HER ONLY HOPE (LK Adaptation)

Part 32

'What do you think, Lalisa? Are you afraid to ride with me?'

'Are you trying to goad me?'

He laughed softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. 'Perhaps a little.' He strode to the wall and removed two immaculate helmets, shiny and dark. 'If you don't want to ride, we can go in the car.' He nodded towards the four-wheel drive. 'You can't reach as many places on the island, but it will still give you a good overview.'

Her lips tugged to the side as she considered the options. The problem wasn't that she didn't want to ride on the motorbike, it was how much she did. Suddenly the thought of straddling the powerful machine, her arms wrapped around Jungkook's waist, pushed her senses into overdrive. Resisting him would be a Sisyphean task. So why, why, why did she start walking towards the bike, eyeing it as though it were some kind of irresistible dessert?

'Promise you won't tell my parents?' she joked, earning a smile from him that made her feel as though the sun were shining all its warmth directly through her.

'Cross my heart.' He walked towards her then, helmet in hand, pausing a foot or so away, before lifting the helmet towards her head.

'I can do it,' she said, though in truth Lisa had no idea how to fasten a motorbike helmet.

He ignored her interjection, sliding the safety device onto her head and checking the fit. Even when he was satisfied, he didn't step away.

'I like doing your firsts with you.' There was no humour in his voice now, only a deep, gruff intensity that flooded her body with awareness and heat of an entirely different nature to the sunshine warmth his smile had invoked.

It was an inescapable reference to the night they'd slept together, and she felt as though she'd been plunged into a river of lava. Memories assaulted her from every direction, but his words were a contradiction to the pain of those memories. He hadn't liked anything about that night; he'd made that perfectly clear.

'So what do I do?' she asked, glad he couldn't see her pink cheeks through the dark tint of the helmet.

He returned to the bench to pick up his own helmet and secure it, then moved to the bike, straddling it easily with his long legs. 'Sit behind me,' he said simply, then revved the engine to life, so the thrum of power reverberated in the pit of her stomach and she felt a rush of daring and excitement.

She was glad he wasn't looking, because the motion of getting onto the seat was nowhere near as easy for her, particularly when she tried to keep her distance from him.

'Grab on,' he said, once she slid into place behind him, a leg on either side of his, so she was intimately aware of him regardless of how she tried to keep some small distance between them. 'Or you'll fall off,' he added over the low throb of the engine, giving her little choice but to wriggle all the way forward and wrap her hands around his waist.

On second thoughts, perhaps they should have taken the car. At least in the four-wheel drive, she'd have had her own seat, and a whole console between herself and Jungkook. She was opening her mouth to say exactly that when he gave the engine another rev and drove forward, straight out of the garage and onto the driveway. From that moment, Lisa 's heart was in her mouth as adrenaline overtook her system.

There was a track she hadn't noticed before, because it was narrow, carved between grass, but it took them away from the house, higher up, along the edge of the island, until white cliffs formed a sheer drop beneath them, and unconsciously she held on tighter, as the terrain grew more beautiful and more threatening, as fear warred with wonder, and she had to take deep breaths to calm her wildly firing nerves.
The bike hummed beneath her, and Jungkook's warm, strong body was wedged at her front, so when she inhaled she caught a frustratingly light hint of his masculine fragrance and desire shifted through her at the provocation. Her hands pressed to his chest, feeling his strength and power, his muscular chest and steady heart, and as he steered, his arms brushed hers, so her mouth went dry and breathing became almost impossible.