Tempered Steel (Steel Riders MC Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

thin smile and then got on the bike. He put his helmet back on and started the engine. He gave her a long look, then a nod, and gunned the motor, rocketing out and down the road.
     
    She had no idea why she was crying, but she was glad she was alone for the next hour.
     

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    Close to 7pm, Cynthia coasted her bike up her drive and cut the engine. She was halfway to the door when Hank called her cellphone.
     
    “You tired, or would you like some company?”
     
    “Yes, please,” she sighed.
     
    “I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I have an amazingly large bath tub. One of those monstrosities with the lion’s feet and everything.”
     
    She was already starting her bike back up. “No, you didn’t. You have been withholding vital information, mister! I don’t mind all the other secret squirrel stuff, but this? You withheld this?” She closed the connection and didn’t bother with her helmet.
     
    Gunning across the road and down his lane, she pulled up beside his bike in the covered area beside the house and then, laptop in hand, she ran up the stairs and through the porch.
     
    “Hank!” she called as she came in the house.
     
    “Upstairs,” he answered.
     
    After dropping her stuff on the couch, she ran up the stairs. She could running bath water as she climbed.
     
    Hank met her at the top landing. “I figured the sooner I got water in the tub, the sooner I would get you naked.”
     
    “Got that right,” she said, and started stripping.
     
    Shirt off and reaching for her bra strap, she spied a pastel colored box. “What’s that?”
     
    “I picked up some oils and stuff this afternoon. I didn’t really know what to get, or how involved you got into the whole bath experience thing, but the girl at the counter was very helpful.”
     
    “Was she now,” Cyn said, with mock jealousy.
     
    “Yes, and quite cute, actually, with the little nose and the dash of freckles on her cheeks—”
     
    Cyn punched him playfully in the gut. “Back to the whole ‘bath experience’ question, I was kind of hoping you would join me, and it might not be so good for you to be smelling like lilies in the morning. But on my own, I’m a serious witch’s brew bather.”
     
    “They won’t go to waste, then. I’ll be right back up. I’ve got a roast going in the slow cooker,” he told her, and he started for the stairs.
     
    “You cook?” she asked, slightly amazed.
     
    “Well, yeah,” he said as if that was sort of a silly question. “How can you eat well if you don’t know how to cook well?”
     
    “Take out,” she answered without hesitation.
     
    “Ah, so you’re one of those liberated types who see the kitchen as the next thing to a symbol of servitude.”
     
    “No. It was just dad and me through my teens, and we did a lot of take out and pizzas, and frozen things. Food was never really a priority with us. After I started college, I was introduced to the whole food experience thing and found that eating well was preferable to frozen burritos, but I didn’t have time to learn.”
     
    “And now?” he asked.
     
    “I’ve thought of taking classes several times, but never went. On my own, I revert back to frozen burritos and take out rather rapidly,” she told him with a shrug.
     
    “Hmmm. You’re like one of those swirly ice cream things. You have this amazing biker thing going on with swirls of random girly in you,” he observed.
     
    “Thank you, I think,” she said with an amused smile.
     
    “Be right back,” he told her.
     
    “I’ll be in your tub, and if you don’t hurry, I’ll start brewing potions,” she warned.
     
    Cynthia had never met a man who really understood the bath . They simply couldn’t comprehend that sitting in a bath, soaking in the heat, was doing something . Or that the goal of the bath was the bath itself; that it was its own fulfillment. Of course, with oils and essences, rubbing one out was always a fine way to enhance