The Handler (Noir et Bleu Motorcycle Club #2) by D. R. Graham Page B

table. “Then, about two weeks into the tour, I have a complete mental break down. Hal talks me down from the edge, and we do it all over again.”
    “Sounds fun.” I shot her a stern expression. “Seriously, you’re not going to wear clothes?”
    “I don’t want to get dressed into my costume yet. It’s too early. Why are you being such a prude? It’s no different than a bathing suit.”
    “I’m not going to stay here if you plan on prancing around half-naked all the time.”
    She huffed. “Grumpy Cain is back.”
    “How about a robe?”
    “Fine.” She stood up and wiggled her ass exaggeratedly as she walked over to the door that led to her room. I ignored her so as not to encourage the flirty behavior, but I couldn’t erase the image from my mind. It was going to be a long forty-three days. She reappeared a minute later wearing a pink silk robe and fluffy socks. She held my passport in her hand. “So, James Preston Allen, how did you get the nickname Cain?”
    “How did you get the name Lincoln, Tessa?”
    “My dad called me that because I was conceived in the back of a Lincoln. Classy, right?”
    “What do you want me to call you, Tessa or Lincoln?”
    She shrugged and opened the fridge to get an orange. “Whichever you like.”
    “Which one do you like better?”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    “If you don’t choose one, I’m going to call you Jailbait.”
    “I don’t care what you call me, James.” She sat on a bar stool and peeled the orange.
    “Call me Jamie or Cain. You sound like my grandma when you call me James.” I leaned back and pulled the string to open the wooden blinds and check out the view. There wasn’t much to see because we were on the highway surrounded by farm land.
    “Is it like Cain from the bible?”
    I turned around and checked out the satellite TV menu. “Cain from the bible murdered his own brother in a jealous rage.”
    She popped a segment of orange in her mouth and stared at me as she chewed. “So, you murdered your own brother?”
    I laughed because she sounded like she probably would have believed me if I said yes. “No. I was a shit disturber when I was a kid, and my mom used to always say she was raising Cain.”
    “Are you still a shit disturber?”
    My response was a mischievous smile before I got up to check what the fridge was stocked with. “What do you feel like for dinner or lunch or breakfast or whatever the hell meal it’s time for?”
    “You cook?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Surprise me.”
    I leaned on the open fridge door and glanced over my shoulder at her. “No. I’ll only cook for you if you tell me what you feel like.”
    “So manipulative.” She pressed the buttons on the stereo remote control. “I feel like pizza.”
    “All right, now we’re getting somewhere.” I found a can of tomato sauce and a bag of bakery pizza crusts in the cupboard, and cheese, peppers, and ham slices in the fridge.
    She tapped the remote control against her palm. “This isn’t working. It needs new batteries.” She pointed it at the stereo again. The light on the remote came on, but it didn’t turn the power on.
    I walked over and opened the panel in the wall that housed the electronics. One wire was loose, so I fixed it and hung the panel back up. “Try it now.”
    She turned the music on and seemed impressed that it was that easy for me to fix it. “Thanks.” She opened a magazine and said, “I like pineapples on my pizza, and you can call me whatever you want except not Linny. I don’t like Linny because it makes me feel like a little kid.”
    She was reading, so she didn’t notice that I smiled before I went back to making the ham and pineapple pizzas. “Do you normally travel by yourself in here?”
    She flipped through the magazine pages and answered without looking up. “When I was younger, my dad used to travel with me, but I’ve been traveling alone in my own bus since I was thirteen.”
    “You’ll probably find it annoying to have