"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" I sat up, yanking my jeans back into place. "You wanted this as much as I did."
"That doesn't make it right!" She finally looked at me, panic replacing the satisfaction that had been there moments before. "This can't happen, Wolf. It can never happen again."
"Bullshit."
"It's not bullshit, it's reality." She was fully dressed now, or as dressed as she could be with her hair wild and lips swollen. "I have a job. A reputation. I can't be the deputy who's fucking the VP of the Pike Creek Riders."
"You just were."
"That was—" She stopped, pressing her hands to her face. "That was temporary insanity. Three weeks of... of whatever this is making me crazy. But it's done now. We got it out of our systems."
I laughed, harsh and disbelieving. "Out of our systems? You think that's how this works?"
"It has to be."
We stared at each other in the dark cruiser, the smell of sex still heavy in the air, both of us breathing hard for entirely different reasons now.
"Fine." I pulled out my phone, done with this conversation. "You want to pretend this never happened? Your choice."
"What are you doing?"
"Calling the sheriff's department." I found the non-emergency number, hit dial. "Yeah, this is Wolf McCarthy. Found Deputy Jenkins broken down on Mountain Road, mile marker 47. Alternator's shot... Yeah, she's ok…yeah, I’ll wait with her.”
I hung up, meeting her shocked gaze. "There. Now you're covered. Just another Good Samaritan helping a stranded deputy."
"Wolf—"
"Save it." I climbed out of the cruiser, needing air, needing distance from her and her regrets. "You want to pretend this meant nothing? That we didn't just burn up together? Your call."
She followed me out, standing by her dead cruiser looking lost. "It's not that simple."
"It's exactly that simple. You either want this or you don't." I swung onto my bike, starting the engine. "Looks like you don't."
"Where are you going? You said you'd wait?—"
"Changed my mind. Backup's coming. You' can handle yourself right?” I revved the engine. "Sorry this wasn't what you wanted, Deputy Jenkins."
"That's not—" But I couldn't hear the rest over the roar of my bike.
I drove away, watching her in my mirrors—standing there by that broken-down cruiser, looking small and alone in the darkness. Part of me wanted to turn around, to fight harder, to make her admit what we both knew.
But she'd made her choice.
And I was done begging Quinn Jenkins to want me.
Even if we both knew she already did.
CHAPTER 5
QUINN
Three days since the mountain road. Three days of taking the long way around town, switching shifts with Deputy Roberts, eating lunch in my cruiser instead of at Bea's Diner where I might see him.
Three days of my body betraying me every time I caught a glimpse of a motorcycle, every time I drove past the Pike Creek Riders' garage on Highway 7.
Pike Creek was too small for this kind of avoidance. At the grocery store, Elmer Simmons mentioned seeing Wolf help Mrs. Patterson with her flat tire yesterday—while I'd been deliberately patrolling the opposite side of town. At the gas station, Kevin kept giving me those knowing looks that said the whole town already knew about our midnight encounter, department backup call or not.
But it was dinner with Dad that really drove it home.
