by Stacey Lynn
“No worries. I should have had more self-control. It’s not like it’s the worst thing I’ve heard working here.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice going tight. “But you shouldn’t have to, and that doesn’t make what I said right either.”
Wow. I hadn’t expected that at all. Maybe the sexy man wasn’t the prick I’d made him out to be.
“Like I said,” I smiled this time, softening my words, “you’re forgiven. Now if you’ll excuse me.” I gestured toward his outstretched arm that was currently inches from my bare stomach. He could pull me to him in a second, wrap his arms around me, press his lips to mine—and woah…
What?
I shook my head to clear the vision but unfortunately, like my manners and work ethic, it was ingrained somewhere deep, somewhere I knew I’d be replaying it later.
“I have orders ready to be delivered to tables,” I said, staring at his hand. “I really do need to get back to work.”
“Have a good night, Paige.”
His arm fell and he walked away, leaving me staring at thick, muscled thighs and a perfectly firm backside tucked nicely into well-fitted black suit pants.
Maybe I should have listened to Hannah.
A night with Beaux would certainly be memorable and a great way to get over my dry spell.
And what kind of guy apologized in such a genuine way? No guy I’d ever met.
Whatever. I needed money, and I needed a job, and I needed to take care of my dad.
Nothing else mattered. Not for me.
***
After I graduated from the University of North Carolina with a communications degree, I’d stayed in Charlotte to work for a local news station. I did a lot of fetching coffee, typing up taglines for the news screen, and making sure guests had everything they needed in their dressing rooms. Essentially, I’d been a poorly paid, glorified assistant. I didn’t mind. The journalism and communications field was a tough one to break into. It could have taken me years to become a headline reporter, sitting behind the desk on the five and six o’clock news.
While I’d been prepared for the challenge, I also didn’t regret quitting my job or moving home to take care of my dad. He’d insisted he didn’t need it, and I’d insisted he was wrong.
Stubborn as a mule, he’d said to me.
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I’d replied.
While there wasn’t regret, I definitely had days, mostly when I was sitting in the office of his garage, paying bills with money we didn’t have, taking care of customers, that I missed the life I had.
Now, I was back on my own, taking care of everything and everyone by myself, and working in the garage, doing all the things my dad had taught me by the time I was fourteen to ensure I’d be able to take care of my car and myself. My days consisted of changing oil, re-aligning brakes, swapping out spark plugs, changing flat tires, and passing off the more difficult automotive tasks I couldn’t handle to our mechanics.
It took me forever to scrub motor oil out from beneath my nails and I’d given up trying. It was easier to keep them clipped short than soak them in stale gasoline before I went to Ride’Em Rough.
There were also days, like that morning, when I couldn’t stop thinking about the night before.
After I returned to Beaux’s table, I’d delivered their food, refilled their water — all of them passing on more beer — and done my job without any further flirting. It wasn’t until they left, though, that I’d gasped at the tip they’d given me.
Seven hundred dollars.
Seven hundred freaking dollars.
It was obscene. Two pitchers of beer, six burgers and fries, and a few salads weren’t worth nearly that much.
By the time I’d rushed to the parking lot, elbowing and shoving slightly drunken customers out of the way, they were gone.
I wanted to thank them. They had no idea how much that helped me.
It could keep the creditors breathing down my neck out of my hair for several more weeks.
For once, I had some spare money to lighten our load a little bit, at least in one area.
And Beaux Hale played a part in all of it.
“Ugh. Damn it,” I groaned and rubbed my shoulders. Waiting tables and then spending most of the day bent over the hood of an engine or slumped over a desk didn’t bode well for my posture or my health.
An echo of an engine running sparked my attention and I looked at the neon, Budweiser wall clock. We didn’t open for another twenty minutes but it wasn’t uncommon for customers to show up early, generally with a distasteful disposition due to needing help with their car before their workday started.
Just what I needed. A grumpy customer to match my mood.
I went back to working, head down, so focused on shuffling money away from Peter to pay Paul that I jumped as the bell rang on the front door.
I looked up at the sound of the bell still ringing and a masculine, deep chuckle I’d heard only hours before.
Beaux Hale was standing in my dad’s garage, looking just as shocked to see me, as I was to see him.
“What the heck?” I asked. “Are you stalking me now?”
“Not at all.” His grin widened, he stepped forward. “But I can’t say I’m disappointed at all.”
My long-time neglected girl parts quivered and took notice.
Beaux’s thick mop of blond hair was messy on top, shaggy, almost to the point of needing a haircut but still just this side of sexy and cool. He had a dirt smudge on his cheek that only made him sexier. A man with some dirt on him was much better than perfectly polished in my book.
Plus, he was wearing a gray, Rough Rider’s T-Shirt, black athletic pants, and tennis shoes that looked like they needed to be replaced years ago.
Casual.
Unassuming.
Sexy as hell.
I was royally screwed.
CHAPTER FOUR
BEAUX
Well, well, well. Imagine that. The girl I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since we left Ride’Em Rough last night happened to be sitting in front of me, lips parted in an inviting way, almost calling me to press my lips against hers and slide my tongue inside.
The amount of attention my dick had gotten in the last ten hours to thoughts of Paige were so obscene I had left my house this morning thinking I might need a sexual appetite suppressant.
It was unnatural to be so stuck on a girl, jack off so many times and still want more.
And lucky, lucky me…I’d never been so grateful for Betsy, my rusted out Ford pickup, breaking down than I was in that moment.
I stepped up to the desk, grinning down at her. She hadn’t moved a muscle except to tilt her head back, looking me straight in the eye as I walked closer.
“Paige Halloway, I assume, of Halloway Motors?”
Halloway Motors was the closest garage to where my truck broke down. A quick look at the info on my phone had told me a Sam and Paige Halloway ran it. I’d smacked myself for thinking about the Paige I’d met the night before just because a similar woman’s name was on my phone screen.
“Paige?”
She cleared her throat and pushed away from the desk. “Yeah. Sorry, you just took me by surprise. How can we help you?”
“We?” I looked around the garage. She’d said multiple times last night she wasn’t available. I assumed it was because I was being a dick. Not because she was literally, unavailable. No ring on her left hand, though…trust me, I always checked. My back pulled tight. “Are you married?”
I saw the moment she debated lying. Eyes slid to the left, lips curled up on one corner.
“No.” She shook her head. “Not married. This garage is my dad’s, was his dad’s before. Like I said, what can we help you with?”
“Not sure.” I didn’t know shit about trucks except that when my hood started smoking, it was most likely coolant leaking. Maybe. It’d also been making some strange clunking sound. Whatever. “Truck’s been acting up the last couple
weeks. Started smoking this morning on my way to practice and I dumped some water in it to get it here. Your garage was closest to where I was.”
“Okay. Let’s go take a look, then.”
Her? “You?”
“Yeah.” Eyebrows shot up with a vicious look in her eyes. So I sucked at hiding my surprise. “I’m going to take a look under your hood. Gotta problem with that?”
I had a few things she could check under my hood…or hers…or whatever. A pretty woman and a messed up morning made me stupid. “Uh. No. Not at all.”
“Keys?” She held out her hand and took them when I offered them out, cupped in my hand so she had to touch me. One little touch was all I wanted. Just to see if the chemistry I thought was there was real.
Instead, she gripped them daintily between her finger and thumb.
Which said enough. She was afraid to touch me.
Considering I’d insulted her at one place of business, I had no intention of insulting her in another. I did want in those tight jeans she was currently sporting even if I was wise enough not to say it.
Didn’t mean I didn’t watch her ass swish and sway like she belonged on a runway while she walked a step ahead of me.
We headed outside, and as she hopped into my truck like she owned it, and then popped the hood, my dick grew harder with every second that passed.
Hot damn. My new favorite thing? A woman who knew her way around an engine, especially when she had to lift on her tiptoes and bend over to see inside.
Visions flashed in my mind. Multiple ones. Some so disturbingly and instantly vivid I stepped back and turned, adjusting myself so she couldn’t see the obvious bulge growing inside my thin athletic pants.
Of all the damn days to run into Paige.
My phone rang in my hand and I pulled it up, immediately cursing. I’d forgotten to call to let someone know I was running late.
“Sorry,” I said, even though she hadn’t paid me a lick of attention since we reached my truck. “Mind if I take this?”
Her head, buried in my hood so all I could see was her wavy brown hair clipped back at her forehead, shook back and forth. “Not a problem. Do whatever you need.”
There were multiple things I needed. One was her. With her greased up hands wrapped around my dick.
I cleared my throat and answered the call. “This is Beaux.”
“Where the hell are you?” Powell barked in my ear.
“Fuck, sorry man. My truck broke down on the way to practice. I’m getting it looked at.”
“And you didn’t call anyone because…?”
His question trailed off. I despised it when Powell treated me like a little shit just because he was banging my sister, something that made me want to vomit just thinking about. I’d paid my dues with the team in the last year, proven my mettle on and off the field. Powell never resisted the opportunity to be a dick.
Even if we were friends now.
“Because I’m distracted, back off.” Mostly it was the long legs fitted into tight jeans. An ass that made me think of things I’d never tried before, and hazel eyes that were now squinting at me. She flipped back to the hood and slammed it shut. “I’ll call a car and get there in thirty minutes.”
Powell barked something else at me but I hung up without listening. He was always a grumpy old man.
“Your truck should have been buried in a field about ten years ago,” Paige said, wiping her hands on a towel she’d procured from somewhere. “We can look at it, fix it up, but my guess is it’s worth more for parts at this point.”
Damn. I knew it was coming. But I loved the old rusted thing despite all the ribbing I got for it. It even had the classic bench seat trucks didn’t have anymore. That seat had a lot of memories for me. Naked ones.
Good ones.
I learned how to make a girl come before I did, in that truck. She was more precious than gold. The truck, not the girl who taught me.
What could I say? I was a sentimental schmuck.
“I figured you’d say that,” I said, pulling up the Uber App. I needed to get practice. Coach Pomville was most likely tallying the additional suicides he’d have me run for being late. I figured as many as it would take to puke up my breakfast. “Can you get it working enough while I’m at practice today so I can drive it to a dealership without a salesman laughing their ass off?”
The look she shot me told me no. “I can have some of the guys try.”
“Thanks.” I tapped the screen, ordered my Uber who was only a few minutes away, and slid my phone into my pocket. “You’re not going to work on it?”
Paige shook her head. She had a smudge of grease near her temple. Sexy as hell. “No. I can do basics but your truck needs an overhaul. I could get the coolant taken care of so it doesn’t blow up on you, but I’m not qualified enough to do the rest.” She sighed and looked back to the shop before her gaze came back to me. “Mostly I work in the office, but we also don’t open for a while. If you need a ride to the practice field, I can take you.”
Wow. Unexpected.
“Yeah?”
“Well, you’re not being a jerk today and you did apologize last night for being one. Plus, I have a favor.” Her mouth twisted, like the idea of asking me for something made her a bit sick to her stomach.
I was all in. “Done. But you’re not driving me to work. You got work to do here and I already ruined one night for you.”
She glanced back at the car and then looked at the sky, shoulders slumping a bit. I hadn’t realized how strung tight she was until she relaxed. Her face softened, and a shot hit my chest. My reaction to her was something I didn’t expect, but God, she was beautiful.
“You know, you’re not anything like I really imagined you were.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“I suppose it might be.” Her lips twisted like she didn’t want to admit it. I couldn’t stop from chuckling. Why did this woman dislike me? Instead of it turning me off, I was curious.
“Okay, then, how about this. You take care of my truck, I’ll do your favor, and then tonight, you let me take you out for dinner.”
“You don’t even know what the favor is.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll still do it, and I still want you across the table from me so I can keep proving how much of a non-asshole I am.”
“You’re sort of pushy, you know that?”
“I prefer ‘determined’ when I see something I want.” I flicked my hand out. “What’s the favor?”
She glanced toward the door to the garage and sighed again. “My dad’s a fan—”
“Just your dad?” I teased.
She huffed, lips pressed into a pout and continued, ignoring me. “It’s just, I was wondering, it doesn’t have to be much, nothing big at all…but could you autograph—”
“Done.” We had boatloads of crap in the marketing department I could grab. I’d take care of it and blow her mind with my generosity. And it wasn’t just because I tried to do everything I could for fans, but because she was pretty when she blushed.
Even prettier as her eyes went soft when she mentioned her dad.
Spectacular as she gritted out her favor like asking for something from someone was worse than getting teeth pulled without Novocain.
“Yeah?” she asked. “That’d be really great. But dinner, I don’t know.”
The pretty little liar. Her blush told me she wanted it. “Tonight, whenever. You make the call, and it’s not payback for the favor or you fixing my truck. I just want to share a meal with you.”
“Why? Because you want in my pants?”
Her tone was snippy and her shoulders tightened. She’d handed me a loaded gun and hell if I was going to shoot myself with it.
I closed the five feet of space between us, making her step backward until she was almost plastered to my truck.
“I do want in your pants, Paige. Any American male who watches you for longer than two seconds probably wants the same. And I’ll take my time ge
tting there if I have to, so I’m not going to be a dick and lie, and I’m not being a dick by being honest. I’m just honest. But dinner is because you’re pretty, and for some reason I can’t explain, I want to know why you look so damn exhausted, why you just asking me for help made you look like you want to puke, and why you did it anyway. So basically, I just want to talk to you. Get to know you. I’m interested and I’m not going to hide that either. It’s not my style.”
“Wow.” Her cheeks had turned pink while I was talking and by the time I was done, her lips were parted. “That’s a lot to discuss at dinner.”
“Then we’ll tack on drinks and dessert at the end.”
She smiled, blinding me with a soft and sweetness she hadn’t yet shown. I took it like a present. Tucked it away so I could jerk off to it later. So maybe I was kind of an asshole.
Her shoulders rose and fell with a heavy breath, and she looked back to the garage. “I’ll think about it. That’s all I can promise.”
“Done.”
A black SUV pulled into the lot with the Uber tag in the windshield. I stepped back before I did something stupid like brush my fingers down her cheek and press my lips to hers. I didn’t need to be slapped before practice.
“I’ll be back at four. Will your dad be here then?”
“Um. He should be. Why?”
Because I wanted to see if she was as sweet and soft around him as she was when she thought about him. “So I can deliver some things to him in person.”
“I can make sure he’s here then, but you don’t have to do that.”
“I know. But I want to anyway.”
She blinked rapidly, pretty brown lashes flickered on her cheeks. I’d surprised her. “Well, thanks then.”
I grinned. “Thanks for your help, Paige, and I gotta tell you, I’m fucking thrilled I ran into you today. You give me a shot at dinner, you won’t regret it.”
The teeth disappeared behind her closed smile, but it was still sweet as hell.
Then I stepped away, grabbed my bags out of the back of my truck and headed to the Uber, climbed inside without looking back, but she was watching.
