Luckily he was a far better engine builder than he’d ever been a driver.

“You leaving?” She’d gotten close enough that she could touch him. She didn’t. She wasn’t that brave. Or stupid. She’d been the last woman who’d touched him, years ago. And he’d liked it for a long time, until quite suddenly, he couldn’t stand it.

“Soon,” Dylan said.

“Want some company?” To his surprise, she lifted her hand toward his face, as if she were going to run her fingers over the scars there.

He turned his face aside and stepped back away from her touch. Jennifer had a habit of wanting more. Always more. Too much. And his world didn’t work like that. He didn’t work like that. Whatever he’d had to give a person had been taken from him years ago.

“You know that’s not going to happen,” he said.

She dropped her arm and the sly smile vanished. “You’ve changed, you know that? Ever since—”

“Go back to the party,” he said quietly. “Before you say something we both regret.”

She turned on her heel and headed inside.

Everyone in there thought the accident had ruined him. But he’d been ruined long before.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text message.

Layla.

All the bullshit inside that house and inside his head—it vanished.

And he smiled as he stepped off the porch and into the darkness of the tree line surrounding the mansion, having known somehow in his gut who it would be, texting him at this hour.

Sending her that article had been a risky but necessary move. He couldn’t have her thinking Ben was tame. He couldn’t have her getting hurt because he’d put her in that situation. And reading that article had brought so much shit to the surface, reminded him of what a scumbag Ben was, how capable he was of hurting the people around him.

After mailing that article to Layla, he’d sent one of his guys to a hotel in Cherokee because he wanted someone close to her if things went south.

Because that was the thing about Ben. Shit always went south.

Her first text was sent an hour ago; he must have missed it in his arrival at the party.

Layla: Hey.

And then her second one was just a few minutes ago.

Layla: helllllloooooooooo

Dylan smiled before texting her back: Hey yourself.

Layla: You’re there!!

Dylan: I’m here.

Layla: I’m drynk

Dylan: Drunk?

Layla: Very. But I’m still mad about the article

Dylan: That’s why you’re texting? To tell me ur mad?

He knew she wasn’t texting because she was angry. She was texting because she was as addicted to this shit they had between them as he was.

Layla: Not at this moment

His blood thickened and he would give anything to not be at this party. Half of him was ready to step farther into those shadows and tell her to do all the things that got her off. But that couldn’t happen here. He was very careful about how his worlds touched, like a kid who couldn’t let his carrots touch his potatoes.

There was no cross-contamination in his world.

Dylan: Cause you’re drunk

Layla: very. call me

Dylan: Why?

Layla: I want to hear ur voice.

Dylan: You like my voice?

Layla: Makes me very hot. Wt

Layla: Wet. Drunk texting is hard

Dylan smiled before looking up at the glittering windows of the three-story house full of people who kissed his ring but didn’t make eye contact. Jennifer was in there. That smile on her face that told him everything he needed to know about how good his chances were that she’d be willing to lift that skirt of hers in an upstairs bedroom.

Everyone in that party thought he was a hermit and he wondered if the fact that he preferred this faceless woman, a woman he’d never met, over Jennifer only proved their assumptions.

Good thing he didn’t give a shit what the people at that party thought of him. And he would give anything to be alone in his house, sitting in the dark, listening to Layla’s voice, that sweet voice with the country twang and the nervous laugh. What he wouldn’t give to have his hand around his cock, pushing her to try more. To do more. To test the edges of that pleasure and pain.

But he had to put in another hour or Blake would kill him.

Dylan: you’re going to have to do it alone tonight.

Layla: but it’s better with you

Groaning, Dylan texted back: But I’m still at this party.

Layla: I was at a party 2! There were buckets of booze. And I dyed my hair.

He wondered briefly what color her hair was. What she looked like. But as the reality didn’t matter, he pushed those thoughts aside as useless and irrelevant.

Dylan: Sounds like a much better party than this one.

Layla: What kind of party is it?

DON’T. The word was loud and clear in Dylan’s brain. Do not do this thing.

But in the end, because he was bored, because of the way the people at that party made him feel like an animal and not a man—and because somehow she’d cracked a hole in his life that he kept trying to stuff more work into, more deals, more money—his warnings were to no avail. He turned the phone around and snapped a picture of himself. From the chin down.

And sent it to her.

Her response came back fast and in all caps.

Layla: IS THAT YOU?

Such a fucking mistake. What happened to cross-contamination? What happened to the rules? His life worked because everything was controlled. He knew this, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Dylan: Me and my monkey suit.

Layla: send me another

Dylan: Can’t. Have to go. Call me tomorrow night.

Layla: boooooooo

Dylan: tomorrow night.

Dylan put his phone back in his pocket. The rules he was breaking were piling up around his feet like metal shavings, razor sharp and about to cut the both of them.

Inevitably, someone was going to get hurt.

—

An hour later he managed to make his goodbyes and leave the party. He ignored the valet and went to get his own car. His F-150, the same truck they used to tow the 989 trailer, looked like a giant beast among all the sleek European cars and the refurbished American muscle cars that surrounded it.

This parking area was a gearhead’s wet dream.

He climbed into his bare-bones pickup and pulled off his tie. The engine, one he’d rebuilt himself, roared like it couldn’t wait to get off this damn property too.

The back roads leading from the house to the highway were dark and still. He was alone on the road, except for the sound of the engine on a distant motorcycle.

A Harley Fat Boy, if he heard it right.

A Harley Fat Boy that needed a tune-up.

It was the sound of his youth, one that used to wake him up in his bed at night. It was the sound of his father and his brother, coming home or leaving.

Outside the dark trees blurred and he kept his speed, enjoying the night and the open road. He unrolled the window, and the smell of the road and the forest filled the cab. He’d be home soon and then…Layla.

The motorcycle showed up in his rearview and Dylan put his hand out the window, indicating the guy could pass if he wanted.

The biker flashed his lights.

And then again.

The fuck?

They were entering the suburbs, and Dylan slowed down for a stop sign at an intersection and the motorcycle pulled up alongside him.

Out in this neighborhood he wasn’t much worried about being mugged. Probably a guy looking for the highway.

“You need something?” Dylan asked. The murky light from a distant street lamp picked up the flash of a dirty white badge on black leather.

A cut.

The rider was in an MC.

“I guess you could say that.” The guy rolled forward until his face was in the light.

It took Dylan a second to place the man, who seemed vaguely familiar. And then the guy grinned, revealing the two, rotting front teeth that bent inward, tilting toward each other.