She swallowed down her objections and considered his words. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have invaded your privacy. I’ve made a lot of mistakes when it comes to you. But the punishment you’re doling doesn’t fit the crime.”
“That is yet to be determined.” He reached toward the back and tossed a bottle of sunscreen on her lap. “Lather up. We’re going to be out here a while.”
The miasma of death overpowered the desert air, making every inhale a poisonous, stomach-turning affliction. Rylee bent at the waist and gagged, her insides burning in misery.
Tommy stood in a shallow grave, seemingly unaffected by the stench as he swung the pickax over and over. He’d been digging forever, making excruciatingly slow progress in the hard, dry earth.
Since tampering with evidence and hiding a human body were crimes, she refused to help. But it was also a crime to fail to report a death and to fail to report the disposal of the body. Neither of which she intended to do.
She would take the secret of Paul’s murder to her own grave. Not because she forgave Tommy for his heinous treatment of her, but because she was indebted to him for this murder. The only reason he killed this man was to stop him from raping her.
The desert sizzled with dry heat as far as she could see. She wasn’t even tempted to run. Paul hadn’t been able to escape this place, and the grisly aftermath of his failure lay in a pile of vulture scraps. It would be a long while before anyone stumbled upon his grave, if ever.
Even if law enforcement was tipped off to search the area, it would be a race against time and the elements, as the scorching temperatures ensured the remains would quickly decompose. The evidence of homicide would soon dry up with the corpse.
Gruesome thoughts. But comforting. She was so certain the crime scene would never be discovered that Tommy probably didn’t even need to bury the body. But he was scrupulous in every job he undertook. He wouldn’t leave here until every trace of foul play was gone.
The sounds of scraping and hammering rent the air. He threw the pickax with brutal strength, breaking up rocks and chipping away at the sandy soil.
Muscles and stamina. He had an abundance of both, flexing through each swing, his lips set in a severe line, his physique as rigid and uncompromising as stone.
She would have to be stupid or blind not to notice his honed, sun-splashed body, his shirtless chest glistening with sweat, and his face overheated and red as Lucifer’s was by nature.
The handsome devil paused, tossed off the cowboy hat, and raked damp hair away from his forehead. It was cropped on the sides and back and darker at the roots. The longer strands on top were straight and sun-bleached to a lighter shade of brown. If left untouched by his combing fingers, his rebellious bangs hung to his eyebrows.
It was a youthful hairstyle, one he could pull off without a receding hairline like many men her age had. A reminder that too many years separated them.
He resumed digging, angling away and slamming the ax into the ground. Her gaze followed the action, her lips parted in admiration.
His jeans hung low, molding to his contoured backside and exposing the carved indentations at his hips. His boots bore a thick layer of dust, and all those twitching back muscles streaked with dirt and sweat.
Lethally gorgeous.
Impossible to look away.
He was violence and sex and salvation. Salvation for trafficked women, not for her.
For her, he was corruption.
Damnation.
Death wasn’t off the table.
That was the real reason she refused to help him dig. If she stepped into that grave, he might not let her leave it.
But as the day grew hotter and the stench of rot grew riper, she just wanted to get this over with.
With a sigh, she grabbed the shovel and forced her feet toward his sculpted back.
He stilled at the sound of her approach and glanced over his shoulder, his eyes as hot and golden as the blistering sun.
“I’ll help.” She shrugged. “But it better not be my grave I’m digging.”
He cocked his tousled head, and a mischievous grin touched his lips.
An honest-to-God smile.
She couldn’t have imagined such a thing on his stern face, but now that she witnessed it, she didn’t want it to fade. It matched the glint in his eyes and made him look boyish, less threatening, and unreasonably, heartbreakingly stunning.
She was thunderstruck.
He turned back to his task, breaking the spell.
For the next two hours, they dug in silence, taking water breaks in the shade every fifteen minutes.
When he finally deemed the grave deep enough, she crawled out and stood by while he pulled on work gloves and dragged the half-eaten body into the hole.
She gagged and fought surging nausea as they covered the remains with sand and rock. The stench was eye-watering, the sight of squirming maggots and mangled flesh forever branded in her mind.
When the last scoop of dirt dropped on the grave, she charged toward the Jeep, breathing through her mouth and swallowing down bile.
Please, don’t puke. Please, don’t puke.
She chugged a bottle of water, sweating, shaking, desperate to leave this place and never return.
Footsteps approached from behind. He tossed his dirty gloves and grabbed a water, guzzling it in one long drink.
Dropping her brow against the side of the Jeep, she gagged again. It was all she could do to keep her stomach from emptying precious nutrients.
He moved in behind her and spoke at her ear. “A cock in the ass stops the gag reflex.”
Her heart sputtered. “Are you offering?”
“It’s a helpful tip.”
“So you’re offering just the tip?”
“For you, I’ll bury it to the root.” His breath heated her nape, his body heavy and damp against her back.
Her skin tingled in response, in memory, and she hated herself for it. “Get off me.”
“I read the messages on your hookup apps and know for a fact that anal isn’t just a notion in your lexicon of filthy thoughts. It’s a must-have for your one-night stands.”
If he was trying to insult her, he needed a different approach.
“That simply isn’t true.” She twisted to face him, smirking. “I enjoy all sorts of sex. I’m open-minded that way.”
“If I knew that women your age were kinky, I would’ve bagged a horny old lady years ago.”
That hit the mark.
The outrage this man inspired in her was fast and sticky, climbing through her limbs and burning her hand. She swung, slamming her palm across his face.
He didn’t flinch or raise his hand. His chilling calmness was threatening all on its own. “You wouldn’t have the strength to do that if Cole hadn’t fed you.”
Denial tangled in her throat and surged onto her tongue. “He didn’t.”
He strode toward the back of the Jeep, lifted a huge container of water, and poured it over his head. His wet, powerful physique defied the downpour, standing proud and mighty like an impregnable fortress.
Bronzed by the sun, his chiseled chest provided deep grooves for the rivulets of water to travel. It streamed down his well-thewed arms and darkened the denim at his hips. More trickled over the blunt angles of his face and along the thick column of his neck, racing between the hollows of his bulging chest muscles.
He lowered the container, and a fat, glistening drop clung to the ridge of his brick-hard pec. Finally losing its slippery hold, it cascaded down his flat abdomen and into the thin line of hair that led an enticing path beneath the waistband of his jeans.