The wind blew through my hair, streaming it back under the helmet as the massive engine purred between my legs, vibrating through my entire body. I gripped Alex’s waist with my hands, my breasts pressing against his back as we leaned into the turn. His body was icy even through his butt-hugging jeans and snug leather jacket. He smelled like Bay Rum, and by now, I knew that scent all too well. I knew every curve of his body—six weeks of steady sex had ensured that.
We were headed toward the 520 Bridge, and as we neared the floating bridge that stretched out for over a mile over the lake separating Seattle from the Greater Eastside, I could feel the call of the water—a deep, sensual recognition that washed through my core, making me ache for its depths. The water and I had a special connection, seeing that I was a blue dragon and my very nature was connected to the life-affirming liquid. But tonight we weren’t headed to the beach so I could swim. No, it was party time.
I wasn’t sure exactly where we were going, but apparently Bette was in charge of it, and that was all Alex would tell me. “Unless you’ve been to one of Bette’s parties, you’ve never been to a party.”
With that less-than-comforting thought ringing in my head, I swung onto the back of his Suzuki Hayabusa and held on as we swung out into the April night, under a heavy cloud cover. As we wove through the silent city streets, Alex deftly maneuvered the rumbling machine through the labyrinth of roads. Seattle had to have been planned out by some drug-crazed cartographer who randomly decided to have one-way streets change direction at major intersections.
As we gobbled up the miles, the streets grinding beneath the bike’s wheels, I glanced up at the pale shadow of the moon. She was gleaming from behind the cloud cover, two days past full. We were on the bridge now, and the wind was churning the water to splash up and over the edge. To our left, the specter of the new bridge they were building rose into the air, a dark silhouette of a bigger, wider passage, a reminder of how outdated and potentially dangerous the current bridge had become. There was a one in twenty chance it would go down, floundering to the bottom, if the area had another major earthquake. And the chances of a major earthquake in Seattle? Were when, not if.
We passed a car that had stalled out, and then we were over Lake Washington and coming up on Bellevue. But we were headed to a private residence on Lake Sammamish in Redmond. Not Bette’s—she lived on a houseboat at the Gasworks Marina—but her current beau’s house. Apparently he was some software engineer at a startup that had firmly put down roots in the area. High tech was king here, and this was the land of Microsoft, Starbucks, and money.
I inhaled another breath of Alex’s cologne. It was comforting—familiar in a world that was so alien to me. In my world, I had nothing like this. In my world, I was an outcast, pariah. Here, I mattered. At least in some small way.
We leaned into the gentle curve of the exit as we swung off of 520 and onto West Lake Sammamish Parkway NE. As we passed through the suburbs and past Marymoor Park, we came to a fork in the road, where the parkway split off into Bel-Red Road. We veered left, keeping on the parkway, as we curved toward Lake Sammamish. A few minutes later we swung onto NE 38th Street and down to the end next to Idylwood Park. To the left were a string of houses and we pulled into the driveway of the last one before the lakeshore. There were a string of cars already here. I gazed up at the house. It was huge—one of what were commonly called McMansions around these parts, and it had its own private beach access.
As Alex idled the motor, then switched it off, I unbuckled my helmet and slipped it off, shaking my hair free. I swung off the bike, hopping aside, as Alex put down the kickstand and then joined me. We hung the helmets over the handles of the bike and—as I ordered my hair to straighten itself and smooth out the frizz—we headed for the beach.
Alex wrapped his arm around my waist. One thing I’d say for him—he made an attentive boyfriend. I wondered for the umpteenth time why Glenda had let him get away. He was a handful when it came to stubbornness, but in the six weeks we had been going out, I had never once felt neglected. In fact, in some ways, the attention was overwhelming.
I was six feet tall, and Alex had me beat by an inch or so. His wheat-colored hair was tousled and shoulder length, and his eyes were pale—frosty. Handsome in a scruffy, rugged way, he also happened to be a vampire, and he also happened to be my boss and parole officer, so to speak.
“Where is everybody?” I glanced around, looking for the party site.