I smile, gazing at her, imagining it. A younger version of Selena singing her heart out as she raced around the California highway system, one hand draped outside her car window. It’s easy enough to imagine, because I’ve done the same thing myself, thousands of times. Hell, I once even went on a road trip all the way across the US, camping along the route.
Unbidden, an image comes to mind. Doing that with her, exploring the world…
I push it away. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Antonio. Enjoy being here with her, right now. Don’t ruin it with daydreaming, the way I always do.
Selena sighs, and the moment shatters, the perfect vision I had for an instant popping like a bubble between us. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t drive anymore.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, before I can stop myself, even though I know it’s a bad idea.
Her expression shutters instantly. Before I can say anything else, she’s crossing her arms, turning away from the sun. She starts to stomp back across the sand, away from the ocean and toward the distant sidewalk instead. “I’m hungry,” she calls over her shoulder as she stomps away. “Aren’t you?”
There’s a long pause, while I consider my options. Press harder, call her out on avoiding whatever this is? But after a while, I shake my head, unable to do that to her. If she wants to keep her secrets, then that’s her business. None of mine, to go pressuring her.
“Sure,” I call, following her back across the hilly dunes. “I could always eat.”
* * *
We wind up in a little dinner spot raised up a little bit above the level of the beach itself. It’s got a killer sunset view, which is perfect, because right after we find our seats on the restaurant’s patio, outside where the warm, salty breeze can still reach us, the sun dips toward the horizon.
“Thanks, by the way,” Selena says, while we wait for our main courses to arrive. Judging by the cocktails and the appetizers we’ve already devoured, I’m pretty sure all the food is going to be great.
But any thoughts of dinner flee my head as I glance over and notice a somber expression on her face, her mouth tight around the edges. Just the way she looked down by the water earlier, before she dodged my questions. “For what?” I ask, my tone cautiously light, carefully neutral.
“For letting me skip work today.” She flashes me a sheepish little grin, then, and some of the light returns to her eyes. “I really needed the break.” She chews on her lower lip, then reaches between us to pluck a piece of bread from the basket the waiters served. I watch her tear it to tiny shreds, before she finally picks up a piece, delicately dunking it in olive oil and popping it into her mouth. “And I’m sorry that I lied to you about being sick,” she adds, after she washes down the bite of bread with a sip of her cocktail.
I shake my head. “Hey, mental health days still count as being sick,” I point out.
Her cheeks flush. “Not a lot of people would agree with you.”
“Well, some people suck,” I reply with a shrug, and that wins me a slightly larger smile this time.
“I promise I’ll come into the garage on time tomorrow,” she says. “Early, even, if you want me to, to make up for lost time.”
I lift an eyebrow along with the glass of scotch I’m drinking. “Any more of these and I’m afraid neither of us are going to be getting to the garage on time, let alone early.”
She snorts. “Fine, I’ll stay late, then.”
“Only if you promise to let me distract you some more,” I reply, leaning forward so that underneath the table, where I’m hidden from view by the tablecloth draped over the edges, I can reach over to rest a hand on her knee.
She draws in a slow breath, and I watch a blush spread from her cheeks, down her neck to her chest. “Maybe,” she says, her voice dropping lower. Then she surprises me, by reaching down to catch my wrist and tugging my hand higher.
I grin, following her lead, and slide my hand up, up, up her bare thigh. There are a handful of other people in the restaurant, but their gazes are all fixed out toward the ocean, watching the sun dip toward setting. As for me, I’ve got eyes only for Selena, who watches me right back, biting her lower lip as my fingers reach the very top of her thighs.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her, lowering my voice to a purr. “I’ll give you a very good performance review when I talk about what great work you’ve done for me.”
She actually bats her eyelashes. Fucking hell, this woman. “If I didn’t know any better, Antonio, I’d say you were just saying that to get into my panties.”
I smirk. And then my hand reaches the crease where her thigh meets her hipbone. I trace my fingertips over the smooth plane of her thigh, slide it along her body, only to find… I blink a couple times, and my eyebrows rise higher. “In order for me to get into your panties,” I say, my voice so low it’s nearly a growl now. “You’d have to be wearing any.”
I run my fingertips across her smooth mound, and I’m rewarded with a naughty smirk, a flash of heat in Selena’s eyes. “I thought you might like a glimpse of my wilder side.”
“You thought right,” I murmur, leaning in so that our chairs are side by side, and reaching up with my free hand to tip her face toward mine. This time I actually kiss her, a slow sink of my mouth against hers, my tongue parting her lips to claim her mouth as mine, mine, mine.
At the same time, I press my hand more firmly between her thighs, parting them, one fingertip toying with her pussy lips. When I pull back from the kiss, I bite her lower lip, just hard enough to make her gasp and arch those sexy hips of hers up against my palm.
“God, I can’t wait to get you right where I want you,” I murmur, my mouth still close to hers.
“And where is that?” she breathes, her gaze fixed on mine.
“Spread-eagled beneath me on a bed,” I reply. Then I bend to kiss her jawline, the edge of her neck. “With my cock buried inside that tight pussy of yours.” To demonstrate, I push one finger into her slit, trace it back and forth, savoring the feeling of her wetness coating my fingertips.
I circle her entrance until she’s shifting in her chair, her breath coming faster, that flush I love so much back and spreading all across her face.
Then the waiter appears with our food balanced on his tray, and I casually slip my hand back out from beneath her dress, perfectly poised, while Selena is breathless and distracted beside me. I thank the waiter, making sure to ask him extra questions just so she has to linger with her discomfort longer.
She fires me more than a few glares while we chat, and I notice her fidgeting in her seat. But she waits until the waiter actually walks away to lean over and hiss in my ear. “You wanted him to notice me dying over here, didn’t you?” she accuses.
I merely smile back at her, broad and innocent. “What’s the matter?” I wink. “Something got you all hot and bothered? Or should I say wet and bothered…”
She glares, and I can’t help it. I laugh softly, because her flustered embarrassment is so damn cute. It’s even cute when she swats me with her napkin.
Hell, everything this woman does attracts me. From the fact that she wore no undies today just to turn me on, to the way she fights me when I insist on paying the bill. I win the fight, of course, by sneaking my credit card to the waiter when she’s in the bathroom. But she tried her damndest to split the check, which is more than I can say for most women I’ve taken out on dates like this.
Scratch that. I’ve never taken a woman on a date quite like this one. One that started with a walk on the beach, sharing our childhood memories, and ended with us walking home, my arm around her waist, stopping occasionally to grip that sexy, juicy ass of hers, anytime there’s nobody else near us on the street.
I’ve never been with anyone who makes me feel quite the way Selena does. She turns me on, yes, but she also makes me want more than just heat and passion and sex. She makes me want to get to know her. To peel back her layers, uncover her mysteries. To understand the way she ticks, the way her mind words. W
hy she makes all the decisions she does, everything from why she lives alone and without her parents’ money or support, to why she agreed to her dad’s demands at all — helping me fix up my car by hand, when she knew nothing about how to fix cars in the first place. And why something about the car itself clearly triggered something troubling for her yesterday.
I want to know why she’s willing to come back to the garage after she practically fled it in horror the last time she was there.
And, I’ll admit it, I want to know who the guy is in all her photographs. Because when we make it back to her place, it’s empty. Devoid of signs of anyone else living here. So at the very least I don’t think it’s a roommate or a current boyfriend. But I can’t figure it out. Can’t figure out why his gaze seems to pierce straight out of the photos, staring straight at me when we stumble onto the couch and I pin her beneath me.
Finally, I wind up rolling over to drag Selena onto my lap, just to block my view of the damn photograph across the room.
At least her body makes me forget about it. Forget about anything, in fact, except for how smooth and perfect her skin feels underneath my fingertips. How fucking gorgeous she looks straddling me, as I peel off that sundress and let her undo the zip of my jeans, push them down hard and fast, like she’s dying for the same thing I want right now.
We’re both so fucking hungry every time we’re together. We can never quite get enough of one another. And I hope we never do.
Finally, when we’ve both stripped down, I pull her down against me, guide my cock up into her tight pussy. I grip her hips hard, take control as I thrust up into her, and I savor the view as she rides me, her head falling back, her breasts in the perfect position for me to lick, suck, nip at them as her hips grind into mine, and her whole body rises and falls while she rides my cock.
I have never been with a woman like Selena Brown.
And later that night, when we finally collapse into her bed, exhausted from three rounds with a break for ice cream dessert and a shower in between, I know I never will be again. I curl around her, holding her tight in my arms as I listen to the way her breathing slows and evens out, grows steady next to me, and I realize… I’ll do anything I have to do in order to keep this girl.
Anything at all.
9
Selena
I wake up the next morning with the familiar blinding light through my window piercing my eyelids. At first, I don’t even realize anything has changed.
Not until I shift and realize there’s a heavy, reassuring arm draped around my waist. A warm body pressed up against mine in the bed. I roll over, as gently as I can, and my heart skips a beat in my chest as my gaze lands on Antonio, sound asleep beside me.
Only then do I freeze, my brain helpfully replaying the night over again.
The long walk by the beach. Our conversation over dinner. Everything else that happened during and after dinner. The way he got me so turned on last night that at one point I swear I saw stars behind my eyelids when I came, screaming his name.
But it’s more than just the sex. The way he talks to me, asks me questions, tries to support me and speak up for me… This feels like more than just a fling. Like he’s really trying to get to know me, to peel back my layers to the real me.
But that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. A pit forms in my stomach, tight and growing tighter the longer I watch him doze, his whole body relaxed as he sleeps. Because Antonio, he’s a normal person. A guy who knows what he wants from life, who has it all figured out. He’s got his passion and he’s chasing it.
Not to mention, he doesn’t have anything holding him back. No hang ups from his past. No shadows haunting him.
Holding my breath, moving as slowly as possible so as not to disturb him, I inch toward my side of the bed, and gently slide out from beneath Antonio’s arm. The moment I let his arm fall to the mattress, he lets out a low sound, almost a little growl of protest, and reaches out. His hand catches my pillow instead, and he curls his arm around it, dragging it to his chest, protective, like he even his subconscious is reaching out for me. He thinks I’m still lying there with him, and he’s drawing me in, trying to be a shelter for me, even in his sleep.
My chest only aches worse, watching this. Because I know how much I’m still hiding from him. How much I can’t talk about, because once we do, he’s going to know how screwed up I am.
I can’t stand to see that. I can’t stand to wait around for the moment his expression will shift, the same way everyone’s always does when they learn about it. I don’t want to see him look at me with pity, the way everyone does afterward.
On tiptoe, so as not to make a sound, I steal into my bathroom and pull the door shut tight behind me. There, I step into the shower, turn it on hot enough to scald my skin pink, and stand under the stream, scrubbing at my skin until it goes darker pink, then almost red. Only then do I step back out, towel myself off, then root through my closet until I find what I’m looking for.
Another work outfit. This time it’s a pair of old jeans from back when I used to actually paint, stained and spattered with evidence of those classes. I tug those on and add another old fraying T-shirt. Perfect work attire.
That done, I head into the kitchen and start to fry up some eggs.
Antonio wakes around the same time I start on the bacon. I can hear him in the bedroom, shuffling around for a little while, before he pads into the kitchen, stretching his arms so high over his head that the lower edge of his T-shirt rides up, grants me a peek at those washboard abs I ran my hands over yesterday.
My stomach tightens, and a little pulse of desire travels all the way down into my pussy. But I clench my jaw, turn away, and ignore it. “I’m ready to head in whenever you are,” I say, using a spatula to toss two of the eggs onto a plate, then adding a couple strips of bacon and passing it to him.
“Wow. You weren’t kidding about wanting to get in early and make up for lost time, huh?” He grins at me as he accepts the plate. “But where’s the fire?”
“No fire.” I finish plating my own breakfast, and then I sidle around my kitchen counter, taking a seat on the farthest stool away from his on purpose. As if putting counter space and miles of air between us will incentivize me to keep my hands to myself. Or make him do the same, whichever. “I’m just eager to get back to work. I shouldn’t have skipped it yesterday.”
“We’ve been over this, Selena,” he starts, but I raise a hand to cut him off.
“I appreciate you being understanding. But don’t worry. It won’t happen again.” I look down at my plate at those last words, because I can’t keep my gaze on his as I say them. Otherwise he’ll see how very badly I want it all to happen again—at least, the parts of yesterday where he showed up at my door and took me on a long walk down to the beach, or the part where we came stumbling back here hand in hand and he pinned me against that same door.
I finish eating without another word. When I finally look up, I notice Antonio doing the same, his forehead scrunched up as if in deep thought.
Good. At least he’s not trying to distract me this morning. Because god knows how easy it is for him to accomplish that, whenever he sets his mind to it.
I stick the dishes in the sink and wash them off while Antonio goes to pop into the shower. By the time he’s finished and redressed, I’m already standing next to the door, my purse over my shoulder. “Let’s get a move on,” I say, and he trails me out of the apartment, frowning a little.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re just eager to get this over with,” he jokes.
When I don’t respond, his frown deepens. But he leads me out to the parking lot anyway, the one attached to my apartment complex where he left his car parked overnight. My breath hitches when I see it, even though it’s not the car we’ve been working on. Even though I managed to get the Uber home from the garage itself two days ago all right. But that was two days ago, and I’ve been avoiding cars since then, and this time it’s not an U
ber, I’ll have to sit in the front seat, and it’s someone I know so I can’t just shut my eyes and pray under my breath the whole time.
My whole body freezes up.
I catch Antonio watching, and I force a faint smile. It grows a little stronger and steadier, the longer I keep that smile plastered to my lips. “Well, come on,” I say, heading around his car to the passenger side. Faking a bravado I don’t feel.
I can feel his eyes boring into me, as I climb into the passenger seat. Once there, I belt myself in quickly, then clench my hands tight between my knees, my nails digging into my palms because the faint pain of that helps to keep my grounded in the present, to reassure me that I’m all right, it’s going to be okay. I’ve driven in a million cars before, and Antonio knows what he’s doing, he’s a good driver.
So was he, I can’t help thinking. He was a good driver too, and it didn’t matter, none of it mattered. My heart begins to race, and I suck in a deep breath, then another.
Antonio climbs into the driver’s seat next to me, and his gaze jumps from my face to my hands and back again. “You all right?”
“Uh huh. Totally. How were the eggs?” I blurt, trying to think of something, anything, to talk about besides me. Because otherwise he’ll ask me why I’m breathing so fast, why my body looks tense as hell, and I’ll have to come up with some kind of lie to cover my tracks.
“Um…” Antonio frowns, confused. “The eggs were fine. I mean, great. Why?”
“No reason.” I clear my throat. “Just, sometimes they can get a little dry if I fry them for too long. Just wanted to make sure they were good. Um… Radio?” I reach over to click it on before he even responds. I need some other kind of noise in the car, so that I can’t hear my own heartbeat clamoring in my ears.
Antonio finally tears his gaze from me as the music floods the car. He pulls out of the space, and I dig my nails into my palms harder, deeper. Fix my eyes on the road straight ahead of us and try to drown out anything in my peripheral vision. It’s almost meditative, in a way, like I’m drowning out the whole world.
Work Me Up Page 9
