Sinners are Winners (KPD Motorcycle Patrol 5)

The lap after that the wind started to blow, and I looked toward my bike, wondering if I should leave before the storm hit.

Then I decided, fuck it.

It felt fucking amazing, the wind blowing in the cold air that finally canceled out the blazing heat of the day, and the stray raindrop or two was cooling me down fast.

It was the first time in a month that I’d run and not contemplated suicide via heat exhaustion.

The wind blew harder, kicking up dust and dirt from the freshly mowed field.

“Ack,” I said, trying to get the pieces that’d stuck to my face off while still maintaining a moderate pace.

“Gonna be a big one,” the old man that I passed for the tenth time said.

I agreed but was too winded to say a word.

I was trying to pace out a ten-kilometer run in forty minutes.

I wasn’t going to make it.

Not with the heat for the first sixteen laps, and now the blowing of the wind for the last eight and a half.

But, at least it felt good.

Right?

Wrong.

Because between one lap and the next, a light rain started to fall from the sky and lightning struck about a hundred meters in front of me.

It was so loud and so terrifyingly shocking that it took me off my feet.

The man behind me started to laugh when I nearly face planted.

Luckily, I knew how to fall, going down fast but rolling so that I was once again on my feet before he could finish his booming laugh.

I would’ve flipped him off had he been anyone else but an old man.

“Fuck off,” I muttered under my breath.

Then I started running again.

But only as long as it took me to get to the bike.

Once there, I turned my watch off, then grabbed my water off the seat before chugging it all down.

It was when I was halfway home that the downpour started.

And not just any rain.

Torrential, probably a goddamn hurricane type rain.

It didn’t bother me, though.

The car that hydroplaned nearly taking me out once I was turning onto my street, however, did.

I looked up in time to see the car that I’d seen previously—the one that Saylor said lived in her apartment complex—nearly hitting the ditch.

He was able to correct himself, though, driving off moments later.

I, on the other hand, was breathing so hard from my almost near death that I had to pull to the side of the road for a second to catch it.

“Holy fuck,” I said as I rubbed along my forehead with the palm of my hand.

“Holy fuck!”

Saylor’s loud curse had me turning around in time to see her staring at me in fury.

“Do you want me to go fuck him up?” she asked.

She was standing in the middle of the downpour, in cute as fuck Baby Scooby-Doo scrubs, looking at me like she’d seen a ghost.

I grinned.

She really did look cute, and the only thing I could see her doing once she tracked the guy down was lecturing him to death.

“No,” I called out, jerking my chin to the house. “Let’s go home.”

She went ahead of me when I waved her on, pulling into the second driveway while I chose to go into the first one.

Instead of following her to her place, I decided that it might be best for me to cool off at my own place before going over to hers.

Because if I went to hers, I knew damn well and good that we wouldn’t be talking.

I’d be fucking the hell out of her.

Except, when I got to my carport door, Saylor had different ideas.

When she parked, instead of running into her own place, she came to mine where I was underneath the carport.

I heard the squelching of her wet Crocs as she ran, momentarily making me pause in my attempt to put the key in the door.

“What are you doing?” I asked when she arrived at my side.

She didn’t look up, though, and I frowned.

Touching her cheek, she looked up at me with surprise.

“What are you doing?”

She grinned, then spoke a little loudly as she said, “I took my transmitter off. It’s not waterproof.”

I watched as she took it out of her pocket and showed it to me.

Understanding dawned, and I gestured for her to follow me inside.

She did, and when she was inside my kitchen, she frowned and looked around, worried now that she was dripping on the floor.

“It’s waterproof,” I said. “I use the same shit in my bathroom.”

Except she wasn’t looking at me, so she didn’t hear a word.

Knowing that she was worried about getting it wet, I walked to the washer and dryer and snatched up two clean towels, tossing one her way when I saw her staring at me.

She caught it expertly, but instead of drying herself off, she dried off the transmitter.

“It’s actually ‘water-resistant’ they say.” She placed it on the counter next to my phone and keys that I’d dropped the moment I got inside. “But water-resistant and waterproof are two totally different things in the grand scheme of things.”