Page 189 of Controlled Burn
And she wasn’t going anywhere.
Not for Brooks. Not for Hastings. Not even for Dean.
Let them try and move her.
Chapter 64
Wanted
5nights after the hospital, Talia put on a dress she didn’t recognize herself in.
The bar was loud and sticky, the jukebox croaking out something too sentimental, laughter cracking like glass at tables pressed too close together. Bar lights bled into neon smears across the window glass as she stepped into the night, the hem of her yellow dress a soft threat against her thighs.
It wasn’t her. Too soft. Too clingy. The color too bright for her mood. Straps slipping down her freckled shoulders. She wore it anyway. Every man in that bar had looked at her, but none of it felt real.
The parking lot reeked of beer and gasoline. Cigarette butts smoldered in puddles left by the rain. She almost tripped on the curb, buzzed on whiskey and adrenaline and something much darker—loneliness, maybe.
Her keys rattled in her hand when a shadow peeled itself out of the glow of a busted motel sign across the street.
Dean.
He looked wrecked—jeans low on his hips, a black t-shirt stretched tight across his chest, hair damp from either a quick shower or the drizzle still clinging to the night. There was a new scar running down his jaw, angry red in the halogen light. His eyes ate her up.
“Talia.” His voice was low, uneven.
She wanted to laugh, or cry, or hit him. Instead, she just breathed, trying to slow the rabbit-pace of her pulse. The yellow dress felt suddenly obscene—too thin, too revealing, her nipples peaked and visible through the fabric.
He was staying here. At the motel next door. She remembered. It made sense that their paths would cross in this after-hours world where broken people ended up.
She squared her shoulders, chin high, lips glossed pink and bitten raw. “You following me?”
He didn’t answer. Just unlocked his room and left the door open behind him—a dare and a promise.
She followed, every nerve buzzing, the motel carpet rough under her shoes, the door slamming behind them like a sentence passed.
Inside, the room was a box of cheap light and borrowed secrets. The air was thick with the ghosts of cigarette smoke, the floral tang of motel sheets, and the hum of a TV leaking through the wall. Dean stood by the window, fists clenched, eyes tracking her like a wild thing.
He didn’t bother with small talk. Didn’t need to.
His gaze swept her slowly—down her bare thighs, the curve of the yellow cotton hugging her hips, the strap falling loose on her sunburned shoulder.
“That dress,” he rasped, voice almost pained. “Did you wear it for me?”
She let out a shaky laugh. “No. But now I wish I had.”
Two strides and he was on her. His hands found her waist, palms hot through the thin cotton, thumbs digging against her ribs as he pressed her back to the wall.
“Say it,” he murmured at her ear, breath searing. “Say you wanted me to find you.”
She shivered. “I did.”
His mouth crashed into hers—no soft prelude, just teeth and tongue and bruising hunger. She let him take, moaning into his mouth, yanking him closer by the shirt.
He spun her, pinning her to the door, thigh wedged between hers, grinding up until her dress rode high. Cotton bunched at her waist, panties damp and barely-there. His hands were everywhere—palming her ass, squeezing her thighs, fisting the fabric. He yanked one strap down and bit her shoulder, hard.
She gasped, arching into him. “Harder.”
He growled, lifted her up. Her legs locked around his waist, dress riding past her hips. He carried her to the bed and dropped her hard, mattress creaking under the weight of everything between them.
