Ex-Daredevil by Zoe Lee
Chapter 16
Eliott
“Are you forfeiting?” Gavin asked as he strolled onto my porch, helmet under one arm.
That arrested my denial and panic and I closed my eyes, trying to regain my bearings. “No,” I repeated, opening my eyes and looking at him, my face stiff with tension. Fair was fair, but at the same time… I started, “You couldn’t have started with something—”
He put a hand on my hip, arresting my whiny protest, and smirked. “I take bets seriously, Eliott; I’m not going to go easy on you.” His eyes gleamed, knowing the innuendo would get a reaction out of me. “I expect you to give it to me as hard as you can.”
“It doesn’t seem prudent to ride a motorcycle, let alone ride one with a stiff cock.”
His hand shifted to cup it. “I’ll be the one driving, so you stay as stiff as you want.”
I took a deep breath and nodded, then clarified, “Only if you have a second helmet.”
He tugged me along with him using a finger hooked through my belt loop, which couldn’t have been any hotter unless he were naked, and assured me, “I’m not risking that big brain of yours.” When we were standing next to the motorcycle, something black with bright purple accents that looked designed for racing, he said seriously, “Okay, you need a safety lesson about motorcycles before I let you touch it. So I need you to pay attention.”
“I’m listening,” I said, even though my voice was rougher than usual.
Smartly, he moved back and explained basic motorcycle safety in a no-nonsense instructor’s voice, similar to his manner during our meeting on Thursday. It was tempting to let the assured tone wash over me and keep me stiff, but I had mastery over my own mind and body, damn it, so I listened carefully to everything that he told me. Not only was it necessary, it also calmed me down because the more I knew, the more prepared I felt. I liked—needed—to be prepared before I embarked on anything new, no matter what.
When he was done, he got out the other helmet and watched me intently as he put it on my head, adjusted the chin strap length, and buckled it on. “The most important thing,” he said as he swung a leg over and sat, then put up the kickstand, “is not to freak out and squeeze me as hard as you can. You’re strong enough to cut off my air or startle me.”
“I can handle it,” I said in my most confident tone.
He turned on the engine, then very slowly used his feet to swing the motorcycle around in my driveway, so that we wouldn’t have to back out. “Climb on.”
I eyed the motorcycle skeptically one more time, then gingerly moved like Gavin had until I was seated behind him. I looked down to the left side and the right side so I could see from this angle the spots where I would put my shoes once we were moving. Beneath me, it didn’t feel like a real seat, but I both admitted to and reminded myself that I actually did trust him or I never would have accepted the bet in the first place. I might have been come drunk at the time, but I never would have agreed if I had had any real doubts about him.
“Put your arms around me,” he instructed, the words muffled and toneless through the helmet. I did so and was glad that I was taller than he was otherwise I had no idea how I’d hold onto him without having to crane my neck sideways or back so I wouldn’t bang my helmet into his. “Now put your feet up where I showed you, and then we’ll go on a ride.”
It took me a few seconds to screw up the nerve, but I did it.
We idled on my driveway and I braced myself as if he was suddenly going to floor it—or maybe it was gunning it when it was a motorcycle and not a car, what did I know.
But of course he didn’t. The speed limit on my street was twenty-five.
“You ready?” he shouted after another minute.
“Why the hell not?” I shouted back.
And off we went.
The twenty-five miles an hour might as well have been an astronaut shooting into space in a rocketship. Certain aspects of the ride were fundamentally the same as a car ride, like that we were seated in a motor vehicle with a combustion engine and exhaust and gas and brake levers. But everything else was so new that it didn’t compare.
He guided us through my neighborhood, which was all the same speed limit and also had stop signs at nearly every intersection, so it let me get used to the startling swoop in my stomach every time we turned. Obvious as it had been, I was glad he’d reminded me not to squeeze him too hard, because that was my instinct, although I got used to it fast. I still made a little noise of dismay every time we switched lanes or went through a yellow light, but I was confident that there was no way for Gavin to hear it over all the damn noise.
By the time we turned into a city park, my jaw wasn’t clenched anymore and my muscles were starting to unlock. I’d never been here before, so I swiveled my head, trying to see through the helmet’s visor and limited field of vision. It was big and seemed pretty empty, and there was a lagoon in the middle as we drove in a sort of loop around the park. While it wasn’t the Chicago Botanic Garden, it wasn’t like it was a race track either.
The basic terror of the ride subsided and left me enough brain capacity to notice the thrum of the motorcycle under me. I supposed it would have been sexier in an obvious way if I were a woman, with the vibrations. But there was still a man’s ass snuggled into my groin, between my thighs, his taut, lithe body under my hands angled forward.
My fingers dug into him reflexively and my cock stiffened again.
Gavin rotated his hips like he knew exactly what my change in grip signaled, and I wanted to growl in his ear that he was a glorious tease and I couldn’t wait to get in him—
But there were the small matters of these absolutely necessary helmets and the fact that we had never discussed anal sex, so I had no idea if he liked it at all.
It didn’t make me any less stiff as he made a few more circuits of the park before he came to a stop near a huge glass greenhouse, which turned out to be a conservatory.
In my excitement over the gardens, I got off the motorcycle too quickly.
“Shit,” I exclaimed when my knees almost buckled. It was like getting off a roller coaster you’d never ridden before, except I hadn’t been anticipating it at all.
He caught me around the waist with a joyful laugh, getting my helmet off so that we were looking at each other, the tip of his nose brushing my chin. His braid was disordered, some pieces pulling loose and forming whorling shapes, but he was red-cheeked and… free.
I grabbed his face and kissed him hard, my zealousness sending him staggering back a few steps, but I stayed with him, unable to stop myself from rubbing my cock against his.
“I want to take you into those trees and fuck you,” I groaned.
“I fucking told you!” he exclaimed triumphantly.
Forcing myself to focus, I cocked an eyebrow and countered, “Yeah, everyone’s instinct is to fuck after they survive a near-death experience, Gavin. This is not the same as you telling me that you skydive because it makes you want to have sex. Not remotely.”
“But you said you do want to have sex with me,” he argued immediately.
“Of course I want to have sex with you—look at you!”
“Oh.” His red cheeks got even redder, the color extending down to his upper chest.
I touched it, almost surprised that it wasn’t burning hot, and felt his breaths come fast and choppy. “It’s not because I just took a motorcycle ride. You must have gone on hundreds of rides, lessons, a test to get your license, with friends or your cousins, right? So you know it’s true, even if there is something… illicit about riding behind you like that.”
“Do not mention my cousins right now,” he said, his face momentarily uncomfortable.
“Sorry.”
“But… yeah, you’re right,” he conceded, and I wondered if he knew it sounded like he was talking about something much more serious than the terms of this bet. “I wouldn’t have hit on you at that diner only because I went skydiving and it makes me horny and you were the one I almost hit. I could’ve almost hit a woman’s car, for example, or a gross old guy’s.”
That made me chuckle. “No women? I didn’t know how you identify.”
“Just plain old gay,” he said cheerfully, groping my ass. “I kissed a girl once at a concert, but it was by accident. I thought she was a cute femboy, but nope.”
“I kiss a woman once every five years,” I admitted, my feet starting to wander down the path from the parking lot towards the conservatory, drawn to its drowsy beauty.
“Why?” Gavin asked in horror. “I mean, no, you can kiss whoever you want, but… why?”
Snorting, I explained, “My mom thinks the most important thing you can do for yourself, and by extension the people you love, is know who you are. But we change all the time, so she thinks it’s important to reevaluate yourself too, so you don’t get too stubborn or complacent. I was twelve the first time I started to understand what the hell she was saying, and I asked her how often. She said every five years. She told me years later that she just threw out the number of years it’d be until she thought I’d have sex for the first time.”
Gavin dissolved into hysterics at that. I had to smile too, although when I’d confronted her about it when I was twenty-two, after I’d dutifully kissed a woman again, just to make sure, she’d had the same reaction as he was right now. I hadn’t talked to her for a month, I’d been so mortified that the number had been bullshit and I’d fallen for it.
“That’s cute,” he finally gasped out as we got inside the conservatory.
He immediately took off his sexy leather jacket and picked a direction, reaching out to touch a leaf or a flower delicately now and then.
“I wasn’t born a lawyer in a suit,” I pointed out sourly.
He looked at me sideways. “I can’t imagine you before this though.”
I breathed in the humid air and then just shrugged.
We walked quietly for a while, winding through the flora and fauna. Now it had the air of a date to it, especially since the sexual tension hadn’t entirely faded for me yet. It was down to a relaxed simmer though, and I enjoyed the way it pulsed through me, keeping me tied to the moment so that none of the annoyance over dates had the chance to rise up.
Everything we’d shared so far was important and was giving me hope that we could be compatible outside of sex and banter if I worked at it. But somehow, maybe because our first date hadn’t gone how I originally planned, we still hadn’t had the usual back and forth about our core beliefs. I agonized over what I’d do if we had opposite views for a few minutes, until I remembered all of the important things we’d shared with each other so far. I didn’t regret a second of being with him, and it was always better to know the truth.
“I love the way flowers and other aromatic plants smell, but perfume makes me sneeze,” I said, trying a new tactic for me because I didn’t want to cross-examine him.
“That sounds like one of your texts,” he replied, “like the one where you swore up and down that white wine makes you silly while red wine makes you, and I quote, maudlin.”
“Maudlin is a fantastic word.”
“Indubitably,” he teased. “It was an observation. But I love everything you tell me.”
It was said so easily, I had to lick my suddenly dry lips. Appreciation and affection didn’t come that easily to me, and most of my exes hadn’t been free with their appreciation or affection for me either, if they’d felt any. “Thank you,” I said a touch hoarsely.
“Was that your opening shot for trying to find out more about me?”
I laughed a little self-consciously as we passed an elderly couple shuffling along. “We’re doing things all out of order. We didn’t really cover the basics first. But I love what I’ve learned about you so far, even if it’s really different than what you’ve learned about me.”
He considered me, then nodded. “Okay, let’s do all the awkward ones. I’ll say a biggie, like, do you believe in god, who did you vote for, and we’ll both answer at the same time.”
The unique approach made me really hope we held similar values, because I’d hate to have to call a halt to it just because I found out we were mortal sociopolitcal enemies.
“Here we go!” he exclaimed, and then we started. After we more or less agreed on all the so-called biggies, Gavin started throwing out random topics, until he burst into guffaws when I looked horrified that he didn’t have a retirement account. “I didn’t go to college, so I had to bust my ass to even get a job that paid much over minimum wage. I’ll get there.”
My struggle to look understanding instead of horrified must have been obvious, because he patted my cheek and said, “Looks like we should debate the education system.”
I didn’t waste the opportunity, diving into it, and we made about a hundred circuits of the conservatory by the time Gavin led us out and back towards his motorcycle.