Page 63 of After Tonight

She disconnected and started pulling her clothes on.

“What’s wrong?”

She jerked her T-shirt over her head. “Nothing. Exactly. Scott needs me to help him with something.”

“That was Scott?” He was going to strangle his friend.

“Yeah. He’s working on something. Three girls have disappeared from Lincoln, but they think they have a way to track them. They need me.”

Derek felt his chest tighten. Fuck. Three girls had disappeared? That…yeah, if Riley could do anything about it, she had to go.

He yanked his pants up and zipped and buttoned. Then he started the truck. But he paused with his hand on the gearshift.

“Ry, I—” What was he going to say? I had a great time? I never want to stop fucking you? Come over after you’re done with work? I want to make you breakfast in the morning?

All things women had said to him after sex. All things that had felt clingy and unnecessary. All things he really wanted to say right now.

“Are you going to Lincoln?” he asked. God, be careful. Call me when you get there. Maybe I should come along.

He ran a hand over his face. He needed to snap out of this.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Scott asked if I could meet him at the station.”

Maybe she would just be working from here. That was one thing about all this cyber stuff. She could do it remotely at least. But instead of telling her that he really wanted to see her after she was done, whenever that was, he just put the truck into drive and started back down the dirt road.

They didn’t talk on the way to town, and by the time he pulled up in front of the station, he’d realized that he couldn’t say any of the things that were rolling through his head. The best thing about him and Riley was that they were him and Riley, with sex added in. He didn’t want any of that to change.

“So, try not to get arrested, okay?” he said as she opened the door.

She shot him a grin. “You good for bail money if I do?”

Thank God they were grinning and teasing. “Yeah. But the interest rates on my loan would be really high,” he told her.

“Oh, yeah? What percent are we talking here?”

“Let’s just say there will be handcuffs involved on that end of the situation as well.”

She laughed. “Now I almost hope I do need bail money.”

She slid out of the truck and had just started to close the door when, stupidly, Derek said, “Ry.”

She stopped and looked in at him. “Yeah?”

“Call me. Later. Whenever.”

She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, and he was certain that she was thinking of a good way to say no, that was a bad idea. But instead, she nodded, “I will.”

“Okay.”

She slammed the door, and he watched her walk up to the front of the police station and go inside. He blew out a breath. Fuck.

He pulled out his phone and texted Scott. You better take care of her. This shit better not be dangerous.

He waited nearly three minutes with no response. He was tempted to stick around and wait to see if Riley and Scott came back out and left. Of course, then he probably would have followed them, and that would have been pathetic.

Right.

He drove home, absolutely unable to come up with a thing to do. Or at least not anything he wanted to do. He could go back to the Come Again and let Bryan go home. But he didn’t really want to wait on people tonight. He could swing by his grandma’s house. She’d probably bake him brownies while he took a look at the wiring in the dishwasher. But he didn’t want to work on a dishwasher tonight. Or eat brownies.

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