So I take a scenic drive around the island. There’s only one main roadway between mainland and Wickett, so as long as I avoid that, we could drive around this seven-mile island all night long. It never gets old.