Colt checked us into the motel, leaving me to hang around the Mustang while he paid with whatever remaining cash he had. “We’ll have to pick up some more on the way down,” he told me in a cold whisper, presumably meaning we’d have to steal it.

I gave him a confident grin in return, not wanting him to think for a moment that I was playing him. “Let’s think about all that later, Colt. Tonight’s been enough already, don’t you think?”

I’d never actually been inside the motel, just driven past it countless times on my way to and from the diner. It was two stories and gray, with broken numbers lining the doors. I’d long thought the place was only still running due to various out-of-town affairs or sad drifters passing through on their way to someplace else. But when Colt unlocked the door and revealed the interior, I was pleasantly surprised.

The bed was crisp and clean and had a magenta comforter with a strange bit of homey charm. A large, vintage mirror in the corner allowed me to see Colt and me as a couple for the first time: the tall, broad-shouldered man of the road in his sexy leather jacket, his blue eyes scanning the room, and me, short and petite with long, auburn hair.

I shivered, clasping my hands over my stomach. With a flourish, Colt bounced onto the bed. His eyes were alert, hungry-looking again.

“You said you wanted to get some sleep?” I asked. I was trying to be playful, but my voice shook with sudden anticipation.

“Maybe we’ll get to sleep in a little while, but for now, I have something else planned.”

“I didn’t realize we’d have organized activities,” I murmured.

“You thought wrong,” he growled.

Smacking his hands on his lap, he ushered me forward. Smoothly, I brought my legs up onto the bed, wrapping them around his waist. The intensity in the air around us seemed to grow with each passing second, booming in my ears. With our lips just an inch away from one another’s, I paused, inhaling his musky, manly scent.

As I began to say something—to stall—he thrust himself forward, kissing me. My self-assured demeanor fell away as I gave over to his confidence, his arrogant strength. His large hands wrapped tightly around my waist, clinging to me, forcing my groin against his erection, which rose up from his pants.

“Jesus,” he whispered, breaking the heat of our kiss. “I can’t handle myself around you.”

Gruffly, he thrust me off him and onto the bed. Then, he reached under my dress and teased his way up my slender, pale thighs, before easing a single hand between my legs. He touched me, at first softly, gazing into my eyes. I grew wet at his touch, and allowed my lips to part with pleasure. A long, smooth moan escaped my mouth.

God, I could have had him touch me forever.

But he had something else in store.

Leaving me alone on the bed for a moment, Colt reached toward the backpack he’d brought in from the car. Inside, he found a long, thin rope, which he lashed through the air with a violent, muscled motion. I shivered, but I didn’t have the voice to speak.

“All right, little country girl, time to test your limits,” Colt murmured.

After fully undressing me, he reached forward, bringing the rope around my wrists and tying me to the top of the bed, locking me in place. I felt the ropes close tightly around my skin and wondered for half a second if this had all been a ploy—if Colt’s plan all along had been to kidnap me and murder me in the motel of my choosing.

Shivering with anxiety, I glanced up at him and saw only lust in his eyes. I was stretched thin before him, my naked skin gleaming in the soft lamplight.

Colt undressed, revealing the hardness of his impressive cock. Straddling me, he kissed my breasts, his tongue coming out to flick at my nipples. My breath came in spasms as I inhaled the musk of him.

“I’m going to fuck your brains out,” he whispered into my ear, making me shiver.

After easing his hand down the center of my chest, past my flat stomach, and all the way to the space between my legs, he began to tease my clit, smiling slightly as he watched me squirm. Unable to do anything but watch, as my hands were still tied above my head, I felt completely at his mercy—strained, tied, helpless.

As the pleasure grew, I arched my back, pushing my soft wetness toward Colt’s face. He kissed me between my legs, running his tongue over my lips. My brain nearly exploded from the intimacy of it.

This boy was going to destroy me.

Suddenly, Colt moved upward, bringing his large, throbbing manhood into me, grabbing my ass as he thrust himself in as far as he could. Gasping from the pleasure of it, I wrapped my legs around his waist and began to meet his thrusts. The sex was rougher and wilder than it had been at the diner. Beads of sweat raced down my temples as he railed into me over and over, both of us gasping and crying out.

I could sense Colt was going to come, could feel him pulsing inside me. Crying out, I closed my eyes as I allowed myself to fall into an orgasm alongside him. Our bodies clenched and released, making us fall into exquisite pleasure for what seemed like an eternity before Colt collapsed beside me.

“Wow,” he said breathlessly. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached toward me and kissed me. The heat of his mouth turned me on even more. His tongue parted my lips and glided along mine as we shuddered in the wake of what had been the best sex of my life.

Of course, I would never tell him so.

As I began to come down from my orgasm, falling into the great post-coital hangover, I watched as Colt leafed through his pants pocket to find a packet of cigarettes. He lit one with a flash of his lighter and took a long, even drag before offering it to me. I shrugged playfully, flicking my eyes up toward the ropes, which still held me tight.

“Don’t suppose you’re going to untie me, eh?” I asked him, giggling slightly.

“I kind of like to watch you squirm like that,” he said. “It’s sexy.”

“Ha. I’m telling you, it won’t be sexy when I punch you in that handsome face of yours the moment you release me,” I teased.

Cigarette still burning between his lips, Colt reached upward, untying the ropes. He allowed them to fall to the other side of the bed, out of sight, as I traced my fingers across the red indentations on my wrists. Tucking my head against his shoulder, I found myself experiencing a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss. These were the strangest circumstances of my life, bar none, and yet I had no urgency within me to flee.

“You know, I’ve never even left this city before,” I whispered, reaching up and turning off the light. “Never met anyone who was on his way out, either. It seems that if you’re born here, you die here. And you aren’t allowed to dream otherwise.”

Colt didn’t answer, not for a long time. After stabbing his cigarette into the ashtray on his side table, he wrapped a firm bicep around my head and held me close.

“That’s the way it was in Detroit. I never thought much about leaving until I had to.”

I nodded, sensing the story rumbling beyond the surface. Drugs? Murder? I couldn’t even imagine. And yet, safe in his arms, caught in his powerful, masculine presence, I wanted to be with no one else. My eyelids closed, my lashes fluttering across my cheeks as fantasies rose to the surface of my mind.

Suppose I did leave Iowa City? Suppose I chased after Colt, fell in love with him the proper way, somewhere between here and the edge of Texas? Suppose we got married in Mexico, learned Spanish and how to make tamales, tanned our skin beneath the summer sun, and never felt lonely again?

Colt was powerful, passionate—dangerous. These were all the things I’d been lacking in my life before he’d arrived in Iowa City. And as I drifted off to sleep, I couldn’t quite imagine letting him go without me.

* * *