by Sylvia Fox
What the hell was wrong with me? I asked myself, shaking my head as I shoved away from the car and headed to the front door. Callie wasn’t mine. I had no claim on her, no right to dictate who could or couldn’t see any part of her.
Of course, I was her boss. And I could sure as hell give her a dress code.
“Morning, Callie,” I said when I opened the door. She edged in under my arm, and the masculine scent of steel and grease became laced with strawberries and vanilla. My gut clenched tight. She smelled good enough to eat. “You’re here early.”
She smiled up at me, a face full of sunshine. “I wanted to make a good impression on my first day.”
And a good impression she made, though in ways I didn’t quite think she intended.
My eyes dropped down to her chest, and I cleared my throat. “Let me give you an overview of how the phone and database works. And ahh…well, there’s just one thing that you’re going to have to change.”
“Have I done something wrong?” Her face briefly clouded over, and a part of me wanted to take a step back in time and erase my words. I didn’t want her to think she was anything but perfect.
“I know we’ve never really had a dress code around here, but ah…well, Callie, we have some conservative people in this town as I’m sure you know…”
She looked down at her shirt, her entire face turning as bright as the reddest car. “Shit. I didn’t think it would be a problem. I’m so sorry. I’ll go home and change.”
She seemed flustered, all the confidence she’d had the day before gone in an instant. “No, no. There’s no need for that. I’ll just loan you one of my shirts for the day. As long as you don’t mind smelling a little bit like grease.”
She looked up at me then, and her eyes widened. “Oh, I don’t mind at all.”
Chapter Three
Callie
Well, I’d really made an ass out of myself this time, showing up to work my first day in the lowest cut shirt I could find. I should have known Axel would respond the way he had. It might have been an auto repair shop, but it wasn’t some dive bar. Rolling my eyes at myself, I settled in behind the counter and tried not to sniff the flannel shirt he’d lent me for the day. It was hard to ignore how the soft material enveloped my body, of how the scent of him filled my nose.
How was I going to focus on my job when all I wanted to do was waltz right back into the garage and show him exactly why I’d worn my tiny little tank top?
But he wasn’t interested, I had to remind myself. If he had been, he wouldn’t have reacted the way he had when I’d walked through the door. Instead of seeing what was underneath my skimpy clothes, all he’d cared about was covering me up.
And I’d seen some of the girls who had worked the front desk before. They’d worn stuff just as revealing as my shirt, so why the dress code now?
It was Barry, I realized. That was the only thing that made sense. Axel felt some sort of protective instinct over me, just like my brother did. I wrinkled my nose. If that was the case, my fantasies would surely never come true.
The door jingled, signalling the first customer of the day, who had arrived a little early. Glancing up, I smiled warmly and took his details to pass on to Axel. He was still the only mechanic in the shop, the rest of the team not due in for another half hour, but the customer seemed impatient to be seen.
With his paperwork in hand, I edged open the door with my hip and walked across the quiet garage to where Axel was bent over a junky looking Porsche. He seemed so caught up in the engine that he didn’t even hear me approach. I had to clear my throat to catch his attention.
“Sorry, Callie, I didn’t see you there. What’s up? You have a question about the computer?”
“Your eight o’clock has already shown up, and he seems a little antsy. I told him we weren’t open for another half hour, but he didn’t seem particularly happy about waiting.”
“My eight o’clock, eh?” A wicked grin split his lips, the total opposite of what I’d been expecting. “You make me sound like I’m a doctor or something fancy like that.”
“Doctors fix insides. So do you.” I shrugged and smiled. “There are some similarities, don’t you think?”
Axel stared at me with a strange look on his face for a solid minute before he tipped back his head and laughed. I jumped, totally caught off guard by his reaction. I’d rarely seen Axel Steele present a genuine smile in all the years that I’d known him, much less drop his head back in laughter. Maybe in my time away from town, he’d changed into a different man than the one I’d known.
But even though this was different, I felt myself drawn even more to him than I had been before.
My joke hadn’t even been that funny. And yet he’d laughed.
Every single inch of me warmed.
“Don’t worry about old Steve out there.” Axel’s eyes glanced down at my chest again, and I wondered if he was worried I’d given the man out front a bad first impression. But his shirt hid my curves, just the way he wanted, though I swore I caught a hint of disappointment in his eyes. “He’s a regular, and he always shows up early. He’ll wait. Give him today’s newspaper to shut him up.”
“Okay, boss,” I said, trying out the word. Something about it sent thrills across my skin. He could order me to do anything he wanted, and I’d obey without the slightest of arguments against it. Even though I knew fuck all about cars, I was very eager to please.
Tell me what you want from me, Mechanic.
“I’ll do just that,” I said with a wink.
Oh god. I’d just winked at Axel Steele. It was as if my mind and my body were at odds, my body dismissing any logical arguments against throwing myself at this perfect specimen of man.
And to my incredible surprise…Axel winked back.
Face flaming, I spun on my heels and marched back to the front desk. Had I seen that right? Had he actually just winked at me? I mean, it must have only been a friendly wink. Was there such a thing? My mind spinning, I silently handed the customer one of the many newspapers stacked on the countertop. Grumbling, he took it, but Axel had been right. He settled into a plastic chair, let out a long sigh, and flipped it open to read.
Silence rained down, and my thoughts kept catching on the moment when that sexy man had responded to my own flirtation. I needed to try it out again, I thought. See if I could get him to respond to something else. The next time a customer showed up, I made a big deal out of delivering the news to him personally and topped it off with a slow and sexy smile, or at least that was what I aimed for. I’d never really flirted with anyone like this before, and I hoped I wasn’t coming across like some asylum escapee.
But I hadn’t been delusional. In response to my smile, he sent one right back at me, sizzling with sensuality. My blood skittered in my veins, and I knew my whole face was aflame. Heart hammering, I tried to focus on the front desk work, but the distraction of Axel was almost too much for me to bear.
Every now and then I kept glancing out the full-length glass window that separated the front lobby from the garage where the mechanics were hard at work on the cars for the day. Thankfully, my brother wasn’t working today, and I could let my eyes wander across every muscular line on Axel’s firm and bulging body. Every time he picked up a tool, his entire frame seemed to ripple with a kind of strength and ferocity most men couldn’t pull off. He was pure man, exuding heaps of testosterone with everything he did.
At the end of the day, I made a show of shuffling papers on the desk, though there was nothing left for me to do but head home. Everything had been filed and put away, and all the mechanics but Axel had left the shop. So, it was just me and him and a mountain of tension that had been building between us all day. A glint in his eye. His muscles flexing. The tongue that peeked out from between his teeth when he shot me a delicious, suggestive smile.
I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he felt the same way I did, but he looked at me as if he wanted to eat me up.
And I want
ed nothing more than to let him.
He ambled slowly into the lobby and flicked off the overhead florescent lights. Suddenly, we were surrounded by darkness, the only light spilling in from the dimmed lamps he’d propped up around that junky Porsche he seemed intent on fixing up. The tension in my body racketed up, and I found my lungs were squeezing tight. I could barely breathe, especially not when he shifted even closer to where I’d pressed myself up against the counter, feeling both hope and fear pouring through me.
I wanted him to take me. Hard and fast. Here and now. But something about it terrified me as much as it thrilled me. I’d been thinking about it for so long, I didn’t know what I’d do if he finally made a move. For one, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I’d never slept with a guy before, especially not a guy like Axel Steele. Would I be any good? Would I be able to please him the way other more experienced women had? For two…well…
For two, if my brother found out that something happened between us, he’d probably kill Axel Steele and toss his body off a cliff.
Chapter Four
Axel
Callie Weston pressed her back against the counter, her chest heaving as her eyelids began to flutter. I could see the flicker of her heartbeat thrumming like butterfly wings in the veins of her slender neck. I was making her nervous, so nervous she could barely look at me. But instead of taking a step back and stopping myself from doing what my cock begged me to do, getting that reaction out of her only made me harder. Something about her innocence turned me on.
I wondered if she’d ever been fucked.
I couldn’t stand the thought of some other man’s hands on her. I wanted to be the only one in the world who ever touched that body…
Stepping in close, I threw all caution to the wind. No one would ever have to know that anything happened between us. And maybe, just maybe, giving into this just once would settle the passion that had made me lose all the sense in my damn mind. I could feel her nipples underneath my hands, feel her sweet pussy gliding against my cock. Satisfy my hunger, satiate my need. And then we could all move on like nothing had happened.
Barry would never have to know.
My hand found her waist and I gripped tight. She shuddered, and a light moan escaped from her lips. God, she wanted me. Just like I wanted her. She’d been throwing me hints all day, but I hadn’t known for sure until now. I was probably ten years older than she was, and I was her big brother’s best friend. But I knew that look. She wouldn’t be trembling like this if she didn’t want my cock.
Her eyes slowly opened, and when she looked up at me, it felt as though she saw straight into my soul. In a soft whisper I could barely hear, she said, “Please.”
If I had any self-control left at that point, it crumbled with that one simple word.
My mouth dropped to her neck, and I licked my tongue along her sweet skin. She tasted even better than I’d imagined, and I pulled her close to my chest. I reached down to her jeans, sliding my hand between her hot thighs. Despite my desire to take things slow, I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to feel her writhing underneath my fingers, screaming out my name as she came harder than she ever had in her life.
Her moan sent skitters of pleasure along my skin. Rubbing faster, I took my other hand off her ass and unzipped her sexy jeans. I wanted my hand on that pussy now. God, I bet she was so wet that her juices would coat my fingers like silky strands of syrup.
Something crackled in the distance, but I was so focused on Callie’s body that I didn’t bother to turn around. Nothing was going to break up this moment, not when my fingers slid closer, closer, closer…
“Shit!” Callie gasped and slithered away from me, her eyes round, her cheeks dotted with pink.
Immediately, I felt like a total piece of shit. I’d read her wrong. She didn’t want this. I’d taken advantage of her, expecting her to feel the same way I did when she felt anything but. She was my employee, and I’d just crossed a line I’d always said I never would. Never mix pleasure with business, I’d told myself all the years I’d had gorgeous girls working my front desk. But I’d never even felt the hint of desire to go back on my word.
Until today. With this gorgeous woman I could never have.
“Callie, let me explain,” I began to say, though I didn’t know how to dig myself out of this particular hole. I’d unzipped her pants. It wasn’t as if she’d have any doubt what my dirty intentions were. “I know I took things too far, but—”
“It’s not you,” she said.
Oh, great, I thought to myself. That old fucking chestnut. It’s not you, it’s me. I thought Callie was better than to use that lame excuse.
Quickly, she zipped up her jeans before pointing at the door behind me. “Barry’s here.”
“Barry?” I twirled to face the door where Barry peered in with a frown, his hands shielding his eyes to see inside the dark room. My entire face drained of color while my gut clenched tight. What were the odds he’d seen what I’d just done to Callie? Or what I’d tried to do anyway. “Act normal. Maybe he didn’t see anything.”
“Right.” Callie’s voice was high-pitched. She knew just as well as I did what Barry would do if he caught the two of us together. He’d try putting me in the hospital, the way he had that high school kid. I cracked my knuckles. Even though I knew I could put up one hell of a fight, I didn’t want to. Barry was my best friend. We went way back. He was the last man in the world I ever wanted to fight.
Slowly, I crossed the room and opened the door. Barry immediately strode inside, frowning. He glanced up at the lights, down to Callie’s arms, and finally over to me. “Why the hell is she wearing your shirt?”
Some of the tension in my body released. He wouldn’t be leading with that if he’d seen me sliding my hands between her thighs. Instead, he would have led with a punch.
“I was cold,” Callie said, shivering. Though I didn’t think the shivers had anything to do with the temperature in this place. “He offered to lend it to me for the day.”
“Dammit, Callie.” Barry let out a long sigh and gritted his teeth together. “You know how that makes you look, right? Like you spent the night here with him, and you had to throw on his clothes before you made the fucking walk of shame back home. And if the guys around here get the idea in their heads that you’re easy, they’ll be on you like flies on shit.”
“Sorry man,” I said quickly, frowning at Barry’s suggestion that she looked easy. Like Callie could ever seem anything but pure perfection, sweetness wrapped up in curves and sunshine. “My fault. She needed something warm, and I didn’t think her wearing my shirt would be a problem.”
Barry frowned at me. “You’ve had enough girls over here that the whole state probably knows what wearing your shirt means.”
Anger flared up inside me, but I did my best to tamper it. He was just protective over his little sis. He’d always been this way. But I wished he hadn’t brought up my past, the way I used to go through girls like they were my own personal stash of candy. I’d been so afraid of settling down that I’d done the total opposite, trying to show the world (and myself) that no woman could ever tame me.
Truth was, I still kind of felt that way. I’d spent so much of my life alone, I couldn’t imagine sharing it with anyone else. And my parents had split in a terrible divorce when I’d only been five years old, arguing over me in custody battles until it had destroyed both of them. I didn’t need that kind of shit in my life, but that sure as hell didn’t stop me from being a man with needs.
But I’d stopped fucking around six months ago when I realized I felt more lonely after a lay than before.
And Barry knew that, too. While we rarely talked about feelings and shit, he knew me well enough to know what was on my mind.
Yet he’d just thrown my past right back in my face.
I guess when it came to Callie, he didn’t fuck around.
“Honestly, Barry, I was just trying to help the girl out.” I held up my hands in mock su
rrender though it wasn’t really my way to back down like this. If he wasn’t my best friend and if he wasn’t Callie’s brother, things would be going a lot differently than they were right now. When I see what I want, I take it, and I don’t apologize for living my life the way I want. But this situation was different, and I wasn’t about to risk losing either one of them.
Barry sighed and rounded his shoulders, the way I’d seen him do on numerous occasions when he came close to losing his temper. He was a good guy. Hell, he wouldn’t be my best friend if he wasn’t. But ever since he’d come back from the army, he’d been wound so tight it was like he would burst at just the slightest of provocations. He always seemed to be looking for a fight.
He needed to work on his anger, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“Of course.” Barry shook his head. “Just jumped to the wrong conclusion, I’m sure. See you tomorrow, Axel.”
I grimaced but nodded and watched them stroll out the front door. Callie cast a look over her shoulder, her eyes wide and fearful. Poor thing. I shouldn’t have put her in this position, but I hadn’t been able to help myself, not where she was concerned. She was just too damn sweet for me to hold back.
Hell, my cock was still rock hard in my pants even after the mood-killer of Barry’s arrival.
Somehow, I was going to have to make it through the next day with Barry in the shop and Callie in the lobby. I’d need to be on my best behavior, but that wouldn’t stop me from remembering the way her tight little body felt under my hands.
Chapter Five
Callie
I’d never been more mortified in my life. Axel’s thick fingers had been sliding across the wet patch between my thighs, pure pleasure had been coursing through my veins, and my heart had been beating so hard I hadn’t been able to hear anything but the roar of blood in my ears.