Page 8 of Hideaway Whirlwind (Big Boys of Berenson Trucking #4)

We’ve only just merged onto the interstate when there’s a pileup ahead involving two eighteen-wheelers that look to have skidded out of their lanes into each other, and traffic is forced to detour.

“I’m calling it a night,” I tell Russell after putting him on speaker phone so I can keep both hands at the ready. “Need you to find me a place close by since my internet is crap out here.”

“The weather forecast says it should clear up by morning,” he says with a raised voice over the loud country music playing in the background on the dance-hall date I’ve interrupted with his wife. “But you know how things change.”

I huff. “You’re telling me.”

I imagine the grin he’s probably cracking when he takes his time to direct me to another lone motel, this one sketchier and more secluded than the last.

Looks like we weren’t the only ones who had the same idea to stop for the night instead of risking our necks on the road, cars and a few more trucks filling up the lot fast. It takes me roughly thirty minutes to get through the long line to book our rooms, and I grunt when the harried, teenage receptionist, probably unused to this volume of grumpy and tired customers, tells me there’s only one room available, since many thought ahead enough to book their rooms over the phone while stuck in traffic.

“Fine.” I slap cash down on the beige counter with the laminate chipped along the edges, which costs more than the two rooms we booked at the last motel, what with their bullshit surge pricing.

With the below-freezing temperatures and snow salting the inky night, no one pays us any attention when I tuck Kendall into my chest beneath my flannel while hauling our bags behind Birdie, Dustin, and Sydney scuttling as quickly as they can without slipping toward the motel room at the furthest corner of the two-story structure.

Dropping the bags on the stained gray carpet, I have to peel Kendall’s chubby fists from my shirt when she resists being let down.

I get it. I don’t particularly want to set her down either.

To stop myself from taking the thousandth peek of Birdie wearing the flannel I offered her last night, which swallows her whole and falls to her knees like a nightgown, I keep my eyes trained on the A/C unit beneath the wide, cracked window facing the lot, raising the temperature as high as it will go.

I also try to tune out her song when she tells the kids to take off their snowy outer layers and climb into the questionably sturdy queen-sized bed on the left side of the room to huddle for warmth, her teeth chattering.

I wish I could offer her my jacket, but I had to burn that with the rest of the evidence.

“Try to get some rest,” I tell her over my shoulder with my hand on the doorknob.

“Where are you going?” Birdie asks with a frown.

“My truck.”

“Wait.” My tense shoulders relax when she lays her hand in the middle of my back—the opposite reaction I should have, considering she’s young enough to be my daughter, as the busy-body cashier assumed.

She skirts around my side, her other hand pressed flat against the door to stop me from swinging it open.

“You can’t stay out there. It’s freezing, and you can’t sleep on the foldout with the kids’ car seats in the way. ”

Staring a hole in the door streaked with years of grime, I tell her, “I’ll sleep in my seat. The cold won’t bother me.”

“But you’ve been stuck in your seat all day already.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.” Like I did with Kendall, Birdie peels my hand from the doorknob, hers so small and soft in mine.

I don’t ever want her to let go, which is a problem. The other being that there’s only one small bed, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to share it with them, even with Birdie between me and the kids. I’d take up most of the room, anyway, and then no one would get any sleep.

“Crap,” she mutters.

I squeeze her hand and use every speck of willpower I have to drop it. “Goodnight.” I toss her room key on the bed, and then I’m out the door before the little bird can stop me.

* * *

With the blackout curtains closed and my seat reclined as far as it will go, I’m alone for the first time in two days.

Alone with my static and monstrous thoughts, there’s nothing and no one to stop me from pushing down the sweatpants I’ve changed into and pulling my cock out.

I don’t have to spit in my hand when I grip my shaft to wet it.

The precum I’ve been leaking since seeing Birdie’s curves painted in my flannel does the job on its own.

If I unfocus my eyes, the daydream version of Birdie—who is very much not my daughter—appears before me, hazy around her soft edges, somewhat transparent, but as close to reality as I’ll ever get.

It has to be enough. Daydream Birdie rolls her leggings down and straddles my lap, arching her back to fit between my belly and the steering wheel as she wiggles her knees out as wide as they’ll go, spreading her center.

Her offering . She caresses my bare chest as I angle my cock down to press my crown against her sweet heat.

I slam my eyes shut and shove my cock back in my sweatpants, yanking my drawstrings tight when I knot them.

I don’t even want to sully the daydream version of her with the man I’ve become.

My skin itches and buzzes with need, but there’s no way I’d willingly leave them alone in the middle of nowhere and drive the frozen roads to find a tattoo shop that may or may not even be open.

A rattling knock against my door makes me snap up straight.

Grabbing my gun and holding it at the ready, I rip aside the blackout curtains, horrified to find Birdie shaking like a leaf, hugging herself, her back hunched against the wind.

I throw open my door and slip out of the truck as soon as she steps out of the way, hiding my gun behind my back while my socks dampen with the slush on the ground.

“It’s too cold for you to be out here,” I tell her, scared she’ll catch a cold, her body already run down after everything she’s been put through.

Birdie tugs the hand I’d thrown toward the motel room, her fingers already half-frozen, and shoves my driver’s side door closed.

As small as she is, she wouldn’t be able to make me budge so much as an inch if I didn’t allow her to.

Which I do. More so, I loom over her, pushing her to move faster with my bulk against her back, ready to catch her should her feet slip out from under her…

hoping, like an asshole, that she will so I can hold her again.