by Mia Madison
No pressure.
When I get to the garage, I’m a few minutes early, but vehicles are already lined up outside the garage bays, waiting for us to open. It’s another raw winter day, the skies leaden, the temperature just above freezing.
I go in the side door to the office area, which is separated from the rest of the garage by walls that are about one-third wood paneling and two-thirds clear glass. Rico’s standing at the counter, checking inventory on the computer. His dog, Valiant, is in her usual spot, curled up on a cushion underneath the overhang.
I stop to pet her. “Hi, Val.” She thumps her tail. At a guess, she’s part German Shepherd, mixed with several other smaller and scruffier breeds. She has big ears and a patchwork coat in white and brown and black. Not the prettiest dog you’ve ever seen, but sweet and loyal as they come.
My heart starts doing the tarantella as I hang up my coat. Showtime. Scraping my shreds of courage together, I move in close to Rico.
“Morning.” I stop right next to him. We’re not touching, but the skin on my arm, only an inch away from his, starts to tingle. When he glances my way, heat blooms between my legs.
If the way he affects me is any indication, Rico Adamo has enough sexual energy to rival any ten normal men. But it’s never unleashed. He keeps it tightly chained, like a caged animal prowling inside him.
Forcing down the mouthwatering images that brings to mind, I say, “Time for another order?”
He squints at me sidelong, no doubt wondering why I’m being so chatty. “Belts,” he finally answers in his deep rumble.
“Didn’t we just order belts?” I crane my neck as if to see the screen better. It lets me lean in until my breast is pressing against his arm.
Rico sends me a sharp look. I pretend not to notice and peer at the screen. “Wow, I didn’t realize we’d gone through that many. Lots of people getting belted lately.” It’s a lousy pun, but the best I can do on the spur of the moment.
Rico doesn’t say anything. I look up at him, towering almost a foot above me. There’s a look in his eyes I’ve never seen before … a darkly speculative one.
A thrill runs through me. Game on. Now what?
Challenge him … provoke him. “Oops,” I say, looking at the clock on the computer screen. “Time to open up.” Grabbing a stack of paid invoices, I start filing them like he’s not even there.
Two seconds later, energy crackles in the air between us like a storm gathering. A moment later, he plucks the paperwork from my hands, sets it on the counter, and turns me firmly to face him.
Contact! He touched me! Even with my clothes in the way, I’m counting it as a victory.
And then he speaks. “What the fuck are you playing at?”
Ouch. He’s grumpy when provoked. “Excuse me?” I say in my most innocent voice.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. This ain’t you, Mickey.”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His eyes are smoldering. I only wish it were with desire. “First you play the wanton when I know you’re an innocent, and then you play the innocent when I call you on it. You’re better than that.”
5
Progress
Of all the — my temper spikes to flashpoint and I forget my carefully-laid plans. “Wanton?” I repeat. “Wanton?” One of my fingers shoots out to jab him in the chest. His eyes turn to flint, but I’m not done.
“You may not have noticed, but we’re in the twenty-first century now. You don’t get to criticize me for acting like a normal woman instead of a freaking nun. Not that there’s anything wrong with nuns” — he is Italian, after all, and for all I know he’s related to some — “but that’s not who I am.”
He stands there like a granite carving come to life, arms folded, expression stony. “You finished?”
“No. As long as we’re on the subject, how about you pretending you don’t want me for four freaking years when we both know it isn’t true?”
Oh god. I can’t believe I said that out loud. But at my words, something flashes in his adamantine gaze. Beneath the anger I see another kind of heat.
Holy crap. It’s really true. So I take the moment and run with it, like I planned it this way. “Explain that to me, mister high and mighty.”
“It’s for your own good,” he grits out.
Oh my god! Exultation mingles with exasperation. “You don’t get to decide my good,” I retort, hands on my hips. “I do.”
The door opens and Jake Denton, one of our mechanics, comes in. “Morning,” he mumbles as he walks past the two of us to clock in, apparently oblivious to the lethal levels of annoyance in the air.
“Morning,” I respond automatically. Rico — sneaky man — takes advantage of the interruption to move past me and into the main part of the garage, where he starts opening the bay doors.
I glare after him before my lips curl up. Rico didn’t even try to deny he wants me. And he as much as admitted he’s got some rationale in his stubborn head for staying away from me.
All I have to do is keep disrupting his equilibrium, and he’ll snap the chains he’s wrapped himself in for four years.
Half an hour later, the garage is full of men and machines. The stereo is cranked up, and the air is redolent with the familiar scents of motor oil, brake dust, and solvent.
Busy with work, I don’t realize at first that Rico’s avoiding me. He’s normally in and out of the office several times a day for one thing or another. Not only is he not coming in here, he’s conspicuously avoiding so much as looking my direction.
As if that’ll work. He has no idea how stubborn I can be when it’s necessary. Sweet little Mickey has some surprises up her sleeve.
But for now, I’ll let him believe he has the upper hand. When it’s time for my morning break, I clock out and go over to the café.
Erin and Cait are both on today. The morning crush has died down, so the place is only packed instead of overflowing. Fortunately, the counter almost always has space, and I’m able to squeeze between two slouching men in business suits and claim a seat.
Erin brings me an iced tea and wiggles her eyebrows at me. “Well?”
“Progress,” I tell her, letting my eyes flick left and right to signal I won’t be sharing too many details while we have an audience.
She sends an exaggerated glare the men’s way. Fortunately, they’re both busy with their cell phones and not watching her. “Okay, fine, but keep us posted.”
Cait stops her a few moments later for an update, then gives me a thumbs up on her way to another booth. I wish things were slower so we could talk more. I may have to resort to texting everyone later.
I’m about to go back to work when Reid “Wolf” Calhoun slides into one of the now-vacant seats next to me. “Hey, darlin’,” he says with an easy smile. “Buy a pretty girl a drink?”
6
Getaway
I roll my eyes and grin at him. “Wolf, I’m pretty sure you could sell ice at the North Pole.”
He laughs, something he does easily and often. Wolf is president of Firestorm, the local motorcycle club. He looks like a Viking: tall and muscular, with red hair and impossibly blue eyes. Like Rico, he’s a natural leader, with the kind of authority that’s innate as well as earned.
When I stand up, he clutches a hand over his heart. “You wound me. I even took a shower this morning.”
Years of working with a bunch of men have taught me how to treat them like the brothers I never had. I shove at his shoulder, which moves him about a hundredth of an inch. “Bad timing, Wolf. Break’s up; I’ve got to go back to work.”
“I’ll walk over with you. Need to talk to Rico anyway.” He winks at Erin, who’s just arrived with a menu. “Be right back; hold that spot for me, darlin’.”
We go out the back and stroll across the parking lot. “Everything good with the club?” I ask, just to make conversation. The Revved garage does a lot of business with Firestorm. We service all th
eir bikes, and frequently their other vehicles too. One of our longtime mechanics, Jake Denton, is a senior member of the club; for that matter, so is Rico’s brother Dante.
“Good as it can be.” He says it easily enough, but it’s a subtle reminder to me that club business is for members only. We make the rest of the trip in silence.
Rico sees us approach. His eyes go from me to Wolf and back again, and the skin around his eyes tightens. I swear, if he accuses me of flirting with Wolf I’m going to smack him.
Whenever I see the two of them together, there’s always some kind of tension in the air. It’s never explained, but never absent. It could be nothing more than the proximity of two alpha males, but it doesn’t feel that way to me.
While I go back into the office, Wolf waits for Rico to finish up with a customer, then goes over to him and starts talking. I wouldn’t be able to hear them over the noise in the garage regardless, but even so, I can tell Wolf’s keeping his voice down. The two men stand close together, heads leaned in like you do when you’re having a confidential conversation.
Whatever he says, Rico doesn’t like it. His jaw tightens, and his already-dark eyes go almost black. Then he nods curtly. Wolf nods in return and waves goodbye to me before he angles back toward the café.
I don’t get a chance to ask Rico what Wolf told him, because he’s still in avoidance mode. We barely speak half a dozen words the rest of the day. At closing time, he whistles for Valiant and makes his getaway with nothing more than a rumbled “Night.”
Hmph. I’m saved from a bad mood by my phone pinging an incoming text. Want to hang out at Kosta’s?
It’s from Dani Adamo, Kosta’s little sister. Adamo women tend to be as beautiful and strong-willed as the men are hot and bossy. Yet somehow, they all manage to grow up side by side without killing each other.
A night out sounds like just what I need so I don’t spend the evening stewing over Rico. And who knows, maybe Dani will have some more tips on how to deal with the men in her clan. Sounds great, I message back. I need to go home and change. Meet you there?
I’ll save us a table, she answers. See you soon.
7
Live A Little
The nightclub that bears Kosta’s name doesn’t belong to him anymore. He sold it to his cousin Joey and his younger brother Carmine, but they haven’t changed anything yet, not even the name. Kosta’s is the hottest club in town; why fix what isn’t broken?
I’m on the sidewalk outside the entrance, staring in dismay at the long line waiting to get in, when it hits me: I’m not twenty-one yet. What was I thinking? Embarrassed, I message Dani.
Sorry — I’m outside but just realized I can’t come in. Not 21 for a few more months.
The answer comes in seconds. Go around to the back. One of the guys will let you in.
I guess Rico wasn’t entirely wrong about me. Going into a club where I’m technically not allowed feels risky, dangerous even. But it’s not enough to stop me.
The alley is uneven and full of potholes, but surprisingly well lit. That makes it easy to find the door to the club, which is helpfully marked Kosta’s. When I knock, it’s opened immediately.
A tall, handsome, Adamo-looking man dressed all in black stands there. He takes in my appearance — little black dress just long enough to be decent and spiky heels, plenty of makeup, hair out to there — and his lips curve up in appreciation.
“Hi, doll. I’m Joey. You’re Dani’s friend?”
“Mickey.” I offer him my hand to shake; instead, he lifts it to his mouth and kisses the back. He’s an Adamo, so I can’t help appreciating him and his charm, but he’s not Rico.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he says as he escorts me down the hallway toward the main part of the club.
Dani must not have told him I’m not legal. She probably just asked him to get me past the long wait out front. “Thanks, but better not.”
“Come on. One drink.”
It’s flattering, his obvious interest. Especially when the man I want is busy treating me like a nun. But completely apart from the legalities of him serving me, it wouldn’t be fair to lead him on.
“You can buy me a drink,” I tell him, “if you don’t mind explaining yourself to Rico afterwards.”
He stops dead. “Rico? You and Rico?”
Oh crap. The Adamo clan has better intelligence than the NSA. I lift a finger to my lips, but dollars to donuts the whole family’s going to be talking about us tomorrow.
“Does he know you’re here?” Joey says.
“No. Are you going to tell him?”
He purses his lips. “You planning to get drunk?”
“No.” I’m not even planning to drink, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“All right. You stay out of trouble, and I’ll keep my lips zipped. Things get wild, all bets are off.”
“Fair enough.” No doubt he’s thinking of the time Cait was in here and wound up getting carried out over Tonio’s shoulder. I don’t even want to think about what Rico would do under similar circumstances.
Although … it would be a way to get his attention. Hmm. Joey leads me to Dani’s table. “Be good,” he says, and disappears into the club.
“Looking fine, girlfriend,” Dani greets me. She’s in a red dress that goes perfectly with her coloring. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted to drink, so I thought I’d wait to order.”
“Just a diet cola, thanks.”
“Come on, live a little.”
I’m about to tell her that I wouldn’t even know what to ask for when it hits me that I really need to shed some of my goody-two-shoes habits. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
8
Wouldn’t Be Them
“Excellent.” She flashes me a brilliant smile. “Be right back.” I perch on the high stool at our little table for two and watch the crowds dancing. The weeknight party crowd is getting its groove on early.
On the edge of the dance floor, a group of men are locked in conversation. They’re probably a few years older than me, not long out of college. One of them catches my eye and smiles.
I smile back automatically, but break eye contact at the same time, careful not to encourage him. He says something to his companions, and they laugh. One of them slaps his back as he peels off from the group and heads my way.
Great. A whole club full of women and he has to single me out? On the other hand, if word about tonight does get back to Rico, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
“Hi.” The guy exudes the confidence of a man who’s never had a hard knock in his life. “What’s your name?”
He hasn’t told me his. Still, no point in being rude. “Mickey.”
His face does an odd little twisty thing, like he’s trying not to laugh. “Mickey, like …”
“Like the mouse, yeah.” That joke got old way back in kindergarten. “It’s a nickname.”
“You don’t look very mousy,” he says, his eyes wandering my body in a way that makes me wish Dani would hurry up and get back. “Is it short for Michaela?”
“Mary Louise. I was named for my grandmother.”
“That’s … charming,” he says with a smirk. His tone mingles mockery and contempt. What a winner. “What do you do, Mickey?”
Oh, he’ll have a field day with this. I just know it. “I work at Revved Garage.”
He doesn’t disappoint. His thoughts might as well be scrolling across his forehead like headlines on a tv screen for me to read. I’m beneath his notice, not good enough to marry or even date seriously, certainly not to ever meet his family.
But I’m good enough to fuck. And a girl like me, stuck working in a garage, must be desperate for the attentions of a man like him. All that flashes through his eyes before he fastens a smile on his face that, if I could record it for posterity, would probably be fodder for a PhD’s worth of psychological analysis.
“A woman like you shouldn’t be alone, Mickey. Let me buy you a drink.”
I b
et this guy learned pickup lines from one of those sites about how to be a player. He still hasn’t told me his name. “No thanks.”
The smile fades. He looks almost baffled, as if he has no strategy for what to do when someone tells him no. “You’d rather be alone?”
Than be with him? Absolutely. But I don’t say that. “I’m not alone; I’m here with a friend.”
Dani, with perfect timing, comes back just then with our drinks and a plate of cheesy fries. Mr. Pick-up Artist looks from her to me and says, “Oh. I see.”
What an opening. I can’t resist; I just hope Dani takes my cue. Reaching out, I touch her hand. “Hey baby. Missed you.”
She doesn’t bat an eye. “Missed you too,” she says as she climbs up on her stool. And then she leans forward and touches her lips to mine.
I almost burst out laughing. Looking over my shoulder at Mr. No-Name, I see he’s watching us avidly. Probably one of those guys who gets off on videos of women together. “Bye,” I say, wiggling my fingers at him.
He reluctantly goes back to his friends, and I turn to Dani, whose eyes are sparkling with mischief. “You weren’t here to pick up guys, were you?” I ask.
“Nah, not tonight. But if I were, it wouldn’t be them.”
“Too right.” I look at the drink she’s set in front of me. “What is this?”
“A Manhattan. Try it, you’ll love it.”
I take a sip, then another. “Damn. That’s good.”
“Right? So.” She picks up a cheesy fry. “Tell me all about you and men. Have you got your eye on one of my cousins? Or even one of my brothers?”
9
Christmas Every Month
“Funny you should ask,” I start, and then there’s a furor near the entrance. I peer into the darkened club, trying to make out the shapes moving through the crowd. A few moments later, I can see them clearly.