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She blinked at him. “Is that because of you?”
The short answer was yes. Ron had been furious that Kate had driven off with his limo—apparently it was his most expensive ride. He’d already fired the driver for dereliction of duties.
Ron’s temper burned hot, but it always fizzled out quickly. Ron had been buddies with Billy Bolton for years and Seth had seen him in action plenty of times. He had to blow his top, and then he could be reasoned with.
Seth had waited until Ron finished blustering and then had convinced the man not to fire his driver—who had reasonably thought he’d had another hour before anyone would care about the whereabouts of the limo—and to inform the police that no theft had been committed.
But that’s not what he told her. Instead, Seth said, “Ron’s a great guy. He understood.” Kate notched an eyebrow at him—clearly she wasn’t buying that line.
But that was his story and he was sticking to it. Kate had already had a terrible day. The prospect of being arrested and booked for grand theft auto would only make everything a thousand times worse and he didn’t want that, especially now that she’d calmed down.
He hadn’t lied when he’d told her he’d keep her safe. This pull he felt to protect her—from the consequences of taking a limo, from Roger, from her thoughtless parents, from the harsh realities of life as a single mother—it wasn’t something that made sense on a rational level. He didn’t know her. He had no claim to her.
But by God, he wasn’t going to cast her to the winds of fate and call it a day.
“Okay,” she finally said, exhaling heavily. Which did some very interesting things to her chest. “Then what do we do next?”
“We ride.” The color drained out of her cheeks. “Have you ever been on a motorcycle before?”
She shook her head, her tilting hair bobbing dangerously near her left ear. He reached up and tucked it back in place as best he could. He managed to do so without letting his fingers linger, so there was that.
“I’ve been riding for years,” he assured her. “All you have to do is hold on. Can you do that?”
“I...” She looked down at her dress. “Um...”
She had a point. He eyed the confection suspiciously. The skirt was a full ball-gown style, layered with ruffles and lace. It spread out from Kate’s waist in a circle that was easily five feet in diameter.
Ron had made it clear—Seth wasn’t driving the limo. But Kate in that dress on the back of the chopper was a recipe for disaster. He could just imagine the wind getting underneath her skirts and blowing that dress up like a balloon.
“Is there any way to reduce the volume?” He tried to think back to what his aunt Stella had taught him about women’s fashion. “An underskirt of some kind that we can remove?
Her face got redder. “I have on a structured petticoat. It’s separate from the dress.”
“Can you get it off?”
Kate’s hands went to her waist. “I’m... I’m wearing a corset. I can’t bend at the waist very well. And the skirt is tied on behind.” She sounded unsure about the whole thing.
Seth mentally snorted to himself. Because if there was one thing a groom enjoyed on his wedding night, it was fighting through complicated layers of women’s clothing. Petticoats and corsets—what was this, the 1800s? “How did you get into it?”
“I had help. My bridesmaids...”
Seth realized that if he wanted to get her on the bike anytime soon, he was going to have to play lady’s maid. Which was not, he mentally reminded himself, the same as undressing her. At no point was he getting her naked.
No. Definitely not undressing a beautiful woman he wanted to pull into his arms and hold tight. Just...removing a few unnecessary layers of clothing. So that she could safely sit on his bike. That was all.
Trying to keep his mind focused on the task at hand, he eyed the bodice of her dress. “Do you need to take the corset off?” he asked reluctantly, because that seemed less like removing layers and more like just stripping her completely bare.
She shook her head quickly. “I was able to drive in it, apparently. If we can get the petticoat off, it should be fine.”
Of all the things Seth thought he’d be doing today, falling to his knees in front of a runaway bride and lifting the hem of her skirt over the voluminous petticoat was not something that had made the top ten. Or even the top one hundred. But that’s what he was doing. He lifted the satin of her dress, rising as he moved the fabric up.
There should have been nothing sensual about this, lifting her skirts. She was still completely dressed. The petticoat stood between him and her body. God only knew how many layers were built into it, because she was still shaped like an inverted top. So this should have been nothing.
But there was something erotic about it.
Focus, Bolton, he scolded himself. This was just an action born of necessity. He had to get her someplace safe, where people she knew could step up and take over. Taking care of a pregnant runaway bride was not in his skill set, and besides, it wasn’t like he was attracted to her anyway.
Sure, she was beautiful—more so now that she’d calmed down. And yes, he was curious about what she looked like without the overdone hair, makeup and dress. And fine, he did feel a protective pull toward her. But that didn’t add up to attraction any more than helping her adjust her outfit to ride on the bike was undressing her.
And that was final.
After a few snags—the petticoat was huge—he succeeded in getting the skirt up to her waist. He handed the bunched-up fabric to her and eyed the next layer. He could just see the bottom edge of her corset—white satin trimmed in baby blue. It appeared the waistband of the petticoat was underneath the corset.
This just kept getting better, because if he had to undo the corset, he’d have to remove the dress completely. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. If he were going to properly undress this woman, it sure as hell wouldn’t be at a roadside pull-off.
He could see her chest rising and falling quickly. Did she feel the tension, too? Or was there something else?
He managed to pull his gaze away from her chest and found himself lost in her eyes. Her pupils were wide and dark and damn if she didn’t look like a woman who was being undressed by a lover.
He put his hands on her waist, just below the bunched fabric of her skirt. Her waist felt right under his hands, warm and soft—and a little hard, thanks to the corset.
Who was he to talk about instincts? Yeah, she shouldn’t get married when her instincts told her to run. But his were telling him to pull her against his chest and tuck her into his arms and not let go. And fighting that instinct only got harder when she lifted her gaze to his because she took his breath away.
“Turn around,” he told her because he needed not to get lost in her eyes.
He needed to keep a cool head here—among other body parts. She was not for him. Only a complete asshole would take advantage of a woman in this situation. Seth was many things, but he didn’t think he was an asshole, complete or otherwise.
She turned in his arms, and Seth forced himself to step back and assess the situation. Luckily, the corset didn’t ride as low in the back as it did in the front. He could see where the petticoat was tied—in a knot.
Of course it was knotted.
He was tempted to just cut the damn thing off her body, but then a shiver raced over her skin. Brandishing a blade wasn’t the best way to keep her calm, so Seth gritted his teeth and got on with it. It felt like it took forever, but after only a minute or so, the knot finally gave. “Now what?” he asked as the waistband sagged down around her hips.
She didn’t answer for a moment. “I had to step into it and they pulled it up because...” She swallowed. “Because it’s so structured, it won’t fall on its own. So I guess you’ll have to push it down and I’ll step out of it.” Her voice shook.
Just for the ride, Seth repeated as he grabbed the waistband of the petticoat and worked it over her hips. Structured must mean able to stand upright on its own, because the damned fabric had no give in it at all. What kind of fresh hell was this, anyway?
The petticoat slipped over her skin, and he had to bite back his groan. He barely knew this woman and he wasn’t even sure he liked her. But as he revealed the frilly lace of the white thong and the bare cheeks of her bottom, liking had nothing to do with it. His mouth went dry and his hands started to shake.
His instincts—they were pushing him past protective and into raw lust. He was strong, but how strong did one man have to be? Because he wasn’t sure he could handle the way that thong left her bottom completely exposed.
Then it only got worse as he wrestled the petticoat down and revealed inch by creamy inch of her legs and bare skin. Why couldn’t she be wearing those supportive bike shorts that some women wore instead of this scrap of lace? Why couldn’t she be wearing a simpler outfit? Why couldn’t she be someone who didn’t inspire this reaction in him?
It only got worse when he hit the top of her thigh-high stockings and the blue garter on her right leg. Of course it matched the blue trim on her corset.
Roger, Seth concluded, was an idiot to let this woman go. Because Seth was pretty sure that he was going to have fantasies about this moment for the rest of his natural life.
He struggled not to touch her skin—but his hands shook even harder with the effort of it. Although he had to fight all that “structure” for every damned inch, he managed to get the petticoat pushed down to the ground, which meant that he was at eye level with her bottom. And it was perhaps one of the nicer bottoms he had ever seen. Firm and rounded and begging to be touched.
Except it wasn’t. This was not a seduction. This was an action born of necessity. He would not touch her. She’d already had a bad day, and being groped by a biker wouldn’t make anything better.
“Now what?” His voice cracked with the strain of trying to sound normal. “Do you just step out?” That was when he realized she didn’t have on shoes. They were standing on gravel. Had she been missing her shoes the entire time?
“I...I don’t want to lose my balance,” she said in a strangled-sounding voice. Before Seth could process what she meant by that, she turned. Which was good due to the fact that he was no longer staring at her ass.
But now he was staring at her front. The thin lace of her virginal white thong covered the vee of her sex and everything about Seth came to a screeching halt. His blood, his breath—nothing worked. He couldn’t even blink as he stared at her body.
It only got worse when she placed one hand on his shoulder for balance. Seth squeezed his eyes shut because there was no point in looking if he couldn’t have her, and he couldn’t have her. Offering anything beyond assistance would be a mistake. She’d run away from a wedding today. She was pregnant with another man’s baby. None of her was for him.
Even though his eyes were closed, the scent of her body surrounded him, torturing him. It wasn’t the scent of arousal, but there was no missing the sweet notes of flowers—maybe lilacs, and a hint of vanilla that had been buried underneath the layers. Her smell reached out and stroked him, making him shake with need.
She stepped out of the petticoat and—thankfully—let go of the skirt. It fell, covering her legs and hiding that lacy thong and those white thigh-highs and that garter belt from his eyes. Seth gave himself another few moments to make sure he had himself under control.
Then she let out a little cry and stumbled. He moved without thinking, catching her before she fell. His arms folded around her body and finally, he was able to pull him to her.
But despite his awareness of her body—and the fact that her arms went around his neck so that he could feel her breasts pressing against his chest—he didn’t miss the way she shivered or how her breathing was ragged.
“Easy,” he said, coming to his feet with her in his arms.
“I stepped on a rock,” she said, her voice wavering. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears again, and that hurt him in a way he hadn’t expected.
He wanted to make sure she didn’t hurt. He’d wanted that from the very beginning. But now, it felt more personal.
He didn’t understand this strange drive to take care of her. He could’ve called her a ride. Surely someone could’ve come to get her. Rapid City had taxis, and for a price they could’ve made it out this far.
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t done anything except hold her close and make sure she was okay.
He didn’t want to think too much about why.
He carried her over to his bike and sat her on the back. He gave thanks that his father had built this prototype with the passenger seat behind the driver’s seat. Part of Billy Bolton’s rigorous testing was to make sure that he took Seth’s mom, Jenny, out for rides with him. Billy claimed that sometimes, the additional weight of a passenger would reveal design flaws that needed to be tweaked. Because Seth didn’t want to consider any other options about what happened when his parents went out riding, he accepted that explanation at face value.
“I’ll put the petticoat in the car and then we’ll go, okay?” he said. “But you’re going to have to straddle the bike. See if you can figure that out with your skirts.” He waved a hand over her dress and hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to take the whole thing off to get her corset removed.
But even as he thought that, his brain decided it would be a really great idea. He would kill to see Kate Burroughs in nothing but a corset and some stockings and a garter. Splayed out on the bed, a package that Seth was almost done unwrapping.
He slammed the brakes on that line of thought. Nope. She had too many bags to carry, and he was a single twenty-five-year-old man. He had no interest in tangling with someone whose personal life was as messy as Kate Burroughs’s was. No matter how good she looked, no matter how sweet she smelled, no matter how much she’d clung to his neck.
No matter how right she’d felt in his arms.
She nodded and he went back to get the petticoat. It was all dirty with rocks and bits of grass stuck in it. He shoved it into the back of the limo and glanced around, hoping against hope that there would be a purse with a wallet, but nothing. There was some champagne that was probably warm, though. But he didn’t think that’d help anything right now.
He locked the limo and left the keys on the ground on the inside of the front driver’s-side wheel, where Stein had told him to leave them. True dark was settling now and it was going to be a long, cold ride back to Rapid City. It wouldn’t be so bad if he had his jacket, but he couldn’t let her freeze to death behind him.
The other logistical problem was that he only had one helmet. He had no idea if it would fit over her hair.
He went back to the bike and picked up the helmet. “Let’s see if this works,” he said. At the very least, she had managed to straddle the bike. The skirt had hiked up over her calves, and her legs were going to be cold by the time they got out of the hills, but there was no way he could risk having her fall off if she was riding sidesaddle. Maybe if she pressed herself against him, his body could take the worst of the wind. He’d be a Popsicle by the time they made town, but he’d take it for her.
But even that noble sentiment was almost completely overridden by the image of her arms around his waist, her chest pressed to his back, her legs tucked behind his. Of that lacy little thong and the corset.
Of a wedding night that ended differently.
He pulled at the collar of his shirt. Yeah, maybe he wouldn’t freeze.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I can’t thank you enough, Seth,” she said, her voice soft. “I’m having a really bad day, but you’re making it better.”
If she were anyone else, he’d cup her cheek and stroke her skin with his thumb. He’d tilt her head back and brush his lips over hers. He’d offer comfort in a completely different way.
But she wasn’t anyone else. She was Roger’s pregnant runaway bride. So instead of kissing her, he settled the helmet over her hair. It didn’t work. He pulled it off. “Let me see what I can do here.” She tilted her head so he could get at the elaborate updo—it probably had some sort of name, but he didn’t have any idea about women’s hair. He could see the pins and clips—sparkly stuff in her hair. And hairspray. Lots of hairspray. He began pulling them out and shoving them into his pants pocket. What would her hair feel like without all this crap in it? Soft and silky—the kind of hair he could bury his hands in.
He really had to get a grip. The whole mass of hair sagged and then fell. It looked awkward and painful, but he was sure he could fit the helmet on now. “There.”
She looked back at him as he settled the helmet on her head and strapped it under her chin. She looked worried. “This will be fun,” he promised. Cold, but fun. “Just hold on to me, okay?”
She nodded. Seth took his seat and fired up the engine. It rumbled beneath him. He loved this part of riding. Bringing the machine to life and knowing that a journey was ahead of him.
After a moment’s hesitation, Kate’s arms came around his waist. His brain chose that exact moment to wonder—when was the last time he’d had a woman on the back of a motorcycle?
Of course he’d ridden with women before. That was one of the reasons to ride a bike—women loved a bad boy, and Seth was more than happy to help them act out their fantasies. Motorcycles were good seduction and he was a red-blooded American man. He wasn’t above doing a little seducing.
But there was something different about this—about Kate. This wasn’t a seduction, leaving aside the fact that he knew what her thong looked like. This was something else, and he couldn’t put a name to it.
Then he felt more than heard her sigh against the back of his neck as the helmet banged his shoulder. He winced but didn’t flinch as she settled her cheek against his back, her arms tightening around him even more. Her body relaxed into his. Which was good. Great. Wonderful. The tighter she held on, the safer this ride would be.
Except his body was anything but relaxed. He was rock hard and she’d know it if her grip slipped south in any way.
He needed to get her to a hotel and then he needed to get on his way. He had a future as a partner of Crazy Horse Choppers. He had plans for the business. He had motorcycles to sell.
None of those things involved a pregnant runaway bride.
He rolled away from the scenic overlook and hit the road back to Rapid City.
Kate Burroughs wasn’t in his plans. After today, he wasn’t going to see her or her stockings ever again.
That was final.
Four (#u736919c3-e7a2-5a56-9d88-3db157223926)
“Good morning, Katie,” Harold Zanger said, strolling into Zanger Realty with a smile on his face and a bow tie around his neck. “It’s a zinger of a day at Zanger, isn’t it?”
As cheesy as the line was—and it had been cheesy every single day for the last month and a half—Kate still smiled. She smiled every day now. “It is indeed, Harold,” she said.
Harold Zanger was one of her father’s oldest friends. They’d been playing poker together for a good forty years—longer than Kate had been alive. Harold was almost an uncle to her.
Kate had not gone back to Burroughs and Caputo Realty. She just couldn’t—especially when her parents had made it clear that splitting Roger off from the business was going to be quite complicated, which was one way to say that her father wasn’t going to do it because he was beyond furious with her.
So it had been Kate to decide that, rather than grovel before her father and Roger, she’d start over. She was the one who put distance between them.
It had hurt more than she wanted it to, to be honest. Although she’d known it wasn’t likely, she’d wanted her parents to put her first. She’d wanted them to take her side and tell her it’d all work out. She’d wanted her mom to get excited about the pregnancy.
