Page 22 of Tank's Temptation

“It’s yours if you want it.” I force the rest out before she can make the offer easier for me. “I want to make room for you here. Your gear on those shelves, your clothes mixed with mine, you in this bed after all this is over. You keep your apartment, your work and every part of the life you built before me for now. I’m just asking for a real place in it, and I want you in mine.”

I can face guns, knives and a room full of men without feeling as exposed as I do waiting for her answer. Tessa picks up the key and turns it between her fingers. “Kidnapping me remainsan extremely poor first date, and you’ll be making up for that for a long time. I’m also not moving in with you after forty-eight hours, no matter how good the sex is.”

“I can work with all of that.”

“No, but your shelves were getting ambitious.” Her mouth curves as she slides the key into the front pocket of her jeans. “I need to deal with my apartment, replace half my equipment and find out whether the Ransom area has enough commercial property to keep a photographer busy. But I’m staying here for a while, Tank. We’ll work out the rest together.”

Hope hits too hard to show anywhere but my grip tightening on the dresser. “You’re staying?”

“For a while,” she repeats, though the key remains in her pocket. “Try not to scare me off before breakfast.”

“I’m starting to think you don’t scare easily.”

“You’re learning.” She smiles.

I catch her around the waist and lift her onto the dresser. She laughs once, breathless, before my mouth covers hers. The kiss is relief, possession and the hunger that hasn’t eased since the motel. Tessa opens for me, arms winding around my neck while her thighs spread around my hips. My hand slides beneath the shirt, stopping before the bruise. I touch the unmarked skin above it instead, and she draws my lower lip between her teeth.

“You’re being careful,” she murmurs.

“You were almost shot. I know you aren’t made of glass and you broke a camera over a man’s face, but I’m still allowed to care where you’re hurt.”

“The camera was insured,” she says, then presses closer and kisses the corner of my mouth. “And yes, you’re allowed.”

I laugh against her skin, the sound unfamiliar in my own room. Tessa stills for half a second, then pulls me closer as if she wants that part too. Her damaged camera sits beside us, the keyrests in her pocket, and her arms remain locked around my neck long after the danger is over.

EPILOGUE - TESSA

TWO MONTHS LATER

Tank looks directly into my lens half a second after the shutter clicks.

He’s sitting beside his motorcycle in the compound garage, one forearm braced across his bent knee and a wrench hanging from his other hand. Black grease marks his fingers. His cut rests over the workbench behind him, leaving the tattoos across his shoulders visible beneath one of his fitted black T-shirts.

Even seated, he looks like the reason sensible men reconsider bad decisions.

“Delete it.”

I lower the camera. “No.”

Tank’s gaze narrows, but there’s a slight softness around his mouth that nobody else would notice. I caught that too.

Six weeks ago, I photographed a murderer and nearly died for the proof. Now half my camera lenses occupy the shelves in Tank’s room, my equipment has taken over one end of his dresser, and commercial-property clients throughout the Ozarks have learned that their photographer sometimes arrives with a heavily tattooed biker behind her.

Tank claims he only rides with me when a location is isolated, but yesterday’s shoot was a florist in the center of town.

He puts down the wrench and crooks one finger. “Come here.”

“That usually works on your prisoners?”

“It works on you.”

“Occasionally.”

I set the camera safely on the workbench before stepping between his spread knees. Tank catches my hips and pulls me close until my thighs touch his. His thumbs slide beneath the hem of my shirt, rough against my skin.

“Why do you keep taking pictures of me?” he asks.

“Because you hate it.”