For crying out loud, how many times did that woman need to get hauled off the side of the road before she’d get rid of that piece of garbage? Shelby slowed down and eased in behind the El Dorado, so covered in dust that the license plates were obscured and the back window had practically no visibility.
Eighty-year-old Mrs. O’Hara was a menace in this car. Any car, actually, but this one in particular. The blind spots were epic, the radiator problematic, and she had no sense of how damn big the car was despite having driven it off the lot a million years ago!
Shelby slipped on the mint-green ballet slippers she’d taken off to drive, tucked her cell phone in her pocket in case this was more than just the radiator hose, and popped open the door to her car. Immediately the hot wind swept up around her, and her pink skirt swirled around her knees.
“Mrs. O’Hara!” she cried, rounding the back of the car, slapping her skirt back down. Mrs. Hara didn’t need to get a glimpse of her naughty underwear. “You all right?”
From the front passenger seat a person emerged. But it wasn’t Mrs. O’Hara.
It was a tall, very tall, powerfully built man, wearing khakis and a white tee shirt that were rumpled and smeared with grease.
Shelby stopped and took a step back. She held up the mace on her key ring.
“Stop … I mean …” He held up his hands, his voice low and soft. His blond hair was long, and he swept it out of his eye and then put the hand back up. “I’m sorry. I won’t … I won’t hurt you.”
“Where’s Mrs. O’Hara?” she asked, stepping back again. No one ever came down this road. Except for Gary sometimes on his tractor, but it was the wrong season for that. This man could rape her, kill her, and bury her body and no one would ever know.
“Who?”
“This is Mrs. O’Hara’s car.”
“No. It’s the crap car I bought from a crook outside Little Rock. Doesn’t go twenty miles without overheating.”
She hesitated before taking another step, but then he shuffled forward and she leapt back, her butt hitting the hood of her car. Her cell phone was in her pocket. She fumbled through her skirt until she pulled it out. Brandishing it like a gun.
He stopped, those hands going back up. His features were sharp, his eyes a startling blue. “I’m sorry. I am. I have no … well, no intention of hurting you. And I have no idea how to fix this car. I was calling someone for help, but I don’t get service out here. Do you?”
She noticed, belatedly, through the adrenaline haze of panic that his accent wasn’t local.
“You’re not from here?”
“I just … I just arrived from New York.”
Oh, that was worse, wasn’t it? Being from New York made him seem decidedly more dangerous.
“Why … why did you buy this car?”
“The rental place was out of cars, if you can believe it. And this car … well, it seemed sort of cool in the lot.” He gazed at the car as though it was a friend who’d betrayed him. “Look, if you get service out here, can I use your cell phone? Call a mechanic or something?”
It was his smile, abashed and charming, that convinced her. He was embarrassed out here with his broken-down car, relying on the kindness of strangers.
“I can look at your car, if you like. But I warn you,” she said as she typed in 911 on her cell and showed him the display, “I do get service, and any funny business and all I have to do is hit send—” Hit send and if she was lucky, maybe in twenty minutes Darryl down at the station would find his way out here. But this man didn’t know that.
“Understood,” he said solemnly. “But …” Sunlight hit his blue eyes and she realized they weren’t all blue, they were also gray and green, a beautiful color, and in the sunlight they glowed.
And his teeth were the whitest she’d ever seen.
He looked like a movie star, that Bradley Cooper guy.
“You know cars?”
His eyes swept down her body, taking in her pink skirt and white shell, all pristine despite the dust and travel. The breeze pressed her clothes to her skin, and his eyes took that in too, flaring slightly as he looked away.
It was hardly polite the way he looked at her, and something raced under her skin, a sort of giddy awareness that bloomed to life before she could squash it with her levelheadedness.
“I know enough.” She smiled when she said it, and somehow she didn’t sound like herself. She sounded flirty.
It was the way he looked at her, as if he knew what was under her skirt. And why she’d bought it and what she wanted a man to do with it.
“Who taught you how to fix cars?” he said.
“My mom.” She cleared her throat, pulling herself together. “Daddy raised me to be pretty, but Mom raised me to take care of myself.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it made for some good roadside flirtation.
“Your mother sounds like a smart woman.”
His voice was rich and deep, laced with humor and a sort of understanding, as if he knew her. As if they were comrades of sorts. She wondered if he did that on purpose, and, glancing at him, the smile on his face, she realized he did. He knew his charm. She waited for that to turn her off. She didn’t like cocksure men, but apparently this cocksure man was an exception.
“Hey,” he said as she was looking under the hood. “Don’t call 911, but you look pretty great, bent over the car.”
That. That was sleazy. Very sleazy. She shouldn’t like that. She should smack him. Leave him out here for the sun and the dust and Gary.
But heat pooled between her legs.
Oh, the blood climbed her cheeks and she looked down at the engine, light-headed and flushed.
The car had overheated, just like Mrs. O’Hara’s always did. She could fix this. “Do you have any wire?”
“Wire? Are you MacGyver?” he said as he tucked his phone back in his pocket.
She laughed. No one admired her practicality anymore.
“No. But if we had a little wire, I could fix this.”
“I have a wire-bound notebook.”
“Perfect.”
He ducked back into the car and she tried very hard not to stare at his body as he bent over, but then decided what the hell and stared all she liked. He was very tall, and his muscles were thick. He was either genetically gifted or he hadn’t had a carb in years.
Tall herself, she often felt physically awkward around men. But she wouldn’t with him. She’d feel small. Petite, even.
“Here,” he said, holding out the wire he’d pulled from a small notebook.
“Great.” She took the wire and bent over the engine, finding the radiator hose that came loose, causing all the coolant to spill. “Can you hold this?”
Suddenly he was right there, those shoulders pressing against hers, his fingers brushing her hand as he gripped the hose so she could tighten it with the wire from the notebook.
Her body shook with awareness, and she held her breath with a sort of panicked delight.
Once the wire was tightened around the hose, she leaned back, glancing down as he was still bent over. She stared at the twin ridge of muscles racing alongside his spine, pressed against the thin ribbed cotton of his shirt. Her fingers twitched with the sudden urge to touch those muscles, to lay her hands flat against his spine. His shoulders were freckled.
That’s sexy too.
You look pretty good bent over the car, too, she thought but couldn’t say. Could never say.
I should have had some lunch, she thought, slightly panicked by this utterly foreign turn in her thoughts.
“Do you have water?” she asked, and he leaned up.
“No,” he winced. “I have half a bottle of apple juice.”
Why in the world the fact that he’d been drinking apple juice so totally captivated her she did not understand; it was all part of the strange personality split she was experiencing.
“Wait. I have some.”
She walked back to her car and grabbed one of the bottles from the backseat. She never travele
d without water, a flashlight, jumper cables, flares, and some crackers. Somehow, looking at that little emergency kit tucked behind the passenger seat in the back of her car made her unutterably sad.
That emergency kit was why no one had passionate affairs with her. She was always prepared. Never spontaneous. And she knew how off-putting that could be. How it sent a signal of failure to those people who weren’t always prepared.
Anger suddenly surfaced, lifting her free of that sadness, lighting something dark in her belly. Something … unpredictable.
She was more than her emergency kit!
She stomped across the dirt road to the stranger’s car, the gorgeous stranger, who for whatever reason was attracted to her—she could tell. It had been awhile since she’d been so aware of a man’s interest, but this man’s filled the air like the scent of apple juice.
Rounding the corner of the giant car she found him leaning there, his legs stretched out, the flat muscles of his belly pressed against the white shirt, looking like he was waiting for someone to seduce him.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said, coming to his feet. He reached for the water and she, utterly adrift in this wild and strange current she found herself in, walked right up to his chest.
“I do,” she said and kissed him.
“Wha—” he breathed against her lips, and she shushed him. For a moment she was very sure he was going to push her away, and that seemed about right. If he’d kissed her, she’d push him away—at the least. That seemed like the reasonable reaction to an utterly unreasonable event. Even as her lips memorized the fullness of his, she braced herself for his hands at her shoulders, setting her aside. He’d say something sweet and she’d laugh, but she’d die a little inside.
That’s okay, she thought. She dropped the water bottle to better feel the wide white sail of his back under her palms. I’ll survive.
His body coiled, but then she felt those arms, thick with muscle, curve around her, lifting her against him. Her mouth opened with a surprised gasp and his tongue swept in, tasting her, slipping along her lips, her teeth.
Her arms locked around his neck and she opened her mouth wider, pressed herself tighter against him. She felt desperate inside of her skin, desperate to not be herself, to prove that she wasn’t just an emergency kit to the people in her life. That she was a woman. A woman worth wanting.
He pivoted, leaning back against the car, shifting her, pulling her until she was standing between his legs. His hands swept over her back down to her hips, his fingers curving over her butt in a way she’d had no idea she loved. But she did, and when he squeezed her, his fingers biting into her skin through the fabric of her skirt, she groaned, the sound loud in the silence.
“Not quite so prim now, are you?” he asked in a voice that made her wet.
No, she thought, she was none of the things she tried so hard to be, nothing like the woman the world thought she was.
“I like that,” he murmured, and she wanted to tell him to shut up, that talking was ruining the psychotic break she was enjoying. He shifted again and suddenly they were pressed chest and torso together and the thick ridge of his erection brushed her core.
She gasped, arching into the contact, wanting more. And he obliged, lifting her against him until the point of friction between them was hot enough to start a fire. She bit his lip, fighting to get closer, fighting to have more of this feeling, this wild, uncontrolled, running-down-the-hill feeling.
He groaned against her mouth, his hands lifting from her hips to find her breasts, small and aching beneath the sensible white shell she wore. He stroked her, rubbed her, and when she bit him again he squeezed her, just enough, just enough to send her one rung higher.
“Spread your legs,” he breathed against her mouth, and it didn’t occur to her not to. It didn’t occur to her to have a thought in her head that would contradict this stranger and the feelings he was creating in her. She shifted her little green ballet slippers and his hand curved around the back of her thigh. Had anyone ever touched her there? she wondered. Because the skin felt new, brought to life by his touch. She moaned at the contact of his skin, callused and rough against the smooth, relatively untouched skin of her thigh.
“More,” he told her and she did exactly what he said, unable to think of a reason not to. Wind blew past them, under her skirt, against the dampness he’d created.
His hand slipped up under her skirt, his fingers under the elastic edge of her underwear, until he cupped her ass in his hand, his fingertips just at the edge of the valley between her cheeks.
“Oh,” she gasped, breaking their kiss but not flinching as his fingers traced that valley, curling deeper. It was dark and exciting, and she couldn’t breathe for the pleasure of his touch.
No one had ever touched her there. She was sure of it. Something like this a girl would remember.
And then he found the electric center of her body where she was wet and hot and dying for him. Dying for him to slide inside of her.
“What—” She gulped air, unsure of what she was going to ask. What are you doing to me? What are we doing?
“Shhhh,” he whispered, calming her. His eyes, sleepy and sexual, blazing beneath his lowered eyelids.
His other hand traced the front of her underwear, finding her clitoris through the silk, and it was erotic. His bare hand, the silk, the silence surrounding them.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “So in control. You scared me, you know.” He was teasing her. Making fun of her, and she didn’t care. Was too far gone.
“Please,” she gasped and he smiled, so wicked, so knowingly wicked.
His finger from behind sank deep inside of her and his other hand picked up a heady, demanding rhythm.
This. This was happening. This man … this handsome stranger so far beyond her reach, her world, was going to make her come on the side of the road and she was doing nothing to stop it. She had started it!
“Yes,” she sighed, pressing her forehead against his shoulder; the scent of him, sexy and sweaty and warm and real, was too much, and the world started to go fuzzy. As her body coiled and burned, she opened her mouth and bit that shoulder muscle.
He jerked against her and swore, his hands getting rougher. Another finger joined the first and he picked up the pace and she clutched at him, wrapping her arms around him, the only thing solid in a world flying apart.
“Come on,” he groaned in her ear and she clenched hard, her body one giant spasm of pleasure, lifting her up and away from herself.
Her eyes blinked open only to find him still watching her, his wicked grin softened into something kind. Human. And that humanity suddenly embarrassed her. The dampness between her legs suddenly embarrassed her and she had to look away.
“Wow,” she breathed and he chuckled, warm and low. His fingers, slowly, as if savoring her, slipped away from her body and his hands patted down her skirt, fixed the crooked hem of her shirt.
Considering she had started this little bit of exhibitionist behavior, her sudden shyness seemed ludicrous. He stood up from the car and she stumbled away, the distance between them clearing her head.
Oh. Oh God, what had she done? It was just an emergency kit. She looked at it a million times a day; why had she lost her mind now?
She put her face in her hands, horrified on a molecular level.
His chuckle only made things worse. “Don’t,” he said, his fingers stroking her face. “Don’t be embarrassed. Don’t … you’re beautiful. Sexy.”
Ludicrous. His words were outrageous flattery. Lies. She wasn’t sexy. She was an art teacher who lived with her mother. Despite the thong, despite what just happened, she was the opposite of sexy.
Sad. That’s what she was. Bordering on pathetic.
She opened her eyes only to see his erection making a mess of the front of his khaki pants. And the sight, the thought of it, just destroyed her. What did he think was going to happen next? What did she think was next? That they w
ould just climb in the back of the Cadillac, or, oh my God, was she supposed to do the same thing to him, out here? In the open?
I’m not this person, she thought. What the hell am I doing?
“I have to go,” she blurted.
“What … now?”
“Yep. Yes. I’m … ah … I’m late. So. You’ll be fine.” She grabbed the water from the ground and poured it into the radiator. Water splashed everywhere. “Just keep an eye on the heat gauge and the car will be fine. I mean … and I suppose—” she gestured toward the erection, because she was that stupid. “You … ah … will be too. I guess.” Oh my God, where was an earthquake, a flash flood when you needed it?
“Is this a joke?” he laughed, but there was an edge to it. He was getting angry.
She nearly ran, embarrassed, and her thong was unpleasantly wet and uncomfortable and her pride all worn and ratty. The door of the car slammed shut, sealing her into its familiar blandness, its safety ratings and good gas mileage. Yes. This was right. Even the emergency kit in the backseat made her feel better.
She drove away in a plume of dust, not even lifting her hand in a wave. Not even honking.
It didn’t happen, she told herself, turning up the radio, brushing her blond hair out of her eyes. None of that happened.
Chapter 8
Jackson braced his head in his hands and wondered why he scheduled budget meetings on Monday morning. It was like taking a sledgehammer to the day. To his own head.
“I thought … I thought we’d dodged the bankruptcy bullet,” Jackson said. “We were in the clear.”
“It’s not bankruptcy, Jackson. Not exactly. It’s just … reality. Look, you’ve done a great job, son,” Brian Andersen, the city treasurer and undoubtedly the next mayor of Bishop, took off his half-glasses and folded them up as if he were ready to throw in the towel. “You cleared up the pension mess you inherited. I thought for sure that would ruin us. Frankly, we’ve held on longer than I thought we would.”
“Let’s walk backward,” Jackson said, leaning back in the chair behind his desk. His hair was still damp from his morning swim, his body loose and boneless, his muscles unable to muster up a twinge despite the conversation. On a purely selfish note, thank God he’d managed to keep the pool open. Without his grueling workouts, there was no telling what would happen at these budget meetings.
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