Taming Blaze by Sabrina Paige Page A

right?  I couldn't really be faulted for that.  "Whatever.  How much can I take?"
    "He re."  He tossed me a backpack.
    "Seriously?"
    "Seriously."  He said it, his tone all business.  "Plus whatever can fit in the saddlebags."
    "Fine."  I was exasperated.  I opened my suitcase in the middle of the driveway, digging through my carefully packed bag, pulling out panties and bras, stuffing them in the backpack.  I was aware of Blaze's eyes on me, and I looked up at him.  "What?  Are you going to just stand there and stare at me?  You want to see what kind of underwear I'm bringing?"  I didn't give a shit if we’d had sex.  He was the one conspiring with my father, and now he was getting on my nerves.
    Blaze raised his eyebrows.  "Nope."   He walked off, standing by his bike, looking out onto the front lawn.
    Screw him.  And screw my father.
    I pulled out what I needed, and tossed the backpack at him when I was done.  As I stuffed my shoes in one of the saddlebags, I looked at him.  "Where are you taking me?"
    "You’ll see when we get there."  H is voice was cold.  “It’s not like you’re going to be wearing a blindfold or anything.”
    "How do I know you're not going to chain me to the radiator in some shithole somewhere?”
    The corners of his mouth turned up, and he leaned in close to me, breath hot on my ear.  "You should be so lucky."
    "Fuck you," I said.  Blaze was treating this like a joke, and it wasn't funny.  He didn't have the capacity to understand the stupid shit he had gotten into here by aligning with my father.  I'd pegged him as smarter than that.
    He drew ba ck sharply, his face stony.  "Go tell your father goodbye,” he said.
    "We're not speaking."
    "Go tell him goodbye.  He's standing right there."
    I looked at Blaze, my eyes burning with hatred.  How dare he tell me what to do?  He was exactly like my father.  I don't know what I saw in him back at the diner, or at the hotel.  But whatever it was, it was gone now.  The person who stood in front of me now, the one who was complicit with my father, was not the same one who had held me in the hotel bathtub the other night.
    “Don’t tell me what to do,” I said.  But I did it anyway, stomping back over to my father.
    "It won't be for long," my father said.
    "When I get back, I'm not staying here anymore."  It was my last act of defiance before I left.
    My father nodded.  "You can go somewhere else."
    "Good."  I turned, walking back to Blaze.  I hadn't expected my father to roll over like that when I said I wasn't coming back to him.  I'd expected more of a reaction from him.  It was the truth, though.  After this, I was done with him and done with his lifestyle.  It had caused me nothing but heartache.  I would rather drop out of school and become a bartender than keep getting involved in this crap.
    Blaze handed me a helmet.  "Put it on."  Then the backpack. 
    I rode, hands wrapped around him.  My heart skipped as I held him tightly, my body molded to his.  Just like before.
    No.  Not just like before.
    What wasn't like before was that I was being kidnapped by this man who was in collusion with my father.  So, no it wasn’t the same.  Last time, I had chosen to go with him.  That was not true this time.
    I recognized less and less of the scenery as we wound through back roads out of Los Angeles.  I watched exits, tried to memorize the path we took.  Then I gave up, realizing he was taking me on some circuitous path out of the city, either to keep me from memorizing the route or to throw off a tail.  I suspected it was the latter.  I had driven enough with my father to recognize evasive maneuvers.  Even so, it made me worried.  I didn’t really know anything about this man.  Sure, it was supposed to be protection, but it felt a hell of a lot more like a kidnapping.  Did I really know what he was capable of?  He was one of my father’s henchmen, so it couldn’t be anything good.
    We pulled