The Welder

by Ramona Gray

  Christ, I really was losing my goddamn mind.

  Still, it didn’t stop me from grinning like an idiot as I headed toward reception. It was almost lunch, maybe she wanted to grab something to eat. I opened the reception door, the smile dying on my lips when I saw Lydia standing there.

  She gave me a bright smile. “Hi, Asher. How are you today?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought maybe we could have lunch together.”

  “Where’s Luna?”

  “She’s working. I thought it could just be the two of us.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Oh, I imagine you are, but you can take time out to have lunch with me, can’t you? Get caught up for old time’s sake.”

  “No.”

  I wouldn’t lie, there was a part of me that loved seeing the look of surprise on Lydia’s face whenever she was denied what she wanted.

  “All right.” Lydia recovered quick, I’d give her that. “I’ll see you tonight anyway.”

  She caught my blank look of incomprehension before I could hide it.

  “At dinner. Mommy and Daddy will be here in a few hours and I’ve arranged a reservation at the only halfway decent restaurant in town. At least I hope Baker’s Steakhouse is still decent.” She made a small shudder before giving me a small triumphant smile. “Didn’t Luna invite you to dinner? That seems strange, to not invite her boyfriend to family dinner.”

  I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and glanced at it. “She sent me a text. I just haven’t had the chance to read it yet.”

  “Oh.” She waited and when I didn’t say anything, she sighed. “I guess I’ll see you at six then.”

  “Guess so.” I watched her leave before glancing at my cell again. Luna hadn’t texted or called me, and I ignored my urge to text her. I had no idea why she didn’t want me at her family dinner tonight, but it was too late now. I was going, whether she liked it or not.

  * * *

  I pulled at the knot on my tie and ran my finger under my collar. Already I was starting to regret wearing a tie. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d worn a fucking tie and wearing one to impress the parents of my fake girlfriend was ridiculous. I didn’t need or want their fucking approval.

  Still, I could feel my guts churning nervously as the hostess led me to their table. It only got worse when I realized Luna wasn’t sitting at the table with her parents and her sister. Her father stood, and I shook his hand before nodding to her mother.

  “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Stokes,” she said as I sat down.

  “Call me Asher,” I said. Both Luna and her sister looked like their mother. She gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and didn’t say anything else.

  We sat in silence for a moment before Lydia touched my hand. “You look very handsome tonight, Asher.”

  I pulled my hand away. “Where’s Luna?”

  “She’s running a little behind. She’ll be here soon.”

  I scowled as Lydia took a drink of wine and smiled at her father. “Daddy, did I tell you that I met Clint Eastwood?”

  His mouth dropped open. “What? When? How?”

  Lydia giggled. Unlike Luna’s soft and sweet giggle, this one was shrill and unpleasant and made me want to stab my fork into my fucking ear.

  “At this party last weekend. He actually came up to me and said he was very impressed by my -”

  Her father’s cell phone buzzed, and Lydia pouted at him when he picked it up. “Daddy, I’m telling you a story.”

  “It’s your sister, darling. I’ll just be a moment.”

  “So, Mommy, did you know that Asher and I almost dated in high school?” Lydia said.

  “We didn’t,” I said. Lydia laughed and touched my arm. I tuned her babbling out and listened to Luna’s father speak into his phone.

  “Well, did you try turning it the other way?” He sighed. “I told you five minutes ago, it’s a simple procedure. Lug nuts are supposed to be tight. Use a little more power, you’ll get them off. What?”

  He glanced at Lydia before clearing his throat. “We’ve already ordered wine and appetizers, Luna. You’re a grown woman and fully capable of... no, I know. Of course not. I realize I’m your father, but do you realize that I’ve had a very long day? The flights here were a nightmare and I’m tired. I can’t be rescuing you every time you get yourself in trouble. I don’t appreciate you trying to guilt me into…yes, you are guilting me, just like you always do. It’s a very unattractive quality, Luna.”

  There was silence for a moment. Lydia was still prattling on to her mother and I gritted my teeth and clenched my hands into fists under the table as her father said, “Well, just try and hurry, would you? We’re waiting on you to order dinner.”

  He hung up his phone and took a drink of wine before smiling at his wife.

  “Is Luna on her way?” Mrs. Davis took her own sip of wine.

  “She’ll be here soon,” he said.

  Her mother sighed. “I hope it’s not too much longer. I’m starving. I think we should go ahead without her. She won’t mind.”

  “Whatever you want, dear. Lydia, finish your story about Clint Eastwood and the -”

  “What’s wrong with Luna?” My voice was hard and her father gave me a startled look.

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “Where is she and what was she asking you to do?”

  Her father glanced at Lydia who put her hand on my arm. “Don’t worry about Luna. She is marvelous at taking care of herself. She’s always been very independent. It’s why -”

  “Where is she?” I ignored Lydia as I stared at her father.

  “She has a flat tire,” he said. “She’s just changing it and she’ll be here soon.”

  I cursed loudly and stood up. Lydia blinked at me. “Asher, you can’t leave. Luna’s fine, I promise you. She’ll be here soon and -”

  I walked away, yanking off my tie and shoving it into my pocket as I headed out of the restaurant and toward my truck.

  * * *

  Luna

  I didn’t even notice him parking behind me. Probably because I was too busy hitting my useless flat tire with my useless lug wrench. I was just winding up to smack it again when the wrench was pulled from my hand. I whirled around, wincing at the pain in my knee, and stared at the broad chest of Asher Stokes.

  “Asher? What are you doing here?”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” He crouched and studied my flat tire.

  “Call you for what?”

  “When you got a flat tire.” His voice was impatient and veering toward angry.

  “I – why would I call you?”

  He stared up at me. “Because you’re my woman, and you’re stranded on the side of the fucking road!”

  There was definite anger in his voice now and I glared at him. “Stop yelling at me. You’ve made it clear that this isn’t real between us, so why would I call you when I got a flat tire? How did you even know I was here?”

  “You should have called me.” He had lowered his voice, but I was tired and already upset, and I continued to glare at him.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m late for something -”

  “Your family is eating dinner without you.”

  “How do you know I’m having dinner with my family?”

  He sighed and straightened before taking my arm. “C’mon, Sunshine. Get in my truck and warm up.”

  I wanted to argue but I was cold, and I knew I didn’t have a hope in hell of getting the damn tire changed. I limped after him and he opened the door and boosted me inside. He slid behind the wheel and stared silently at me.

  “How did you know I was having dinner with my family?”

  “Your sister dropped by my shop today.”

  “What? Why?”

  “She wanted to have lunch.”

  “Did you?” Before my jealousy could even get started, Asher was shaking his head no.


  “Of course not. But she assumed I would be at dinner.”

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “I covered for you.” His voice was grumpy again. “Told her you’d invited me so then I had to go.”

  “Sorry.”

  He just shrugged. “I got there just as you were talking to your father.”

  “Oh.”

  He stared at me. “If something like this happens again, you call me. Do you understand?”

  I’d be deleting his number from my phone by Sunday evening so even if I did want to call him, it would be impossible. But he was waiting for an answer, and I figured with his current mood, I’d better agree with him.

  “Yeah, okay. I, um, like your shirt.” He was wearing a button down. I’d never seen him in anything but t-shirts before.

  “Thanks.” He stared moodily at me. “The lug nuts are cross-threaded. You got your tires rotated at Al’s Discount Tires, didn’t you? You can’t take your car there. Ever. The only thing that fucker is good at screwing is the lady who runs the Bingo Hall.”

  I blinked at him. “Al from Al’s Discount Tires is screwing Sally Blankentool? He’s what, forty-five, forty-six? She’s gotta be like seventy years old.”

  He just shrugged, and I gave him an anxious look. “Do you, uh, do you know how much it might cost to fix the cross-threaded thingy issue?”

  I wasn’t exactly swimming in cash and having to pay for a tow to Jack Williams garage and a tire repair meant I’d be eating Kraft Dinner for the next month.

  “We’ll get it towed to my place tonight and I’ll pick up the parts at the auto place in the morning and fix it for you.”

  “Oh, uh, are you sure? I don’t want to inconvenience you or -”

  “You aren’t.”

  “Okay, well thank you, that’s really nice of you. How did you know what street I was on? I didn’t tell my dad.”

  “There’s only two possible streets to get to the restaurant.”

  “Right.” God, I lost all my brain cells when I was around Asher. Probably because I was too busy thinking about how good it felt when he fucked me. I blushed immediately. I’d spent most of last night reliving that moment by his truck. I couldn’t believe that I’d had sex in the parking lot of Ren’s Bar. Me, the girl who’d only had sex ten and a half times, had fucked the hottest guy in town against his truck.

  Just thinking about it in my bed that night had turned me on so much, that I’d masturbated furiously. I’d fallen asleep after masturbating, but my dreams were filled with the sound of Asher’s low voice and the feel of his big hands.

  He was already on the phone with a tow truck company and I listened to him tell the guy where my car was, where he’d hide the keys and where to tow it to. I pulled my credit card out of my purse but he waved me off and gave the guy his credit card information.

  Honestly, it was kind of nice to have him taking care of everything. I’d spent most of my life taking care of myself while my parents focused on Lydia, and it was not entirely unpleasant to just sit back and let Asher take care of the details.

  He hung up the phone. “Stay here.”

  I watched as he got out of his truck and walked to my car. He grabbed my purse from the front seat and stuck the keys in the visor for the tow truck driver before returning and climbing into the truck. He handed me my purse and I gave him a tentative smile.

  “Thank you, Ash.”

  “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

  I checked my phone as Asher pulled out onto the street. I wished we didn’t have to go dinner with my family. What I really wanted was to be back in bed with Asher, thinking about nothing but how good he was going to make me feel.

  I glanced up from my phone. We were driving away from the restaurant. “Hey, you’re going the wrong way.”

  “We’re not going to the restaurant.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to your place.”

  “For what?”

  “What do you think?” He glanced at me and swear to God, my pussy went wet from just the heat in his gaze. Had he read my damn mind?

  “We have to meet them for dinner. If I don’t, they’ll…”

  “They’ll what? Be angry with you? Be disappointed in you? You’re a grown woman, Sunshine. Do you still need daddy’s approval?”

  I flushed. “It’s rude to not show up.”

  “Maybe. But considering how they treat you, a little rudeness might be good for them.”

  I sighed. “My sister wants us to have a family dinner and -”

  “So what? Who the fuck cares what your sister wants?”

  “You don’t understand. What Lydia wants, Lydia gets.”

  “Not always.”

  “Most of the time.” I studied his big body. I knew what it was like to have Asher inside of me, to feel his tongue licking my pussy…Lydia didn’t and never would.

  I sighed again. “Listen, you don’t know Lydia like I do. If we don’t show up for dinner, I promise you she’ll be at my apartment and pounding on the damn door, just to yell at me. So, unless you want my sister yelling at us while we’re having sex -”

  “So, we won’t go to your place.”

  I blinked at him. “Where will we go?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Where do you think? I’m not homeless, Sunshine.”

  “You-you want to take me to your place?” I knew where Asher lived, but I’d never once imagined I’d be in his house.

  He stopped at a traffic light and turned to face me. “You have a choice to make. We can go to dinner with your family and listen to your sister prattle on and on about how goddamn amazing she is, or we can go back to my place and I’ll eat your sweet pussy and then fuck you. Make your decision.”

  “Pussy eating and fucking,” I said without any hesitation.

  He grinned at me. “That’s my good girl.”

  * * *

  Asher’s place was small and surprisingly neat for a bachelor. I’d texted my mother to tell her that Ash and I weren’t coming for dinner and in the ten minutes it took to get to Asher’s place, my mother had texted twice, my father had called once and Lydia had texted me seventeen times. Each one was progressively angrier and as I was taking off my shoes and following Asher to the kitchen, Lydia called me.

  I studied my phone, my old habit of giving in to her rearing its ugly head. Before I could answer my cell, Asher held his hand out. “Give me your phone, Luna.”

  I hesitated and he gave me a sexy little grin. “The longer we stand here, the less time I’ll have to eat your pussy.”

  I practically threw my phone at him and he laughed before declining Lydia’s call. He shoved my phone into a drawer in the kitchen, it had already started ringing again, and grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge. “Come with me.”

  I followed him down the narrow hallway and he opened the last door on the left and motioned for me to come in.

  “Your room is nice.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “No, I mean it. I like your, uh, quilt and the curtains.”

  He set the water on the nightstand and turned the light on next to the bed. “Come here.”

  I walked to him. Already my nipples were hard and my pussy felt hot and swollen. I resisted the urge to pull at the crotch of my jeans as I stopped in front of Asher.

  “Undress me, Sunshine.”

  I helped him undress, pulling impatiently at the buttons on his shirt as he unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. There was a piece of grey fabric sticking out of the pocket of his jeans and I pulled it out as he shrugged out of his shirt.

  “A tie?” I grinned at him. “Did you wear a tie to dinner with my parents?”

  He actually blushed a little and I gave him another teasing grin. “What happened to who cares what they think?”

  He growled at me and pulled the tie from my hand. “Be careful, Sunshine, or I’ll tie you to the bed with this.”

  I stared wide-eyed at him. “I – really?”

&n
bsp; Now it was his turn to grin. “If you want me to.”

  “I’ve never been tied up during sex. Have you?”

  “No.”

  I studied the tie for a minute and decided to be honest with him. “I think I’d rather tie you up, but I know you won’t let me do that so…”

  He pulled me close and squeezed my ass. “Sunshine, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me in bed.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can tie you to the bed with your own tie?”

  “Yes.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip. “What if I bit you?”

  He cupped my breast through my shirt. “You’re awfully obsessed with biting.”

  I blushed. “I’m not obsessed with it, it’s just once…”

  “Once, what?”

  “Uh, the guy I slept with before you said he liked it rough. He told me that a few times, but one time when I climaxed, I bit him and scratched him a little. I didn’t do it on purpose, but he didn’t like it.”

  I stared at Asher’s naked chest. “I mean, he really didn’t like it. He screamed and flipped out. I didn’t break the skin or anything, but he was really mad at me. That was the fifth time we had sex and after that, he wasn’t nearly as interested in making me climax. He said he couldn’t trust me. He acted like I was a vampire.”

  Asher laughed and squeezed my breast. “You can bite me and scratch me when you cum, Sunshine.”

  I gave him an uncertain look. “Are you sure? I won’t deliberately do it, but sometimes I lose control and…”

  “I’m sure.” He unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it off before unhooking my bra. I was completely naked in less than a minute and he gave my body an appreciative look before removing the rest of his clothes.

  When he pulled me into his arms and kissed me, I reached down and wrapped my fingers around his cock. He groaned into my mouth when I pumped him slowly. I pulled my mouth away from his and watched his face in fascination as he closed his eyes and groaned again.