Page 2 of Tank's Temptation

“Let me go.”

“Stop fighting me then.”

“Get your hands off me and I will.”

His breath touches the side of my neck. My skin tightens everywhere. For one terrible second, neither of us moves. Hisbody is hard along the full length of mine, his hold absolute without being painful. I hate the security of it. I hate the answering heat between my thighs more.

When I stop struggling, Tank releases me immediately and steps back, putting cold air where his body was. His face remains stern, but his hand flexes once at his side.

“You’re coming with me,” he says.

“I’m not.”

He picks up my laptop, closes it, and slides it into the padded section of my camera bag. He checks the zipper as if handling expensive equipment matters while abducting its owner.

I grab the motel phone. The cord jerks taut before I can dial. Tank takes the receiver from my hand and replaces it.

“Harlan has your name, your car, and your apartment address. This room wasn’t hard to find.”

“And you think going with you improves my chances of getting away from any of this?”

“I think you’re going either way.”

The cold certainty in his voice finally cracks something inside me. I shove him, aiming both hands at the center of his chest. He barely rocks back.

“Go to hell.”

Tank catches me around the hips and lifts me.

There’s no struggle, no show of effort. One moment my boots are on the ugly carpet, the next I’m against him with my camera bag trapped safely between us. I hit his shoulder and demand he put me down, but he carries me through the door and along the outside walkway as if I weigh nothing.

A television blares behind the next room’s curtains. Somewhere below us, a couple argues beside the ice machine. Nobody opens a door or even notices or cares that I’m being abducted by a biker.

Tank sets me on my feet beside a black motorcycle parked beneath the buzzing motel sign.

Rain beads across the fuel tank. The bike looks heavy, polished, and brutally real.

He takes a spare helmet from the rear storage compartment and holds it toward me. “Put it on.”

“You’re kidnapping me and worried about road safety?”

“I’m not riding with you unprotected.”

The words land differently than he means them to. His eyes darken slightly, as though he hears it too, but his arm remains extended.

I take the helmet because refusing only gives him another reason to touch me. While I fasten it, Tank puts my camera bag in the storage with careful, efficient movements, checking it twice before he swings onto the bike.

“Get on.”

I consider running. The highway is fifty feet away, wet and nearly empty, and he already proved how easily he can catch me. Tank waits without looking back, apparently certain I’ll reach the same conclusion.

I climb on behind him, leaving as much space as the seat allows.

“Arms around me.”

“I can hold the rail.”

“No.”