Wait Until Dawn by Bailey Bradford (book club suggestions .txt) 📕

as Rich pulled the car to the shoulder, then further into the grass as great swells of smoke seeped from the seam of the hood.

“Goddamnit all!” Rich slammed the gear in park and shut off the car. He reached for the phone his father had insisted he take and dialed Diego’s number. The call went straight to voicemail and he left a terse message telling his dad the car was toast and he’d be late getting to McKinton. Hopefully his father would call Laine—Rich wasn’t ready to speak to his former partner any sooner than necessary, and it’d be necessary once he arrived at Laine and Sev’s place.

“If I get there.” Rich unbuckled and got out of the car, waving his hand in front of his face when the wind shifted and sent a cloud of smoke at him. “Shit!” He could hear the burbling of coolant under the hood and suspected he might have a blown head gasket or two. “Should have been paying attention to the damn gages instead of relaxing like an ignorant…” A rumbling growl and whine of breaks had Rich snapping his mouth shut and spinning around to watch as the big black semi pulled over and rolled toward him.

“Jesus!” Adrenaline, that was what it was warming him from the inside out. Seeing that great beast of a truck coming at him turned the adrenaline into terror, sharp spikes of it shooting through his veins. Rich tried to calm himself, aware that he was overreacting. It was just a rig! It wasn’t like he’d never seen one before, although this one looked different, a more modern and no doubt expensive version than he was used to seeing. There was no reason for him to freak out over it, and yet he couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that he was in danger. It was ridiculous, really. Surely it was a lingering result of his isolation and the mess his life had become. But his heart slammed hard against his ribs as the driver stopped the semi a good half a dozen feet away. Rich watched in a stupor he couldn’t explain as a huge man got out of the cab.

No wonder he drives a big-ass truck like that! The guy had to be six and a half feet tall at least, his head shaved so that there wasn’t even a hint of hair and with shoulders broader than the length of Rich’s arm from shoulder to fingertips. His chest was heavily muscled—surprising for a trucker, Rich thought. They were usually kind of soft around the middle, in his opinion, but this guy…wasn’t. The black T-shirt he had on was stretched tight over taut muscles. Rich could have sworn he could even see the delineation of an eight-pack under there. Narrow hips and thick, strong thighs—and Rich felt the first real stirring of arousal he’d experienced in over a year. It shocked him enough that he snapped his head up and found himself the recipient of a smug grin on a wide pink mouth, emphasized by a… Rich squinted. What the fuck was that dangling from the guy’s chin?

“It’s a labret piercing,” the man rumbled in a deep voice.

Rich jerked his gaze up from the piercing, which swayed as the man spoke. His eyes locked with a whiskey brown pair, and Rich’s throat and mouth went dry. It wasn’t the craving for a drink that hit him, though. That, he would have been able to handle. What hit him—with all the force of a bowling ball to the solar plexus—was the intense lust he felt and saw reflected back at him in those warm eyes.

“Sorry I scared you earlier.”

Rich bristled as the man grinned.

“Some idiot cut in front of me and nearly ended up fucking my grill up,” the man continued. “Woulda been a shame to mess that beauty up.” He winked and stuck out his hand. “Name’s Chris—short for Christian, not Christopher—Neeland. Looks like you could use a ride.”

Rich took the proffered hand and immediately tried to jerk his own back when a jolt like an electric shock shot up his arm. He looked into Chris’ startled eyes. “Rich. Montoya. Give me back my hand.”

Chris looked at the sexy, wounded man in front of him and kept Rich’s smaller hand enclosed in his. The man was thin, too thin, and the scar running from eye to jaw didn’t appear to be very old. Chris wanted to know what had happened to the man to make him so weary of life. That was what Chris saw in those sad eyes, and it twisted his heart in a knot. His mom had told him he’d know his partner when he saw him, and while Chris had tried to write off her promise as nonsensical new age babble, it appeared she’d been correct all along. He wanted this man, had even detoured on his way home to follow the guy, which was, admittedly, a little stalkerish, but now he saw it more as fate.

A tug against his hold had him carefully tightening his grip. Chris looked into the dark chocolate eyes framed in dense lashes and felt his heart begin to tip toward the man. Careful, careful, don’t want to scare him off. He looked down at Rich’s hand and nodded. “Your hand? The skin is very smooth, the bones almost too prominent, but it makes your fingers appear very elegant, almost—” He looked up and winked, knowing he was goading Rich. Montoya. “Almost feminine, you know?”

Rich scowled and jerked his hand back, and this time Chris let him go. “I do not have girl hands, and you didn’t scare me with that damned horn,” the man sniped, and Chris thought he couldn’t possibly look cuter. “I swerved because…because there was something in the road!”

Chris let an eyebrow do the doubting, arching it up high on his forehead.

Rich’s cheeks turned ruddy and he narrowed his eyes. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Mind if I take a look under the hood?” Chris gestured