Work Me Up

by Wylder, Penny

  Then I reach down for the gear shift, and put the car into drive.

  My hands tremble where they rest on the steering wheel. My foot shakes a little too, when I ease it up off the brake and let the car start to roll forward. But when nothing happens — no smoke or explosion or crunch of metal collapsing inward — my heart starts to slow to an almost normal pace. A steady beat in my chest, that lets my chest loosen just enough for me to breathe normally.

  In and out.

  And the car keeps moving, rolling toward the far side of the parking lot. Antonio moved the few cars left in the lot into the garage, just to give me the most space possible to try this today. Even so, my heart rate kicks up again when I roll near the edge of the lot, and I have to turn the wheel hard to the right. I tap on the gas, and we jump forward a little jerkily.

  But then Antonio’s hand comes to rest over mine again, and I hear him murmur, “You’re okay,” and I believe him.

  Just like that. Because he’s right. It’s just the two of us here, out at this wide expanse of parking lot, off the beaten path. There isn’t anyone around for miles, and even if there were, I have Antonio beside me. Nothing’s going to go wrong.

  I turn easily the next time, and before long, I’m rolling around the lot in slow, easy circles. Still not moving any faster than about twenty miles an hour, but still. It feels good to be behind the wheel again. To steer the car in the direction that I want it to go and feel it obey me flawlessly.

  Not to mention, it feels even better to be doing it with Antonio at my side. In the car that we fixed up together, bringing her back from the dead with our own two hands.

  “You want to try the road?” Antonio asks quietly, after I’ve done a couple laps of the parking lot. That makes my anxiety spike again, because I hadn’t thought about that, about being on a road again, behind the wheel of a moving vehicle, where other vehicles might appear out of nowhere and do unpredictable things.

  But his hand comes to rest over mine on the gear shift, and he adds in a quiet voice, “You don’t have to. It’s up to you.”

  And suddenly, I want to. “Let’s do it,” I say.

  “That’s my girl,” he murmurs, and the words send a warm rush all the way from my scalp down to my toes. I don’t need to glance over at the driver’s seat to know that he’s smiling right now, gazing at me with the look he always wears whenever I do something he approves of.

  It makes me happy to know I’m impressing him. But more than that, it makes me happy just to be able to do this. This normal, human adult thing that I’d forgotten how to do for so long. I honestly never thought I’d be able to drive a car again. Or even sit in one without having a borderline panic attack every time.

  But as I turn onto the mostly empty stretch of highway that surrounds Antonio’s garage, I feel completely comfortable. More than that. I feel excited.

  A rush of adrenaline hits my veins as I ease the car up to 25, and then 30. The speed limit out here is around 50. It takes me a while to build up to that, but when I finally do, a huge grin breaks out on my face.

  “You’re doing it,” Antonio cheers, as I let out a little whoop of happiness.

  I don’t drive far. I take the next turn up the road from the garage, into the little gas station where I sprinted to call an Uber, back what feels like a million years ago when I was freaking out. When I still wanted to hide who I was and the depths of my pain and heartache from Antonio. Hell, from the entire world.

  I was ashamed of what I thought of as a weakness — my fear and trauma after watching my brother taken from me so violently. I thought I could never be normal again, so I should hide that part of me as deeply as possible.

  But in fact, what I was doing was ignoring the wound, rather than treating it. Because I never let it get any air, never let anyone see my pain or offer to help me with it, I was never able to just accept that what had happened, had happened. It was horrible, and the worst day of my whole life, but it’s in the past now. I can’t change anything. I can’t go back in time and rewrite history. I have to just move forward, as wholly and completely as I can.

  Like Daniel would have wanted, I remind myself, and for a split second, as we turn back onto the highway and I push the gas pedal down, getting up to a higher and higher speed, I swear I can hear my brother’s laughter, echoing out from my memory. As if he’s encouraging me too. Happy for me, now that I’m finally allowing myself to be happy again.

  By the time we pull back into the parking lot of the garage, there are fresh tears on my face. Happy ones, mingled with sad ones. And I’m smiling, but I’m crying too, and laughing, and every emotion in between.

  I barely wait until I have the car in park before I reach across the gear shift and leap into Antonio’s arms.

  “You did it,” he keeps repeating, over and over again, and he catches me when I practically fall into his lap, putting his arms around my waist, pulling me against him until his lips collide with mine.

  I laugh into the kiss, and break away, beaming at him. “We did it,” I insist, but he shakes his head.

  “That was all you. I’m so damn proud of you.”

  I kiss him again, hard this time. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” I protest, when we break apart once more, catching our breath. “Antonio… I love you.”

  The words just spill out. I don’t mean to say them, not yet. I realize that it’s crazy to feel that way already. After all, we’ve only known one another for a couple of weeks at this point. The first week, we spent half of it arguing and then hooking up and then fighting again, both of us so sure we knew who the other one was, even though neither of us really understood each other yet.

  But over the last week, ever since we finally talked about the accident and my brother, about everything that happened to me and why and how I still take it out on people around me now… Ever since then, I’ve felt like I’m starting to fall for Antonio. It was a slow slide at first, but now, after today, it feels like I’m being thrown head over heels into this, off a cliff, straight into all the feelings I never thought I’d allow myself to feel.

  “I love you,” I repeat, laughing, and there are still tears on my cheeks, and a wild rush in my heart.

  I finally look down, and I find Antonio staring up at me with an almost stunned expression on his face. I wish I could capture this moment forever, crystallize the look on his face for all time. But then he cracks a smile, and pulls me against him, kissing me again, without even a response.

  When we break apart, he shakes his head, his forehead resting against mine, so that I can feel the motion as he moves it, side to side.

  “What?” I laugh softly, my eyes fixed on his dark ones. Lost in them, in fact. Antonio has the kind of eyes you could never get sick of gazing into. Dark as amber, with tiny little golden flecks that light up in the bright sunlight that now pours into the car between us, making the air feel thick, almost vibrating with tension. “Say something,” I whisper, because he’s looking at me with something close to worry in his gaze now.

  “It’s just…” He bites his lower lip, and now my heart does skid to a stop, flipping inside my chest, because why is he hesitating? Have I misread this whole situation?

  Should I have waited, not said anything for longer? It’s too fast, damn it. I knew it was.

  Just as I’m about to pull back, my heart in my throat, panic clawing at my insides, he huffs out a long breath.

  “I wanted to be the first one to say it,” he says, and I can’t help it. I let out a burst of laughter, both relieved and somehow not surprised at the same time.

  “You always have to be first, huh?” I tease him, leaning in to kiss his jawline, then the sensitive spot beneath his ear, the one I know he loves when I kiss or nip at it.

  I do the latter now, and I’m rewarded by feeling him tense underneath me. There’s already a slight bulge in his jeans, but it grows thicker the longer I sit on his lap, my body squirming against his whenever either of us moves.

&nbs
p; “What can I say?” His grin widens, and he leans up to return the favor, kissing and sucking at my neck, until his teeth graze the skin lightly, making me shiver. Which in turn makes him tense and draw in a breath, because my hips shivered right against his, and his cock is digging into my ass already. “I’m competitive,” he adds with a faint growl. Then he reaches down and hits the recliner for the seat, making it fall back so fast that we both drop, me on top of him, laughing as I fall.

  But he has his arms around me, and he braces me when I land on him. Just like he always does. He’s there to catch me, whenever I need him.

  “It’s fine,” he adds, grinning at me, those dark eyes so deep I could get lost in them. “I’ll just settle for saying it louder instead.”

  “What do you —” I start to ask, but he cuts me off with a shout, one that echoes in the cramped confines of the car.

  “I love Selena Brown!”

  I burst into laughter, not least because he’s so loud it makes my eardrums ring. “Someone’s enthusiastic,” I tease.

  He reaches over to crank down the window a crack before he yells it again, even louder this time. “And I don’t care who hears me,” he adds, still in a raised voice, until I shift my body along his and kiss him into silence.

  Then his hand slides up the back of my neck to cup it, and he kisses me harder. Slower. It turns into a real kiss, the kind of long, slow kiss that promises a whole afternoon of pleasure ahead of us. An afternoon of showing one another how much we feel, not just in words but in touch as well.

  When we break apart again, we’re both a little breathless, gazing into one another’s eyes. “I mean it,” I add, because it feels important to be sure he knows I’m serious.

  He grins. “You’d better believe I do, too.”

  “Good.” I laugh. Then he reaches up to pull my lips against his again, and I let myself get lost in him. In the brush of his mouth on mine, the warm, familiar feel of his strong arms wrapped around me.

  It turns out, nothing makes me forget my fear of cars faster than being wrapped around Antonio inside one.

  14

  Antonio

  Selena and I lose track of the rest of the afternoon. Or rather, we know exactly where it’s going, and neither of us mind the time flying past, because we’re too busy wrapped up in one another. I fuck her right there in the passenger seat of the car we fixed up together, and then, with both of us slick with sweat, I practically drag her into the garage bathroom, just so I can pin her up against the shower door, with the warm water running over both our bodies, and drop to my knees, licking that sweet pussy of hers until she screams my name.

  I will never get tired of hearing that.

  After our successful drive, something about Selena seems different. Or maybe it’s just what we admitted to one another in that car. I love you. I have never said that to a woman before. But somehow, I feel absolutely no hesitation saying it to Selena now. I guess when you know, it’s true: you just know.

  I manage to get a little bit of work done, at least, putting the finishing touches on the engine I’ve been reassembling after I had to take it apart to replace one tiny yet vital part. It’s for a friend of Selena’s father, actually, one of the men I met at the party her parents threw. A party that I initially thought — after someone wrecked my car— was going to turn out to be a complete disaster for me.

  As it turns out in the end, it was probably the best party I ever went to. At least in terms of what I got out of it, when everything was said and done.

  Selena perches next to the engine block and watches me work. She passes me the tools I need, asking smart questions, having me explain each step I’m doing in a way that tells me she really is interested.

  Of course, she’s also distracting as hell. I can’t help but stop every other step and run my hands up her thighs, or lean in to kiss her lips, her neck, the edge of her shoulder. She always laughs and teases me that I’ll need to learn how to work with her around if I want to keep my business going.

  I like the sound of that. The idea of her being around here more often. Maybe even helping me out in the garage eventually, since she seems to be picking this stuff up pretty easily. I joke about that, and it only makes her smile wider.

  “Selena Brown, working in the auto industry.” She laughs. That’s a sound I never want to stop hearing, for as long as I live. “Nobody would believe me if I told them. Least of all my parents.”

  I grin. Then I think about the way her mother spoke to me, when I stopped by their house, and I hum a little under my breath. “I don’t know about that. I think your parents know you still have plenty of surprises up those sleeves of yours.”

  She smirks. “Up my sleeves or up my skirt?” she asks, but only because I’m staring again. I can’t help staring at her, every inch of her.

  She’s the hottest woman I’ve ever seen, let alone the hottest one to ever perch on the side of a car while I’m repairing it.

  “To be safe, we’d better check both locations,” I say, leaning over to grasp her thigh.

  She just laughs and nudges me, before she passes me the wrench. “You need this next, right? Because you used it when you took that bit there apart earlier?”

  I grin and find myself nodding. “Okay, we’ll have to practice the terminology and get a little more specific than ‘bits and parts,’” I joke. “But you really are good at this, I keep telling you.”

  “Thanks.” Her cheeks flush, just a little bit. But I’m getting to know her now. Starting to be able to recognize her moods. Her embarrassed blushes and her secretly proud ones.

  This particular one is the latter.

  “Well.” I slap the hood and finish cranking the final piece of this engine back into place. “That about does it for this afternoon, I think. Not going to get much more done before sunset.”

  She tilts her head. Her hair falls in a cascade over one of her shoulders, distracting as ever. “What happens at sunset?” she asks, a little frown of confusion appearing on her forehead.

  It’s so damn cute I want to reach over and kiss it until she stops frowning. Instead, I toss her the rag to wipe her hands off, and step away from the car, leaving her to hop down off the block herself. Mostly because the motion makes her skirt hike a little around the edges, and hey, what can I say? I’m not a saint.

  She catches me looking and her smirk widens.

  “At sunset,” I say. “You and I have somewhere to be.”

  “Where?” She trails me toward the office. I bypass it and head to the bathroom instead, washing my hands. I’d love to catch her in here all over again, relive our earlier run through the shower.

  But like I said, we have plans already. “It’s a surprise,” I tell her, which only makes her chase on my heels all the faster.

  “What kind of a surprise?”

  “Surprises aren’t really surprises if you tell people all the details beforehand.”

  She lets out an exaggerated sigh at that. But when I take us back outside to where we left Betty parked in the lot, and rap on the hood with my knuckles, she follows me without too many more questions.

  I think about asking her if she wants to drive. But then I catch the expression on her face as we near the car. A strange mixture of pride and apprehension, of excitement that might or might not be bordering on panic. And I decide that we’ve pushed her hard enough today.

  It’s going to take time for her to be completely comfortable around cars again. I understand that. And I’m more than willing to be here for her every step of the way. To encourage her, push her a little when she needs to be pushed, but give her time and space when she needs to recover, and take a breather between those effortful moments.

  I open the passenger side door for her on my way past. “After you,” I say, and her expression lightens a little with relief and gratitude, as she slides into the passenger side of the car.

  I close the door after her, then circle around to the driver’s side to climb in myself. Overhead, the
sky has just begun to change to an orangish glow. Pretty soon it will be full on sunset. Just in time. “You can pick the music,” I say, as we turn out of the garage lot.

  Selena actually cheers at that, which makes me burst into laughter.

  “What?” She sticks her tongue out at me. “I like choosing.” She flicks through the channels until she lands on a pop station and starts to sing along to the first song playing at the top of her lungs.

  I laugh again, harder this time, before I join her for the chorus.

  She glances over at me, and in this light, nearly sunset, with the sun reflecting off her face and the wind from the cranked open window blowing through her hair… She takes my breath away.

  I steer us along the winding back roads that surround the garage, and then wend my way toward the highway. Toward the mountains. “You know, for a dork, you’re pretty damn gorgeous,” I tell her.

  She ignores me, except to swat at my arm, and only starts to sing louder as the song changes and a new one comes on.

  Once again, it doesn’t take long before I’m joining in, singing along to a cheesy pop song I never would have guessed I knew this many words to. Guess I’ve heard it playing in the background a lot of places. But there’s something fun about it now, something freeing about just being our goofy selves with one another, as we speed up the highway, with the sun inching toward the ocean to our left.

  Finally, once we’ve reached the spot I had planned, up near a set of clifftops that I got to know a lot when I was younger, I pull off the road, and along a dirt road. When we finally come to a stop, the sun is nearly at the horizon now, reflecting itself over again on the shining waves, which look like they’re made of milk, we’re up so high and the sunset lighting is so soft and creamy.