Something to Dye For (Curl Up and Dye Mysteries, #2)

by Aimee Nicole Walker

  “You’re not the only one with reasoning and deduction skills, Miami Vice.” I pinched his nipple playfully before I turned back around to grab our plates. “Our lakes aren’t deep enough for any boat you sailed in Miami and your father owns an auto body shop.” I placed our plates on the table and then put my hands on my hips. I gave him my best smug smile before I said, “It stands to reason that you have a classic car stored somewhere in this county.”

  Gabe tipped his head to the side as if he was impressed then he shot my theory all to hell when he said, “Maybe it’s a motorcycle.”

  My mouth dropped open as I pictured Gabe in a leather jacket and pants astride some manly looking machine. I imagined the vibration of the bike working its way through my body as I held tight to him with both my arms and thighs. “Well, I guess she better have one hell of a kickstand to support us when I straddle your legs and ride you.”

  “Jesus,” Gabe groaned.

  I may or may not have teased Gabe the entire thirty-minute ride to his storage unit with the things I wanted him to do to me. I was grateful that he was as worked up as I was by the time we stepped inside his unit because I couldn’t handle being the only one to feel it. He was on me as soon as he shut the door. At first, I was too caught up in our heated kiss and the way his hands felt against my skin when they slid beneath my sweater. Eventually two thoughts penetrated my lust-dazed brain: it was dark as night inside but warm as could be.

  “It’s heated?” I asked after pulling back from his kiss.

  “Nothing but the best for Charlotte.” Gabe licked the seam of my lips before he bit down on my bottom lip. “Ready to meet her?”

  I was more excited than I thought I would be. I mean, it was a hunk of metal either way, but she obviously meant a lot to Gabe and he meant a lot to me. I cringed internally after my hunk of metal thought, because I sure as hell didn’t view my car that way. “Ready.”

  Gabe flipped on the light and I blinked against the sudden brightness in the unit. I could tell by the shape beneath the cloth cover that we were definitely talking about a classic car. Gabe walked over and slowly began to remove her cover, as if he was performing some automotive striptease. The gleaming black hood came into view and then the rest of the car inch by inch until just the rear of the car was covered. Gabe yanked the cover the rest of the way off and held up his hands like a dorky, but oh-so-sexy magician.

  “She’s a 1970 Dodge…”

  “Charger,” I completed for him. “My granddad had a red one named Dolly. She was his pride and joy too.” I felt Gabe’s eyes on me when I walked over to the gleaming machine. “She’s beautiful.” I reached for the handle and opened the door. I was pleased to see that her black leather interior was just as pristine as the exterior. “I can see why you like her so much.” I heard and felt Gabe approaching me so I shut the door then turned to face him.

  “Love, not like.” The emotional crack in his voice told me that he might be talking about more than just his feelings for his car. I wasn’t ready for that so I did the first thing that came to mind. I seduced him.

  I reached between our bodies and stroked his erection through his jeans. I took to heart that I could get such an intense reaction out of an amazing man like Gabe. “It’s been too long since I’ve felt you inside me.” It had been twenty-four long hours too many and I was impatient to have him again.

  I stepped away from him and walked around to the hood of the car. I unsnapped my pants and pushed them all the way down to my ankles so that I didn’t risk scratching Charlotte’s paint job with a snap or zipper. Gabe stood rooted to the spot until I began stroking my erection, then he stalked toward me with an intense look that said he was the predator and I was his prey.

  Gabe stood behind me and removed my hand from my cock. He took my wrists in his hands and pushed his chest against by back until I was bent over with my hands braced on the hood. I was shocked that he wanted my handprints on his car, but then I lost track of all my thoughts when he said, “Don’t move.” His voice was a dark promise beneath the bright, sterile lights.

  I expected to hear Gabe undressing in preparation to fuck me, but instead he dropped to his knees and parted my ass cheeks. My eyes rolled back in my head when I felt the tip of his wet tongue against the crinkled skin surrounding my hole. I expected him to dive right in, but I was wrong. Gabe took his time teasing my puckered entrance for several long moments before he pulled back to nibble on the taut globes of one ass cheek, then the other, while his large hands kneaded the muscles in my thighs. I needed more from him.

  “Gabe,” I moaned.

  “Shhh, I got you,” he replied.

  I heard the sound of Gabe sucking on his finger before he pushed the tip inside my ass. Then I felt his tongue licking my sensitive pucker around his finger as he worked it in and out of my tight clench. Gabe growled as he lapped at my flesh like it was the best thing he had ever tasted. My head suddenly felt too heavy and I let it fall forward.

  “More,” I demanded.

  Gabe obliged me by removing his finger so he could fuck my ass with his tongue. It was the most incredible thing I had ever felt and I hoped it wasn’t something that I only received on special occasions like birthdays or Christmas in the future. Pre-cum leaked from my dick in a thin, clear line and landed on the hood of Charlotte.

  “I’m getting cum on your car,” I warned Gabe. His answer was to bury his tongue deeper inside me.

  I wanted so badly to stroke my dick, but Gabe told me not to move and for once I listened to him without putting up a fight. I wanted to draw out my pleasure as long as I could and the combined sensation of his tongue in my ass and friction on my cock would have me coming too soon.

  Gabe worked my hole until I was practically a pliant, limp noodle on the verge of collapsing onto the hood of his car. I promised him anything if he’d just take out his big cock and fuck me.

  “Anything?” He rose up behind me and I heard the glorious sounds of him undoing his pants. “You’ll give me anything I want? Like a private dance in your studio?”

  “It was already a sure thing.” I was embarrassed by the way I panted between words. “Fuck me already.” Gabe made quick work of putting on a condom and lubing his cock. The slight burn of his penetration was so welcome I could’ve cried, but instead I shouted something that sounded entirely too much like hallelujah for the activities we were engaged in.

  Gabe placed his hands on my hips and pulled back until only the tip of his dick was inside me. I could tell he was going to torture me by teasing me and I wasn’t about to take that. Instead, I pushed back until he was buried to the hilt inside me again.

  “You little spitfire,” Gabe growled. “You just have to be in control, don’t you?” He leaned over me until his chest was pressed against my back. “One of these days…” He let his threat trail off, but he didn’t worry me.

  Gabe pumped his hips and gave me the fucking I demanded from him. I loved the sound of our flesh slapping together combined with his growls and my whimpered pleas of, “More.” He wrapped one hand around my cock and the other around my chin so he could turn my head for his kiss.

  God, I swore that every time we were together it was better than the time before. He made me feel things–want things–I never thought I’d experience. He wasn’t the only one on the verge of throwing the real L word around, but the one functioning cell left in my brain refused to say something so special during sex. I wanted him to believe me when I finally fessed up to being in love with him and everyone knew that declarations made during sex couldn’t be trusted.

  Instead I went with, “I love… the way you fuck.”

  “I love… that I get to fuck you,” was Gabe’s reply.

  We both meant more and we knew it. I figured we would turn our confession into a competition to see who caved first, kind of like when I squeezed my ass around his dick as hard as I could to make him come first. I wanted to bring him so much pleasure that he lost control and couldn’t hold back.r />
  “Damn it,” Gabe said between gritted teeth. “I know what you’re doing. It’s not going to work. You’re going to come first.”

  “I don’t think so, baby.” I reached between our legs and gripped his balls firmly in my hand and massaged them in a sure-fire way to make him… well, fire.

  “Josh.” I knew I would never tire of the way Gabe groaned my name when he came. His, “damn you,” that followed was half-hearted to say the least. He never stopped pegging my prostate or jerking my dick when he filled the condom, but his rhythm did falter for a few seconds. “Come.” Gabe sank his teeth in my neck where it curved into my shoulder and I couldn’t stave off my orgasm any longer. Stars exploded behind my closed eyelids as my climax moved through my body.

  Gabe was kind enough to catch me before I collapsed onto the cum-splattered hood of his car or maybe it was so I didn’t scratch the paint with my coat zipper. Either way, I needed his strength as I came down off my high.

  “Sexy,” Gabe whispered huskily in my ear.

  “Thanks,” I said in between breaths.

  “You too, but I meant that,” he said. I opened my eyes and saw that he was pointing to the mess I made all over his car. “I love that I can make you come that hard.” I could barely remember my name, yet, he could form complete sentences that made sense. I apparently wasn’t doing a good enough job of rocking his world and planned to remedy that later the same week in my studio.

  Gabe slowly pulled out of me and took care of the condom while I cleaned myself off with a shop towel he produced from somewhere. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face when he lovingly cleaned Charlotte’s hood with a microfiber towel before he recovered her.

  “Thank you for introducing me to Charlotte,” I told him once we were both tucked back into our pants and presentable to be seen in public.

  “It’s a big deal, you know. First Charlotte and then my parents.” Gabe waggled his eyebrows then dropped a kiss on my lips and slid his fingers between mine before he tugged me toward the door.

  “I can’t wait to drive her once the weather turns nice,” I said, knowing full well he wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

  “No one drives Charlotte but me,” Gabe predictably said.

  “Fine, Detective Butt Breath, but that means you can never ever take a spin on my pole.” The thought of Gabe’s much larger body spinning on my pole nearly had me laughing out loud. I adored him, but graceful and fluid weren’t words I associated with Gabe, not even during sex.

  Gabe stopped and turned to face me once we were outside his rental unit. “Which pole are you talking about?” His question caught me off guard. Did he mean that he wanted to bottom? For me? Gabe opened his mouth to answer me, but the loud, rumbling sound of a diesel pickup truck stopped him. We turned our heads sharply and watched as a dark truck with tinted windows drove between rows of units a few buildings down from his. I could tell his mind was in a place far away from sex.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he replied.

  I could tell by the grim line his lips formed on his face and the way that he gripped the steering wheel that his good humor and post-coital bliss seemed to have evaporated. He looked tense and coiled to react to something, but it didn’t take me long to figure out why once we were on the road heading back toward Blissville.

  The large black or dark gray truck came speeding up behind us and nearly hit us as it went around us, blowing black smoke all over the front of Gabe’s car so that we choked on the fumes that came through the vents.

  “I can’t believe you had sex with that guy,” Gabe said angrily.

  “Who?”

  “That’s Sampson’s truck,” Gabe informed me. “I saw it parked outside your salon yesterday.”

  “Oh,” I replied. “Hey, you can’t blame me for who I slept with ten or eleven years ago. I was a dumb kid who wanted to be loved.” In some ways, not a lot had changed. I was no longer dumb, or a kid, but I really wanted to be loved–especially by the man sitting to the left of me.

  “I know, babe, and I’m sorry that I said that.” Gabe blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t trust him or the fact that he happened to be at the same storage units as us at the exact same time.”

  “You think he followed us?” I asked. That seemed like way too much effort from the Billy I knew.

  “I saw the look in his eye and heard the determination in his voice when he said it wasn’t over,” Gabe replied fiercely. He glanced over at me before returning his eyes to the road. “He can’t have you because you’re mine.” I was about to preen in my seat until he said, “Even though you called me Detective Butt Breath after I made you come so hard you sang soprano.”

  “Well, you did just have your tongue in my ass,” I told him.

  “Which I later put in your mouth, so that makes you a Butt Breath too.” He had a valid point and… eww. I hadn’t thought about it until he said something. “So that means you kind of licked your own asshole.”

  “I hate you.”

  Gabe laughed because he knew it was the furthest thing from the truth.

  JOSH MADE ME FEEL a bevy of new emotions and most of them were amazing, but I really could do without the jealousy. How had I lived thirty-six years and not been jealous prior to meeting him? I never had a problem sharing my toys with my older brother when we were little. I never got jealous when one of my friends picked up a new buddy and started spending time with them. I never got jealous when a guy I was involved with noticed other men nor did I resent that they had a past prior to me coming into their lives. Why now? Why Josh?

  Because you’re crazy in love for the first time. I had only known Josh for such a short period of time, and most of that was spent hissing and spitting at one another or fucking, yet I had never been more certain of my feelings for anyone as I was with him. The thought of him with someone other than me made me ill and it didn’t matter how unreasonable my feelings were. Hell, my ex lived in the same damn town as us and Josh wasn’t insanely jealous–or at least not that he showed me. So why couldn’t I get past a relationship that ended almost a decade before I met Josh?

  Because there’s something really off about Billy Sampson. I knew it the moment I met him that he was a jerk and it took me all of a minute or less to learn he was a homophobic jerk–or so I thought. It turned out that he really hated himself and the fact that he was attracted to other men. Those types of people were often more violent than a regular homophobe. I should’ve pitied him rather than been jealous of his existence, but I was angry that he got to see an innocent Josh that the world hadn’t turned cynical and even angrier that he was part of the reason for Josh building walls around his heart.

  I wanted that heart all to myself and I wanted it given to me freely. I needed Josh to be able to look into my eyes and tell me exactly how he felt about me without hiding his emotions behind snarky comments and sex. I craved the moment that Josh could be completely real with me and not worry that he would be let down and disappointed again. I also knew that I needed to earn that privilege with more than just words, which was why I pushed aside all of my irrational jealous feelings over his past with Billy Sampson so that I wouldn’t ruin our day with a foul mood–especially after the sexy moment we shared in my storage unit.

  I ended up taking Josh to run his errands rather than drop him off back at his house because I wanted to spend more time with him. I enjoyed our trip to Brook’s Pets, but I could go the rest of my life without returning to the grocery story on a Sunday afternoon.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I asked in disbelief. The parking lot was packed with cars and there were only two grocery carts left in the corral inside the store. “Is there a blizzard coming?” Every time the forecaster mentioned snow, regardless if it was a dusting or two feet, people ran to the store and bought out the bread and milk. Ohioans were strange individuals sometimes.

  “It’s Sunday at noon,” Josh replied, as if that made any se
nse at all. He rolled his eyes when I just looked at him like he was from another planet. “All of the good people have just left church and they’re grabbing their groceries before they go home. If I wasn’t still blissed out from the O you gave me then I might be a little upset with you for making me arrive later than normal. I always get here and back home before the madness.”

  “You think we’re bad because we don’t attend church?” I asked him curiously.

  “Not at all,” he replied. “It was just something that was stressed by the older generation when I was younger. If you didn’t go to church, then you were going to hell. Now, I get to go to hell for a much better reason.” He rolled his eyes again at me and said, “No, I don’t really believe that either. I’m just once again repeating the shit I’ve heard over the years, and not necessarily from people in my community.” I wasn’t overly religious, but I was glad to hear that Josh didn’t think he was unworthy of His love like he had in the past with the men He created. “God loves everyone,” he said confidently before he added, “especially those who make the world a more beautiful place.” I knew when he pointed to himself he was referring to his career and not his looks, well, that was until he licked his finger and ran it over his eyebrow.

  “You do make the world a more beautiful place.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek and felt his skin flush beneath my lips. Sure enough, his face was a pretty shade of red when I pulled back. “I wonder what they’d call that shade in a lipstick,” I pondered out loud.

  Josh’s response was to elbow me in the ribs before he walked ahead of me, pushing his cart with his head held high. I learned quickly that Josh didn’t quite know how to handle it when someone served him up a bit of his own smart-ass medicine. I liked that I was unpredictable to him and kept him on his toes. I stood there longer than I should have, admiring his sassy, bubble butt as he walked away.

  “I like you more and more each day.”

  I turned around and looked into Meredith’s smiling eyes. I was curious what I did that made her so happy so I asked, “Why?”