Homeless and heartbroken, Phoebe Morris is having a rough day. The old Cadillac she purchased with the last of her money, a vehicle meant to get her two states over to start her new life, is on the fritz and stalling in the sweltering heat. With no cash to pay for the costly repairs, Phoebe would sooner take her chances and keep on driving than become a charity case for the hottie mechanic trying to keep her safe. A retired Navy SEAL, Dane West refuses to let the weary submissive that’s putt-putted her way into his life leave his garage in the deathtrap she calls a car. It’s too hot and too dangerous for the stubborn beauty to be stranded on the side of a desolate highway, and he’ll be damned if another woman in his care gets hurt by his failure to act. When a small tug on an engine cable ensures her stay—at least temporarily, Dane shows the lovely Miss Morris just how good a little TLC (and BDSM) can feel.

Battered and sitting in jail, Beatrice Maxwell is having a rough night. A few years earlier, a teenaged Beatrice had promised Deer Creek’s sexy sheriff of that she would never trust strangers again—especially not after a joyride-turned-speed-chase found her in the back of a stolen vehicle…and then over the sexy sheriff’s knee. Despite living her life as an upstanding citizen since that fateful day, Beatrice has broken her stranger-danger promise and now finds herself in trouble with the law again, this time for attempted murder. Sheriff Tom Clayton knows his deputy only arrested Beatrice to keep her safe—not only from her own self-incrimination, but from the dangerous man she opened her front door to greet. Eric Cartier is on the loose in Deer Creek, and there is no way Tom is going to let Beatrice out of his sight before the suspect is apprehended and put in jail. Until then, his little felon is on custodial lockdown…with him. Tom sweeps Beatrice away to his cabin where he is determined to not only keep her safe, but examine their turbulent past and secure their future.