by M. Q. Barber
Cash bagged, she dry-mopped the vinyl and flipped the lights to night mode. A warm yellow glow, welcoming and homey, filled the display windows as the rest of the shop went dark. The penetrating evening sun fell too short to make itself known.
Surefooted in familiar terrain, she wandered into the back. Replacing the gear and closing up her patient would take a few minutes’ work at the most. As she settled in her seat, her back tingled.
The wall revealed nothing of the evening. Paper, plaster, and paint couldn’t return the curling smile her muscles kept forcing on her mouth. Damn thing wouldn’t go down.
“Just like Brian.” Laughing, she narrowly missed smacking her head on the swing-arm.
Gal chatter and dick-pill commercials insisted men got less horny as they aged and had trouble staying hard. Jesus God, in mid-argument with her, he’d sported a noticeable bulge. If anyone had been trying to notice. Which she hadn’t, because—bullshit. Brian boasted a tight ass, a solid erection, and brawny arms, not qualified with for-an-office-worker, but straight-up damn fine.
Greased, the worm gear seated perfectly. The main shaft turned. Time to retrace her steps, clean as a conscientious hiker leaving no sign of her passage. Once the candy-red shell sealed up around her modifications, the mixer would work as if it’d never been broken.
Heels tucked on her foot rungs, she tapped the floor as she worked. The moves flowed easy, righty-tighty muscle memory. A small job didn’t demand an overpowered drill.
Brian understood that. She hadn’t believed he’d meet her dare, but fuck, he’d brought the skills and then some. Good enough to at least find out what he’d do with permission to use his sinful mouth. He talked an amazing game. Maybe his tongue had other uses. He’d had years to practice.
Thirty-seven, shit. And no wife, no kids—presumably. He hadn’t said so. Not that he owed her details, because they weren’t dating and they weren’t going to be. Conceding to a second meet-up—third, if she counted the blown tire—didn’t mean more than an appreciation for his fuckability. A little rough and a lot fast, he hadn’t for one minute taken his focus off what she needed.
The man auditioned for a starring role instead of understanding his bit part in her life.
Better not to get tangled and end up heartbroken and bitter like her sister.
Family first, always.
Grandpa Jake had intended for her to take over the business when the time came ’round. Upgrade Runyon’s Repairs from its post-war origins to the twenty-first century. Market the high-end vintage pieces online and simplify in-home repair scheduling. If things had gone as planned, they’d be hosting Saturday summer camp classes for tweens in basic electronics, letting them tear apart old VCRs to diagnose and troubleshoot while their parents paid thirty bucks a head for a two-hour science lesson.
With Erin fragile and stumbling from one career to another—massage therapy, cosmetology, bartending, a whole string of unfinished certifications and increasing debts—money had been tight for years. Warehouse picker fell somewhere above chicken beheader in her list of desirable jobs, and the climate and the hours sucked, but the pay came in steady. The girls wanted clothes and gadgets to keep up with their school friends. Mom needed routine eye checkups to monitor her declining vision. Grandpa Jake’s funeral—fuck.
She swiped her eyes with the backs of her wrists. Brian wouldn’t understand any of that. What thirty-seven-year-old man wanted to pick up his date at her parents’ house, the house she’d never left, the one where Mom still made her meals and she slept in the bedding she’d gotten for Christmas at least a decade ago?
Her wildness belonged far away from home. Bad enough she’d let him get her so riled she’d brought sex into the shop. Last time she’d made a mistake, she’d been twenty-one. Young enough to excuse her stupidity in bringing a hookup home on a Friday night.
More than a little drunk, they’d stumbled through the door after midnight. She’d shushed him down the hall to her bedroom. Emery. Like a freaking nail file.
“Board,” he’d said. “As in ‘stiff as.’” He’d slapped her hand on his dick right in the bar, and she’d been wasted enough to find him the funniest fucking guy in existence. Hence the home-going.
Fun until she’d tried to hustle him out the door before six a.m. on a Saturday. With hangover brain, she’d forgotten the girls would be camped in front of the TV set, giggling at infomercials and God-knew-what cartoons, quiet so they didn’t wake Erin, who demanded no wakeups before nine on a weekend.
Six and seven, Jess and Abby had popped their heads over the back of the couch quick as prairie dogs.
“Is that your boyfriend?” Abby studied him with animal intensity.
“Do you want my cereal milk?” As Jess held out her bowl, the liquid slopped across the rim and dripped. “It’s pink.”
Extra pink when landing on the living room’s beige carpet.
“What the fuck?” Whispering didn’t do Emery any favors. “You have kids?” His hoarse smoker voice grated as she propelled him out the door. “Crazy bitch.”
Tears streaked Jess’s cheeks. “I spilled. Mommy’ll be mad.”
“Aunt Kit?” Curling around the couch back, Abby lifted her feet and kicked the air. “Did that man give you a baby? Can we trade Jess for it?”
Seven years later, as she remembered the morning, the chill still draped her chest and the numbness attacked her fingers. The girls didn’t need to witness her hormone-fueled mistakes. She hadn’t brought a man home since. Backseats of cars got the job done. The occasional motel room when the guy was an out-of-towner. No repeats, no strings, and no getting personal.
She’d grown smarter. She had the strength to handle Brian without losing herself no matter how hard he tried to tangle her up. His dick hadn’t gotten more than a cloth-covered cameo tonight. She owed herself one good, casual fuck with him. A man who thought himself a bad boy but acted like a nice guy—except when pushed, and then he responded with macho meet-that-dareness. She’d give him a tune-up for his next woman, his settle-down girl. As long as she didn’t bring him by the house, they weren’t dating.
But the way he’d said her name rolled through her head and rumbled low in her belly. A turn-on, nothing more. The fluttering lightness in her chest didn’t have to mean anything but that she was late for dinner.
She left out the back, locking the door to the electric graveyard behind her.
* * * *
Sinking into the driver’s seat, Brian yanked the car door shut and exhaled. Loud and forceful, he beat out the rumbling of the air conditioner competing with the built-up, sunny-parking-spot heat swirling around him.
The steering wheel roasted his hands. A purring beast, the Audi slipped down the near-deserted downtown street. Tuesday nights didn’t bring the crowds even in midsummer. Too many empty and boarded-up buildings waited on urban revival.
They ought to be throwing a parade. Confetti, marching bands, the whole shebang. Kit would let her guard down at softball. Without background checks. Investigating her secrets would break the spirit of the relationship he aimed to build. Nobody stayed tense and wary through a whole afternoon of fun. Hell, he’d have settled for the nightmare of a coffee date, the will-she or won’t-she of wondering whether they’d upgrade their meeting to a meal. Softball constituted a massive victory.
Almost as massive as his unstoppable erection. Fuck, his dick ached, and no litany of polar explorers sufficed, not while his fingers held her scent. The AC fanned her sweet musk around him in a dizzying lure. With his pants bunched tight, he wedged his knee against the door.
Four fucking blocks and he scanned for a decent spot. A little privacy. Seven blocks and he drove past the rusting chain-link fence into the parking lot of an abandoned furniture warehouse. Faded yellow banners sagging in the front window advertised a factory-direct clearance sale four years gone.
Forced off the road by desire for a woman he’d met five days ago. One who trusted
him to finger-fuck her in the back room of an open shop but not to pick her up at her house. Swearing, he cut the engine and tilted the seat back. Riding the perfect line between being the fuck-toy she seemed to want from her lovers and coaxing her into a greater commitment, now that was a new one to stick on the aphrodisiac list.
With a slouch, he hid himself from view of anyone nosy enough to come crawling around his car, at least unless they peered straight into the windows. Getting arrested for public lewdness would have Rob kicking his ass for dumbass hijinks.
He set a land-speed record for unbuckling and unzipping. Shoved down, his shorts formed an elastic vise under his balls. He grabbed hold and stroked, the urgent, uncomfortable need a reminder of furtive after-school jerking in the bathroom behind a locked door.
A sea of crumbling red brick, a match for Kit’s store, filled his windshield.
His dick didn’t demand the nonstop action he’d craved twenty years ago. Hell, five years ago. Maybe Rob had the right idea. Get to know one woman.
“Katherine.” He tasted her in her name, in three syllables of slamming hips and a low, trembling moan. “Katherine.”
He’d memorize her sloping muscles, her rounded tits, the curve between her legs, her sun-kissed skin—and let her get to know him. The strokes he used for a quick jerk and the places where her tongue would drive him wild. None of this one dinner in exchange for one fuck. They’d practice the new math together.
This time, she’d be the one standing behind him. With her height, their made-for-each-other size, she might catch him rubbing out a quick one before work and saunter up behind him.
“I thought you wanted to sleep in,” he’d tease, trying to keep his rhythm despite her enticing nudity at his back.
She brought round, firm breasts to bear as she hooked her arms around him. “I found something better than dreams.”
“Yeah?” Lungs tight, he worked for breath. The cresting wave flashed up ahead, the long paddle so worth the trip. “What’s that?”
“You.” Clenching his shoulders, she hugged him suspender-style and rested her chin on him. “That the way you like it?”
He upped his game to a quasi-corkscrew with a twist at the tip. A surefire finishing move. “Yeah. You like watching?”
“Mm-hmm.” Diving, she skimmed his chest. “But I’m a hands girl.” She displaced him and took over, matching his rhythm, her grip sure and confident. “I like doing better.”
Katherine grabbed what she wanted, when she wanted. And she wanted him.
He spilled over his fist and splattered his shirt tails.
As lethargy hit, he dropped his head against the seat. That orgasm, Christ. Fast and hard, a freight train rush he’d lost years ago. Even with her presence limited to fantasy, she improved on everything. Must be those tinkering skills. Loving a woman who learned his body mattered now. Emotional virtues and tenderness he’d never considered at seventeen, when a lapping wave served to get him off.
“I know you don’t date, Katherine.” He hunted for fast-food napkins on the floor mats in the back and came up empty. The inside of his boxers would have to do. “But last week I would’ve said I’d never pick one woman over the variety of staying single. People change. You can, too.”
The more he demonstrated her importance to him, the faster she’d recognize the rightness in their pairing. She needed time to get comfortable and feel secure with him. Her complaint about men pretending they cared enough to hang around—a bad breakup. Anyone burned by an ex would be skittish about new relationships. The more he showed up, the more she’d learn she could rely on him.
Cursing the new stains on his shirt, he righted his clothes and tucked himself away. Dinner mandated a stop somewhere with a drive-thru. Imposing on Rob again when he and Nora had lovey-dovey baby feelings oozing out all over the place would make him a shit friend. A sad sack peeping through the window instead of taking care of his business. He deserved a life of his own, one with a partner. With Katherine. He peeled out of the parking lot.
He’d start tomorrow in the gym at work, because any idiot who’d hurt her and leave her so gun-shy about more than sex merited a pummeling, and the punching bag would make an excellent proxy. And then he’d shake the imaginary asshole’s hand for getting the fuck out of his way. Katherine belonged with him, not some bad-boy shithead who didn’t understand the responsibilities a man had toward his woman.
Him, voted most likely to die in a late-night TV stunt, the poster child for responsibility. Twenty years of behaving like that guy, maybe not a jerk but not a long-term catch, either, and now he’d finally wised up only to fall for a woman who would’ve preferred him the other way.
God had to be laughing his ass off.
Chapter 3
Driving Erin’s little errand-runner, Kit turned off on a packed-dirt road with a hand-painted plywood sign reading Ballfield in cobalt blue letters. Some joker had hung a matching cap over the stake sticking up the back.
A passel of cars and trucks in darn straight rows for impromptu mud-and-grass parking lay ahead to the left. Families crowded around trunks. Men balanced Coleman chest coolers and pint-sized children on their shoulders in about equal measure. Waiting on a stampede of older kids crossing the entry, she searched for Brian’s crimson coupe. Mid-life crisis car for sure, but he had the good sense to choose a sporty old workhorse and not a flashy dick extender.
The athletic complex where the youth leagues played, out by the airport, featured nearly a dozen diamonds. This middle-of-nowhere plot boasted two, both with chain-link backstops and sidelines. Crawling down the aisle, she spied a flash of red beyond the pickup trucks and minivans. Her sister’s boxy beige Camry fit alongside at the end of the row. Shabby as all hell, but none of these folks would see her again.
She hopped out and stretched. The breeze carried shouts, laughter, and the smoky char of burgers and dogs on the grill. The clouds dotting the bright blue sky kept the heat at bay. Saturdays didn’t get much better. Pocketing her keys, she joined the stream.
As she rounded a monster of an extended cab, Brian barreled into her and hoisted her off her feet.
“You made it, great.” He set her down easy, kissed her cheek, and grinned. “When you didn’t answer my last text, I thought you might’ve changed your mind.”
“I might yet.” Picking her up, Jesus. Treating her like a damn date. “We agreed you weren’t going to make a thing out of this.”
His eyes flickered, but he held steady on his megawatt smile. “No, I greet all the women I know with inappropriate displays. You should’ve seen the kiss I planted on Rob’s wife.” Elbowing her in the side, he pointed toward a couple sitting on a set of short-stack metal bleachers. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”
In the swarm of jeans and khaki shorts, Brian made an eye-piercing statement with his knee-length paint explosion. The swirling purples, yellows, and greens resembled a five-year-old’s summer camp tie-dye project. He’d misstepped with the kiss, but no man seriously on a date would wear those shorts.
“Can’t wait.” She allowed him to drag her off to happy coupleland. No sense tanking the day in the first minute when the food and beer were free and she’d borrowed the car and driven out here. A shiny business park, the kind with mirrored buildings, sat behind a fence a few hundred yards off. “That where you work?”
“Yep. That’s where they keep all the secrets.” As he led her through the crowd, he offered nods and greetings to most of the adults by name and not a few high-fives to the kids. “Lot of us came over together when we left the service.”
The brown-haired man broke off whispering in the woman’s ear and stood as they approached. “You find her, or she find you? Your shorts are so bright the sats are tracking you from ten thousand miles up.”
“My lucky shorts, man.” Hands shoved in his pockets, Brian spread the wide-leg cotton and spun. “These babies are gonna bring us in at least an extra two runs. Maybe three.”
/> The shorts absolutely qualified as a nightmare. But his ass in them? Begging for a squeeze. “Sounds like bragging to me, hotshot.”
Brian pouted. “Would I do that?”
“Yes.” Three voices mingled in the answer, hers and the couple’s. They wore matching wedding bands. Forty-some people at softball. Not a date, he’d said. Except he took her straight to double-datesville.
“Ganging up on me already. Should’ve known this would be a bad idea.” Grinning, he clapped her shoulder. “Kit, meet Rob and Nora. He works in encryption; she crunches numbers. Together, they—”
“Prefer not to hear the end of that sentence when Brian’s the one delivering it,” Nora broke in, her smile friendly and her caramel-colored ponytail swinging.
Brian dropped his head back and raised his arms in a what gives to the heavens. “Kit runs that repair shop in town I was telling you about. We’re not on a date.”
The man did not do subtle. Should’ve figured on brash from his red car and riot shorts. Plenty of scuff marks in the dirt as she added a few more. The divot in front of the aluminum bleacher support needed smoothing.
“Right, right.” Rob stuck out his arm. “The woman who knows her way around a flat tire.” He offered a firm handshake, short and to the point. “Rob Vanderhoff. Brian and I have worked together since he couldn’t put his cap on straight to save his life.”
As Rob spoke, Brian swung his head in wide denials. “No, no, it was a fashion statement. The angle was lucky, same as my shorts.”
Rob snorted. “The attitude was a sure shot to getting dropped. You wouldn’t believe the push-ups he did. After eight weeks, he was nothing but biceps and a smart mouth.” He gestured to the blanket-draped bleacher beside his wife’s padded backrest. “Here, Kit, grab a seat. Those first three weeks, I could’ve sworn he wanted to be recycled.”