by Darcy Dawes
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Going by your hard-on I think you do.”
“I don’t have a—”
“Oh, but you looked to check, which means you’re thinking about it,” Callie laughed. She slid a hand across her skirt, causing the fabric to lift up just enough that I could see the suspenders she was wearing to hold up her stockings. I’d seen them in her photo, of course, but watching her so brazenly showing them off to me in person was another thing entirely.
I closed the gap between us, slamming a hand against the door frame about Callie’s head. She looked up at me, surprised and delighted.
“Do you really want me to fuck you right now, in the shop?” I growled. The smile that curled her lips was infuriating.
“No. I’m not stupid. I just enjoy watching you react to me.”
“Is this all a game to you?”
“Yes,” Callie replied, with no hint of malice or sarcasm whatsoever. “It’s a game, but it’s a serious one. I do want you to fuck me, Mr. Rivers. But first I want to drive you so crazy that all you can think about is me. I want you to get hard the very second you so much as glance in my direction and then, when it all gets too much, you’ll throw me down and screw me so hard I’ll cry out for you to stop. Or keep going. I’ll be so full of you I won’t know which is which.”
I stared at her, equal amounts aghast and turned on beyond belief. “You’re a kinky little bitch, aren’t you?”
Callie crept up onto her tiptoes and tilted her chin up until her lips were almost touching mine. I could feel her breath tickling my face. “Are you only just catching onto that fact, Desmond?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
And then my hands were on her. I grabbed Callie’s hips and pulled her against me, grinding my throbbing erection between her thighs. I had to stop myself from sighing at the feeling—it was the closest thing to relief I’d felt all damn month.
“I don’t think you could handle me, little girl,” I murmured, as my hands crawled around to her ass and squeezed it. It was so big I could barely fit my hands around each cheek. I imagined slapping it and rubbing my cock against it. Fuck, it would feel so good.
Callie cocked her head to one side. “How about you try me out and see just how much I can handle?”
She grazed a hand against my erection to emphasize her point. I ran my lips down her neck in response and then, before I could stop myself, bit down on it with a longing I could barely control.
Callie gasped in shock, though it quickly became a moan. “Harder, Desmond, harder. Mark me as yours, do it harder—ah—oh, shit.”
She pulled away from me with an urgency that deflated my boner almost immediately. The front door to the shop was being dragged open against its rusty hinges, signaling the early return of Callie’s dad or some of the other employees.
Callie smoothed over her shirt with her hands and redid her top two buttons. She smiled softly at me. “To be continued, I guess,” she said, before retreating back into the office and closing the door behind her.
“I told you, David: stop watching Callie like that,” I heard Charles remark behind me. He was speaking in an undertone but I could hear every word loud and clear. “You think I can see the way you look at her? She’s here to work, and she’s my daughter. You think I want any of you guys laying your filthy hands on her?”
“I hear you loud and clear, boss,” David replied, and he sounded sincere. But when I spied him walk away from Charles I could tell by the scowl on his face that he didn’t like being told off and, when he saw Callie sitting in the office, his eyes gleamed in a way I didn’t like at all.
I’d have to keep watch over him.
You need to keep watch over yourself, you fool, I chastised. For Charles’ remarks could have easily been directed at me. I was just as guilty—if not more so—of ogling Callie as David was. I was simply smarter and sneakier about it.
I sighed heavily. This summer was torture. I had no idea how I was supposed to endure another two months of Callie working in the shop, though in truth if I ignored the sexual attraction between us and her increasingly bold advances she made working here so much easier.
She did all the paperwork, and the finances, and went to all the front-facing meetings with clients. There was a reason her father had asked her to work for him for a second summer, and it was because she was stupidly talented at running the auto shop. I knew fine well he hoped she’d join the family business after graduating from college.
Which means I can’t sleep with her. I can’t.
If Callie returned home to work permanently with her dad—though she insisted she had no interest in doing so—then I couldn’t sabotage my job and my working relationship with her and her dad by screwing her.
I couldn’t.
That didn’t change how desperately I wanted to.
Chapter Five
Callie
Of course the one time I was allowed to borrow my dad’s pick-up truck was the time it broke down on the side of the road, three miles out of town, in the pouring rain.
Of fucking course.
“Damn it,” I muttered, checking my cell phone to realize I had no battery whatsoever. I couldn’t even start the truck up simply to charge the device enough that I could call someone. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”
I looked out of the rain-splattered window; I could barely see a thing. It was horrific outside.
And I’d have to stand out in it to try and hail someone down/
I should have waited until the forecast was better to go shopping in the next town over. I should have, but a rainy day seemed perfect to waste time inside a large shopping mall. I should have, but staying inside my parents’ house all day wasting time thinking about Desmond sounded like torture.
He wasn’t replying to my photos. He’d been avoiding me in work the past couple of days since our ‘altercation’. He was so hot-and-cold that I didn’t know what to do.
Just what was going on in his head?
Steeling myself for the rain, I opened the door and jumped out of the pick-up truck, peering into the gray early-evening dimness. I could hardly see any better than I had done inside the damn truck, and now I was getting soaked.
When the first car drove on past me I wasn’t disappointed. I hadn’t expected to get lucky on my first try. But when the second car ignored me, then the third, fourth and fifth, I felt my spirits sink.
“Great,” I shouted out for nobody to hear but myself. Rain water filled my mouth; I spat it out in anger. “Fucking great!”
And then I heard a car horn honk behind me. I turned; the driver flashed their lights to signal that I should get in. Thanking god or luck or whatever, I grabbed my bags of shopping, my purse, cell phone and the keys for the truck and threw myself into the stranger’s car with a sigh of relief.
Only it wasn’t a stranger.
It was Desmond.
“You look like you drowned and came back to life,” he laughed as soon as he caught sight of my face. I knew I must have had mascara running down my cheeks. Clearly I looked awful.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked him between chattering teeth. After flinging my bags into the back seat I pulled down the passenger seat mirror and began trying to fix my ruined make-up as best I could. The last person I’d wanted to see me like this was Desmond fucking Rivers.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he replied, and then, “I needed to pick up some parts for your dad in the next town over. Were you shopping?”
I nodded. “Truck broke down and my phone is dead. Dad’s toolbox wasn’t in there for me to fix it.”
Desmond rolled his eyes as he turned up the heat in his car, much to my delight. “Classic Charles.”
“You’d almost think he didn’t own a garage.”
“Auto shop.”
“Semantics.”
“Hey, this ain’t Britain, you know.”
I let out an exaggerated sigh as I pulled my hoodie clo
ser around me. It was one of my dad’s—way too big for me, naturally, but fleece-lined and super comfy. Well, when it wasn’t soaking wet, of course. The rain had gone all the way through to my skin.
“If I were in Britain right now I’d live in London, and be drinking prosecco cocktails with some high-flying friends while wearing a glitzy dress.”
Desmond raised an eyebrow. “You’re not twenty-one yet.”
“Yeah but the drinking age is eighteen over there, remember? I’d be a proper adult in London.”
He laughed at that. “You’re a proper adult now, as you keep reminding me. Do you really hate living here so much? Why not go back to New York for the rest of summer?”
I hesitated, shivering a little before asking, very quietly, “Is that what you want me to do, Desmond? So I’m not in your way, bothering you all the time?”
Desmond frowned. I watched as his hands flexed and unflexed on the steering wheel. “Of course I don’t want you to leave, Callie. Your dad loves having you in the shop, and you make everything run so much smoother.”
“That wasn’t what I was asking.”
“…I know.”
The two of remained silent for a while until eventually we passed the billboard that welcomed us to our small, quiet town.
“My house is left, remember?” I muttered when Desmond took a right.
He shook his head. “Your dad will kill me if I take you home looking like that.”
“Meaning?”
Desmond glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, as if debating whether his next words were the right ones to say. “Come by my place,” he said eventually. “Dry off. Charge your phone. Then we can head back and fix your dad’s truck.”
It was a reasonable idea. A sensible one, in fact. Was it simply because of my feelings for Desmond that I was reading far more into what he was suggesting? I internally thanked myself for wearing nice underwear today, and shaving my legs. I’d wanted to look good when trying out new clothes, after all.
“Tell me what you’re thinking about, Callie.”
I turned my head to look at Desmond, whose eyes were back on the road. He wore an unsure expression, which confirmed my suspicion that even he had to have known there was more to his suggestion that met the eye. Or, at least, that I would take I that way.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea for me to come to your house, Desmond?” I asked, feeling as if I was shooting myself in the foot by calling him out on said idea.
To my surprise, he laughed. “Absolutely not, but I’m suggesting it anyway. My self-control has lasted this long—why not another torturous event where you no doubt parade in front of me in your underwear?”
I wrinkled my nose in amusement. “If I recall, last time you absolutely, totally gave in to my charms, and the time before that you would have if my dad hadn’t walked in.”
“Impossible. Never happened. My self-control is like a stone wall. Immovable. Unbreakable.”
Ah, the atmosphere was much better now, with the two of us joking away like we’d always done before. I wanted things to remain this way…it’s just that I wanted more of it.
More of Desmond. Him wanting more of me. So much of me that there was nothing left to give anyone else.
“Callie…?”
I shuddered, though it wasn’t from the cold. “We’ll see about that unbreakable stone wall,” I said, just as Desmond turned into his driveway and slowed his car to a halt.
“I’m going to ignore that last comment and act perfectly gentlemanly by offering you my jacket to hold over your head to the door,” he smiled, handing over said jacket before opening the driver’s door to run around the car and open mine. By the time we reached his house Desmond was drenched.
“Looks like you’re the one who needs to dry off, now,” I laughed, before sloughing off my dad’s oversized, soaking wet hoodie and looking around for where to put it. “Desmond, where should I—”
The question caught in my throat when I became aware of the fact he was staring at me as if I were naked. Glancing down, I saw that my white shift dress was so wet I may as well have actually been naked. It stuck to me like an uncomfortable second skin, revealing my blush-pink underwear beneath it.
And my nipples, which were poking through the lace. Well, I was cold, after all.
My lips curled into a satisfied smirk. “What was that about an unbreakable stone wall, Desmond?”
Chapter Six
Desmond
I couldn’t believe I actually had Callie inside my house. Just what was I thinking? She was dripping wet, soaking my hardwood floor and—
Crap. Her dress had gone completely see-through.
Mayday, mayday, my brain warned me, though my cock didn’t listen. I’d been fighting a hard-on the entire drive back to mine, even though Callie had been shivering, soaking and wrapped up in an oversized hoodie that hid her figure. Clearly I had it bad for her.
I should never have invited her back.
But I had, and now I had to face the consequences.
“Hang on,” I told Callie without looking at her, “I’m just going to turn on the heat and bring you a towel. Can you change into something you bought when out shopping?”
She shook her head, causing water droplets to fall from her hair. “Nothing was really—ahh—substantial enough to keep me warm.”
The statement was made to make me question it, so I resisted.
After driving up the heat in my house I passed through my bedroom and picked up a large t-shirt and some boxer shorts for Callie; they’d have to do until her own clothes dried. Glancing down at myself I realized for the first time just how soaked I was, too, but since I intended to go back out and fix Charles’ truck there was little point in me changing into dry clothes.
When I returned to the hallway Callie was nowhere to be seen.
“In here!” she called out, from my living room. She was huddled against the electric fire with no shoes on, having worked out how to turn it on. There was a satisfied flush of color on her face, though Callie’s dress and skin and hair were still drenched.
“Never thought I’d see that thing on in July,” I said, trying my hardest not to look at the way Callie’s dress had crept up her thighs to her waist. Along with the fact I could see the lines of her lingerie beneath it, I could barely contain myself.
She laughed softly. “You can look, you know. You can always look.”
“For my own good I can’t,” I replied, before flinging my dry clothes at her. “Put them on and give me your wet clothes. I’m throw them in the dryer.”
Callie ran her hand through her wet hair, pushing it out of her face in a manner that was far too sexy to be entirely functional.
“I guess I should get changed as quickly as possible, so I don’t get a cold.”
She unfolded herself from the floor and sauntered towards me. In the flickering light of the fire I could see every plane of Callie’s devilish curves beneath her dress. She looked like a bikini model, with the rainwater glistening on her skin, except so much worse. Because she was here, in real life, instead of in a magazine.
I didn’t even attempt to hide my erection. How could I? Callie’s eyes were crawling up and down my entire frame, heavy-lidded with desire.
I wanted her. I wanted her so badly.
“Won’t you help me get out of these clothes, Desmond?” she asked, voice low and sultry. “I’m afraid my hands are so cold from the rain that I can barely use my fingers.”
It was a bare-faced lie if ever I’d seen one, for when Callie reached where I stood in the doorway those same fingers slid across my chest with ease. This close-up I could see gold flecks in her green eyes, as if her irises themselves contained fire.
I couldn’t look away.
Before I knew it my hands were crawling along Callie’s hips, her stomach, her breasts, all the way to her top button, where they lingered. I kept my gaze firm on hers as I tilted her head up by her chin.
“Do you know what you
’re getting in for, Callie?” I murmured, so close to her lips I could feel her breath upon my own.
She cocked an eyebrow. “I do. Do you?”
“Probably not.”
“Then I think you’ll find you’re in for a very pleasant surprise,” she said, slinging her arms over my shoulders before pressing her mouth to mine.
Callie tasted of rain and peppermint gum and coffee, all at the same time. It was irresistible. When her lips parted my tongue found its way into her mouth, and her fingers crawled up my neck into my hair to push her closer. When she took a step forward I took a step back, on and on until I successfully led her, backwards, into my bedroom.
Now that we had started, I couldn’t stop.
Charles’ truck would have to wait until the morning.
Chapter Seven
Callie
He took his time undressing me. He took his fucking time.
“Tell me you want me,” he whispered into my ear, one hand creeping into my hair as his other hand slipped my dress from my shoulders.
God, it was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard anyone say. I honestly didn’t think I could handle much more of Desmond Rivers at his most intense and wanton.
It wasn’t as if I’d never heard a guy say such a thing to me before, but now it felt…different. Charged. Fiery. Was it because Desmond was the first—and only—guy I’d ever really desired myself? Was it really so simple?
I didn’t care if it was.
My dress fell to my feet in a sodden heap and I knelt on the bed, beckoning for Desmond to stand in front of me. I finished unbuttoning his shirt as slowly as he unzipped my dress.
His eyes never left mine as my hands found their way down to his belt. It felt like I’d never seen him in a belt before—he was always in his overalls. Now I wanted him to a wear a belt more often, just so I could remove it slowly and assuredly, like I was right now.
“You know I want you,” I murmured as I brushed my fingers past the fabric of his pants, giving his cock the very slightest of strokes through the material before dropping his belt to the floor. Desmond audibly gasped, and he involuntarily bucked closer to me.