by Mia Madison
But I don’t want to be a dirty bastard here. I could claim Caila right now in my garage, but then what? I need her to know I want more than a hard fast fuck here. Much as I’m dying to claim her as all mine, to mark her with the stamp of me so that no asshat ever disrespects her again, I also don’t want this to be over.
I want to know more of Caila than her delectable inner curves. I want to know who she is, what she wants, what I can give her that will make her life perfect. Because whatever it is, I’d do it in a flash without even asking why. I would kill for her.
I would give this girl anything if it would make her happy. It’s a feeling that surges up through my chest and overwhelms the longing to be buried deep inside her tight pussy. This is an unusual sensation I’ve never known before and it knocks me half for six. Not that I can’t stand up to being knocked around, physically or emotionally. I’ve learned to be an inscrutable force thanks to circumstances.
I doubt Caila’s aware of how I’m being mown over just with her standing bedside me. So close there’s barely a hair’s breadth between us. Her shoulder grazing against my hard bicep as she daintily trails her little fingers over the dirty tools.
It’s on the extreme point of my tongue to tell Caila how I feel.
Maybe she’d accept me. Maybe she wouldn’t squeal that I’m a dirty beast and far too old for her as well. I may be rough but I’m not ignorant. I had a good education before I went up to the house. Right – even if she did accept me, if she ever finds out about that, she’d be gone.
A bolt of electricity fires up my arm, pulling me out of my reverie. Caila’s tiny fingers have danced their way over the tools lining my bench and are whisper-trailing along the edge of my pinkie. They outline a dirty black mark on my fingertip as sensually as if it were the vein on my cock.
“Caila,” I rasp out.
Her touch, the tiniest touch is sending me half deranged with lust. Those thoughts of shoving her up on my bench, or spinning her around to bend over it, dominate my brain until I’m going half insane.
“Yes,” she whispers. Both a question and an answer.
She knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
She’s gone from shaking and being unsure, to being completely in charge. Letting me know what she wants. My intention was to be a gentleman, ask her out on a proper date and not slam her into the tool bench and ravish her. What is it they say about best intentions? I have no clue, but mine have upended and turned completely filthy.
I have to have her right now.
I need to own her and make her mine.
Right now.
Her eyes slowly move away from being engrossed in our connected fingers to tip up and meet mine. Another jolt of electricity fires through my core, setting me ablaze. A pair of eyes and some tiny fingertips can bring a grown man, a hard man, to his knees.
Her eyes.
Her fingertips.
Only hers.
She lifts them now. Holding my gaze, the sparks between us filling the stifling air in the garage so that it really ought to combust. She lifts her hand to my mouth. Not quite reaching it, she drags the soft pads over my rough chin, wiping away some real or imaginary filthy grease spot. When it’s done, she leaves her fingers there, searing through my skin like she can’t bear to release me. Her hand lifts an inch and she touches my mouth like it belongs to an alien.
Like she’s never seen a man’s mouth before.
She’s never seen one like mine. That wants to possess every curve and corner of her body. That wants to lick and suck, kiss and bite every ounce of her flesh until it belongs to me. And no one else.
Her eyes say now.
My brain and my wood are in full agreement. I need her in my arms, naked, panting for me until she screams my name. I need her now and I can’t wait, screw my best intentions.
“Caila.”
In unison we leap apart like the electricity between us suddenly gave off a shock. As one our eyes bat toward the voice and I’m more shocked to see – what did she say the idiot’s name was? - Boone is standing there looking every inch the aggrieved boyfriend.
“What the fuck is going on here?” the kid snarls. His tone indicates complete rights and entitlement to Caila. “What are you doing here? With him?”
He may think he has possession of her but he’s got another thought coming. After coming that close and feeling what Caila wants pummeling loudly through every pore, I’m not relinquishing her. Not to this douchebag. Not to anyone. Boone the Brat’s eyes are slitted at me like he knows what I want. And he’s gonna stop me. Let him try – I’ll flatten him.
“What are you doing here, Boone?” Caila snaps, disgust seeping into her beautiful soft mouth I was two seconds away from owning.
“Is this what you left me for?” he yells at her. “So you could get slutty with some fucking greaseball?”
“Watch it,” I growl.
My fists are balling tight and I have to concentrate on relaxing them, not sending this brat to the tarmac where he belongs. That wouldn’t help my case to present to Caila, as a man who can be her equal. His eyes are throwing me that burn I’ve seen before under very different circumstances. Then it wasn’t over a woman – it was over everything.
This ass is saying ‘She’s mine’. This is my territory.
Fuck that.
Unless Caila tells me straight out that she wants Boone, which I know in my gut she won’t do, then the woman is mine!
He comes strolling toward me and the hackles go up all down my back. He’s got altercation written all over him – I saw that on a daily basis in the joint as well. Over anything.
“You watch it,” he snipes at me, but his enraged stare never leaves Caila. “I’m speaking to my woman here. This doesn’t concern you.”
His woman?
My fists clench tight and stay that way. She said she wasn’t Boone’s and I believed her. Either way he isn’t getting her without a fight. She deserves way better than this arrogant abusive ass.
“What are you doing here?’ he demands. “Answer me.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Caila rages right back at him. A real little fighter. “We aren’t together and you’re hardly in any position to act all hurt. Talk about projection.”
“I told you I was drunk,” he shouts. “You don’t listen. You never listen. You just think what you want instead of what I tell you.”
“I think what I want, not what you tell me.”
Caila’s mad, I can tell. She also leans just slightly into the hard side of me as though trusting me to take care of her should this nutjob turn nasty. I’m loving how she wants me to protect her. I want that from her always. It’s just one of the things I want to give her.
“I’m a person not your property,” she adds, shouting down whatever the douche bag's response was.
“You’re not a person,” he screeches, his voice rising into the higher octave. “You’re just a slutty little ho.”
I’m across the garage in barely two strides. My fist connects with Boone’s jaw with a resounding crack and he crumples like a used wrapper.
He looks up at me in shock, and a little terror that pleases me. I won’t have to damage him further and hopefully that’ll be a lesson not to slander any woman. His hand comes up to his chin and he starts squalling; “You broke my jaw. You broke my fucking jaw,” as he scrambles away, backing up out of the garage.
“Oh god,” Caila murmurs.
“Just you wait,” he hurls back at us, once he feels safely out of my range. “I’m going to tell my father.”
“Oh boo,” Caila shouts, coming up behind me again, her small hands on my delts calming me and firing up something wild at the same time.
“And yours,” Boone screams at her. “Wait ‘til I tell your old man you’re hanging out with grease monkeys and criminals.”
My hands clench hard and I make a move forward. Caila’s fingers claw at my tee, holding me back.
“Leave it,” she sa
ys. “Let him go. I don’t care what he does now.”
“But what about your father?” I husk, worried for her home life.
“Like I said, I don’t care now.”
I never heard sweeter words before those.
Chapter 6
Caila
“So you rescued me twice in one day already,” I purr against the back of his shoulder. The points of my breasts brush against the taut tendons in his back sending me into another tailspin of crazed desire.
“I’ll do that as many times as I have to,” he grunts back over his shoulder before turning around to face me. “Just say the word.”
I see the longing in his eyes but it’s changed now. It’s different from the searing lust I saw burning there when we were standing at his bench. It’s softened now, but the heat is still ravaging through me from the way he rips my clothes off with his gaze and lays me out before him.
“You’d better go,” he suddenly says and his shoulders droop enough that I know that’s not what he really wants.
“I don’t want to,” I whisper.
“Your father,” he grits.
“Are you worried about my father?” I ask, thinking this man is surely not afraid of anyone.
“Only for your sake,” he says.
“I can handle my father.”
“I want to do this the right way,” he blurts out in a rush, like he has to speak now or he won’t ever. “If it’s what you want too.”
“I do,” I spout, without a second’s hesitation, then add, “All of it,” my words loaded with meaning. I would still happily stay here in the garage with Rand while he does whatever he wants with my body. Right here in public.
He smiles to himself and slides his hand into the small of my back. It’s so huge it almost covers my ribs. But it’s also very comforting and makes me feel completely safe as he leads me towards the Lincoln.
I guess he’s decided it’s over for now. I’m not going to get what I crave. I’ll go home with my pussy throbbing and my head wondering. So where do we go from here? I guess that’s also what’s bothering him. What do we have in common? Where can we even go to be together where people won’t stare and mutter to each other from the side of their mouths like they think we can’t see?
There’s not only the age difference between us. There’s also the difference of class and money. Which means nothing to me but everything to other people and Rand, I can tell, is a proud man. He won’t appreciate them snickering behind his back.
I’m more than willing to come here to the garage, go to his place, or anywhere else just to be with him but he won’t allow it.
“I want to do this properly,” he insists, holding the door for me to get into the car. “I want to take you out. Will you go out with me, Caila?”
“I’d like that a lot,” I say softly, throwing him what I hope is a tantalizing smile.
“Good,” he says like everything’s resolved. “Go home now and I’ll talk to you soon.”
I don’t want to leave him. Now that he knows how I feel and I’m comforted knowing he wants me just as much, leaving him feels like ripping off an industrial grade band aid. I could sit here all day and watch him work. I love the way his muscles are constantly flexing and bulging as he tugs on his tools. My nipples harden just being here in Rand’s garage.
But I do as he says, not before leaving him with a memory. I reach up to stroke my roving fingers across his slash lips and then quickly get on tiptoes to plant a kiss. Then I scoot into the car while he’s still reeling a little from the surprise. He closes the car door, still stunned. As I drive away, I see him in the rear-view, standing there grinning to himself like he’s not only got the cream but he’s covered in it.
At home I take another bath, this time with luxuriating in fragrant bubbles so my skin will smell amazing when he buries his face into it. I plan out an outfit, taking every possibility into consideration then I curl up on top of my bed willing the time to pass faster.
Every time I check my phone, it seems impossible that not even a minute has ticked past. Time is literally standing still.
I swipe to favorites and call Angela. She’s not my bestie of my crew but she is the one I trust not to spread a lot of chatter.
“Ohmigod, he’s so hot,” she says when I ask, kind of casually first, whether she knows the mechanic at Hangetons. “My mom was talking about him at book club the other night.”
“You go to book club?”
“No, but I came down for ice cream and heard them yakking in the living room. They talk about almost everything but the book they’re reading.”
“Oh. So what did they say about Rand?” I inquire, not liking that half the women in town have their eyes on my guy.
“You know – filthy stuff,” Angela says. She doesn’t go out much so she’s more reserved than the rest of my group. She’s always the only one that never gets hit on when we go out. “They’re reading one of those steamy romance books and one of them said; ‘would any of y’all do that with the guy at the garage?’
“Do what?”
“Something about lubing up and letting him use his tool.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, I know but they were all twittery about it, talking about the mechanic’s huge biceps and um, other parts.”
“Right, that’s funny,” I snip, not finding it amusing at all. I have the urge to disconnect the call.
But then Angela says; “Mrs Howers asked everyone if they weren't afraid. What with him being so dangerous.”
“He’s dangerous?” I say, my interest spiking again.
“I know right, I got real interested about that too but they were all giggling worse than Annabel and Christy ever did. My own mother acting like a schoolgirl and talking about the size of some strange man's thing.”
Suddenly I can’t take it anymore.
“My dad’s just come in and is calling me, I better run.”
“Oh, okay, thanks for calling, Caila. We hardly ever chat since we left school.”
I get the tinge of loneliness in Angela’s voice and think I really have to try harder to be kind to my old friends.
“Let’s get together soon,” I say and swipe her off.
I push Angela’s nonsense out of my head. Those old women are just bored with their lives. Now their kids are grown up all they have is book club. Of course they’re going to live in their fantasies. I bet I will too.
No – I won’t. Because I intend to live as many as I possibly can, not just talk about them. Starting from tonight.
Chapter 7
Rand
I’m more excited than I’ve ever been about seeing a woman. My heart is racing and other parts are equally enamored by the prospect of being close, intimately close, to Caila. Not that I’m planning on being a cock tonight. I just want Caila to have a good time in my company. To know that I’m not some dumb jock laborer even if that’s my daily existence now. I’m educated, I can talk and give her an opinion on whatever she likes. She’ll see the real me. And then I’ll give her the rest.
I’m such a doofus about seeing her and wanting it all to go perfectly, I even put on a jacket and tie. In the mirror, I look like I’m going to a funeral. So I strip down and go as who I am. In low slung jeans, a tight tee and boots. If I want her to see me as me, better not put on some costume that disguises that. I can’t pretend to be other than I am and she’s got to want that.
I stop off to pick up a cute flower bouquet for her and drive to her house feeling like a prom king or some shit. What the hell do I say to her father if he comes to the door? What’s he going to think about a dirty older guy in a truck coming for his perfect little princess?
It doesn’t come to that in the end.
I turn the corner onto the street where Caila lives, lined with the biggest houses in town, all in row like a wall of resistance against the rest of us. Or that’s probably my projection, as Caila would say. I’m crawling along, looking for a number on one of the homes to show m
e where I’m at, when a white apparition appears out of the darkness running towards me. It’s Caila, making a dash for the truck, manically waving her arms.
My blood flares and my heart lurches for my throat. My skin prickles in a heated rash.
No.
For a second I think she’s in trouble, someone’s hurt or she’s being chased. My hackles go up, my fists grip the wheel until the knuckles turn white. I throw open my door but she’s beside the truck before I can stop and get out. I pull it back shut and lean across to open the passenger door for her. She climbs in panting like she’s been running hard.
“What happened babe. Are you okay?” My heart still pounding at the chest wall.
“Nothing, I’m fine,” she huffs. “I just wanted to get to you before you came to the door.”
“Ah,” I grunt. The adrenaline starts to recede. I have this under control.
“Can you reverse back. I don’t want my father to see us drive past.”
Irritation mixed with disappointment rises in my craw. So she is ashamed of me.
“It’s not that I don’t want daddy to see you,” she says as I back up the truck around a corner to turn back the other way. “He forbade me from going out tonight.”
“Why? Did that brat say something?” I bark.
“I don’t exactly know. When I said I was going out he forbade it, saying something about it not being safe.”
Suddenly my heart leaps right back into my throat.
“How old are you Caila?”
“Twenty three,” she says.
My heart relaxes again. She’s still fifteen years younger than me but for a moment there I thought maybe she was barely legal. Or not at all.
“I know, I should be standing up to my father and telling him I can make my own choices,” she adds, running on breathlessly.
I’m happy to listen to her talk. I want to know everything she thinks and does. Who she is beyond the perfect body and lovely face.
