“I’ll fill you in later. Tonight, I promise. Bye!” Returning my phone to my purse on the floor, I look up at Beau and Dillon, two middle-aged factory work lifers. “Y’all looking for the big boss?” I ask cheerily.
Well, I’m trying to be upbeat in any case. Part of the reason I caved and told Savannah about Jake and Hunter was that I needed to bounce it off of someone. I sure as hell can’t broach the topic with Hunter. He never replied to my tell-all “I’m a virgin” loser text. I haven’t heard a peep from him, and I never had Jake’s number to begin with. To say that I’m disappointed and a bit broken is an understatement. The rejection is fresh, and being in a vacuum on account of not hearing from him, well, it hurts.
“Naw,” Beau answers. “Will was mentioning you tried out that new detailing place up the road.”
Dammit. That’s another crappy downside. I’ve raved so much about how great their shop is that every few hours, someone comes to my desk to ask me for their location, contact info, or to get my glowing reference for their service. Every visit and every question inadvertently remind me of what I missed out on.
If only they knew.
“They did an amazing job,” I assure Beau. “Really. I’m taking my car back there again,” I lie, because by now, Hunter or Jake—or both of them—have probably unofficially blackballed me. No more free detailing. No more hot kisses. No more going all the way with two men.
My boss, Brad Churchill, appears from his office, crossing his arms as he leans against the side of my desk.
“Sounds like they’re running a solid operation over there,” he says, joining in the lovefest. “Everyone who’s been there has something good to say. I guess you can’t go wrong, working with the best.”
I nod, looking up at him briefly. Behind him, the sun reflects off a glass office building outside and shines through the windows, blinding me temporarily. He scratches at his salt and pepper hair, waiting for my answer.
“That’s right,” I confirm, but I’m not thinking about Hunter and Jake’s abilities as professional servicemen. I’m more interested in their other talents—the ones I walked away from like an immature idiot. I could have let them take care of my body with their solid…everything. Just kissing them had my body feeling things I never felt before. It’s impossible for me to imagine how much more I’d have experienced, if I’d only just gone with the flow. Who knows. Those two pairs of rough, calloused hands could have been soft and tender. Or rough and mind-blowing.
I’ll never know now.
Even now, even as I’m riddled with regret and sitting at my desk facing my boss and two coworkers, the memory of their kisses goes right to the spot between my thighs and sets me on fire. I have to cross my legs and blink a few times to refocus, hoping all the while that Brad and the guys don’t notice my cheeks turning red right now.
Brad taps my desk with two fingers after Beau and Dillon leave to return to their stations on the assembly line. “Give them a call for me, will you?” he says. “Find out if they can take my car and give it a full detailing? You mentioned they pick cars up, right?”
“Yes, they do,” I slowly say.
“And they can get is done by the end of the day?”
“They can, but you know, I could drive it over there,” I offer, getting ideas of my own. “They’re real close. It’ll be faster if I take it in for you. It’s no trouble…if you’re okay with me being away from my desk for fifteen minutes or so.”
“Perfect.” He reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out his car key. “Forward your phone to Edna while you’re gone.”
“No problem, Brad,” I say, quickly grabbing my purse. “I’ll be back soon.”
I cross my fingers on my way to his brand-new Audi convertible. I need luck because I’m about to find out how badly I screwed up with Hunter and Jake. Maybe they’ll talk to me because I’m bringing them new business. Out in the parking lot, I jump in the sports car, open the roof to get some sun on my face, and roar out onto the road. With all this air whipping around, I’m grateful that my hair is up in a loose bun right now.
Carrie Underwood’s latest hit song is blasting over the radio.
The sun is beating down on me.
And I’m about to find out how upset the two hottest men in Amarillo are because I turned down the offer of a lifetime.
10
Hunter
I close the hood on the van and pat its shiny top. “This baby’s all good to go.”
Tommy, our new part-time help, nods and drives it out into the parking lot. Wiping my hands on my coveralls, I glance at the clock. We have just enough time to take a twenty or thirty-minute break for lunch. Half a dozen cars are still in the queue, waiting to be worked on.
Business has been better than good. Jared may be Jake’s little brother and an annoying little shit sometimes, but he’s also damn good at promoting and marketing our startup. The kid’s been pounding the pavement with fliers and promotions, and he’s a whiz with this online and social marketing stuff. From what he says, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook are bringing in the lion share of our local business. Fuck if I know how he does it, but it’s working well at keeping our auto detailing shop’s doors open.
“Shit,” Jake says, walking over to me and mopping sweat off his forehead. “That was one hell of a morning.”
“You’re telling me,” I agree. “Hey, where’s Jared gotten to?”
“Picking up a car from somewhere downtown and then stopping for lunch. You want a sandwich? He told me to text him with what we want.”
“Uh-huh. Fuck, just get me anything.”
I turn to the next car waiting in line. It’s a Toyota pickup truck that needs a new set of front tires. As we’ve got to wait for Jared to get back before I can have lunch anyway, I figure we might as well get started on the truck.
The sound of a nearby engine tears my gaze away from the Toyota. An Audi A3 Cabriolet hums into the parking lot with a blonde behind the wheel. The car stops halfway to the garage and the woman gets out.
But it’s not just any woman.
It’s Katelynn.
The jailbait virgin.
Every muscle in my body tenses. The last few days have been so busy that I haven’t had much time to think about her. Except at night, or whenever I pass the saloon where we met up, or every fucking time that I look at her messages on my phone. Shit, so I’ve thought about her, but there’s no way I was going to cross the line by contacting her. Jake hasn’t given me any undue flack about her either. He knows better. We have a good thing going and no matter how much of a temptation this girl is, we’re keeping our distance.
Jake steps up to her car with some hesitation. “Hey Katelynn. How can we help you today?” he asks her.
The formality and professionalism in his voice aren’t lost on me, but I can’t blame him. Whether she knows it or not, she put our freedom on the line that night. And it’s not your average freedom like regular people with no records. Ours is fragile. It’s shaky ground, and some risks just make the stakes too high. Risks like her.
She’s in office wear that’s supposed to be conservative. A long-sleeved button down blouse that covered everything up to her neck, and a simple skirt that stops below her knees. I get the image of lifting that skirt and fucking her senseless creeps up in my head. Even in those clothes, she’s totally fuckable.
Her pinkish colored lipstick-covered lips curl up into a shy smile.
That smile.
“Afternoon, y’all,” she greets Jake, but is looking at me as she speaks, and causing my cock to stiffen. My balls tighten up just from that look in her eyes. “Hi Hunter.”
I nod her way. “Afternoon,” I mutter coldly, waiting for her to tell Jake what she wants done with that car so she can leave.
“This is my boss’s car,” she says nervously, crossing her arms at her waist. “It needs a complete detailing. Do you have enough time to get that done by five today?”
“It’s tight, but we’ll get it do
ne,” Jake confirms. “Can you come closer to five-thirty?”
“That should be fine.” She turns and bends over, reaching in open car door for her handbag, which ends up showing off her luscious legs made that much sexier in her four or five-inch black pumps.
Fuck. Jailbait temptation.
Clenching her bag in one hand, she hooks her thumb into the strap to get it on her shoulder.
Jesus.
Every single move she makes gets me hard.
I need to stay the fuck away. Thank fuck Jake calls out for Tommy to drive her to her job. Tommy doesn’t answer, though.
“Tommy,” I bark loudly in the direction of the service bays. “He’s probably working on the pressure washer out back. I’ll go get him.”
“No, wait Hunter,” Katelynn says, stepping up to me. “Can I have a word with you in private?”
I run a tense hand through my hair. “That’s not a good idea,” I tell her. “By the way, you left your hat behind that night. It’s inside. Let me grab it, and I’ll get Tommy to drop you off at work.”
I turn to get my ass as far away from her as I can, but I can hear her heels clicking on the pavement as she follows me. “Hunter, please. I just need a minute.”
“For what?” I ask gruffly once I get to the service counter inside. All the cars in the shop are pick-ups, so we don’t have any customers waiting.
We’re alone.
Not a good idea.
She takes her sweet time to answer. I don’t need to be this hard on her, but part of me feels this is the only way for her to get the message. I’m tempted to tell her exactly why she needs to stay away. If she keeps this up, I will.
“What do you want?” I demand.
“I just thought…look, I’m sorry I left. I should have explained instead of just walking away.”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” I slide open the lower storage cupboard under the counter and pull out her hat, placing it on the countertop between us. “This is yours.”
“Oh. Thanks. I meant to ask if you saw it. I was fixing to stop by the saloon to see if it was in lost and found.”
“Well, here it is. I’ll get Tommy.”
“Hunter,” she says my name in a plea. “Can we…try again? A little slower?”
A little slower? What I want to tell her is that if I move any slower, we’ll have to call it ‘reverse’. But I don’t, because we can’t afford to lead her on.
“Sorry, that won’t work.”
Something about the new hint of pain in her eyes tells me that she just got the message. With a huff, she grabs up her hat, tightens her grip on her purse, and whips around, storming toward the door.
“Fine!” she shouts back over her shoulder at me, but as she gets to the door, she turns again. “I thought we had a connection, Hunter,” she admits in a soft, pain-filled whisper that gets me right in the chest. “But I must have been wrong.”
The guilt about hurting her to push her away is ripping at my chest. She’s right. We did share a bond. But it was under false pretenses.
Just as she starts to turns yet again to leave, I end up saying, “Jake and I have done time, all right? We’re on parole, so you’re better off leaving things the way they are now. Look me up after you turn twenty-one.”
Katelynn freezes. “What?”
I can’t believe I just said that, but if that’s what it takes to get her to walk away, so be it. “You heard me. We’re ex-cons.”
“What did you…do…to end up in prison?”
“It ain’t as bad as you think, but that’s beside the point. You think I didn’t see that fake ID you gave the waitress? You can fool her, but you can’t trick me. I don’t go out with underage girls.”
Her head cocks to one side, and she stares off at a spot behind my head as she processes something. I’m more interested in how come she hasn’t run for the hills from the ex-con bomb I just dropped.
“But…you think…wait. You think I’m underage?”
“You are underage.”
“No, I’m not,” she insists. “I’m almost twenty-two.”
“Yeah right. Maybe that’s what the ID says, but you’re not.”
“Listen to me!” she hollers, returning to the counter. “I’m old enough. I only use that ID because…well because I—”
“Because you’re underage,” I say firmly, cutting her off to finish her sentence.
“No, because I…look, it sounds dumb. I know it does, but…” she reaches into her purse, pulls out her wallet, and passes me two driver’s licenses. “The one on top is fake, and the other is my real ID. See why I use the fake one now?”
Scanning the top one first, I recognize it as the one she gave the waitress. It says she’s twenty-five, and all the signs tell me it’s a counterfeit. The photo of her is slapped on top of the laminate, giving it a raised surface when my hand slides over the front. There’s no magnetic stripe on the back, which was what I caught right away that night.
After that, I look at the back of her real license, which looks legit. Magnetic stripe, an intact laminate, microprinting around the Texas flag. It’s all there. This is real. She makes an audible groan as I flip it over to check the front. I look up to see all the blood draining from her face. She’s scared of something. Then I look at the picture and her date of birth.
Oh fuck.
Sure enough, she’s almost twenty-two, just like she said.
“I’m sorry, I accused you of being jailbait,” I tell her, passing back the two pieces of ID. Relief comes over me. She’s old enough, all right. Jake and I can ask her out, and her being a virgin is just sweet, sweet icing on the cake. There’s just one thing. Well, two. First, why is she still here after the ‘we’ve done time’ confession? I don’t ask her that part, though. “I don’t get it. What’s the big deal about your real license?”
She snatches them from me and slides them back into her wallet. “You’re messing with me, right?”
I shake my head and shrug. “About what?”
“Will you just stop?” She shrieks, almost in tears now, but I have no fucking idea why. “I can’t believe you’re acting like you can’t see why I don’t use it.”
I got nothing. “Hey, I’m not acting like anything. Your license is legit. What the hell is the problem? And this license business is a whole ‘nuther thing.”
“It’s…it’s… oh never mind.” She charges off toward the door again. “My boss will be back for his car as close to five-thirty as he can. Probably sooner. Goodbye, Hunter.”
“Hey, wait,” I call out, but she’s pissed. “Don’t forget to take your hat.”
I follow her outside with her Stetson, but Tommy is sitting in the shuttle car with the engine running, waiting to drop Katelynn to work. She jumps into the passenger side and pulls the door shut before I can get to her. She flat out refuses to roll her window down to talk to me. Walking around to Tommy’s side, I motion for him to open his window.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
“Yeah it’s fine. I’ll drive Miss Rafferty to her job.”
Tommy gets out. “Fine with me.”
As I jump in, Katelynn voices some resistance to me driving her, but I don’t care. I need to understand what the fuck I’m missing. Rolling off the lot, I merge into traffic.
“Tell me, Katelynn. What is it?”
“Forget it,” she whispers.
“I’m not gonna forget it…or you,” I say, and wait for her to speak.
She doesn’t say anything during the drive, and not when I roll up to the front entrance of her building. By now I’m impatient. I’m tempted to push her some more by mentioning that she had no problem telling me she’s a virgin, but this thing with her license is a problem? Thankfully, I do have the ability to censor myself.
“What exactly have you two done time for?” she asks out of the blue.
“It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Maybe, but the way I see it, we d
on’t know each other well enough for me to get into those details. Plus, if you’re too skittish to tell me about your little fake ID shenanigans, how am I supposed to give you the goods on something this big?”
She has no answer for me.
“Please just tell me,” I persist.
“I can’t,” she says, unbuckling her seat belt. “I just can’t.”
Katelynn pushes open her door and bolts from the car, hurrying inside. I don’t get another chance to ask, but she’s wrong if she thinks I’ll give up this easily. Now that I know that she’s legal, I have to have her.
Katelynn doesn’t know it yet, but she’s mine.
My Kitten.
11
Katelynn
I’m an idiot.
Why didn’t I just tell him the reason I freak out about showing anyone my license? In the grand scheme of things, my reason is ridiculously unimportant. Stupid really. But anyone—any woman, specifically—who’s had to work hard at losing or maintaining a healthy weight can relate to my body image issues. I may be on the extreme end of the spectrum, considering my contribution of close to fifty-five of the combined seventy pounds Savannah and I have lost.
Yes, it’s that silly.
I hate the fat picture on my driver’s license.
Detest it.
Savannah thinks that I should be proud of how far I’ve come, and that the picture on my license is symbolic of my progress. Well, I don’t feel that way. To me, it’s a sickening, embarrassing, depressing reminder of the lowest points in my life. She didn’t go through what I did. The low self-esteem, the utter aversion to leaving my house or meeting new people. Hating to eat out in public for fear of strangers’ stares, which inadvertently happened no matter what eating establishment I visited. Every time I see this picture, I get transported to that time in my life.
In just under two years, it won’t be an issue. It’ll be five years since I got my full license, and I’ll be able to take a new picture. And sure, the temptation to ‘lose’ my license has come over me more than once. Like right now. It’s the middle of the afternoon. I’m back at my desk, staring at the pair of scissors propped up in one compartment of my pen organizer. Yes, I should cut it up right this instant and visit the DMV for a replacement.
Ex-Con Times Two Page 5