Page 6 of Wild & Wanted

I rev the throttle, the deep rumble shaking the pavement, and before she can argue further, I wrap her arms securely around my waist and pull her flush against my back. I kick up the stand and rocket out of the parking lot into the cool night air.

A sharp, startled yelp escapes her lips as we accelerate, her grip tightening around my torso in a death-grip. I brace for her to panic, but a second later, a pure, unadulterated whoop of exhilaration bursts from her throat.

A grin rips across my face. I crank the throttle further, taking a wide, winding, roundabout route through the coastal backroads toward the warehouse. She buries her face into my back, clinging to me with every turn, her body shaking with bright, ringing laughter.

God, it feels incredible. The friction of her soft curves pressed against my spine, the heat of her body bleeding through my leather, the sound of her joy cutting right through the dark… it makes my head spin. Every sensory detail of her is burned directly into my skin.

When we finally slide to a stop outside the warehouse, I cut the engine and swing off, turning to help her down.

Her pulse is visibly pounding in the hollow of her throat, her cheeks flushed a bright, rosy pink, and her brown eyes blazing with wild, beautiful adrenaline. She flashes me a smile so bright it nearly blinds me.

"That was amazing," she breathes, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "I didn't have a single thought or worry the entire ride. That... that never happens to me."

She takes a step forward to dismount the rest of the way, but her knees suddenly buckle beneath her.

I’m moving before my brain can even catch up. My arm shoots out, catching her around the waist and pulling her hard against my solid frame to keep her steady. She stumbles, her hands instinctively pressing flat against my chest to catch herself.

Hadley tilts her head up, looking right at me, and I’m hit square in the chest with the full, unshielded force of her radiant beauty. I flash a slow, wicked grin, tilting my head down toward hers. "That's why I like to ride, too. The rest of the world just fades away."

She swallows hard, nodding slowly, a few loose strands of vibrant red hair falling out of her braid to frame her flushed face.

Clack.

The heavy metal side door of the warehouse swings open with a sharp bang. We both snap out of our daze, springing apart like we’ve been burned. One of the day-shift guys is walking out, signaling the official start of the night shift.

Normally, I only show my face during the day, and even then, only long enough to check manifests before heading out to handle club business. But with Hadley inside those walls, my place is right here. My body made that decision for me twenty-four hours ago; my stubborn mind is just finally catching up.

We head in side-by-side. I walk her back to my office, get her settled at the desk, and then tell her I need to check on things in the back.

In reality, I just need to escape for five minutes. I need to take a deep breath and come to terms with what this woman is doing to me without even trying. She’s dismantling my impenetrable walls brick by brick, showing me her fierce, unbreakable strength alongside her quiet, tender vulnerabilities.

And looking at her makes me want to do the same.

CHAPTER FOUR

HADLEY

The silence of Wolf’s office settles back around me the second he steps out. The faint, lingering scent of spicy evergreen and leather still clings to the air, making it entirely impossible to focus on the numbers flickering across my monitor. I pull up the latest batch of shipping manifests, cross-referencing the digital entries with the physical logs.

My fingers freeze over the keyboard.

There it is again. The exact same weird anomaly I noticed yesterday. A set of duplicate tracking numbers paired with massive weight discrepancies that make zero sense. Knowing how deeply the reputation of King’s Logistics and the club relies on absolute accuracy, I can't just ignore it. Wolf needs to see this.

I stand up, smoothing down my sweater, and step out of the office, heading down to the main floor to track him down.

The warehouse is vast, shadowy, and mostly quiet at night. A few other data entry specialists sit hunched over workstations in the distant bullpen, mostly keeping to themselves, headphones clamped over their ears as they click away at their keyboards. But as I wander down the cavernous aisle between towering stacks of pallets, I spot a man standing near the loading bay who doesn't look anything like an analyst.

He’s thick, burly, and reeks heavily of stale beer and diesel exhaust. When he notices me stepping out from the rows, his eyes rake over me from head to toe in a slow, greasy sweep that makes my stomach turn. Before I can turn around, he steps directly into my path, crowding me backward against a cold concrete pillar.

"Well, what do we have here?" the man mutters, slurring his words as he leans in close, trapping me in the narrow space. "Night shift's getting a lot better looking since the last time I⁠—"

He doesn't finish the sentence.

A heavy, terrifying force violently yanks him backward by the collar with enough raw power to send him tumbling to the floor. He hits the concrete with a hard, rattling thud right at my feet.

Standing over him, chest heaving and posture locked like a coiled spring, is Wolf.

"Get up," Wolf snarls, his voice a lethal, vibrating growl that echoes off the steel girders.