Mechanic Next Door

by Lauren Milson

  Mechanic Next Door

  The Older Man Next Door Series

  Lauren Milson

  Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Milson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  About the Author

  Mechanic Next Door

  1. Peach

  2. Thomas

  3. Peach

  4. Thomas

  5. Peach

  6. Thomas

  7. Peach

  8. Thomas

  9. Peach

  10. Thomas

  11. Peach

  12. Thomas

  13. Peach

  14. Thomas

  Peach

  Her Friend’s Father

  1. Joanne

  Also by Lauren Milson

  About the Author

  I write sweet, smutty romance - the kind that you stay up past your bedtime to finish ❤️

  Get a FREE insta-love romance when you sign up for my mailing list! - http://eepurl.com/difde1

  I can't be held responsible if your Kindle sparks, melts, or combusts. I'm happy to take responsibility if the same happens to your clothes.

  Thank you for reading!

  xx, Lauren

  Mechanic Next Door

  My next-door neighbor is my fierce protector, my strong defender.

  The man who promised to look after me.

  He is off-limits. He is almost twice my age.

  And he’s the only man I’ve ever wanted.

  The man who lives next door is a down and dirty tatted-up mechanic with the grease-stained jeans and the tattered shirts to prove it.

  Everyone say he’s too old for me. Everyone thinks he’s off-limits.

  And they’re right.

  He’s my rock. My support. A perfect gentleman.

  He won’t look at me as the woman I’ve grown up to become, but I know he is the only man for me.

  And when my desires become known, he gives me a stern, strict warning that’s crystal clear.

  He says he would never cross that line with me…

  And if he did, there would be no going back…

  To that I say - once we cross that line, I want to stay there.

  No matter how wrong it is…

  Mechanic Next Door is a high-heat, possessive alpha and younger woman romance. Each book in The Older Man Next Door Series is a complete stand-alone and the books can be read in any order. No cheating, HEA guaranteed.

  xx, Lauren

  1

  Peach

  “This is me,” I say. Ray pulls over, shifts his truck into park and sits back with his keys in the ignition. His jeans are splattered with grime and his truck smells like the garage where he works. I don’t know what combination of chemicals are in the scent, but I like them. I always feel small when I get a nose-full of the garage. Small, and safe.

  “I know your house,” Ray says, peering past me to the little two-story Victorian with the banister I’m always working on and the shutters that need a fresh coat of paint. I like to keep some projects for later. I always push some of the work to next weekend. Then the weekend after that.

  I like that my house is a work-in-progress. I don’t want it to ever be finished. It feels more like mine when there are projects strewn around: some rolls of shelf-lining sitting on a dining room chair. The water bill not paid until the last minute, which is a little irresponsible, but I always make sure it gets paid, even if I cut it close. A stack of letters unopened, though I always make sure I have few enough for me to cycle through so I’m never too late in responding to anyone.

  There are two things I’ve learned about myself since my grandfather passed away: first, that I like working with my hands. Second, that I always like things to be a little unfinished. If I can do ninety percent of a job I’m happy. Any more and I’ll be trying to get my hands on things and rough them up a little.

  “I know you know my house, Ray,” I reply. “Everybody knows my house.”

  Some of the boys down at the garage invited me out tonight. I told them I would tag along so long as I could cash in a few dollar bills for quarters, feed them into the jukebox, and pick out the songs we would listen to. I think they were all happy to indulge me in this little request. I don’t go out much, much preferring to stay inside and cook, or kneel in my garden out back, or sit on my porch and pretend I’m not waiting for my next-door neighbor, Thomas, to come home from the garage. And it’s suited me just fine.

  It’s suited me just fine until very, very recently. Now, my relationship with my next-door neighbor feels too complete. Too sturdy. He’s my rock. That’s the problem. I have an immovable, responsible man living next door, and all I want is to step between us, push us apart to undo some of the bond, and then fill that space back up again with something new.

  Get my hands on things and rough them up a little.

  “You should come out with us next time, too,” Ray says with a smile.

  “Does Thomas ever go out with the boys from the garage?” I ask to test the waters. I’d counted on him being there tonight. When I walked into the bar with the boys on my heels, I tried to not make it too obvious that I was searching the place for him. My eyes scanned the row of older men sitting at the bar with their eyes on the small TV in the corner. When my gaze landed on that row, a few of the eyes found me over their shoulders. That’s when I knew my search was complete. If Thomas were there, none of those eyes would have found me.

  “Nah, not really,” Ray says, putting his hand on the back of my seat. His response is casual, off-hand. If he knew I’d counted on Thomas being there tonight, I don’t think he would be so casual. I guess I was unwise to consider Thomas one of the boys from the garage.

  He is anything but one of the boys from the garage. The boys from the garage, they’re all my age or a few years older. The boys I’ve known my whole life, riding bicycles until the summer sun set and hitting baseballs into the path of moonlight spilling across the front lawn. A wide, big swath of people I’ve always known and who have always known me. A group of people who I devoted my summers to with desperation to hold onto those nights and wishing they would never end.

  Thomas is not like them now, and was not like them back then, either. Thomas was too old to hang with those kids I spent my summers with. He was in his twenties. I remember him as a mysterious figure who was kind but distant, sweet and a little closed off.

  Now, Thomas wears faded denim and white shirts that are stained, but clean. They have the tattered appearance of an old dog’s chew toy, but when I press my nose to his chest he smells as clean and fresh as a warm summer morning, as bright as a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, as perfect as that first quenching sip of water, and makes my belly flip and my heart flutter with his undeniable rough and dirty edge.

  His face is marked by subtle signs of age but his kindness doesn’t show them. But lately his spirit has shifted in him, and it’s only towards me, and it makes me feel like I’ve lost something I never had to begin with. Nostalgia for something I’ve only read in a book. Something that isn’t mine.

  He doesn’t look at me how he used to. He isn’t as nice to me as he used to be.

  But he is mine. He swore to my grandfather that he would take care of me for as long as he could. And I know in Thomas’ mind, that means forever. And that makes him mine, and me his, and I know there’s nothing that could change that. I fear his change toward me may be the result of the change I’ve shown him, though I can’t help it. I’ve t
ried to suppress it for as long as I could, but I think my skin might just peel off if I can’t do the things I want. The things my body wants me to do, as though I’m just a witness to something else.

  I must be living this same life over and over, reincarnated a million and one times, because I feel like I’ve pressed these feelings down forever. And when I get it right, maybe then I can find peace.

  That’s another thing I’ve learned - that forever isn’t a measure of time. It’s a condition. It feels like a sickness I’m about to overcome. I never thought I’d want forever to take human form and find a different place to live.

  There’s no reason for the way he makes me feel or the things he makes me feel. All I know is that I want my mouth on his lips and I want his dirty fingers to dig into my skin, anywhere he wants to put them. I know I’m a bad girl for wanting these things. I know it’s wrong. And if he doesn’t want to be nice to me, that’s fine too. I’d take him in whatever condition he wants to come in.

  When I go to the garage and talk to the boys, he barely talks to me. When I see him come home from work I call him on his landline, and that’s when he talks to me. I tell him I can’t talk long, and he always pretends he won’t keep me. And I listen to his deep, rich voice, and when we hang up, I don’t know what we’ve talked about. I’ll look through my kitchen window and hang up, and I’ll watch him do the same, and then I’ll go to bed, keeping the window open to let the warm, soft breeze tickle my skin. I’ll bite my lip when I touch myself to keep quiet and when I’m done and the night is stealing the day, I’ll feel it slip out from under my feet and lay me down.

  “I’ll be sure to come out with you all the next time,” I tell Ray, wrapping him in a hug.

  “You’re twenty-one now,” Ray says. “You have no excuse anymore.”

  I know it’s wrong, but I hope Thomas is watching.

  I step out of the truck into the warm spring night and turn to give Ray a silent wave goodbye. I sense some movement from across my lawn, and when I step onto my porch, a light inside Thomas’ house flips on. I can’t see him through the curtains, though. I want to know where he’s looking. Is he watching Ray’s truck as he drives to the corner, the crunch of gravel mixing with the sound of chirping crickets? Does he care that Ray surely knows he’s watching?

  Is he looking at the hem of my shorts, the ones he tells me I can’t wear? Does he know that I took my favorite pair of jeans and held my breath while I cut the legs off, frayed the edges with my keys, and felt my panties dampen when I tried them on again and looked at myself in the tall mirror in the corner of my room?

  When I’m inside I toss my keys on the table and pour myself a glass of lemonade. The freezer rattles as I pull the ice tray out and plunk a few cubes into a tall glass. I douse my thirst with a long sip and grab my landline to hit redial.

  “Hey,” Thomas breathes through the phone. His tone has an edge to it. An edge that’s new. An edge that’s starting to bleed.

  “I’m home,” I say. I turn so I’m not facing his house, leaning back against the kitchen counter instead.

  “I know. Goodnight, Peach.”

  “Goodnight, Thomas. See you tomorrow.”

  I put the phone back in its cradle and go upstairs to do what I do every night.

  I just don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. I think I might just go crazy if I can’t have Thomas. I don’t even know what it really means to want him. I don’t know how it would play out. My small solace is knowing that I’ll never have to find out what heartbreak is, because I know he would never cross that line.

  2

  Thomas

  My men fall quiet when I amble into the garage, put my hand up, and say hello. I’m a fair boss and I don’t mind a fair amount of chatting when we aren’t busy. I know they were talking about Peach from the way their lips zipped up when I came in.

  I stride past them and make a quick right into my office. We aren’t going to be busy today. A good chance for me to catch up on paperwork. With the local college on spring break we haven’t had much work in the past week or so. Peach should be by today with lunch for the guys. She does it every Friday and my stomach is already grumbling when I turn on my computer to check my emails.

  I should have offered to bring her in with me today. She likes the guys, but I make sure no one gets too close. I’ve told her she shouldn’t do some of the things she does, but she won’t listen to me. There’s nothing I can do to fix it, short of locking her in her house, and that would be wrong, so I have to be content to keep close watch over her until…

  I don’t know when. This is the part that pains me most. I don’t know how this thing ends.

  I put my head down and go through the mail. She’s offered to come in a few days a week to reply to inquiries, do some front-desk work, make up the guys’ schedule. She looked up at me with her big blue eyes and said she’s keen to make her own money. She always says her college classes don’t take up enough of her time and energy and she wants something else to do. She has enough money in the bank, not that she needs much.

  But I know how the guys look at the women who come into the shop, and if any of them looked at Peach that way, I don’t know how I’d react.

  I’ve has a taste of it. The first time it happened, she sashayed in here with a big tray of sandwiches and brownies. A hush first settled over the garage. You could hear a pin drop. Ray wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Peach smiled at him with her chin tipped down and her blue eyes shining, painting warmth and beauty on the walls. She walked slowly with a slight arch in her back and when the men descended on her like a murder of crows I stood up in my office and peered through the blinds, my fingers splitting the slats open so I could watch.

  I watched. I watched them thanking my woman, eating the food she’d made. Everyone praised her. Everyone asked what was in the brownies, what kind of cocoa she’d used. I wanted to tell them to slow down and enjoy the brownies and not eat them too fast. I watched with one hand in my pocket and the other still fixing the slats so I could see through. Her eyes flicked over to my office and after a drowsy dance they flittered to mine. Her thick, pink lips spread into a smile and she walked over, knocked on my door.

  I fell into my seat and cleared my throat, told her to come in. She pushed the door open, came in and smiled. She closed the door behind her, the light click sealing us in. I hadn’t noticed before that she had a small tin in her hands. She placed it on my desk in front of me and told me she’d set aside my own portion because she knew how hungry the boys get.

  “You work them too hard, Thomas,” she’d said. I could hear myself swallow and I could feel my eyes blink, my heart thud, my blood pump. I gave her my thanks and she left, taking a little piece of my heart along with her as she did. I watched her walk past my office window, her perfect, round breasts teasing against her white tank, her cut-offs too short, her legs too long and smooth. I ate the sandwich and brownie and was unable to make how good they tasted conform to the reality of what she’d delivered.

  It was just toasted white bread, slathered with mayo, a few pieces of white meat left over from a chicken she’d cooked the night before, a thick slice of tomato, a crispy leaf of lettuce. And the brownie was a mixture of milk, eggs, cocoa powder and some other things poured into a baking pan and cooked to a certain temperature for a certain length of time.

  And when I saw the way they looked at her that day, well…I just didn’t know how to handle it. I’ve had to keep my distance from her since then, but it isn’t easy to keep watch over her and stay away at the same time.

  If she really wanted to make her own money, she could get a job at the bar we always go to. She could get a job on campus. There are a million and one different things she could do, and the fact that she’s taken no other opportunity to work makes me think my garage is the only place she wants to work.

  I’m unable to push thoughts of her out of my mind all morning. I’m able to get some back-office work done through a haze
, and by the time she comes sashaying into the garage I’ve already spent the better part of half an hour checking the old clock on the wall above the door.

  I stand to shove my hands into my pockets, peering through the slats in the blinds like I always do, careful to not make too much movement. The smell of the garage is cut through with blinding sweetness when she walks in. The white tank-top with the frill of lace at the neck. The cut-off shorts I keep telling her not to wear. The long blonde hair braided and fixed around her head like a crown. The daisy she keeps tucked behind her ear and the sweet, deep-set eyes that are bluer than any blue sky.

  My chest feels hollow when she turns her eyes to my office. She raps two knuckles against the door and opens it to peek around the wood.

  “I missed you last night at the bar, Thomas,” she says, pulling a tin out from under the crook of her elbow. I regard her carefully and distantly as I take my seat again behind my desk. She sits in the chair across from me as she’s always done, and this time I can see she’s planning to stay a while. She sits back, crawls her fingers up the back of her scalp with her eyes closed, notches her heel against the edge of my desk, hooks one ankle over the other.

  I open the tin and smile at the contents. Peach cobbler wrapped in wax paper and a thick sandwich wrapped in foil.