by Stacy Gail
Now there was a joke. As if she could ever have her fill when it came to Coe.
By degrees he lessened the pressure, dipping again and again to her mouth as though he couldn’t find a way to distance himself, until finally he rested his brow against hers. “You know what’s great about you? I mean, besides everything?” His breath broke over her lips, and the feel of it made the floor dip under her feet. “It’s great that you always keep trying.”
Her heart tried to fly right out of her chest at the first part, but the follow-up statement had her baffled. “Trying? Trying what?”
“Just something Sully said. Never mind,” he went on when she frowned and took a breath to question him. “I was going to head up to you in about half an hour or so to see if you had any plans for lunch. Your timing’s great.”
Good grief, he was going to see her after all. She was such an idiot. “You would have found me contemplating the large bag you left by the futon the other night. Did you forget to take it with you?”
“I didn’t forget anything. That was my housewarming gift for you. I figured you might not have sheets or blankets or whatever that would fit the futon, so I picked up one of those bed-in-a-bag things. You know, just in case you got cold, or whatever.”
Honestly, when she wasn’t wanting to kill him, Coe could easily win the Sweetest Man Ever award. “I found some clean sheets in the closet, so I’ve been using those.”
“Sheets Lucy and Sully probably did the nasty on? Nuh-uh. I’m not going anywhere near that.”
Hadn’t he heard her say they were clean? “No one said you had to.”
“But I will be going near your bed,” he announced in no uncertain terms. With his dark eyes drilling into hers, he pulled her by the hips up against him, and unless he had another, bigger can of WD-40 in his pocket, he was extremely glad to see her. “What do you say we take the lunch hour to break in your new sheets?”
She rubbed her pelvis against him, just to make sure she really was feeling what she thought she was feeling. If anything, he was harder than before, and a breath-hitching thrill shimmered through her. “I say close up the shop, big man. Time’s a wastin’.”
Seconds later the hum and rattle of the garage doors rolling down sounded before he gathered up his tools to transfer them onto a workbench, then reached out his hand out for the can she held. It almost slipped from her grasp thanks to the greasy smudges on it. He caught it deftly, then snagged up her fingers with his free hand to examine the dark smears there.
“Damn. Hold on.” Setting the can aside, he dragged her to the deep sink in the corner and twisted on the faucets.
“Seriously, Coe?” When he scooped out a goopy handful of soap from an open tub above the sink, then pushed both their hands under the water, she burst out laughing. “I’ll say this for you—you’re a creature of habit, you are.”
“Shit like dirt and grime don’t belong on you. Silk, diamonds...me. That’s what belongs on you.” His big feet were on either side of hers, and she drank in the heat pouring off his chest at her back as he went about sliding his soapy fingers through hers. It felt good, that slick slide of flesh against flesh. Too good. The heat sinking into every pore of her skin brought her back to when they’d been in this situation once before, and it made her bite her lip. She remembered the trembling, the excitement, and the crippling uncertainty of what she should do next.
Time really made all the difference in the world. Seven years later, she now knew exactly what to do.
Her soapy hands slipped over his, squeezing, caressing. Cleaning his skin as he cleaned hers, yes, but it was obvious her interests weren’t just in getting clean. But maybe that was because while she did that, she also nudged her ass back against him, hitching up just a bit so she could hit the money spot...
He sucked in a sharp breath.
Jackpot.
“Miranda.” His voice was low and rumbling. It purred down the length of her spine to pool deep in her belly, where the sweet tension of need began to curl in on itself. That masculine rumble shortened her breath and tensed her thigh muscles, because she knew what it meant. He wanted her, and soon he’d go for what he wanted just as hard and hot as she wanted him to. “Careful, babe.”
“I had you shut the doors. That’s careful enough.” She looked over her shoulder at him, just as she had when she was eighteen and almost dying from attraction. It was no less intense now, and she could only marvel at the hold he had on her. “I hope you have protection on you, because I won’t be satisfied with just a kiss this time around.”
“But you will be satisfied.” With the glitter of arousal building into a wildfire blaze in his eyes, he turned off the water. Then he braced her hands on the far lip on the sink before reaching for the front of her pants. “This garage guarantees satisfaction for all the work I do here.”
“Good policy.” The last of her retort fizzled on a hiss as his fingers dived past the barrier of her panties and into her cleft. Her head dropped forward while she pushed against his hand, and the sinuous roll of her hips rubbed the hardness behind her. Her pleasure fed his, and soon their disturbed breathing was echoing through the garage.
Damn, but the man knew what he was doing.
“I love how wet you get for me.” His voice was deliciously rough, exciting her all the more. Then the sound of a zipper and crinkling of packaging being ripped open reached her ears, and she almost hyperventilated. “I’m going to make you come so hard your legs won’t be able to hold you for the rest of the day.”
Oh, dear God...
There was no finesse in the way her pants and undies were pushed down, or the way his booted foot nudged hers in a silent command to step out of them. A fleeting flash of alarm that he might lift her sweater and see her tattoo sprinted through her, before he bent over her back, put his mouth against her ear and whispered words that knocked everything else right out of her head.
“Open wider for me, babe. I need to be inside you now.”
“Hurry,” she breathed, unable to keep from grinding into his hand, even as she did as he instructed. “Hard and fast, Coe. Please. Hard and fast.”
“I can do hard and fast.” As if to prove it, he filled her with a bold thrust that pushed her flush against the sink and hit his hip bones against her bum.
“Yes.” Her eyes closed to intensify the tactile sensation, her inner walls stretching to accommodate him. “Oh yes, yes, yes...”
His breath was hot against her neck, his chest rubbing against her back as he plunged into her while he worked his hand against her without mercy. He was so big, his thrusts so deep, and every time he hit her right where she wanted it most. It was so close, that shattering bliss, and if it curled into itself any tighter the pressure of it would crush her...
Then it came, her cries echoing wildly as she gave herself over to the pleasure. He came seconds later and the sound on his lips when he lost it was her name.
* * *
The comforter set was covered in dinosaurs.
That discovery was made after Coe insisted they still had most of the lunch hour to break in the new sheets. After he’d raced her up the stairs they’d made the bed together, only to mess it up as thoroughly as a bed could be messed up in an hour’s time. Miranda wouldn’t soon forget the look of chagrin on his face when they first pulled the bedding out of its bag, but she refused to let him take it back. She didn’t give a damn what design was on them. What mattered was that he’d thought of her comfort. She bit her tongue before she could tell him that she’d treasure the dinosaur bedding, but that didn’t make it any less true. She absolutely adored it.
The problem was that she feared she was coming perilously close to once again adoring Coe.
Her mouth tightened as she pushed her way into Pauline’s crowded shop. He’d spent the night with her in the loft, brushing aside her halfhea
rted attempts to get him to leave. He’d made love to her—as much as she tried to think of it as sex, it couldn’t be called anything else but making love—as slowly and smoothly as it had been hard and fast in the garage.
Now she couldn’t decide which way she liked it best.
And they had talked. Like never before, they’d talked. He’d told her about the crazy ups and downs he’d gone through his first year as a business owner, the genuine grief he’d felt at Lefty’s passing and some of the funnier stories of how people had screwed up their cars that he eventually wound up fixing. The sharing mood had been contagious. She’d done her best to paint a picture of her sunny apartment back in Grapevine; the affection she had for her neighbor Geraldine and the ever-adoring Tony; the satisfaction she got from her work and the casual circle of friends she’d made there. She was happy with the stable life she’d managed to create for herself, and she was proud of all that she’d accomplished.
When he’d told her that he was proud of her too, she’d almost burst into tears. She would have gotten up to let the tears loose in the bathroom, but that would have meant getting off her back and showing him that she still carried his name on her body.
It was getting ridiculous, her obsession with covering up her tattoo. She’d almost broached the subject when she found herself smoothing a hand over the arm that had once carried her name, now covered in a black tribal design. She tried telling herself that her erasure didn’t hurt anymore, now that the shock of it had eased.
But it did. It hurt like hell.
She made an impatient sound. Lord, she hated that pain, on so many levels. Aside from the fact that it was freaking pain, which was never pleasant, she hated that it existed. As long as it still hurt, it meant she still cared, and that was something she couldn’t handle Coe knowing. So in the end she’d kept herself flat on the bed, wondering all the while how much longer she could get away with hiding it.
“Hey, Miranda.” Lucy poked her head out of the open kitchen doorway after Miranda had finally made it to the counter with her preorder slip in hand. “Come on through to the back, okay? I did your cupcakes first thing this morning and I want to see what you think of them.”
“I’m sure they’re perfect.” Miranda felt the old defenses slide into place as she headed past the front room’s display cases. It couldn’t be helped; Lucy had never made any secret about not liking the idea of Miranda and Coe together. Even if history had proven Lucy right that Coe was better off without having a Brookhaven in his life, it still stung. “I’m grateful you took the time to do this, Lucy.”
“You kidding? The blessed relief of decorating cupcakes got me out of pumpkin pie purgatory. Ugh, say that fast five times, I dare you.” With her light brown hair pulled back in a tight bun, Lucy made a beeline for a commercial-sized refrigerator. “FYI, these cupcakes don’t have to be refrigerated, but I put them in here so the frosting wouldn’t melt in the heat of the kitchen.”
“I’m sure they won’t last long enough to even think about being refrigerated.”
“That’s the hope, anyway. So.” Lucy turned with a pink box in hand, and popped the lid once she transferred it to the workstation. “What do you think? Think the kids will get a kick out of these little dudes?”
“Oh, wow.” Miranda grinned down at the box full of cartoonish turkeys made out of frosting, each one with a different expression, from googly-eyed goofy to downright maniacal. “Lucy, you’re so talented. These are amazing.”
“Like I said, it broke up the pumpkin pie monotony like nobody’s business, so I was happy to do it. And I’m glad you like them, not to mention relieved.”
That brought Miranda’s attention back to her. “Why relieved?”
“I was thinking you might like something a little more refined. Sophisticated, you know? But when I mentioned that to Coe, he told me I was way off base and to go with the crazy-eyed turkey idea.”
“He was right. These are definitely my style.”
“He also told me that you have no problem with drinking beer straight out of a longneck, sitting crossed-legged and barefoot on the kitchen island is totally okay with you and that you know a thing or two about John Hughes films.” She rolled her eyes as she carefully reclosed the box’s lid and slid it toward her. “I swear, Coe is just as bad about dissecting every last detail about you now as he was back when you were first dating.”
Now there was a juicy piece of news. “What do you mean?”
“If I had a dollar for every time Coe said your name when you guys were seeing each other back in the day, I probably could’ve bought Pauline’s right out from under her. ‘Miranda said this, Miranda likes that, this is what Miranda did today.’ You get the picture.”
She wasn’t sure she did. “Coe talked about me back then?”
“He didn’t just talk about you. He memorized you. At the time, I thought he was doing it just to be a pissy little annoyance, but now that he’s doing it again I realize he has no off button when it comes to you. You’re his favorite subject, and the dude’s determined to get his master’s degree in all things Miranda.”
“That’s hard to believe.” Then she remembered all the details he’d rattled off when he’d brought her dinner. For years she’d assumed he hadn’t given her a thought beyond getting in her pants. But now...
She didn’t know what to think.
“Coe’s not the cuddly type,” Lucy went on while Miranda tried to take it all in. “I don’t know if you know this, but he wasn’t exactly raised in a loving environment. When you’re not used to things like love and feeling like you belong somewhere, these things can be hard to recognize—even when you run right smack into them.”
She recalled Esme had said something similar to that. “Coe can be very loving, though he would never call it that.”
“Exactly. Just like he says he’s never been in love, but I know he’s capable of it.” Lucy suddenly grinned. “And now that I think of it, the only time he’s claimed he’s never been in love has been during conversations about you. No one else. Just you. That makes me think he doth protest too much.”
Her heart did its best impression of a lead sinker. “Or he genuinely never loved me. Which comes as no surprise, by the way.”
“Miranda, think. The word doesn’t even occur to him when it comes to anyone else. It’s not even in his freaking vocabulary. But it’s always front and center whenever he’s thinking about you. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
“It tells me I need to get out of here before I start believing in impossible things.”
“Wait.” Before she could take a step, Lucy laid a hand on her arm. “I know it’s hard to try again, Miranda. God, I know. The very idea of opening up to that kind of hurt is like making yourself walk through fire after you’ve watched your house burn down. But here’s the thing. You might be able to find happiness and love later on down the road with someone else, but... I’m not sure Coe could. I know him. He’s too set in his ways, too closed off. I’ve known him my whole life, and you’re the only one who’s ever been able to reach him. Please believe me, he needs you.”
The words echoed through her, and for some reason they made her eyes sting. “I thought you believed I was bad for him.”
“That was because I didn’t know who you really were. Now I do, and I know there couldn’t be anyone else for Coe except you.”
Miranda bit her lip. She wanted to believe that, so much it terrified her. If it proved to be untrue, the extinguishing of that hope would flatten her. “Lucy—”
“This is a surprise.” They both turned to watch the man in question stroll through the open door. Coe’s eyes went immediately to the hand on Miranda’s arm and he crossed to where they stood to drape an arm around Miranda’s shoulders. “Everything cool?”
“Miranda and I were just about to shiv each other.” Lucy eye-rolled,
but Miranda could see she was pleased with Coe’s protectiveness. “Thankfully you got here just in time. The Board of Health frowns upon bloodshed in the food prep area.”
“It’s cute how you think you’re funny.” Offering Lucy an unimpressed glance, he gave Miranda’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Have you seen the cupcakes yet?”
“You mean the coolest flock—or is it gaggle?—of turkeys in the history of everything?” Miranda sent Lucy a beaming smile before patting the box. “They’re amazing.”
Coe grinned over at his friend. “See? Told you she’d like them.”
“You sound like a snotty ten-year-old.” With an exasperated sigh, Lucy jammed her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here, besides telling me ‘I told you so’?”
“I was going to pick up the cupcakes for Miranda and save her the trip.” Without letting her go, he scooped the box up with his free hand. “But this works out too.”
Miranda leaned into him. “That was nice of you.”
“I was just looking for an excuse to drop in on you and see if you wanted to have dinner with me.”
Everything in her lit up, and to her dismay she had no idea how to stop it. “Absolutely.”
Chapter Seventeen
“When you said you wanted to take me to dinner, I assumed you were talking about a restaurant.”
“Who needs a restaurant when we can have food delivered to us while enjoying all the comforts of home?” With a grin, Coe tossed his keys into a bowl set on a narrow table in the small entryway of his house. “Mi casa es su casa, so feel free to kick off your shoes and stay a while. Do you like shrimp fried rice, veggie lo mein or sweet and sour pork?”
“All of that sounds wonderful.” Miranda watched him toe out of his own shoes before he grabbed up a phone and punched in a number from memory.
As she listened to him order an obscene amount of Chinese food, she looked around with interest. Coe’s single-story post-WWII bungalow was roughly the shape of a T, with the front door leading directly into the open-plan living/dining area. The low-slung red leather sectional was angled toward the huge flat screen TV over a stone fireplace. An area rug boasting a bold Native American pattern in burgundy and tan clashed mightily with the red of the sectional, and a glass-and-wrought-iron coffee table holding sports magazines, a wireless gaming controller and a laptop completed the picture.
