14. Penny
PENNY
Sunlight comes through the blinds in thin gold bars, cutting across the comforter, and for a few seconds I don’t remember why my body feels this loose, this warm, this thoroughly wrung out.
Then I turn my head, and there’s a man in my bed.
Not just any man. Evan Cole, flat on his back, one arm flung over his eyes like the light’s personally offended him, the sheet pooled low around his hips.
Ink covers most of his chest and both arms, dark shapes I can’t fully make sense of yet, flames curling into something that might be a skull, a name I don’t recognize tucked along his ribs where an old scar cuts a pale line through the color.
His chest rises and falls, slow, even, a man sleeping like he’s got nowhere else in the world to be.
We had sex on my couch. Then we had sex in this bed. Twice. Maybe three times, though somewhere around round two my brain stopped keeping accurate count and started operating purely on sensation, which is not a state I generally allow myself to be in, ever, for any reason.
I lie there another few seconds just looking at him, and something in my chest goes soft before I can stop it.
He looks younger like this. Unguarded. All that intensity switched off for once, no calculation behind those eyes because they’re closed, no reputation to hold up, just a man asleep in my bed with his mouth slightly open and one bare foot hanging off the edge of the mattress.
Then he stirs, and I remember what morning means.
He blinks awake slowly, stretches one arm over his head until something in his shoulder pops, and when his eyes land on me, his whole face changes. Not dramatic. Just a shift, corner of his mouth curving up, and something settles into his expression that looks a lot like satisfaction.
“Morning,” he says, voice rough with sleep.
That single word does it. Last night is over. I have to go back to work knowing he was here.
I sit up so fast the room tilts, one hand already fisting the sheet against my chest like I could somehow hide what we did.
Evan Cole is in my bed. Diesel, Vice President of Wicked Sinners Motorcycle Club, whose club keeps coming up in the files on my desk, is in my bed, and I let him stay the whole night, let him inside me, and I did it more than once, and none of that is going to look good written down anywhere, ever, by anyone.
“You need to go,” I say.
He props himself up on one elbow, studying me with an expression that’s entirely too calm for the situation. “Good morning to you too.”
“I’m serious, Evan. You need to leave. Now.”
“A little late for that,” he says, and there’s no bite to it, just something dry and amused, like he already knows exactly what’s happening in my head and finds it more entertaining than alarming. “Kind of hard to play coy about it after last night, sweetheart. You weren’t exactly subtle.”
Heat crawls up my neck, and I hate that it’s not entirely embarrassment. “That’s not—this isn’t about being coy.”
“Then what’s it about?”
I swing my legs out of bed, grab my robe off the chair, and yank it on so fast the belt tangles before I get it tied. Thunder lifts his head from his spot on the rug, glances between the two of us, and apparently decides none of this concerns him, because he drops his head right back down.
“It’s about the fact that you’re on the wrong side of the law. And I just—” I press the heel of my hand against my forehead. “I can’t believe I did this.”
“You did more than this,” Evan says, and I hear the grin in it without even looking at him. “Multiple times, if memory serves.”
“That’s not helping.”
“Wasn’t trying to help. Just stating facts.”
I turn around, and he’s sitting up now, sheet gathered loosely at his waist, one arm resting on his bent knee, watching me pace the length of my own bedroom without interrupting.
He doesn’t look worried. He doesn’t look hurt, either, which somehow makes this worse, because some small, stupid part of me expected this to matter to him the way it’s currently detonating in my chest.
“You need to leave,” I say again, quieter this time.
“Alright.” He says it easily, no fight in it. He gets up buck naked and walks into my living room, with me following, to start gathering his clothes off the floor where they landed at various points last night. “You want to tell me why the sudden emergency, or am I supposed to guess?”
“You know why.”
“Enlighten me anyway.” He pulls his jeans on, doesn’t bother with the button yet, just stands there in the morning light like he owns the room, all ink and scars and unhurried confidence.
“Because from where I’m standing, you invited me in last night.
You asked me to stay. Doesn’t sound like an emergency from here. ”
“That was last night.” My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to. “This is this morning. This is the part where I remember I’m a cop, and you’re—”
“Diesel,” he finishes for me, and there’s something careful under the ease now, something that wasn’t there a second ago.
“Yes.”
“Funny. Didn’t hear you calling me that last night.”
I don’t have an answer for that, because he’s right, and we both know it, and standing here arguing about names feels like an excuse to avoid saying what I’m actually afraid of. I press both hands against my face and breathe out slowly through my fingers.
“I need you to go,” I say, and this time it comes out smaller than I want it to.
Something shifts in him then. Not the smirk falling away exactly, more like it softens at the edges, and he crosses the room in a few steps, close enough that I catch his scent again, whatever’s left of last night’s cologne mixed with skin, and I have to fight the urge to lean into him instead of backing away.
“Hey.” He tips my chin up with two fingers, gentle, nothing like the man rumors describe. “I’m not gonna make this hard on you. You want me gone, I’m gone. But don’t stand there and pretend last night didn’t happen just because the sun came up.”
“I’m not pretending anything.” My voice cracks a little on the last word, and I hate it.
“Alright.” He drops his hand, steps back, finishes buttoning his jeans, and reaches for his shirt off the floor. “Alright, Penny.”
He dresses without hurrying, unbothered, and every second of it makes my skin prickle worse, because some part of me wants him to argue harder, wants him to fight for a few more minutes in this room, and another part of me is already composing the incident report I never intend to file, registering exactly how bad this looks from every possible angle.
At the door, he stops, boots on, shirt buttoned crooked at the collar, and looks back at me standing there in my robe with my hair a wreck and my arms crossed over my chest watching him leave.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, “I don’t regret a single minute of last night.”
“Evan—”
“I know.” He holds up a hand before I can finish whatever I was about to say, and the corner of his mouth ticks up again, that same maddening amusement creeping back in. “You’ll call me if you change your mind. Or you won’t. Either way, I had a good night, Officer Carpenter.”
And then he’s gone, boots on the porch steps, truck door opening and closing out front, engine rumbling to life and fading down the street while I stand frozen in my own hallway with my heart still going like I ran a mile.
I don’t move for a long time after the sound of his engine disappears.
Thunder wanders over eventually, presses his big head against my thigh, and I sink down onto the floor next to him without really deciding to, my back against the wall, knees pulled up under the robe.
He licks my hand once, unimpressed with whatever crisis I’m having, and settles down beside me like he’s got all morning.
I think about Morris finding out. I think about the department, about Johnson’s face if he ever heard, about every single officer who’s ever made a joke about somebody sleeping their way into a conflict of interest, and how I’ve laughed along at those jokes before, comfortable, superior, certain I’d never be the punchline.
I think about the ring in the evidence locker and the Halvorsen file. If either case leads to the Wicked Sinners, my relationship with their VP gives a defense attorney every reason to question my judgment. And they’d be right to ask.
I can’t untangle it sitting on my floor with a headache coming on.
I did this anyway. That’s the part that keeps circling back, cutting me every time it passes.
I knew exactly what he was, exactly what it would cost me if anyone found out, and I let him walk me to my door and kiss me against the wall and stay until morning, like every rule I’ve built my whole life around suddenly stopped applying the second his hands found my hair.
I pull my knees tighter against my chest, and Thunder shifts closer, warm against my side, and I let myself sit there in the quiet a while longer, replaying every second of last night against every second of this morning, unable to decide which part of this I regret.
The cop who told him to leave.
Or the woman still sitting here on the floor, wishing he hadn’t listened.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, and I know before I even check it that it’s going to be work.
It’s always work. Ten past eight on a Saturday morning, and there’s no other reason for my phone to light up unless something’s gone wrong somewhere in this county that needs my particular brand of showing up and pretending I’ve got everything under control.
I get up, robe still tangled around me, Thunder groaning his displeasure at being abandoned, and I look at the screen.
Morris. New development on the county robbery. Call me.
Of course.
I sit on the edge of my bed, the same bed that still smells like Evan’s cologne and something warmer underneath it, and I stare at that message for a long moment before I make myself dial.
How am I supposed to walk into the station and look Morris in the eye?
But I know exactly what I’ll say if anybody asks, because I’ve had seventeen years of practice lying to myself about exactly this man, and apparently I’m still not done.
Nothing happened.
I press the phone to my ear and wait for Morris to pick up, and somewhere underneath the dread, underneath the shame already settling cold in my stomach, there’s a small, stubborn part of me still tasting his mouth on mine, still feeling his hands on my hips, still wondering how long I’ll manage to keep telling myself that lie before it stops working altogether.