Disengaged: A Dangerously Forbidden Love Affair Read Online Free PDF

law we did see pretended not to see us, much like the ordinary, everyday working people did. The thugs and every other shady ass in the city noticed us, though. Some glared, others did the classic guy nod. A few even plastered a sick grin across their face.
    The women were the worst, or should I say the hoes. Not one of them had a pleasant expression on their face. They made the whore I found Slayton with seem as innocent as a summer’s rain. I knew if he stopped the bike, I was a dead girl. Which only made him even more of a contradiction. Why would he lay some silent claim on me in front of his people, then display me like a fresh kill to the rest of this dark underworld that I was being introduced to?
    After our tour of the dark side, he pulled up outside a corner deli. He didn’t ask me to get off. Instead, he sat up then halfway looked back at me like I was slow or some shit. I dismounted, hating the feeling in my legs as they wobbled searching for balance. I stumbled like the inexperienced rider I was, but no one watching would have assumed I had. His arms opened and he pulled me against him making it seem as if I meant to fall onto him, embrace him. He even leaned his head down, whispering a kiss across my shoulder as he pulled the helmet off with one hand as the other kept my balance. I should’ve expected it, and I shouldn’t have felt the same virgin-like zing of desire swarm through my body, but it still happened when his lips brushed across mine, and I felt his breath feather down my neck as he pulled me against him before he stood.
    My stare questioned him as I gained my balance once more, silently asking who we were putting on a show for. When no quick answer came, when he stared into my eyes like they were the deepest mystery he’d every crossed, I found my nerve and spoke.
    “What are we doing?” I asked, inwardly patting myself on the back for the fact I’d managed to ditch both the tremble and stutter in my voice.
    He didn’t say a word. Instead, he linked his fingers through mine then led me into the deli. Inside, every head turned, and I swear all conversation halted for precious seconds until everyone decided to act like they had not been gawking at both of us.
    Helmet, please!
    Slayton’s slow stride, with our fingers still entwined, led us to the deli bar. He nodded to the lady behind the counter then held up two fingers.
    When she moved away, and the bustle of the deli picked back up, I went to ask one of the millions of questions I had on the tip of my tongue, but he moved his head to the side, a halfway ‘no,’ but he may as well have shouted it. Long seconds later, I tried to glance around and see the threat that apparently I was ignorant of, the one he was zoned in on.
    Or at least I assumed he was. For the most part, he was watching the TV behind the bar, a re-run of a seventies sitcom. Once, and only once, I saw what might have been called a grin twitch on his lips, and it came when the older woman put my plate before me, and then his in front of him. She patted his hand in a motherly way, filled our water glasses, then went back to tending to the others.
    I stared down at my soup and sandwich lost in myself. I didn’t want to eat right then. I wanted to go home. No, I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to go back a year in my life, find myself in my grandmother’s kitchen. I wanted to see her smile as I told her about all the stupid bullshit I’d been up to. Guy problems. Girl problems. Childish complaints. I wanted to go back to a world where the monsters lived in my imagination, and there wasn’t a single danger that was permitted to cross my path.
    When my eyes came back into focus, seconds before I shed another tear for the grandmother—mother—I’d lost, I found a spoonful of steaming soup just before my lips.
    Was he feeding me? Seriously?
    Hesitantly, I blew the steam away then took what he was offering. I was sure it was all part of the show he was wordlessly forcing me