by Nikki Wild
The lights must've been motion activated, because row after row of bright fluorescent splashed down illumination as we entered.
"Holy shit," I whispered, opening the door and hopping out with a grace that I somehow hadn’t possessed when I'd done it back at the motel.
"I thought you might like this," Dane said with a chuckle, "since you've got such good taste in cars, and everything."
It was amazing. It was like walking into a mechanic's wet dream, and everywhere I looked there was some shiny piece of equipment or machinery that had a purpose that I couldn't even fathom. There were cars too, three of them, though I doubted any of them were street legal. The whole garage looked like something out of a movie. Two of the cars even had sponsor’s stickers and big, white numbers splashed on the doors and the hood.
I was still exhausted, but I couldn’t help but walk around at examine some of the equipment. I didn't know what any of it did. Despite Dane teasing me about the Bentley, I didn't really know very much about cars at all.
There was a dark area in the back of the garage. The place was bigger than what I was seeing, but once my eyes had adjusted, I cast a glance toward a big bulky shape under a tarp. It was obviously a car, but why was this one covered?
Another mystery, I thought to myself as I approached. Was it his newest racing machine? Something stolen by his motorcycle gang buddies?
“Get the fuck away from there,” Dane barked, and for the first time since I’d met him I got to see a side of him that the town probably feared. “That’s not for you.”
He could obviously be as mean as a junkyard dog, when he wanted to.
No, I corrected myself, not when he wanted to. When he felt he had to. I didn't sense that he was cruel, but just like those male models could turn their smiles and their twinkling eyes on and off, Dane could flip a switch and become a bad ass when he had to be.
I hadn't let someone speak to me like that in years. A little thrill ran up my spine. It was only now that I was starting to wonder what I’d missed along the way.
"Sorry," he said, seeming to realize that his voice had made my heart beat faster and my breath catch in my throat.
When I looked at Dane underneath those bright lights, it was like I was able to look into his past. All those scars on his hands hadn't just come from being a mechanic. No doubt there more than a few broken bottles and bar fights in his history as well. Maybe he'd gone all soft and gentle when he saw me in the crash, but that wasn't who he had always been.
And maybe that wasn't who he'd be tomorrow…
For now though, his feet were planted. His jaw was set. His once warm eyes were blazing, and his barrel chest heaved with a deep, forceful breath.
"I'm sorry," I said again, and even though my voice was barely loud enough to make it all the way over to him, I meant it. I hadn’t really meant to pry and I was eager to make amends.
"You don't have to be sorry. I just want you to know your place, and it isn’t under that tarp."
"Okay." I didn't like the way he was speaking to me. He had a wounded look in his eyes, and I knew that somehow I’d managed to hurt him.
I hadn’t meant to though, and I wasn’t going to let him walk all over me just because he felt the need. “Just show me where you want me to sleep, okay? I don't need the grand tour, but if you didn’t want me to look at stuff, you should have said so before I got out of the truck."
Chapter 12
Dane
I felt a twist in my gut when I saw the effect my words had on her. It was frightening how easily I slipped back into my old habits, and the fact that Dad had indirectly caused it…
Well, that made it even worse.
Kara didn't deserve to be treated like that. Somehow, she meant more to me already than anyone had in a long time, and if I didn’t watch myself she’d vanish from my life even quicker than she was already planning to.
"You can sleep in my bed," I said, without even thinking.
Kara fixed me with a look that told me I could drop dead right where I stood. "You wish."
I shook my head. “What I mean is I've got a bed out here in the garage. I used to sleep in here when we were pulling all-nighters on the cars.”
She blinked a couple of times. “Oh…”
I couldn’t help but smile. “You don't really think I have balls that big, do you? To yell at you like that, and then demand that you fuck me right away?"
She narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you mean, 'right away'? That's not happening Dane, not now and not ever. I’ve been in town a few hours and I’ve already had a gun aimed at me, my tire shot out, and been whisked away by a stranger who tells me he’s ‘changed’…”
None of this was coming out right and I knew it. I tried again, something I probably wouldn't have normally done.
"Look," I said, forcing my fists to open up into palms and showing them to her, as if I was showing a cop that I didn't have a gun. "All I'm trying to say is that I've got a bed out here that I don't use. It's yours for the night. I'll start to work on the Bentley tomorrow, and with any luck you'll be out of here before sunset."
Kara laughed. "If you could do that, you might just earn a place in the bed next to me after all…"
I smiled, happy to see that the icy exterior she'd been able to throw up so quickly could melt away just as fast. "I doubt it. I'm a nobody, remember? You've got places to be and people to see, and I have to get back to wasting my life in this one horse town. Or something like that."
"Or something like that," Kara whispered. "Did I say all that? You’ve got to cut me some slack Dane, I was a little out of it when you picked me up. I didn't mean it."
I shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I'm not saying you were wrong. The bed's over there," I said, pointing to a well-lit corner near the door. "Hit the hay. You look exhausted."
Kara looked around, and I appreciated that she was careful to keep her gaze away from the tarp. "Where will you be?"
"In the house."
"I can live with that," she said, though some lilting sadness in her voice made me question the truth of that statement. Did she want me to stay?
God knows all I wanted to do was to go to her, to scoop her up in my arms and press my lips to hers. I wanted our tongues to dance, her mouth to open underneath mine… and for those beautiful, strong thighs to part as well.
I had to stop letting myself pretend that was going to happen. This little fantasy was already starting to make me hard. It was only a matter of time before she noticed.
I don't know what I was thinking. She'd made it clear that she was better than me in the first place. I turned around without saying anything else, hurrying out and pressing the remote control on the door beside so that it would roll down behind me.
It was a dark night. The lightning bugs were out, and I knew my way back to the house. Even so, I couldn’t shake the image of her body. The shape of her, when she’d turned around in the truck to grab the luggage… It was like it was burnt into my eyes. Burnt into my mind.
Burnt into my soul, or at least what was left of it.
Chapter 13
Kara
As the screen rolled down with a bang behind him, I was already starting to feel bad about what I'd said. There was something about Dane that took my usual confidence, however false it usually was, and turned it to ash. He was unlike anyone I'd ever known. I was so used to people trying out a look, watching my eyes to see if they were impressing me and adjusting like a chameleon based on that…
Well, I’d been starting to wonder whether I'd ever met anyone who was real at all. Is this how the rest of the world was? Were all those fashion bigwigs in New York and Chicago and Miami nothing more than smoke and mirrors?
I was starting to think so. And worse, I was beginning to realize that I wasn’t so sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life amongst them.
But looming even larger than the self-doubt I had for my career were these new feelings for Dane. I didn't have to examine them very clos
ely to know what was going on. I was falling for him harder than I’d ever fallen for anyone. It didn’t make any damn sense. I wasn't going to fool myself into thinking that he'd always been the right kind of guy for me, but that didn't matter.
All that mattered was that despite all the crazy things that had happened to me tonight, I found myself trusting him. I knew he was telling the truth. I could feel it, right down to the marrow in my bones. There was something vulnerable underneath that rough mask that he wore. I'd seen it when he spoke about his family as we drove on to the property. There was more to his story, and some forgotten piece of me wanted to know everything.
I'd seen it when he was looking at me when I'd first opened my eyes after the crash. He'd looked like an angel then, and I'd seen the compassion in his eyes.
You're being an idiot, I told myself. Whatever the opposite of star-struck is, that's you. Stockholm syndrome? Infatuation?
I shook my head. That wasn't it. I wasn't simply infatuated with him. It wasn't some puppy love that was only based on the ancient principle of opposites attract...
I felt it when I touched his face. A little spark. It had made me want to touch him again and again, and when he’d casually reached over and squeezed my knee in the cab of the tow truck I'd felt it then too.
Maybe that was why I didn't chase him off. Hell, if a guy in Chicago had tried something like that I'd have given him such a verbal barrage that he'd have withered underneath it…
But it was different with Dane. It was sexual, but it was more… Needful.
I was having trouble putting it into words without feeling silly, but it was just the right type of possessiveness. It was a strong hand on my soft flesh that said you're mine and I won't let anything happen to you, no matter what. I imagine that good men had been doing gestures like that the women they loved since time began. Somewhere a caveman had dragged in the corpse of a saber tooth and laid it beside a woman's fire and then put his hand on her knee like that. Or a knight in armor. Or a soldier just returning from the Revolutionary War.
And was I going to pretend that I was so different than those women? I couldn't. I responded to the gesture just like they had, because just like them I saw it for what it was. The only way that a man could truly show that he cared was sometimes by doing something that he found out of character. Generosity. Concern. And, in the case of Dane, I could see that him rescuing me from side of the road really was out of character.
He wasn't a bad guy, but he'd let himself run with the worst of them. His mask let him blend in, and I was sure that more than once he'd had to prove himself. An image of the scars on his hands and forearms flashed before me, and I knew that he'd been in a brawl or two. He may be rough around the edges, but I could see him for what he truly was.
More to the point, I could see him for what I truly wanted him to be. Mine…
I told myself I was being crazy. But when the roller door suddenly sparked into life and the thunderous noise of its ascent filled the cold garage again, I wasn't surprised at all to see Dane's muscular form silhouetted by the lights of the property behind him. As he stepped forward into the florescence, I found myself going to him. Not walking, but running. Sprinting, almost.
The indecision was gone. The stress had lifted. There were at least a thousand people expecting a thousand different things from me outside of this place, but within these four walls the only thing I needed was right in front of me.
I ran into his strong arms and I felt his big, muscular body support me as he lifted me effortlessly. Our noses were almost touching, and I breathed in his breath and smiled. It was just like before, spiced with some type of bourbon and hinting of either peppermint or mouthwash. I couldn't help but grin. Dane couldn't stay away from me any more than I could from him, and as I felt my breasts conform to the shape of his pecks, instead of going in for the kiss, I did that thing women down through the ages had probably all done before me too.
I leaned forward, wrapped my arms around him even tighter, and lay my head on his shoulder. There was a strength there. My eyes closed, though my earlier exhaustion had evaporated. It was like being in a locked, safe cabin while a storm raged outside. I could hear the pressures of the world, but I couldn't feel them. All those nagging voices were gone.
When Dane spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. "That's my dad's car. Under the tarp. He and I were working on it when he died, and when I got back from the funeral I just covered it up. I can't bear to look at it anymore, but that doesn't make the fact that I snapped at you okay. You couldn’t have known. I’m sorry."
I nodded, my face still pressed to the side of his neck. "That's okay," I practically whispered. “I shouldn't have said I was better than you. I’m not.” I swallowed hard, forcing the lump in my throat to go away. “This place… these feelings… it's so new. So different. I feel like we're going so fast, but that doesn't mean I want to slow down. If this happened anywhere else, or with anyone else, I don't think I'd feel the way I do. But this is right, Dane. God help me, I'm not ready for us to end."
"We aren’t ending," he told me, hooking his thumbs underneath my arms and pulling my face away from him a little so he could look into my eyes. "And I'm glad you think we're going fast. The only thing I'm really good at is going fast."
Maybe he started it. Maybe I did. But I don't think so… It was more like we both leaned forward at the same time and our mouths found each other. Our lips parted and our tongues came together. He was a good kisser, and right away I felt like was the kiss that was going to make me remember kisses for the rest of my life.
Usually I was happy with just a peck, but this one went on and on and on. I loved it. I gave myself over to it. Even when I could see sparks in front of my eyes because I was running out of air, I didn't want to break away from his mouth.
It was like being given a mouthful of water after a trip through the desert. I drank him in, and I felt his hands let my feet down to the ground so that I could support my own weight.
At first, I couldn't. I clung to him, my knees shaking with the incredible passion coursing through me. I got a little strength back when his hands climbed over my breasts, deftly undoing the buttons and pulling the blouse I was wearing aside. I stood there shivering, but his hands were hot as they undid the clasp of my bra and let that drop to my feet.
"You too," I said, my hands climbing from his belt buckle to the bottom of his T-shirt. I wanted this to be even. I wanted he and I to start this on a footing that I could consider equal. I wanted everything that happened between us to be shared, and that meant that I wasn't going to be the cold, goosebumped girl standing half naked in front of a man with all his clothes on.
Besides, I wanted to see every inch of him. I wanted to remember this, because part of me was still telling myself, in an incessant voice that I couldn't quite ignore, that this was going to have to be a one-time thing. Passion was nice. Love was all good, and all that. But I had a whole life outside of this place.
Dane sent those thoughts away when he gave me that lopsided, wicked grin he'd used on me so often tonight. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head and revealed slabs of muscle underneath what seemed like acres of tattoos and scars.
“That’s a lot of ink,” I breathed.
Dane winked. "They've all got stories. Maybe I'll tell you them sometime."
But it wasn't the tattoos that fascinated me. I found myself gently reaching out and running my fingers down one scar, and then another. I wasn't trained in any sort of medical science, but even I could see that some of them had been pretty vicious, at one time.
"They’ve got stories too. The occasional brawl," he explained, "And the time when Diego down south pulled a knife on me. But these," he said, laying his hands on mine and steering them across his flesh toward the side of his body, "these are the moneymakers. It took me a while to get over that crash, and I doubt I ever really will. I'm going to carry these until the day I die, and I'm okay with that."
I had a lot of qu
estions. What had happened? And had his dad been involved?
I may have had a lot of questions for him, but when I opened my mouth the only words that came out were, "Fuck me."
The words were like a spell. As soon as I said them, we started. And once we did, it was like all rational thought went out the window.
He was tall. Way taller than I was, and when he loomed over me it made me feel even smaller than my slight frame made me out to be. I'd always thought that with a man like that beside me, I'd feel like something less than I knew myself to be.
But it was exactly the opposite. I felt like I could take on the whole damn world with him by my side.
Maybe it was just for tonight, but I was determined to revel in the feeling. Tonight, I was going to let myself give away all the doubts. Tonight, I was going to let myself be his.
Without any doubts or regrets.
Dane got down on his knees in front of me and used those big, calloused palms of his to scoop up my breasts and lift them to his mouth. He knew what he was doing, and his kisses weren't gentle. Occasionally he'd suck a mouthful of flesh in and nibble on me, and sometimes his hot tongue would circle my nipples so hard that I could feel my body react all the way down to the base of my spine. I felt my thighs part. I felt myself get wet. My hips were even bucking at him ever so slightly, but even though I could see from Dane's grin that he knew exactly what effect his attentions were having on me, he didn't move to the rest of my body.
Not yet…
I moaned out loud. I heard the noise echo off the concrete of the ground and the metal of the walls, but I didn't care. It was only when at last he wrapped his arms around me and picked me up once more, his face still buried between my breasts, that I squealed. That was when I wondered if I was being too loud.
"Nobody can hear you," he reassured me. "It's just you and me."
I close my eyes let the words sink in. It's just you and me. Us against the world, just like I felt before…