She giggles.
A full-on, girlish little giggle and God help me, my world tilts sideways.
I grow so stiff behind the zipper of my jeans that my vision triples and I start to sweat. Oh shit. Shit. That giggle. I need to hear it again. I’m aching for a replay, my balls drawing up tight to my undercarriage. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Do that again,” I order thickly, my mouth open on the slope of her shoulder. “Laugh like that again, baby. Come on.”
“I…can’t do it on command. You have to give me something to laugh about.”
My fingers move of their own accord, tickling her sides—and that giggle fills the air again and I don’t know what comes over me. Teeth on edge, I crush her against my chest and continue to wriggle the fingers of my right hand into her side. She thrashes around, letting loose that sweet, innocent sound and I want more. More. My hand drags down over her plump, sexy ass to her bare thighs and I squeeze them in turn, making her squeal and dance around, her tits jiggling around between us.
“You like that, baby? You like when I tease and tickle you?”
“Stop!” she cries. “It’s too much. I can’t breathe!”
“You love it.” I surge to my feet and drop her ass down on the nearest stool, leaning back a little so I can witness the effect of what I’m doing. The way her skin is turning rosy, her eyes glassy—and that giggle. It’s like angels singing. Only it’s not having a heavenly effect on me whatsoever. My dick is throbbing in time with her tinkling laugh. And this stool is not good enough. I need her beneath me wiggling around like this. I’m fucking panting for it. My cock is swollen and my breathing is ragged, my hunger becoming rawer by the second. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, but I’m too revved up to care. I want her naked and tittering beneath me, all flushed and breathless, calling me…
Calling me…no.
Am I sick in the head and never realized it?
Or is it Tatum alone making me need something I never could have imagined?
I don’t have a chance to answer that question, because a horn beeps twice in the parking lot and Tatum gasps, pulling out of my grip and off the stool. She stumbles a little, trying to catch her breath, and all I can do is sit there and reel at what almost happened. I almost blew this whole operation.
She straightens her skirt and tucks loose hair into her ponytail, her cheeks on fire when she looks over at me. But then, oh hell, she gives me a wobbly smile and my heart slingshots up into my throat. In that moment, I remember why I was sent here. To traffic this sweet girl so some faceless monsters could make a profit from her pain. I won’t be worthy of her until I’ve made her safe. I won’t deserve her until the threat has been eliminated. The need to commit violence against anyone who would think to harm her is teeming in my chest. Multiplying.
I will begin tonight.
“Tatum,” I bark, before she can greet the incoming customer.
She blinks at me. “Yes?”
“You will be here tomorrow night.”
It’s not a question, but she answers anyway. “Yes. My shift starts at four.”
I have a week before she is expected to arrive in Canada. I have time. That’s how I reassure myself on the way out the door of the truck stop diner, everything inside of me screaming to go back in, collect the girl and lose myself in her.
Soon.
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.