The beautiful girl slept in the crook of my arm as I awoke beside her, smelling of lilac or lavender or whatever perfume she’d chosen. I lifted my head from the pillow, my eyes blinking at the sad motel room: the drab blinds half-covering the window, the crooked crack down the wall, the mirror in the corner, reflecting light back at me.

Where was I again?

Turning toward Luna, I cradled her close to me, feeling the warmth of her chest. We were naked, pressed tightly together, and I was no longer sure where I ended and she began.

I hadn’t felt like that with a woman in years.

Staying the night in Iowa City hadn’t been in the plans. I felt anxious, jumpy, locked in the motel room with that loan shark less than two miles away. By now, he would know he’d been robbed, and was probably out for blood. Those sharks were all the same.

There was nothing that would bring him to me, of course. I’d been careful. And it wasn’t like a loan shark had the police on his side, anyway. Still, having this wretched town in our rearview would give me a bit of peace.

Luna blinked awake moments later, turning toward me and pressing her breasts against my chest. I had half a mind to run my tongue down her throat and suck on her nipples. She was gorgeous and sleepy-eyed, with no inclination to draw herself from beneath the sheets.

“What time is it?” she murmured, rubbing her nose with her thumb.

“Um, just after ten-thirty,” I said, eyeing the clock on the wall. “A bit late, don’t you think? I wanted to get on the road a few hours ago.”

“Oh, well,” she said, easing toward me and kissing me on the lips.

The tension between us was palpable, growing all the time. How strange that the moment our bodies rose from slumber, they immediately wanted to exhaust themselves with each other again.

“I don’t think we have to check out till noon, anyway,” she said. “And knowing the owner, he probably won’t wake up to kick us out till after two.”

She kissed me again, long and slow, causing my cock to stir against her. This time, we wouldn’t have to undress each other. I could have her so easily.

“I really think we should get up and get going,” I said again, hardly able to believe myself at this point. “There’s no telling if—”

“If what?” she whispered, cutting me off.

I realized that if I continued, I’d have to tell her the truth: that I’d robbed the money from a loan shark and was on the run from a dangerous gang, both pieces of information I wasn’t prepared to dish out just yet.

Again, Luna inched tighter against me. Reaching down, she brought her hand around the girth of my cock, which didn’t have any more room to grow if not directly against her hip. She kissed my neck, making me want her even more.

“Looks like somebody’s awake,” she whispered.

“That’s right. Because we have to get on the road,” I said back, returning her kiss.

“No,” she murmured again.

Her eyes closing once more, she leaned forward and kissed me with longing, with desire, wrapping her arms tightly around the broadness of my muscled shoulders. Slowly, her nails dug into my skin. If she was going to try to be dominant like this, then I had to take over. I had to show her who was boss.

Slowly, I rolled her onto her back, slipping my stomach over hers. She wrapped her calves tightly around my back, opening her wetness to me. With a firm motion, I entered her, peering into her eyes as I did. She couldn’t move much, pressed beneath me as she was. She could only accept my hard cock as it slid into her.

We fit together perfectly. I made love to her slowly, gasping slightly as we eased slowly and passionately into one another. The sound of her sighing was like a song in my ear as I gave her pleasure. Her legs were tight around me, uniting us.

After several lost, stunning minutes, Luna brought her hand to my shoulder, rubbing at the muscles there as she whispered, “Let me go on top now.”

I was already sensing that when Luna wanted to do something, it was hard not to let her do it. I was normally dominant with women, but she seemed to be a few steps ahead of me all the time. That deserved a place on top of me, making love.

She eased around me, keeping my cock inside the soft space between her legs, and then began to ride me slowly, gliding up and down my cock. Her breasts bounced softly as we stared into one another’s eyes. The flatness of her stomach was a line growing from my groin all the way to her neck. Pulling her down to kiss me by her neck, I felt her pulse pounding quickly throughout her entire body, showing her excitement for me.

It was different this time, slower, more intimate—if that was a word I wanted to toss around. But as we came, holding each other, I sensed something more for her, something that seemed tinged with more than just lust, and that frightened me. Still, we collapsed in each other’s arms, and I felt no desire other than the one to hold her tight.

“Wow,” she breathed, leaning forward and kissing me on the cheek. That was really something.”

I nodded, tipping my nose into hers. The gruffness of my growing beard tickled her cheek, making her giggle.

“You need to shave,” she said, rubbing at the bristly hairs with her slim fingers. “But I suppose cowboys like you don’t take the time for that sort of thing.”

“Ha.”

She’d taken to calling me that. I couldn’t say if I liked it. It seemed almost cartoonish, like we were two people in a getaway car, driving fast to evade the law. But the situation was far more nuanced than that. Aaron was dead. The Detroit Seven were trying to kill me. I was out on my own, with nothing but the open road and this brand new girl now in my care.

But what about her? She was a mystery more than anything. Why had she given that money to her father? Was she in trouble with someone? Or did she have a kid she was trying to care for? I tried to compile the many reasons a girl like her might need money like that.

When I felt myself begin to ask her the question, I was sure she would ignore it or else skirt around it with a witty remark, but I went for it anyway.

“So,” I said, looking down at her gorgeous, lightly freckled face. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with the money? Why does a girl like you need money like that?”

“You aren’t going to drop it, are you?” she asked, smiling slightly.

She was like jelly in my arms. Peering up at me, she sighed before falling closer against me.

“My father was in a great deal of debt,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “He’s addicted to gambling, has been for years. But it’s only been since, oh, four years ago or so that he was diagnosed with a heart condition. The medical bills piled up, and despite not having such great luck on the tables before, he tried to pay his bills with yet more gambling.” She rolled her eyes.

“When he told me he’d gotten a loan from some asshole on the outskirts of town—and that that asshole was now threatening him with violence if he didn’t return the twenty thousand…” She trailed off, digging deeper into the sheets. “I mean, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“Of course it does,” I said, sliding my hand down to the small of her back. I was eager to slip back inside her, to rail her against the headboard and make all the noise in the world until the owner actually did wake up and kick us down the road to Mexico.

“When I saw you there with all that money—boy! I was happy to get that Kraemer creep off his back once and for all,” she said.

Immediately, my stomach dropped. “What name did you just say?”

“My father’s? It’s Jim.”

“No, no. The other one. Did you say Kraemer? Wes Kraemer? The loan shark of—”

“Yeah. What’s wrong?” Luna had sensed the change in the air around us. Sitting up, she wrapped the blanket around her chest and glared at me, demanding answers.

Our worlds had crashed together, two cells in the universe, colliding and exploding.

“Jesus. Of all the fucking people on the planet I could have run into,” I whispered. I brought my legs over the side of the bed and leaned over them, putting my face in my hands. My mind raced.

I’d taken money from the loan shark, and that money had passed directly from me to the daughter of someone who owed him a shit-ton of money.

The money would be going directly back into Wes Kraemer’s safe. It had probably even gotten there earlier that morning. And that meant that we needed to get out of town immediately. Luna’s father would link himself to the robbery, and he’d endanger all of our lives.

“We need to get out of here as soon as possible,” I hissed, jumping off the mattress and grabbing my backpack before I began to toss clothing on. I felt jittery, as I always did when I was about to bolt back on the road.

But this time, whoever was chasing after me wasn’t states behind. He was just down the highway, waiting to kill me—which sounded more like the sad end of a shitty country song than anything else.

And that wouldn’t be the way I, Colt Anderson, would go down.