Page 77 of Wild Card
They’d roast me alive, but I couldn’t muster the energy to strip down. I closed my eyes, ready to let sleep have me.
I’d finally stopped thinking about Dalton, at least. His big hands on my body, the crooked tilt of his smile, the single freckle on his neck that always drew my tongue.
Motherfucker.He was still in my fucking head, even now. I ought to?—
Blackness pulled me under.
My thoughts evaporated, and sleep took me hard.
CHAPTER 20
Axel
A sharp ringdrilled into my brain, penetrating the fog of sleep. Then again.
And again.
Loki howled, and little Taz joined in with a high-pitched tone like a fucking ice pick to the eyeball.
“Fuck, okay,” I rasped, fumbling for the side table—and knocking down half my belongings. Change pinged against the floor and shot off in all directions. An empty Mountain Dew can rolled under the bed.
And my phone keptringing.The dogs kept howling.
With a tortured groan, I peeled my eyes open and sat up. Where the fuck was that phone? I looked around, confused as fuck, until I remembered peeling my jeans off in the middle of the night and tossing them in a heap on the floor.
I leaned over the edge of the bed, getting a face full of Loki tongue for my trouble. I shoved him away. “Damn it, Loki. Consent!”
Taz let out an exceptionally piercing howl.
“Shut it!” I yelled in desperation as I fumbled for my jeans and the phone inside the back pocket. My head throbbed so hard my dang teeth ached.
The dogs snapped their howling jaws, and Banshee nosed in against my cheek with a whimper.
“Sorry, baby,” I murmured, giving her a pat before straightening up to pull out my phone. Without all the howling, I could hear the gate buzzer going off. It was programmed to ring my cell in case I was in the deep reaches of the junkyard and didn’t hear it.
I silenced the call and checked the time. Shit. It was 11:00 a.m. and way past time for me to open the junkyard.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and tugged on my jeans. I stumbled out of my RV bus and headed toward the front. The dogs followed eagerly, yipping. It was a damn miracle they hadn’t woken me for breakfast or a pee. I must have been dead to the world. Hopefully, I wouldn’t find any surprises in the RV later.
The damn gate buzzer wasstillgoing off. This better be a fucking junkyard emergency. I punched in the code and swung open the gate.
Who the hell would be so insistent when?—
Dalton came into view.
Well, that answered that.
He was in full uniform, and there was no warm smile for me like there’d been Friday night.
“Fuck, man, what law did I break now?”
“How about the law of texting the fuck back?” he said.
I started to close the gate, but he caught it with his hand and shouldered through before I could lock him out. Damn. He’d have probably started up with that buzzer again anyway, and my head couldn’t take it.
“This isn’t a good time,” I muttered.
“Yeah, you look like shit.”
