Page 31 of Diesel’s Desire

“Then why are you standing in my evidence room at eleven at night?”

“Because I don’t care.” It comes out rougher than I mean it to, honest in a way I haven’t let myself be with her since I walked out her door with my pride intact and nothing else. “I told myself I’d give you space. Told myself I’d let you call when you were ready. Lasted two days, Penny. Two days, and I’m driving past this building multiple times a day like some kind of⁠—”

“Stalker,” she finishes, but there’s no real venom in it.

“Something like that.”

She doesn’t move away. I take that for what it is—not permission exactly, but not refusal either, the same crack in the door she left me at that lunch table, the same I didn’t say yes, I didn’t say no.

“This is insane,” she whispers. “You know that, right? We’re standing in an evidence room. There are shelves full of⁠—”

“I know what’s in it.”

“Do you?” Something flickers across her face, fast, gone before I can chase it down. “There’s a case file three shelves over with your club’s name written all over it in ways you don’t even know about.”

“Then let’s not talk about the shelves.”

I close the last of the distance, and she doesn’t step back this time, back already against the steel edge of the rack behind her, boxes rattling faintly when her shoulder brushes them. Close enough now that I can hear her breath catch, see the pulse going hard at the base of her throat.

“Evan.” Barely a whisper. “Someone could walk in.”

“Then we’ll be quick.”

“That’s not—” Her hands come up, fist in the front of my shirt, and I can’t tell if she’s pulling me closer or bracing to shove me back, and neither can she, from the look on her face. “This is my job.”

“I know.” I get a hand in her hair, careful of the tight bun, working it loose one pin at a time because I want it down, want it the way it was at the wedding, gold and soft between my fingers instead of scraped back into armor. “Tell me to stop.”

She doesn’t.

I kiss her instead, slow at first, giving her the exit she keeps saying she wants and never takes, and she makes a sound against my mouth that isn’t a protest, isn’t anything close to one, and her hands slide up into my hair and pull me down harder like she’s the one who can’t wait anymore.

“We can’t,” she breathes, even as her hips roll into mine.

“We’re already doing it.”

“Evan—”

“Say stop.” I drag my mouth along her jaw, down her throat, feel her pulse jump under my lips. “One word, and I walk out that door right now.”

She doesn’t say it. Her fingers find my belt instead.

“If anybody finds out—” she starts.

“Nobody’s finding out.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t care.” I get her belt undone, pull the zipper on her uniform pants down and she’s already breathing hard, head tipping back against the shelf hard enough that a box shifts. “Missed this too much to care.”

“This is completely unprofessional.”

“So’s what you’re about to let me do to you against a shelf full of evidence.” I get my hand inside her waistband, and the sound she makes when I find her already soaked cuts off whatever argument she was building. “You want me to stop talking about it, or you want me to stop doing it?”

“Don’t stop doing it,” she gasps. “God, don’t stop.”

I don’t. I work her slow at first, feel her hips chase my hand, her breath coming ragged against my ear, one hand fisted white-knuckled in the front of my shirt and the other braced flat against the steel shelf behind her like she needs the anchor.

“Quiet,” I murmur against her throat, though I’m the one who wants to hear every sound she’s biting back. “Building’s not that empty.”