Page 4 of I Wish I Would've Warned You

Then I’m grabbed from behind.

I’m slammed gently—but firmly—against the cold glass of the freezer. A hand pins itself beside my head, and my breath catches.

“Are you seriously this naïve?”

The voice is gravel and steel. Low. Rough. Furious. The kind that rips through silence like a knife.

I look up and everything slows.

He’s beautiful.

Not pretty-boy, clean-cut beautiful. No, he’s rugged and sharp—tall and broad-shouldered in a black henley and dark jeans that cling like sin. His jaw is cut from stone, dusted in stubble. A thin scar curves at the corner of his lip like it has a story, and his eyes?—

They’re a shade of blue I didn’t know existed. Cold. Wild. Intense.

And they’re locked on me like I’ve committed a crime.

“Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to get into trucks with strangers?” he growls.

“I’m sorry—who the hell are you?” I snap, even though my heart’s about to break a rib.

“Someone trying to keep you from winding up chopped into pieces and dumped behind a dumpster.”

“I don’t need your help.” I try to twist away, but he’s already turning my face toward the window with two fingers under my chin.

His touch is rough, but not cruel. Still—my pulse jumps anyway.

“See that?” he says quietly.

Out by the pumps, a group of women in stilettos and short skirts linger near the rigs, laughing with a handful of truckers.

“You don’t know what a lot lizard is, do you?”

“A what?”

He huffs. “You’re following one of their scripts. Pretend to be lost. Ask for a ride. Blowjob. Cash.”

My stomach flips. “That’s not what I was doing. I didn’t know—he didn’t seem?—”

“‘No, thank you.’” He quotes the guy from earlier, and now I want to hurl.

He finally steps back, gaze raking over me like he’s still deciding whether to call the cops.

“You’re welcome,” he mutters.

I blink. “Thank you.”

He pulls open the cooler, grabs a bottle of sweet tea like nothing happened. “How’d you even get out here?”

“I was ditched.” I exhale. “My boyfriend left me.”

“He should be your ex-boyfriend now.”

“I doubt he cares.”

“I do.” He looks at me again, long and hard. Then he pulls a worn leather wallet from his back pocket and hands it to me. “Hold this.”

“What for?”

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