Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Tatum

Another quiet night.

Not totally dead, at least. There are two customers seated at the counter eating burgers and discussing truck routes. Near the window, there is a lovestruck teenage couple that I’m pretty sure are runaways. They paid me in quarters and their feet are resting on duffel bags beneath the table.

Everyone has paid their check, so I’m leaning on the counter, pencil in hand, working on my latest panel, which is basically just Comeback Girl fan fiction. In this scene, she is charming the devastatingly sexy truck driver, totally robbing him of his common sense with a bat of her eyelashes. She’s pretending not to know he’s evil and, of course, he has underestimated the underdog at his own peril.

This scene is nothing like what happened last night. Hoss gave me no indication that he’s evil. As far as I know, there are no villains in history that tickle their victims to death. Maybe he was simply a gorgeous figment of my imagination and I lost my chance to see him again by giggling like a deranged toddler. Of course he couldn’t get out of here fast enough.

With a sigh, I flip my pencil over and erase a wayward strand of Comeback Girl’s hair. I put lead to paper again a moment later with the intention of fixing my error, but the tip of my pencil breaks off. “Shoot,” I mutter, ducking down to look beneath the counter for a new one.

What I see instead has my jaw dropping.

Sitting amidst the waitress supplies is a glossy comic book covered in plastic.

Holding my breath, I pick it up and make a short, punctuated sound that halts the conversation between the truck drivers. “This…this is the first issue of Comeback Girl. This is literally number one. One!” I can’t breathe. All I can do is stare down at the item in my hands, afraid to damage it. “Where did this come from?”

And how long has it been sitting here?

There are tears in my eyes. I hold the comic to my chest as carefully as possible, hugging it like an old friend. I’m probably dreaming, but this is the best one I’ve ever had. Almost as amazing as the truck driver dream from last night, which I’m positive now must have been my overactive imagination trying to entertain itself. Only…

I told Hoss about my Comeback Girl obsession, didn’t I?

Does that mean this number one issue is an extension of the dream?

Or does that mean last night was real?

With a frown, I turn toward the kitchen, planning to put the comic safely in my purse where it won’t get damaged. Comeback Girl isn’t a popular comic and this won’t be worth a fortune or anything, but to me, it’s pure gold.

As I start to turn, a new figure appears out of nowhere at the end of the counter and I jolt back, nearly dropping the glossy magazine in my hands. Hoss.

Hoss is back. Sitting at the end of the counter.

He’s here.

Chocolate-brown hair in disarray. A black eye. Cut lip. Lounged back casually.

His expression is anything but casual, though. His eyes are twin blue beams that could burn a hole right through a superhero’s body armor. That jaw is bunched, his right hand in a fist on the counter. He is making the other customers uncomfortable, obviously, because they throw a tip on the counter and skedaddle toward the exit without so much as a thank you in my direction.

A lot like last night when I was in the presence of the trucker, my belly starts to feel funny, flexing in odd places that make me uncomfortable and curious at the same time. My shirt goes from professional to indecent in two seconds flat, my bra too flimsy to hide the way my nipples harden with awareness. I suddenly have the urge to play with my hair. I can feel his big fingers in my side last night, searching out spots that made my womanhood clench, made me strain to keep from peeing my panties.

I assumed my loud laughter turned him off.

But he’s back. Does that mean he liked it?

Liked…tickling me? Liked touching me, period?

“You don’t have that one,” he says, voice gravelly. “Do you?”

Disbelief steals over me. Even though I had a suspicion Hoss left me the comic, I can’t quite wrap my head around the gesture. What it means. “You…this was you?”

His fingers drum once on the counter. Slowly. One fingertip at a time, one by one. “It had better only be me leaving you presents, Tatum.”

Oh. Oh my.

Is he my boyfriend now?

Am I too dense or inexperienced to know what’s going on here?

“You are. Mostly. Someone brought me a little Route 66 sign once with my name on it. You know how they have those turnstiles in gift shops with a whole bunch of names on key chains or refrigerator magnets? They never have a Tatum, so that was a nice gift to receive. Just knowing it’s out there somewhere on a turnstile for other little Tatums to find. You know?” My heart is walloping in my chest as I go toward him. “This is the best gift I’ve ever, ever received, though. Where did you find it?” I study the damage on his chiseled face. “And did you have to beat somebody up for it?”

“No.” He touches a tongue to his split lip. “This was a separate job.”

Swallowing, I glance toward the parking lot. “Did you have an accident with your truck?”

“No.”

Alarm bells are beginning to clang in the back of my head. “Do you have a second job? Something besides driving a rig?”

He stares at me for long, silent moments before inclining his head slightly. “Yes, Tatum. I do.”

The front door of the diner opens and closes. The teen couple is gone.

Now it’s just me and Hoss in the diner, no sound except for the oldies playing. The ticking of the giant neon clock. The rush of the interstate in the distance. And my pulse. I can hear that pounding like a fist on a door. “This second job involves you getting into fights?” His jaw ticks in response. “Should I be…nervous?”

At this, he shakes his head without hesitation. Slowly. “Everyone else should be fucking nervous, baby. Not you.”

“I thought my manic giggling freaked you out.”

He huffs an incredulous laugh. “You have no idea how wrong you are.” He leans in, forearms flexing on the counter. “Give me the chance to prove it. Come to my truck.”

A tremor runs through my inner thighs, turning my juncture hot and confusingly damp, making it necessary to squeeze my legs together. “But I’m working.”

“The way you make me ache, Tatum…” He shifts in his seat, something hot and desperate blanketing his features. “It doesn’t give a shit about the rules.”

“I make you ache,” I repeat in a whisper.

All other sounds around me fade out, except for his voice. “You make me do a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Come over here and I’ll tell you.”

My feet are trapped in quicksand. I can’t move. Do I want to circle the counter and experience this man’s incredible hands on me once more? Yes. More than I want this comic book in my hands. More than I want anything. But there is a voice in the back of my mind warning me that I’m about to get a rude awakening. Warning me that there is more to this man than meets the eye. “I should probably stay over here,” I murmur, wetting my lips.

A dangerous light comes on in his eyes.

He crooks a finger at me. “Come here, Tatum.”

“Uh…”

“I can come back there, if you like.”

“Customers aren’t allowed back here.”

“Like I said, there are no rules when I’m aching like this.”

“Oh.”

My head is growing more muddled by the moment in the presence of his gruff intensity, but I’m thinking clearly enough to remember that if my boss comes in and there is a customer behind the counter, I will get fired. “No, I’ll come to you,” I eek out, setting down the comic carefully and brushing the wrinkles from my skirt.

Slowly, I start to make my to the opening in the counter—but I only make it three steps when Hoss lunges to his feet with a growl and strides there faster. “Can’t wait that long.”

I stop dead in my tracks and watch the human equivalent of a bull bearing down on me. I tilt my head back at his approach, stumbling back until my butt hits the metal refrigerated cabinets—and then he’s pressing me against it. Hard, with his hips. He’s gripping the sides of my skirt and yanking me up on my toes, his hips pinning me to the metal barrier. “Quit my job and made a lot of dangerous enemies to get back to this pussy, Tatum,” he rasps into my hair. “To get back to your giggle. Your beautiful face. Your soft skin. Don’t tease me.”

I can barely speak around the heart in my throat. “I’m not teasing,” I whimper.

“You tease me just by standing there. Crossing your legs and squeezing, like maybe you think I don’t notice, baby? I can see every one of those little goosebumps around your nipples. I can feel you wiggling around beneath me, laughing and squealing.” He fists my hair and draws my head back, baring his teeth against my lips. “God, you’re so deep in my head already and digging deeper, deeper, by the fucking second. So don’t tease me. Don’t do it. When I ask you to come here, please understand I’m on the verge of dying if I don’t touch you.”

My skin is made of molten lava, knees weakening. “I-I didn’t realize…”

“You didn’t realize I’m a lunatic? Neither did I. Not until I saw your picture. Now you’re day and night. You’re my day. You’re my night.”

“Picture?” In my mind, pages are flipping. We’ve gotten to the twist. I had an intuition in my stomach that I wasn’t seeing the full picture and now…now I’ve stumbled upon a clue, haven’t I? Comeback Girl would be slowly removing the hidden dagger from her bot. “What picture, Hoss?”

Clearly, he didn’t mean to let that slip. His nostrils flare and he slams his fist down on the counter behind me, rattling my nerves. “Goddammit, Tatum.”

I try to push away, but he hauls me even closer, bringing our mouths an inch apart. My toes are barely scraping the tile ground. “You are going to come out to my truck and listen to me. Calmly.”

“Like hell I am.”

“You are in no danger from me.” He tilts his hips, groans, then rams my hips up against the waist-level refrigerators. A hard protrusion is pressed up against the seam of my panties, and despite my well-founded fears, I can’t help wanting to rub my femininity all over it. “I don’t want to harm you,” he growls. “I want to worship you.”

“Maybe you say that to all your victims.”

“Victims? Jesus Christ.”

The next thing I know, I’m being thrown over his shoulder and he’s stomping through the diner, my comic book dangling from his free hand. I’m so stunned that it doesn’t occur to me to scream until we’ve almost reached the door. I twist around, frantically looking toward the kitchen, but the cook isn’t there. He’s probably out back, having a smoke. But I scream anyway. I scream as loud as possible before the glass door closes behind us, the tinkling of the bell fading into the night.

I need to fight. I need to get away.

He saw a picture of me. Where?

Has he simply been trying to charm me out to his truck?

Why would he do that when he’s strong enough to carry me there against my will?

“Let me go.”

“Never.”

A truck door opens and I’m being drawn off his shoulder, lifted, crowded through an opening by his big body. Frantically, I look around at the tiny room. It’s located behind the front seat of the rig and it’s only big enough to hold a twin-sized mattress, the bedding messy. A small refrigerator. A desk lamp in the corner. “Oh God, how many people have been killed in here? Some luminol would light this place up like a Rorschach test, wouldn’t it?”

“Enough,” he says through his teeth. “No one has been killed in here.”

I lunge for the lamp and swing it at his head. “Save it for the judge!”

He catches the neck of the lamp in mid-air and smashes it against the wall, the bulb shattering onto the floor, leaving us in the barest bit of light coming in from the front seat. For long moments, we stare at each other, breathing hard. I’m shocked to find out I’m still severely attracted to this man, even though he’s about to make me a future cold case. And that attraction only amplifies when he takes a step in my direction and slowly strips off his shirt.

Oh lord. He’s like a sculpture. A sculpted work of art that has been graffitied on.

“Lay down, Tatum.”