“What about ‘people like me’?” Then, when I see he won’t answer, I pull out my phone.

“Calling Daddy?”

“I’m calling Triple-A.”

Brandon pulls out his own phone and starts tapping on it in an exaggerated manner. He holds it to his ear. “Oh, me too. Hello? Who’s there? No fucking service!”

“And this is my fault?”

He looks over, eyes boring into mine, and shakes his head. “If I hadn’t stopped the truck, this wouldn’t have happened.”

I match him, staring back, leaning in slightly. “It’s not my fault you can’t stop your truck without it dying.”

We stare for a few tense seconds, eye to eye. And then something snaps, and he comes at me, his breath hot and hard. His lips claim mine, and I kiss him back, hard.

My internal signals are confused in an intense emotional soup: I’m furious, frustrated, aroused, attracted, hateful, longing, hot tempered — soaking wet.

I can barely form words, so I don’t.

I let him take me and paw at his chest, at his back, at his belt.

I’m pressed against the door as he climbs over the console, his movements clumsy and rushed. There’s nothing in his eyes but raw need. There’s nothing in his kiss but lust and urgency. My tongue fights back, taking him in, grasping the skin of his neck, sliding my hands under his shirt as I reach over his shoulders to his back, feeling the muscle there.

Fabric is in my way, so I pull my hands back and reach for his buttons as he paws my breasts through my dress. Then his mouth is on my neck, kissing up the side, to under my ear. I feel crushed, and he’s halfway bent on the console, but he must see it because one hand goes up to the door handle and yanks it open.

I almost spill to the dirt but recover enough to sit sideways and swing my legs out, not sure where I’m meant to go. We’re all pants and grunts, like rabid animals. My breathing is thick and deep; I can feel heat coming up from the bottom of my lungs as I practically roll out. Brandon is right behind me, shambling, half falling.

My legs give way as intense pressure, denied for hours, begins to swell. I buckle down, and he pulls me up, pressing me against the truck’s side. Then we’re sliding along the body toward the back, and Brandon lowers the lift gate. He puts his hands on my hips again, but this time there’s no courtesy. Only desire.

My ass thumps onto the tailgate as Brandon’s eyes devour mine. All I see is his want, his desire, his naked need.

Then he’s up in the bed with me, and my hands dart to his belt, unbuckling, unfastening his pants, undoing his zipper, reaching inside to take what I need. My hand closes on his length as he raises my hips, shoving my dress up, reaching beneath it to hook his fingers in the sides of my panties and yank them down to my ankles.

I push Brandon’s pants down to his thighs. His hand cups my sex, his fingers sliding up and down in the wetness of my cleft.

Our eyes meet. His breath is heavy. He knee-walks forward and puts the head of his cock against me. The first push is slow, so I reach around behind him and pull him inside me, feeling full, like a bomb has finally gone off.

We go until he’s finished. In that time, I climax twice. The first time, I bite his neck. I rake my nails up his back, claiming him as my own.

Then it’s over, and he collapses still inside me.

We fall asleep in the dark, our itches and anger scratched.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Brandon

I WAKE UP WONDERING WHO’S spent several hours beating my backbone with a sledgehammer.

It’s dark, but there’s a definite muted red blush to the east. It takes me one or two solid seconds to even remember where I am — not because I was so drunk as to forget, but because it’s all very improbable. I do sleep in a pitch-black room at home, but it’s not on stamped sheet metal with a spare trailer hitch cozied up beneath me. I have one of those foam pillows. Waking up with my head cocked nearly 90 degrees sideways, wedged against a corner, is distinctly different.

Everything hurts.

I sit up, realizing it’s because I’ve been here a lot longer than I thought I would.

When I fell asleep how long I thought I’d be here was maybe a few minutes. Long enough to appease the sense of intense fatigue that overcame me when we were —

I blink in the darkness. I look down.

— when we were done. Done having sex.

Me and Riley James.

Ah, shit.

This isn’t like sneaking out after a one-night stand. She’s just a lump in the darkness right now and is sleeping like the dead, so I’ll bet I could slide off this truck bed and run off into the field. But I’m not trying to leave an apartment; this time, I’m in the middle of a fucking field. A field that’s maybe halfway between the center of Inferno Falls and Cherry Hill.

It’s all coming back as cobwebs depart.

The truck is dead.

As of last night, we couldn’t even get cell service.

There are fifteen or twenty solid seconds wherein I consider leaving anyway. No, this isn’t your typical one-night stand due to location, but all the other hallmarks are there. I feel strange and filled with a deep sense of regret, maybe shame. I try to consider what will happen when she wakes up, and it nearly makes me panic because awkward doesn’t begin to cover what things will be like. If this were my place, I’d want her to leave. If we were at hers, I’d gather my stuff and creep out.

I could do that. After all, the truck’s battery is gone. I can’t call the auto club with my phone or hers unless I find some cell service, and I’m not going to get a ride unless someone practically runs into me. The answer to both dilemmas is the road, a few hundred feet away, behind the corn.

But I can’t do it. I’m going to have to start walking at some point, probably, but I’m not a big enough son of a bitch to leave Riley alone. A young woman, waking up alone in the middle of nowhere, marooned and helpless. She could fall victim to all sorts of things.

I can’t leave, and I sure as hell don’t want to wake her. So I slide to the dirt and fish out my phone.

Jesus. It’s almost five fucking a.m. No wonder I hurt. I slept on a trailer hitch for most of a night.

But more interestingly, my phone has bars.

Specifically, it has one bar.

I try to call directory assistance, but the call keeps glitching out and disconnecting. I text Bridget, and it seems to go through. It’s sternly worded. It manages to remind her that this is her fault and that she owes me one for that money I recently gave her without sounding, I hope, like too much of an asshole. I tell her she owes us not just a jumpstart for the truck, but also a ride home for Riley. Because not only do I have a meeting to prepare for, I can’t stand the thought of spending another half hour or more in a car with her. Not now. No way.

I sit on a big rock by the road. Maybe someone will drive by.

But I get up after a few minutes and head back to the truck because if someone sees me and stops, I’ll have to accept their help. I’ll have to use their battery to jumpstart mine, and then it’ll be up to me, again, to get Riley safely home with the pall of wrongdoing above us like a cloud.

I’m just starting to think Bridget won’t show up when she finally pulls into the lot.