Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
“Uh, distract them,” he says, walking to the door. “Seriously. Five minutes. Time to run.”
I curse, slipping past him, and head down the walkway to the steps. Sure enough, there’s a truck idling down by the curb.
Lanzo’s coming after me, lugging the corpse burrito on his shoulder. This whole thing is surreal, absolutely insane, and I almost don’t notice the drunk guy stumbling toward the stairs before Lanzo comes around the corner lugging what is very obviously a body.
“Stop,” I hiss at him then run down toward the wasted guy. He’s older, fifties, balding, heavy-set, clearly so inebriated that he’s stumbling. “Excuse me, sir? Sir, excuse me? Did you drop this?” I grab a lighter from my pocket, improvising now.
“Did I what? Drop huh?” He blinks at me, bleary-eyed. “You did what?”
“Your lighter,” I say, waving it at him. “You dropped this over there.”
“My huh,” he answers, reaching for it. “Over where?”
I cock it back and throw it down the sidewalk. “You dropped your lighter over there,” I say, pointing down the sidewalk.
“The fuck?” he says, staggering back, nearly falling down as he turns to look. I steady him before he can crack his skull open. “The hell? You threw my lighter?”
Lanzo comes hustling down the steps. “Move it, you drunk fuck,” he says, and before I can do anything, he slams into the drunk guy with his shoulder, knocking him over.
The drunk guy hits the ground with a grunt. My hands fly to my face, a scream aborted in my throat. Luckily, his head doesn’t bounce off the pavement.
Here I am, trying to finesse this wasted idiot, while Lanzo just steam-rolls through him like it’s nothing. He doesn’t even look back as he hefts the body into the bed of the truck and begins to cover it with a tarp. “Jump in,” he says, tying it down. “We have to go.”
“Sorry,” I say to the drunk man, hurrying away. “Really sorry!”
“What,” he groans, rolling from side to side. “Where’s my lighter?”
I get into the passenger side of the truck. It smells like leather polish and mint, a strangely comforting smell. It reminds me of Grandpop’s workbench in the garage. Lanzo finishes covering the corpse burrito then gets behind the wheel. “Two minutes,” he says. “Damn, I’m good. Let’s get moving.”
“Hold on,” I say but Lanzo’s already pulling out, driving fast toward the exit. He turns onto the main road and hauls away from the dumpy motel dive. “My car’s back there.” I turn around to watch the parking lot disappear into the distance.
“We’ll get it later.” He glances in the rearview. “What are the chances that guy’s not dead?”
“Don’t even say that.” I stare, heart racing, but there’s only the quiet road behind us.
“Kidding.” He’s grinning to himself. “Don’t worry. That guy’s extremely dead. Burian doesn’t fuck up.”
I stare at him, my mouth hanging open. The man’s gorgeous, the kind of hot that has my nipples instantly hard, but he’s also clearly insane. “What is wrong with you?”
“I’m sorry, do you hate jokes? I can try to be less funny, but—” He shrugs like that won’t be easy.
“This is insane.” I pull my knees to my chest as the weight of what just happened begins to settle on my shoulders.
“You keep saying that,” he points out.
“Because it’s true.”
I’m in a strange truck, with a strange man, with a corpse burrito in the bed.
And my puke’s still on the floor of that motel room.
We drive in silence for a few minutes broken only by the sound of sirens in the distance. The cops, right on time. Anxiety rips into me again, and I’m jittering in the seat, moving from side to side, picturing all the ways jail is going to fuck me up and how Grandpop’s going to drop dead the second he sees his only granddaughter and the girl he raised from a baby end up behind bars; it’s going to straight up kill him and, oh, god, what did I get myself into, and I can feel myself spinning out of control, spiraling deeper into terror—until Lanzo puts his hand on my thigh.
It’s not meant to be a sexual gesture. I can see that right away. He’s trying to help calm me down, even if he’s a total stranger and touching me like that is way too familiar.
And yet it sends a barb of desire deep into my core. My uterus pulses like a techno beat, and I think I’m going to throw myself across the cab at this gorgeous stranger so I can vent some of this nervous energy.
I get horny when I’m anxious.
And Lanzo happens to be my type.
Big, muscular, rugged, handsome in an almost casual way like he doesn’t even realize how good looking he is.
Competence oozes from him, the sexiest trait of all.
I should be concentrating on the fact that my boss set me up. Instead, I’m thinking about jumping this stranger and sucking him off as we drive out to the desert to bury a corpse.