by Kate Swain
11
Carter
I arrived at the table, pinned in at the end, making me feel a little ridiculous. I stood opposite Amelia and felt my body powerfully stir with longing for her. I didn’t know, at this point, whether I wanted to shake my brother’s hand or kill him. How could he make me face her outside of work?
Not that I would want to miss this.
Seeing Amelia every day at work was getting hard. She was so beautiful. Outside of work, she was even more stunning. With her pale hair loose around her shoulders, her soft skin gently highlighted with pink when she blushed, and her pouty lips dropping into a little circle of surprise, she was so sexy. I felt my body respond and wished it was even darker, so nobody would notice the unfortunate bulge in my pants.
“Hi,” I said. After I realized I was staring.
Making myself look away, I greeted the girl Mark had sat down next to, simply to make myself appear cool and disinterested.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Carter Brand, from Brand’s Bike Shop.”
“Tanya Wadley,” she greeted him. “Hi. I’m Amelia’s friend.” She gestured at Amelia, who was at the head of the table, across from me.
“Yes. I’ve met Amelia,” I said. My voice sounded gruff when I said her name, and I cleared my throat. Hell, if I wanted the entire club to know I felt really attracted, I was going about it wonderfully. “Hi, Amelia,” I added in one of the friendlier voices so far with her.
“Hi,” she said. She looked at Tanya, and she seemed almost too afraid to say anything more. Tanya looked at her.
“Sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Amelia said. She turned and walked swiftly across the room. I stared after her, then realized I was standing while Tanya and Mark stared.
“There’s room for you to sit down,” Mark pointed out, gesturing me to the seat opposite him. I winced. Amelia’s jacket was there on the seat, which meant that, when she came back, I’d end up beside her. I couldn’t exactly keep standing there—I was already looking bizarre.
“Thanks,” I said, and, grunting as my knee cracked, I sat down. I was opposite Mark. He raised a brow. I wanted to punch him.
He is really enjoying himself.
I thought Mark was doing all of this on purpose because he thought I was into Amelia. He hadn’t stopped saying so much since she arrived to work for us. It had taken him a day or so to get over the idea of it being true, but now he just seemed to find it funny to tease me about it. I frowned.
“So,” Mark said smoothly to Tanya. “How’s it going?”
Tanya giggled. Her voice was low and resonant, and I thought that Mark was probably attracted to her a little bit. I watched them as they talked.
“I’m great,” she said. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine,” Mark shrugged. “Work’s good. Isn’t it, boss? Things are much better now.”
“Yes,” I said. “We have a lot of orders,” I added, sidestepping the inevitable commentary Mark wanted to hear. I refused to talk about how efficient Amelia had made the shop and office in the week she’d been working for us. I didn’t want to have to sing her praises in front of her. I would be way too embarrassed, and then there’d be no hiding the way I felt.
“You have?” Tanya sounded impressed. She tilted her glass at Mark, grinning. “Great! You should have lots of work, then.”
“Doing well, for sure,” Mark nodded.
I listened to their conversation distantly, being more interested in the other side of the room, where the doors to the restroom were. I saw them open.
Amelia came out. My body tensed up.
The room was noisy and crowded, the air dingy and the sounds loud and jarring. I didn’t notice. The soft light brought out the paleness of her hair, the grimy interior serving to show off her soft looks. I watched her walk, breathing in sharply with every rise of her breasts and swing of her hips.
“Bro? Carter?”
I jumped. I turned around sharply to face my brother, who was staring at me, stunned. “What?” I said, feeling caught off guard.
I shrugged, acutely aware of Amelia sitting down beside me. She moved her coat so that it was behind her on the back of the bench. Her hand was inches from my arm, and I could almost feel the heat from her body.
“I just asked you if you think we’ll get much custom work during the winter.”
“Oh.” I closed my eyes, glad for the distraction from the girl who sat down next to me, trailing the scent of strawberry soap. My body screamed. I needed her more than I’d ever needed anything. Sitting with her beside me on the bench was torture.
“Well, will you?” Tanya asked expectantly.
“I think the custom orders will decrease,” Amelia murmured. “Most bikers don’t want to risk riding on roads with ice.”
“You’re right there,” Tanya nodded slowly. I noticed that she was looking at her friend with newfound respect. I wondered how much Amelia opened up about her bike knowledge.
Probably not much. Most girls don’t like to let on that they know things like that.
I frowned. There was a lot I didn’t know about Amelia. Suddenly, I felt a burning interest.
“Hey!” Mark called to a waiter, dressed in a black overall. “You got Black Label for everyone?”
“Amelia doesn’t drink beer,” Tanya pointed out. “A glass of house red, and… what… three beers?”
“Thanks,” Amelia said.
Mark looked at Tanya. “I’m paying for this round,” he said.
“Fine.” She raised a brow, exposing a strong temperament. “But I’m doing the next one. So there.”
I bit back a grin as Tanya and Mark squared off about who was buying the next round. I turned to Amelia, taking a deep breath.
“You only drink wine?” I asked.
She nodded. “I was never a fan of beer. There was always beer in the house, but I never drank it.”
“I see.” I nodded thoughtfully. I wondered what sort of house Amelia had grown up in. I imagined a suburban house—ordinary, plain, nothing bad.
“Carter! Tell her about the time I got drunk,” Mark interjected. “And you had to resuscitate me.”
Amelia gave me an interested stare. I felt myself die of embarrassment. I wanted to hit Mark.
“What happened?” Amelia asked.
I coughed. “When my brother there was fourteen years old,” I raised a brow at Mark, who laughed. “He decided to steal my beer. And not just a can—no… a whole six-pack of tall cans. I didn’t know.”
Amelia was watching me intently as I related the story of Mark’s adventure at fourteen. I had found him passed out in the garage, with no visible marks. I had assumed he’d fallen off of the roof— the boys were always climbing up there.
“…and what did you do?” Amelia asked. Her hand was over her mouth. Her eyes were huge.
I grinned. “I felt to see if his neck was broken, and then I rolled him onto his side. There was a gas canister, and I figured that he might have breathed it. I opened his airway… you know, first-aid style… and started breathing in.”
“He was, like, doing CPR on me,” Mark chuckled. “Then Matthew came in and, well, enlightened him.”
Amelia smiled. I felt the touch of that smile like physical closeness. “You were an amazing brother,” she said gently. “Your parents must have been thankful that you were there to keep an eye on the kids.” She looked across at Mark, who was busy talking to Tanya.
“I hope so.” My throat tightened with emotion immediately. “My parents weren’t there—they died when I was twenty-two.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. Her eyes went big. She reached across the table, her hand resting beside mine. “That’s awful. I am so sorry. What happened?”
“They died. Car accident.” I could hear the tightness in my own voice. What could I say? It still hurt. “It was hard.”
“I’m sure. Oh, poor Carter,” she breathed.
I tensed a
s something inside my chest snapped. Like glass, the frozen tears I’d held in there were suddenly cracking. I made my hands into fists, focusing on the pain of my fingernails digging into my palms. I wasn’t crying here.
“It was tough,” I said. My voice was commendably still.
“I believe it,” her voice said. I was looking over across the bar, trying to get a handle on my sorrow. I hadn’t expected to talk about this tonight, especially not with her. But now I was being hit with the weight of my buried grief.
“Yeah. The boys were small,” I said. “Mark and Matthew. Eleven years old.” I chuckled.
“They must have been a handful,” she murmured.
“You can’t even imagine.” I grinned. I recalled my siblings, and my smile faded into a frown as I remembered how they too struggled after my parents’ deaths. Mark had gone moody and difficult, prone to outbursts of rage, inclined to spending hours out of the house in odd company. Matthew had gone quiet and distant, like a specter. Neither of them had expressed grief in words, not for years. Shock does that to people.
“You must have had to work to support them,” she said. It wasn’t a question, more a statement.
“Yeah.” I nodded. She was perceptive. “I joined the forces. It wasn’t bad.”
“You were in the military?” she sounded impressed. I shrugged.
“Yeah. It was all right. Came out lieutenant.” I shrugged again. “Pay was good.”
“That’s good,” she murmured.
We sat silently for a while. Our drinks had arrived. I took a big sip. She wet her lips. I looked away.
If I don’t watch myself, I am going to do something terribly uninhibited.
The drink was getting to my head, making my longing for Amelia hard to resist. Having her beside me was unbearably tempting. I could smell the now-familiar strawberry scent of her hair and her skin. I could see the light on her face and the texture of her mouth. I wanted to kiss her right there.
“You stayed with the army a few years?” Amelia asked, bringing my mind back from images of what I would love to do to her if we were alone together.
“Um, ten years. When I came out, I started the bike shop. We’ve been going for seven years now.”
“Good,” she nodded. “And it’s doing well?”
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “It’s a good thing for the boys, too.” I gestured at Mark. “They’ve had a chance to develop their skills, no matter what they decide to do later in life. A good beginning.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “Do you think they’ll want to go to college?”
I shrugged. It was something I had wondered about myself. Mark and Matthew seemed content working with bikes. But I did wonder if they wouldn’t have liked a chance to do something else with their career and life. Mark, who chafed at my being boss, sometimes expressed discontent, I thought.
“I don’t know. But I guess they’ll decide eventually. I don’t think they’d feel obliged to stay if they wanted to do something else.” I looked across at Mark, who was busy telling Tanya a showy story about his exploits as a biker. I wanted to smile. No matter what, Mark flirted with every pretty girl he saw.
“Well, I hope they have a chance to pursue their dreams.”
Her voice sounded wistful. I noticed it immediately. It sounded like she had some regret herself. “You studied something at university? Accounting, maybe?” I guessed.
“Social science,” she said swiftly. “And I didn’t graduate.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” She sounded sad, and she wasn’t looking at me, rather at the rings from beer-glasses on the table. I guessed there was a story there and I waited. When she still hadn’t said anything, I cleared my throat.
I turned to face her. “Maybe you can go back someday, finish up.”
She looked at me. I was surprised that, for the second time, her eyes were wide. This time, they had tears in them. I felt my heart stop.
“I would like that,” she whispered. “More than anything. It’s why I wanted to start work again.”
“Oh.” This time, I was unsure of what to say. I fished in my pocket to find a tissue. I passed it to her, I tensed. Her fingertips touched mine in the exchange and I thought I might actually die when I felt her soft skin. I was hopelessly hard now and felt extremely grateful for the table and the darkness.
I really don’t want anyone seeing me like this.
I finished my pint of beer, and I was already tired. I thought it was getting to my head because my vision had blurred, and I was sleepy.
“Thanks,” she sniffed. “Sorry. I just sometimes regret not sticking with it. Silly,” she sniffed again.
“No, not at all,” I said, surprised by the supportive way I said it. “Nobody should feel silly for having big dreams. Why else are we alive?”
She looked into my eyes with those soft, melting brown ones. I felt my heart stop. The bar was noisy, but, at that moment, there was no sound beyond our conversation. I felt like the whole world was empty.
“You’re right.”
She whispered it, and the words brushed on my soul like the softest touch. I was staring into her eyes, my soul falling as we gazed at each other. We had moved closer to each other, and I could smell her hair and see her soft lips, which were inches away from mine and begging to be kissed.
She was leaning close to me, and her leg was pressing into mine. I realized that somebody had refilled our glasses, at least once, and we’d both had too much to drink. My longing for her was about to overwhelm me.
“Excuse me,” I murmured, getting to my feet. “I need to go to the restroom.”
In reality, I needed to get away before I kissed her and ruined our relationship of boss and receptionist.
12
Amelia
I felt my pulse flutter, and I watched Carter stride somewhat unsteadily across the room to the men’s room.
“Hey. Amelia!” Tanya called me. “What’s up?”
I realized I was staring after Carter, and snapped my head sharply around, focusing on her. My body was tingling, and I knew how perilously close I’d come to kissing Mr. Know-it-all over there.
Except he isn’t Mr. Know-it-all. He’s not arrogant at all. He’s actually really sweet.
Hearing his story, about how he’d looked after his little brothers following their parents’ death, moved me to see him in a new light.
That was all it was, I told myself firmly. I felt sorry for him.
I sat straighter. I hadn’t noticed how much I’d been leaning in towards Carter as I listened to his story. I blushed, worried that somebody might have noticed.
“Tanya,” I said firmly. “We should go.”
Tanya blinked, clearly having trouble hearing me. I looked at her, wide-eyed. She tensed and nodded.
“We should go,” she said to Mark. She reached behind her to find her jacket, and I saw her hesitate as she tried to put her arm in. I realized that I wasn’t the only one feeling intoxicated. We hadn’t had much at all. I think I’d only had three glasses of wine, but I felt tired when we arrived, and the drinks were not helping me focus.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I said.
Feeling uneasy, I stepped my way between the tables, as careful as I could. I did not want to stumble or fall. I made myself walk purposefully to and then into the restroom. I had to gather myself and my thoughts.
I worried that I was taking too long in there, so I washed my hands at the tiny basin and headed out the door. I stepped straight into a man.
It was Carter.
“Whoa,” he murmured. “Sorry, I was just…”
We looked at each other. My body was pressed to his. I could feel his hardness against me, the jeans doing nothing to hide the fact that he was aroused. I was, too. I could smell him and his cologne and warmth. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around him as he held me.
His mouth, warm and soft, descended on mine. He parted my lips gently with his tongue, and I closed my eyes, drawing him closer
to me.
His body was tense and strong, and I reveled in feeling his back with my hands as I drew him closer. He pushed against me, and the feeling was so good, I pulled his body even closer.
His tongue felt mine, tender and probing and overwhelming me with desire. I shut my eyes and licked his tongue back, feeling him fill my mouth even as his body bent me back, pushing me against the wall.
I gasped and held him, and I could feel my hips wanting to push into him as he continued with his kisses. I needed him badly. I was shaking.
“Hey! What’re you doing in here?” a man shouted. “This side’s gentlemen only.”
The sound was enough to make us both tense up. I felt my cheeks flood with color as I looked around. My back was still against the wall. I straightened up, feeling embarrassed as Carter leaned back.
“Easy, man. We’re just leaving,” he said. He looked at me, his expression as surprised as I was. I could barely talk.
“See you,” I said.
I turned around and ran out of the restroom area.
The door opened straight into the main room. The noise of the bar enveloped me and, for once, I was glad. It served to shut out the sound of my beating heart and my uncontrollable emotions. I went to the table hurriedly, threading my way through the crowded space. I found Tanya, who was sitting on the bench still, her phone in her hand.
“Tanya,” I said. “Can we go? Now?” I looked around at the restroom, feeling frightened. I half-expected Carter to burst into the main room and fire me on the spot. I had no idea why I felt that; he was as responsible as I was, but I needed to get out of there and fast.
“Sure thing,” Tanya said soothingly. She stood up. “Come on. We can wait outside if we want.”
“Outside?” I nodded, already following her to the entrance. “Tanya, I can’t drive.”
“Fine,” she smiled at me. Her eyes were shining, and I realized she, too, was not exactly sober. “That’s why I called a taxi. Better safe,” she added. She sounded very tired as she moved to the exit.
“Great,” I muttered. I trailed her to the front and joined her on the sidewalk. It was really cold outside, and I drew my coat around me, shivering. I couldn’t stop thinking about the hot kiss.