Brain, meet reality.
Daughter. Grammy gone. A stupid will. There was just too much to contend with at the moment. She speared a piece of cinnamon bun, already missing whatever it was she’d experienced last night.
Aaron stopped chewing and looked up at her. “Hey, what’s got you down?”
“It feels wrong to go out and have a good time when…” She trailed off. It felt so selfish to be enjoying herself when she’d just lost Grammy.
“Hey.” He dropped his fork on his plate and reached over to brush his knuckles along her cheek. “The Grammy I knew would have wanted you to go out and dance. She’d also expect you to find someone at that singles mixer.”
Jill choked on her orange juice. Hello there, Mr. Perceptive. If he only knew the predicament she found herself in. But she was too embarrassed to admit that.
“You’re probably right. She always did like her scheming.”
“To Grammy.” Aaron lifted his glass of orange juice.
Jill did the same and clinked her glass against his. “To Grammy.”
She took a long sip and finished the rest of her pastry.
“You ready to head out to your car? I’ll walk you out, then I’m going to finish up work here for a little bit.”
She nodded. It was time to check out, anyway. Time to pick up her daughter and return to mom mode. Fantasy officially over.
A quick look at her phone showed Mia and Kate had already left but promised to get all the juicy details during coffee on Sunday. Like she was going to spill about last night. She couldn’t even think about it without blushing. She grabbed her overnight bag and allowed Aaron to put his arm around her as they exited the room. She’d let the bubble of bliss burst once she left the parking lot of the hotel. Until then, she’d enjoy the warmth of his touch.
As they made their way out to the lobby, the doors to the building slid open as people entered, wheeling bags behind them. The frigid breeze hit them like a block of ice, even several yards from the entrance.
A shudder made her stomach clench. “Holy crap. I am so not prepared for this.” Jill rubbed at her arms. Considering how she was dressed—jeans, top, and a sad excuse of a shawl—she probably looked pretty damn stupid.
Aaron looked over at her and frowned, quickly unzipping his jacket.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not just going to stand here and watch you shiver. Here, take it.” He shrugged the jacket off his shoulders.
“Oh, you don’t need to do that.” Her car heater would probably heat up by the time she made it home. Though, it’d be just her luck to die of hypothermia after a night of great sex.
“I insist.” And with that, he laid it over her shoulders and continued to walk her to her car. She pulled the jacket tighter around her and indulged in one very quick, hopefully unnoticeable sniff of the fabric. Soap, cedar, and Aaron. Ding ding ding—a winning combination.
Six inches of snow stood on the hood of Jill’s car by the time they made it to her spot. Maybe her hooking up with Aaron had somehow upset the balance of the universe, and now hell was literally freezing over. That was the only explanation she could come up with as snow came down in light, dusting flurries, moving so slowly she felt like she was in a snow globe that was just shaken and starting to settle.
She cleared her throat, fighting to not fidget. A few things ran through her mind: how the hell was she supposed to get out of the hotel parking lot? How was she supposed to drive in snow, period? And how would she deal with the sickening feeling of not wanting to let go of this fantasy bubble they’d created. “Thanks for last night. It was amazing.”
…
Aaron fixed his jacket tighter around Jill, shielding her from the sudden uptick in wind. And then he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Last one, he reprimanded himself. He’d promised her one night, and now he had to get things moving along or else it was about to get awkward. “I had a great time…catching up.” He should be shot for that response. A woman like Jill deserved to be pampered every damn day.
She nodded, her smile forced. “Thanks for being so cool about this. I guess I should be going now.” She worried her lip. He wanted to run his thumb along the plump red skin, to take it between his own teeth and kiss her until she was breathless. But they’d both decided it was hands-off once they left the hotel room.
“Yeah, I should get back to work.” It was a good reminder that Aaron wasn’t one for sticking around. He didn’t want to be in Charleston long-term. This was just temporary until he started his new job. “Do you have an ice scraper?”
“No.”
Of course not. Most residents didn’t need one, except for the occasional dip into the thirties a handful of times per year. He’d needed to invest in one when he moved in with his buddy Sam in D.C. “Hold on. Let me get one from my truck.”
He gave himself a minute to let everything go as he trudged to his truck on the other end of the parking lot. Let it go, fucker. Even though his body screamed that he should take her back to the hotel for just a few more hours. He wasn’t proud of those thoughts. By the time he returned to her, he’d put up a wall, protecting both of them. If Aaron was good at one thing, it was compartmentalizing. And he’d do just that when it came to the woman in front of him.
He scraped the ice and snow off her car, and as soon as Jill turned the key to the ignition, Aaron knew something was wrong. Steam billowed from the front of her car and it let out a loud hiss. “Turn it off,” he yelled to her as her car made a very disturbing sound.
Chapter Four
“What do you think it is?” A vision of money flushing down the toilet flashed behind her eyes. Please let it be something simple, she silently prayed. This was cutting into her coffee fund, and if she gave that up, she might as well sell her soul to the devil right now.
“Let me look.”
Aaron didn’t even seem cold in his thin Henley, whereas Jill was shivering in her knee-high boots. Literally. She clung tighter to Aaron’s jacket, willing some warmth back into her bones.
Aaron pulled the latch to lift the hood of her car, and steam billowed out. Yeah, this did not look good. She channeled thoughts of Scrooge McMoneybags amounts of cash suddenly appearing in her bathtub at home, to try to keep from slipping into freak-out mode.
He leaned over and checked a few things, and then asked, “When was the last time you took your car to get serviced?”
“Do people really abide by the little stickers in the corner of their window?”
He cut a glance to her.
“I mean, if so, I’m probably two years overdue.” She gave him a sheepish smile.
He blinked long and hard. “You’re out of antifreeze. Cracked your radiator.”
“Shit.” She didn’t know what a cracked radiator entailed, but from the grim expression on his face, she could tell it wasn’t good.
“I have a friend who owns a towing company. Let me give him a call and he can get your car back into town.”
“You don’t have to do that.” He’d already done more than enough.
“Jill.” He leveled a look at her, one that she’d never seen from Aaron before. One that was protective and fierce, and if he weren’t on her side, it might have scared the crap out of her. “Would you rather be stuck with a huge fee?”
She debated this for a hot second. Pride be damned, she couldn’t turn down his offer. Last time that she ugly cried was while watching an episode of This is Us. The recipe for another cry sesh was on the horizon. She didn’t even know why she was close to tears, other than the fact it was so sweet that Aaron was going out of his way for her. “Fine. You can call.”
He nodded once and pulled out his phone.
Ten minutes later, they had her car hitched to a tow truck and she was riding shotgun in Aaron’s truck. Aaron had driven his mom’s Prius when he was in high school. The sleek black F150 was a very nice upgrade. “Thanks again for giving me a ride home.” This was going to be fun to explain to h
er mama. Oh, hey, sorry I can’t pick up Emily yet. I don’t have a way to get home, or have a way to drive my kid to school on Monday. Yay. Who knew how long it’d take for an auto shop to fix a radiator, but with the way some of the garages moved when she needed a new engine last summer, she had at least a week carless ahead of her. She leaned her head against the window and cringed as she added up possible expenses.
“You getting weird on me?”
She cleared her throat and looked over at Aaron, whose worried gaze made her wonder how long she’d been zoned out. “No. Why would you say that?”
“Because you look like you’re two seconds away from jumping out of the truck.” He jutted his chin toward her white-knuckle grip on the door.
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t as good at this whole one-night stand thing as she thought. But she didn’t factor in the small little tidbit that she’d sleep with a man who knew all her deep, dark childhood secrets. Hell, he knew that she’d harbored a crush for Zach Hanson when she was in middle school, and she’d take that to the grave. “No. I just never expected—this—to happen.” There was an unspoken with you at the end of that. She obviously had spent too much time in the sun, because how did she not notice him years ago.
“Neither did I.” A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, sending heat prickling on the inside of her thighs. “But I’m glad it did.”
“Me, too.” She swallowed hard. It was one thing to say good-bye at the hotel, but it was a whole different level of awkward to do so in front of her mother’s house.
“Don’t get weird on me again. We’ll get this fixed, and then I’m heading back to the hotel. I promised no-strings attached, and I always keep my promises.”
Kate and Mia always teased her about her resting bitch face. She relaxed her features and tried for a pleasant expression. Great. Now on top of her stupid, busted car, she had to worry about not looking like the “before” in a constipation commercial.
“It’s not weird.” She drummed her fingers along the armrest. The last thing she needed was any attachments, but lord almighty. Last night was enough to convince her that she needed just one more time with the man, to feel his delicious weight crushing her.
“A lesser man might have a bruised ego by now.”
“A lesser man wouldn’t have done half the things you did last night.” The lingering aftereffects of his tongue still pulsed through her blood. She smirked over at him. Beneath that gorgeous exterior, he was still the same Aaron.
Instead of taking a right at the corner of Elm and Main, the direction of her mama’s house, Aaron pulled into the parking lot of an auto body shop. The large garage door was pulled open, revealing three cars up on those platform things. Jill didn’t know what they were called—which wasn’t surprising considering the current state of her vehicle.
Within seconds, he’d cut the engine, unbuckled his seat belt, and jumped down from the truck. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said before shutting the door.
In all other situations, she’d march right out there and make sure she got the best deal possible. But she decided to stay in the warmth of the truck because: a) it was below forty and she only had a tiny shawl—and Aaron’s jacket, but still; b) that whole no car knowledge bit; and c) did she mention it was cold? Plus, her vantage point from the truck gave an excellent view of Aaron. Just because it had been a one-time affair didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the way his jeans fit snugly against his ass when he walked into the garage.
A man with stained coveralls wiped his palms on an equally sullied towel and shook Aaron’s hand, clapping him on the back. After talking for a couple of minutes, Aaron pointed to her car, which was currently being unhooked from the tow truck. They both nodded, and he was back in the truck in the span of a few heartbeats. Aaron’s sawdust and coffee scent wafted through the cab and brought flashes of last night. Rough hands, soft tongue, hard muscles. She fought to keep her eyes from fluttering shut. Jesus take the wheel, she was in trouble. How in hell was she supposed to marry someone in two months when she didn’t think she’d ever get over what Aaron could do to her body?
She cleared her throat. No use thinking about Aaron like that. He was going back to…well, wherever he was going, and she would just have to find a suitable match in the meantime. Even if she wasn’t a hopeless romantic, that seemed a bit cynical to her.
“What did they say?”
“That I could work on your car here.”
She did a double take. Did she just hear him right? “Wait, you’re going to be working on it?”
He cut his gaze to hers as if to silently say duh, who did you think would be doing it? Of course Aaron could work on cars. If he could coax out multiple orgasms with one freaking digit, the use of all five could obviously perform herculean feats. “Yeah. I know my way around a car. Figured I could save you a few dollars. All you need to pay for is the radiator.”
Happy dance or cry? Decisions, decisions. After being in charge of every single detail of her and Emily’s lives, it was nice to catch a break this time. Truth was, while some women fantasized about men planning romantic escapes, she harbored a different type of fantasy. One that involved coming home to vacuumed floors, a spotless kitchen, and if a man wanted to scrub dishes in his boxer briefs, then by all means, more power to him. Yeah, maybe she needed to work on the whole dream day, because that sounded lame, even in her head. “Deal. I can throw a home-cooked meal in there, too.”
The same look of hunger that shone in his eyes as they’d traced down her body last night surfaced. “I’d like that.”
A breath passed between them. Then another. Aaron held her gaze, his pupils dilating. The taste of his skin ghosted across her tongue. For the life of her, Jill couldn’t look away. She didn’t even want to blink because she was afraid she’d miss something—what exactly, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she was having a stare-down in front of an auto body shop.
Aaron was the first to look away. He cleared his throat and said, “I should start working on it.”
“Don’t you have to go back to work, though?”
“It’ll only take me about thirty minutes, and then your car should be good as new. I’ll put in a few extra hours to make up for the time I’m missing.”
“You don’t have t—”
He raised his hand, cutting her off. “I want to do this for you, Jill. Let me take care of you.”
A shiver spider-crawled down her spine. The same words he’d used last night, and they had the same effect, even fully clothed. “I’m going to change out the oil, too. It’s in desperate need.”
“You’ll deserve a lot more than a home-cooked meal if you tack on an oil change.”
“If that’s the case, I can rotate your tires, too.” He shot her a grin.
“Perv.” Even she couldn’t help the smile splitting her face.
“You didn’t seem to mind that before.” He slid out of the truck and began to work.
Ugh. Why did she have to go and say this had to be a one-night stand? Every cell in her body rebelled at the idea. Her long-lost sex drive shifted into fifth gear as she stared at Aaron dropping the new radiator into the front of her car. The sleeves of his Henley were pushed up to his elbows, and the muscles cording his forearms flexed as he worked on the car. He could be doing long division for all she cared, because she could look at his arms all day long and never get bored.
From her angle, it was apparent that he was muttering something to himself. Cold be damned—she wanted to hear what he was saying.
Jill rolled her window down, and the cool winter air made the stray wisps of her hair that couldn’t be contained in her makeshift bun whip around her face. Between the snow and the events of last night, it was a sure bet the mess on top of her head resembled more of a rat’s nest than a Pinterest-worthy bun. “How’s it going?” she called over to Aaron, who was in the bay of the garage. Maybe she should feel a little guilty sitting in the nice, toasty truck while he worked outside, but the great
view trumped any remorse.
“It’s your lucky day that they had a radiator that fits in your car in stock.” He ratcheted a bolt in place without looking over at her. “Even luckier that this is an older model. Makes it easier to work on. Newer cars are really cramped.” He’d removed his shirt and was now in a black tank top, leaning over the car, muscles straining as he fastened things. She didn’t know what types of things he was doing, but, decidedly, she liked it.
After a few moments, he stood back from her car, surveyed the items under the hood, and gave a satisfied nod. “There. Your radiator is good to go. Let me fill ’er up with antifreeze, and then I can get to your oil.”
“Bless you, Aaron. Seriously, you saved me a ton of money today.” She was about to break out into song at the thought of her bank account surviving another day, jazz hands and all, like her life was an actual musical.
Thirty minutes later, Aaron shut the hood of her car with a soft thunk.
She hopped out of the truck and took in Aaron’s thick, hulking frame one last time. Hug? Handshake? What was the proper protocol for saying good-bye to someone who’d fixed her sex life and her car all in the span of twelve hours?
He must have seen the resignation in her eyes, because he said, “So, I guess this is good-bye.”
“The dinner offer still stands.” And if anything happened after that dinner… No, she didn’t need to get tangled up in thoughts of more. She had her daughter to think about…and a potential arranged marriage. Maybe there was a mail-order husband catalog she could peruse. Who knew, maybe there was already something like that lurking in the depths of Craigslist, sandwiched between Missed Connections and Pets for Sale. Yeah, Aaron didn’t need to be pulled into her shitstorm of a life.
He leaned in, and his stubble grazed her cheek as he whispered in her ear, “You have my number if you ever have any more needs that need attending to.”
She swatted his chest.
Falling for the Fake Fiance (Snowpocalypse) Page 5
