Under a Raging Moon: Part One

by V. J. Chambers

  * * *

  Hudson Slade was wearing a stained flannel shirt. It was folded up to his elbows, exposing his burly forearms, which were covered in fine, dark hair. His fingers were thick and blunt and strong. He lounged in the doorway, eyebrows raised. “So, you live here?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m just staying here. My car broke down in front of the house, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  He lowered his eyebrows, seeming almost reassured by that answer. He took me in. “I don’t know. It seems to me that someone like you would always have somewhere to go.”

  “Well, I don’t.” I pushed past him, unsure why I was even agreeing to this. It was stupid. Of course he wasn’t lying about the car. He wouldn’t go to the trouble of coming to get me if it was otherwise. When I went by him, I brushed up against his chest. He was warm and solid, and I jerked back.

  He grinned at me, clearly amused. He had dark eyes and a hint of stubble on his chin. His brown hair was unruly. He had… something. A wholesome, good-old-boy charm. His chest was broad and his arms thick. I couldn’t help but imagine being engulfed in him. I wondered how he would smell. I leaned in, breathing in, catching a whiff of oil and sweet sweat and some kind of woodsy male fragrance.

  He caught my eyes with his own.

  I gazed into their depths, feeling transfixed.

  “You know.” His voice came out quiet and gravelly. “You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want.”

  I shook myself. I felt almost as if I was falling under this man’s spell, and I didn’t even know him. Besides, he was dirty. He was covered in car grime.

  But, hell, for some reason, that was really sexy.

  I wondered if this was the problem with my attempt to seduce Kale. While I found Kale very easy on the eyes, I hadn’t had a visceral connection to him right away. Not like this.

  And I couldn’t afford this connection. “I’m fine here.” I hugged myself and looked down at my shoes, as if I could protect myself from the assault of his presence.

  He didn’t move for several seconds. Then he came to me and lightly brushed my shoulder.

  Shivers went through me.

  “My truck’s over there.” He gestured.

  I looked. “Great.”

  We went to the truck. The drive to the shop was wordless. I tried to stare straight ahead, but I kept… well, feeling him next to me, and I was compelled to turn my head and look at him. More often than not, I’d find him looking at me. But the minute he’d see that I was looking at him, he’d turn back to the road. I stared at him in profile for a little bit, his straight nose, his whiskered chin. I tried not to let myself think of how comfortable this already felt, as if he and I belonged together in a truck, driving someplace in companionable silence. I had an urge to reach across the truck and touch him, lay my hand on his thigh. But I squelched it, keeping my hands in my lap.

  He stopped the truck in the parking lot, turning the key. He turned to look at me.

  I backed up against the door, trying to get away from his gaze.

  He licked his lips, started to say something, and then stopped.

  I scrambled to open the door to the truck and get out of there. I needed to focus on Kale and my job, not on this sexy, backwoods guy who was fixing my car—the car I’d sabotaged myself. If I hadn’t been working, then maybe…

  But I was working. So, I’d need to be nothing but professional from here on out. I smoothed the edge of my shirt. “Where’s the car?”

  “Come with me,” he said.

  I followed him into one of the garages in the shop, watching the way his jeans were molded to his backside. He had huge, muscular legs as well. He was enormous, but it was all muscle. He was this hairy, burly, woodsy, sweaty man-sicle. I wanted to lick him.

  Stop it, Piper. And here I thought I always went for clean-cut, well-educated boys. I guessed I’d never really been around a man like this. He was so… male.

  My Beetle was up on a jack, high in the air, so that its underbelly was exposed. I could see the place where I’d detached the power steering hose from the metal oil cooler in the front.

  I could also see that the metal cooler, while totally intact when I detached it, was now broken in half. The still-attached half dangled down to a jagged, broken point. A little bit of green liquid was oozing out of it.

  “Well,” I said. “You’re right. That’s broken.”

  “Yeah.” He was peering at it too. I realized that he was standing right next to me. Our shoulders were almost brushing.

  Move away from him, Piper. I didn’t.

  “You’re going to need another one.”

  I looked over at him and found him gazing into my eyes again.

  I gazed back. I was feeling lightheaded. I wondered what he’d do if I faked fainting. If I started to fall, would he catch me? I bet he would. God, he looked strong.

  “So,” he said, “I should order the part, then?”

  I twisted my hands together. Right. The damned part. “Well, the thing is… I’m not sure if I really have that much money.” I’d been so intent on making my damsel in distress role for Kale as real as possible that I hadn’t brought much in the way of funds. This car thing wasn’t supposed to be expensive. It was supposed to be an easy fix.

  “Oh.” He cocked his head to one side, a small smile playing on his lips. “Well, that’s a problem.”

  It was a big problem. I guessed that there might be some way that I could get money from home, but it would involve a lot of—

  “Maybe we could find one at a junkyard.” Hudson interrupted my thoughts.

  “A junkyard.”

  “Yeah.” He scratched his chin. “Probably find it a lot cheaper on a totaled car.”

  I smiled at him. “That would be great.”

  He smiled back, and his voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Anything I can do for you, just ask.”