In Debt to Daddy

by Aubrey Cara

  I bet Jess’s underwear isn’t starched.

  He stands and moves across the room to retrieve a Band-Aid, and the muscles under his clothes bunch and release with his movements.

  I can’t pry my gaze away.

  He returns and kneels in front of me to put antibacterial cream and the bandage on my blister.

  His head is bent, hair falling forward, and I have to stop myself from reaching out and discovering if the locks are as silky as they look. An image of him without his shirt on and his face between my thighs pops into my head without provocation. God. I’d definitely put my hands in his hair then.

  “Am I hurting you?” His question startles me out of my illicit daydream.

  I choke cough. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re all flushed. I’m sorry if I’m hurting you.”

  He’s staring at me, all concerned, and I’m trying to pull myself together. I’m better than this.

  I shrug in forced nonchalance. “No. I’m fine. My foot is fine. Or, at least, it will be.” I wave my hand at the where my foot is propped on his rock-hard thigh. “You’d better be careful. If you’re any nicer, you’ll lose your bad-boy status.”

  His head tilts, back and he laughs. Like a full-on laugh.

  The sound does things to me. It’s natural. Carefree. And doesn’t hold an ounce of jaded cynicism.

  “I think it’s been a while since I was considered a bad boy. But we’ll keep this between us. To protect my reputation and all.” He winks at me again before reaching behind him to grab an ace bandage from an open first aid kit and wrapping the cloth securely around my ankle.

  I’m still stupidly staring, part mesmerized by him and my reaction to him, and part dumbfounded.

  “I’m sorry about your dad.” His words hang in the air for a second before I realize what he said.

  “How did you—”

  “Small town. Heard it through the grapevine.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m guessing that’s why you’re here.”

  “Yes.” Unfortunately for so many reasons.

  “When was the last time you visited town?”

  “I haven’t.”

  His brows go up. There’s a pregnant pause where any question asked would be too personal. And any explanation I give would reveal too much.

  I sense a wave of melancholy sneaking up on me, so I change the subject. “I see your family is still running this place. It looks great.”

  He gives a sheepish shrug. “It’s only me and Jace, now.” He tucks the last bit of bandage into the wrapping to secure it but doesn’t release my foot. “Our older brother, Jake, died a few years back. Crashed his bike while out on a road trip with some friends. Our old man died of a heart attack shortly after.” He pauses. Takes a heavy breath but keeps holding my foot.

  “We thought about changing the name of the garage to Wallace Brothers for about two seconds, but it didn’t seem right.” He gives me a halfhearted grin, but there’s no spark behind it.

  “I’m sure,” I say dumbly, at a loss for what else to say.

  “And you know our mom’s never really been in the picture.”

  I kind of feel like an imposter in this small-town chat because I hadn’t known that at all.

  He shrugs and rubs his neck likes he’s uncomfortable talking about this. “So, yep just Jace and me, now.”

  My usually cold heart constricts a little. I believe the sensation may be jealousy.

  They’re adult orphans, like me. Only difference is, I’ve been completely alone half my life while they still have each other.

  Jess’s smile is gone, the light mood sucked out of the room. I want it back. Everyone I’ve come across, even before leaving New York, has done the head tilt, how are you, routine, and I’m over it.

  I dropped a Hiroshima-sized bomb over my career. I’m a cold bitch who has alienated any friends I had. My last semblance of family is dead. I’m shitty. Let’s move on.

  “This got depressing really quick,” I say, indulging him with my good foot. “We keep this up, we may not get invited to our high school reunion.”

  His smile edges back up, his eyes regaining that captivating twinkle. “They already had it. The next one isn’t for quite a while.”

  “Oh.” I blink in the silence following this revelation.

  I wasn’t invited. I, Madeline Fitzpatrick, was snubbed by my small-town public high school and didn’t even know it. Until now.

  I laugh. I can’t help it. Mirth bubbles out of me. And then, to my horror, I’m crying. Sobbing really. Gasping for breath, I try to suck it back and end up hyperventilating.

  Why am I crying?

  “Whoa there,” Jess says, awkwardly patting my back. His expression is panicked. I’m sure mine is, too. “Oh shit.” He’s frantically looking around for what I don’t know.

  He hops up from his spot in front of me, grabs something from behind his desk then hands it to me.

  It’s a balled-up, grease stained Wallace & Sons polo.

  “I don’t have any tissue in here,” he says by way of explanation.

  I sniff, and dab at my face with a clean corner of the shirt. “I don’t cry. I’m not a crier.”

  “I can tell.”

  I shoot a chilly frown that has sent lesser men fleeing.

  “You have a right to be a bit of a wreck. Don’t be embarrassed.”

  “A wreck?” He thinks I’m a wreck. That’s great.

  “Sorry. Poor choice of words.” He tilts my face up, smoothing a thumb over my damp cheek.

  Our faces are inches apart. How did he get so close? I can smell mint on his warm breath, and his eyes—his gorgeous blue gaze trails down to my mouth. I lick my lips in anticipation.

  He’s going to kiss me. This sexy mechanic, who is practically a stranger, is going to kiss me, and I’m going to let him.

  I edge forward at the same time he does. Our lips are a fraction of an inch away from each other and for a wild hair of a moment I want him to do more than kiss me. I want him to bend me over his messy desk, rip my jeans down.

  “I want…” I breathe the words against his lips, hoping he can translate the rest.

  I want his calloused hands on me. I want his dick pushing inside me.

  “Yeah?” The light in his eyes sparks like he heard my illicit requests.

  The door bursts open.

  I jerk back, heart beating out of my chest.

  “You’ll never believe whose car Little John and I spotted on the side of the road,” says the intruder.

  “I have a good idea I may know.” Jess gives me one last sultry look before he stands and adjusts the bulge in the front of his pants. The bulge right in my face.

  I gasp. He did not just do that.

  “I thought you weren’t going to be back in town until tomorrow,” Jess says.

  “Had to come back early. Good thing I did. Someone’s got Fitzpatrick’s precious Pontiac.” The new guy’s voice is deep and gravely, and his words catch my attention.

  I shift to the right to get a peek at who’s talking just as Jess shifts to the left, and suddenly I’m staring into the stormiest deep-blue eyes I’ve ever seen. I’d know those eyes anywhere, though I’d tried to forget them along with everything else in Clover Creek.

  They’re filled with as much disdain for me as the last time I saw him.

  “Madeline fucking Fitzpatrick,” he mutters.

  “I usually just go by Madeline.” I’m a little surprised he recognizes me, but I shouldn’t be. Even though he’s completely changed from the boy I sat next to in chem lab, I know exactly who he is.

  Jace fucking Wallace. The bad boy I spurned before leaving town.

  He’s most assuredly a man, now.

  He gives a charming grunt in reply. His eyes track down my body before meeting my gaze again. In high school, the heat behind his stare was a little unnerving. Now, it makes my skin prickle in awareness.

  Where Jess is all playful smiles and a look resembling a
scruffy Chris Hemsworth, Jace has turned hard edged and grim. He has tattoos on every inch of skin his leather jacket doesn’t cover. Neck. Back of his hands. Fingers. He turns his head slightly and there’s a tattoo there, too. Some kind of jester’s head is barely visible under a quarter inch of hair, but there nonetheless.

  Basically, the type of classless scum I’d never give the time of day. He seems set on a staring contest, so I oblige, not one to turn down a challenge.

  Whereas Jess’s eyes are cloudy silvery blue, Jace’s are a navy that’s dark as a night sky. Both men are intimidatingly tall and broad, but Jace carries an aura of danger. He’s scary and probably knows it. Likes it.

  That annoys me. Makes me want to piss all over his Cheerios.

  I arch a brow, sit back in the chair, and cross my legs as if I own this fucking office. Jace crosses his arms over his chest.

  Jess coughs. “I was about to take Madeline out to get her car.”

  “Huh,” Jace says.

  “It’s actually my father’s car—as you clearly know. I’m going to be selling it,” I volunteer. Maybe tall, dark, and scary would like to buy it.

  Jace’s gaze narrows on me. “You would.”

  READ NOW