Page 15 of Tank's Temptation

Tank taps twice against the back of my chair. “If you see that signal, drop and move left. Don’t wait for me to say it.”

“I won’t.”

Tank’s fingers tighten against the chair. He knows I mean it, but he also knows plans don’t survive contact with men like Harlan. The meeting breaks without ceremony. Gray leaves first for the river road. Judge checks his weapon while talking quietly with Kane, and Cash gathers my photographs into a folder for the anonymous tip that will lead Sheriff Miller to Morrow’s body and Harlan’s operation.

Tank waits until the room has almost emptied before saying, “We’ve got thirty minutes.”

His voice changes my pulse more efficiently than the sight of the guns, and I follow him down the hall.

Tank closes the bedroom door behind us. His room looks as it did the first night, but now my clothes are scattered among his. His black shirt hangs over the chair. One of my bras is somehow on the dresser beside his gun.

Tank removes the magazine, checks it, then slides it back into place. His hands are steady. Only the split skin across his knuckles proves what those hands did this morning.

“Cash can take you to Springfield tomorrow,” he says. “Your apartment needs checking before you go inside, but Gray can send someone ahead.”

I watch him secure the weapon beneath his cut. “You’ve planned my whole morning. It sounds like you’re arranging the fastest possible way to get me out of your room.”

Tank’s gaze lifts to mine. “I planned security. Sending you away isn’t what I want.”

“Then why does it sound like goodbye?”

His jaw shifts, and for once the answer doesn’t come easily. Tank can walk into a motel room and take a woman against her will without raising his voice. He can break a man’s finger without hesitation. Asking for something he might not be given seems to frighten him more than either.

“You have work in Springfield,” he says eventually. “An apartment. A life that was already yours before Harlan put you in mine.”

“And you think there’s no room for you in it?”

“I think you’ve known me two days, and one of them started with me kidnapping you.”

“That’s a strong argument against you.”

“Trust me, I know that.”

The corner of my mouth almost moves into a smile, but the resignation in his face stops it. He genuinely expects the end of the danger to be the end of us, not because he wants that, but because he cannot imagine being wanted when nobody needs his protection.

I cross the room and take the gun from beneath his cut.

Tank lets me. His eyes follow as I set it on the dresser, safely out of the way, then slide both hands beneath the leather at his shoulders.

“I’m still working out what happens after tonight,” I tell him. “I haven’t forgotten how we met, and wanting you doesn’t make the rest simple.”

“I never asked you to.”

“No, you skipped straight to sending me away.” I push his cut down his arms and hang it carefully over the chair. “Stop doing that.”

Tank stands in front of me wearing a black shirt stretched across his chest, his gaze fixed on my face. “I’ve never wanted a woman here like this before.”

The confession is quiet and more naked than his body was last night.

“What did you want before?”

“Nothing that lasted. This is different.” His eyes move over me, slow and hungry. “I want you in this bed when nobody’s guarding the door. I want you on my bike when you’ve got somewhere else you could be. I want to know what you look like when you’re angry about something that isn’t trying to kill you.”

“That last part seems ambitious.”

“It doesn’t scare me.”

I grip the hem of his shirt. “Good.”