THE BIKER'S TEACHER

Learning the hard way

SHANE

The mahogany door locked behind me, cutting off the suffocating silence of the rest of the house. I didn't touch the light switch. I couldn't bear to see the rows of leather-bound books lining the walls—thousands of pages of expensive, mocking geometry I couldn't decipher.

I let the darkness take me. The only illumination came from the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, where pale, silver moonlight flooded the oak floorboards. I tore off my suit jacket and threw it into the dark, collapsing into the leather armchair. I stared at the moon, my chest heaving, waiting for the burning hum in my brain to finally stop.

A sharp, metallic click broke the quiet.

The door opened just enough to let a slender silhouette slip into the silver light. Daisy. She was in a simple, charcoal-grey cotton tank top and dark leggings. Her hair was completely wet, slicked straight back from her forehead, dripping small, rhythmic drops of water onto the collar of her shirt.She walked across the moonlit floor, her bare feet making no sound on the wood. She stopped right at the edge of my desk, leaning against the heavy mahogany, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You failed tonight because your eyes are weak," Daisy said. You panic when you look at a page. Your throat closes. Your brain freezes. The paper is your enemy."

I ground my teeth, my hands gripping the armrests of my chair until the leather groaned. "I told you to leave, Daisy. I am not in the mood for a lecture from the help."

"Shut up, Shane," she groaned. "We hate each other. Let's not pretend otherwise. You think I’m a vulture, and I think you’re a fragile, arrogant child hiding behind a bank account. But your father paid me to make sure this firm doesn’t collapse when you open your mouth. So, the old way is dead. No more flashcards. No more cheat sheets."

She reached out, her fingers wrapping tightly around the lapel of my dress shirt, pulling me forward.

"From now on, you are going to learn with your hands," Daisy whispered, her wet hair shifting against her neck. "We are going to trace the words into your skin until you can feel them in the dark. If you can't read the alphabet, you are going to bleed it."

I stood there, completely dumbfounded. My mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out. The sheer audacity of her words hung in the frigid air, my mind completely paralyzed by the sudden, dangerous shift in the rules of our game.

"You're out of your mind," I breathed, the words barely catching in my throat.

She let go of my lapel, but before I could step back, her hand shot out, her fingers wrapping around my right wrist. She dragged me around the edge of the desk into the direct beam of the moonlight.

"Sit," she commanded, pointing to the low, leather bench against the window.

"I don't take orders from—"

She yanked my arm down, using her entire body weight to force me onto the bench. I could have overpowered her easily—I had seventy pounds on her—but the sheer, icy certainty in her eyes froze me. I sat.

She dropped to her knees right between my thighs, her wet hair brushing against my trousers. She was completely in my space, her charcoal tank top inches from my chest. We hated each other but this proximity was a different kind of violence.

"Give me your hand," she ordered.

"No."

She simply took my left hand, pulling it flat against her own collarbone.

"Close your eyes, Shane."

"Like hell—"

"Close them," she hissed, her face tilting up, her dark eyes flashing in the silver light. "Or I walk out that gate right now and let the board butcher you tomorrow at nine."

My eyelids snapped shut.Suddenly, my world shrank down to the points of physical contact. The cold floorboards beneath my boots. The tight, unyielding manacles of her fingers around my wrists. And the skin beneath my left palm.

"You're going to learn the first letter of the merger code," Daisy whispered, her breath hot against my chin. "The letter is M. Feel it."

She took my index finger, pressing the pad of it firmly against the skin just below her throat, right where the bone met the muscle. Then, she began to drag it.

"Down," she murmured, her grip on my finger tight, forcing me to bear down. "That's the first pillar. Now up to the center."

She pushed my finger diagonally upward, over the fragile, shifting tendons of her neck. I could feel her pulse throbbing violently against my fingertip—fast, erratic, and just as terrified as mine, despite her cold composure. She wasn't indifferent; she was just as wound up in this twisted game as I was.

"Now down again," she commanded, dragging my finger in a sharp V. "Feel the valley. Feel where the lines meet."

The friction of my calloused finger against her soft skin created a heavy, suffocating heat in the dark. I could hear the slight, ragged catch in her breath every time my finger pressed harder into her collarbone.

"And the last pillar. Down." She slammed my hand downward, ending the shape right over the top of her sternum.

"What is it?" she whispered, her lips so close I could feel the microscopic shift of the air when she spoke.

"M," I croaked. The letter didn't swim . It was burned into my mind, mapped out by the topography of her body.

"Again," Daisy commanded, her grip tightening until it borders on painful. "You don't get to stop until you can draw it on me in your sleep."