“Fucking fine then,” I growled. “Nothing broken?”
She shook her head. “No,” she muttered sullenly. “I just scraped up my toe pret—”
“Well, serves you right for prancing around a damn working garage like it’s a fashion shoot for J-fucking-crew.”
Addison’s face went red, her eyes narrowed at me, and her jaw dropped.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I growled, glaring right back at her. “Heels like that, clothes like that? In here?”
“What the hell is wrong with my clothes?”
“Well they’re all dirty now, so there’s that.”
She started to open her mouth, but she shut it again, shaking her head as her eyes narrowed at me.
I grinned. “Go ahead, say it.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Sure you were.”
“I—” She shook her head, brushing her dirty knees off and muttering under her breath. “Forget it.”
“Well, let this be a lesson to—”
“You know what?!” she suddenly hissed at me. “Maybe I’m wearing the wrong clothes, but at least I’m not some dirty hillbilly asshole!”
The garage went quiet, and her face suddenly went white as her jaw about hit the floor.
“Oh— oh my God,” she whispered, her big blue eyes going wide in horror as her hand clamped over her mouth. “I— I can’t believe…”
She swallowed, her bottom lip trembling. “I’m fired, aren’t I?”
I held that look of hers, keeping my face as hard as I could. But inside? Shit, inside I was grinning away and cracking up like an idiot. Because I’d just gotten a real taste of this girl’s fire. I’d gotten a taste of that sass.
Fuck, she had some serious heat inside of her. And I fucking liked it. A lot.
“No, you’re not fired.”
Fuck, I couldn’t asshole my way into getting her to walk away, and I knew it. I took a deep breath, my eyes locked on hers and my blood roaring like an engine in my ears.
Fuck it.
“You’re not fired,” I repeated. “Look there’s Band-Aids in the second drawer in the office.
“Thanks,” she said quietly, toying with her fingers. Her lip twisted between her teeth, and it took everything in my power to control myself as I swallowed back the groan.
“Start with the invoicing, and then see if you can catch us up on reconciling the accounts.”
Addison looked up at me, her eyes catching mine and a little red heat blooming through her cheeks.
“Thank you.”
4
Addison
I winced as I dabbed the towel over my scraped up foot before I stood and wrapped it around myself. The guest bathroom was still steamy from my shower, and I pushed my wet hair back over my shoulder before I rubbed a palm across the steamed up mirror. My eyes caught my own reflection, and I blushed.
The day had been…interesting, to say the least. In fairness, Ryker had been a dick when I’d first walked in, but then I’d managed first to totally embarrass myself by somehow tripping over a freaking wall of tires and crawling across the floor like a total klutz. I knew damn well my skirt had fallen up over my hips, and I also knew damn well that he’d probably gotten an eyeful of my panties when he’d helped me up.
The thought made my face flush red. At first, I’d been furious about it — mortified and embarrassed and for some reason mad at him for having seen me like that. And yet, the longer I thought about, and the more the thought of it had sunk in, what I was feeling changed. And slowly, I’d gone from embarrassed — and it was mortifying to even admit to myself — to excited.
There’d been this totally wrong, totally inappropriate thrill of him just lifting me off the ground like that, as if I weighed nothing. Add to that the knowledge that he’d just been looking at me with my skirt flipped up and my panties totally on display, and the whole thing sent this wicked, naughty, teasing excitement through me. And it only got worse the more I thought about it.
And then, on top of all of that, I’d called him a… good God, I’d called my boss a “dirty hillbilly.”
I mean, who even says that?
I should’ve been fired. Hell, I should’ve been out looking for a new place to stay at this point, or caving and just staying at Braun and Katrina’s even if I knew it was best for them for me to give them this space before they had the baby.
And yet, that hadn’t happened at all. Ryker the dick had disappeared, and Ryker the bigger man had taken over.
I blushed furiously as my mind quickly went to very, very inappropriate places with that one.
Bigger man.
Oh, he was certainly a bigger man, that’s for sure. I mean the guy was like six and half feet tall, towering over my five and a half. Couple that with his broad shoulders, and that muscled chest, and those rippling arm muscles? The heat teased through me, and I squeezed my thighs together as I chewed at my bottom lip.
…I started to wonder just how “big” Ryker really was… all over.
The heat caught fire inside of me, and suddenly every dirty thought about my rough, gorgeous, dangerous and sexy boss that I’d been trying to keep at bay suddenly came rushing through my head, like a dam breaking.
I squeezed my thighs together again, and this time, I covered my mouth with my hand to keep the moan quiet as I felt the wet, slick heat pool between my legs. Ryker was like no other man I’d ever met — and certainly not the kind of man I should have been thinking of like that. He was dangerous, and dirty, and kind of scary. But then, maybe that was it. Maybe having been around men who wore sweater vests and thought a wild time was “slumming it” at a four star instead of a five-star restaurant is what made his roughness so appealing. I hadn’t dated very much — for one because I’d always been kept in this little cage by my mother. But for two, because the men who I met through my world were just… lacking, I guess you could say. No one had ever made me feel alive, or sent my pulse racing.
I’d had two boyfriends — Sam for about a year back in private school, and Brad, my boyfriend for about nine months in college.
I hadn’t slept with either of them.
I was about to be twenty-one, I’d had a grand total of two real relationships, and I’d never, ever been laid. A virgin at twenty-one. Lame, right? And yet, it wasn’t something that really bothered me. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t want to have sex, I just didn’t want to have sex just to say I'd had it. If that makes any sense. When that happened, I wanted it to be something that shook me to my core. I wanted to want it so badly before it happened that I’d be begging for it, out of my mind with wanting it to happen.
…And that hadn’t happened yet. Not with anyone. Not even with either of the guys I’d dated, though that’d been a sticking point for both. Brad more than Sam. Actually, it’s why we’d broken up, and honestly, I couldn’t really blame him for that in a way.
And so there I was, feeling my body get warmer, and my nipples get harder, and pussy get wetter and wetter as I started to fantasize about the rough, crude, filthy biker I was currently working under.
Under.
I closed my eyes, and this time, the towel dropped to the floor. My pulse raced as I turned the shower back on, stepping in as I slid the curtain shut and grabbed ahold of the detachable shower-head. I buried the moan in the crook of my arm as I brought the pulsing spray of water down, letting it tease over my body. My nipples tingled with electric current, my skin pricking with heat as I started to lose myself.
The pulsing spray centered between my legs, and I gasped quietly as the water teased over my aching clit. My eyes squeezed shut, and this time, I pictured the events of the day going a much different way.
I imagined looking up to see Ryker standing over me, that fierce gaze of his looking down into my eyes as I crawled out on the floor. My skirt was still up, but this time, I didn’t push it down. This time, he didn’t lift me up.
This time, he just shoo
k his head as his eyes burned into mine.
“Spread your legs, Addison,” he growled in the fantasy in my head. “Spread those legs and show me that pretty little pussy. Show me how wet you are for me.”
The shower head pulsed, making my knees wobble as the pleasure rolled through me. I brought it closer, letting the water thunder against my clit as I clung to wall of the shower. In my fantasy, Ryker peeled his shirt off, tossing it away as his hands slid down to the big, huge bulge in his jeans.
“You want to see my cock, don’t you?” he growled. “You want me to pull it out so you can wrap those lips around my big cock and suck it.”
Fuck. The fantasy version of him was just as crude as I knew he’d be in real life, and in my head, I did exactly like he asked. In my head, he pulled his jeans open and pulled his cock out. In my head, I sat up on my knees, spreading my legs and running the fingers of one hand over my eager pussy as I opened my mouth, slid my lips over his rock hard cock, and sucked.
The water pulsed faster and faster, and my pulse raced hotter and hotter as I imagined him pulling me up, kissing me hard and slamming me against the dirty wall of the garage. I imagined him ripping my panties off and spreading my legs, his huge cock driving deep inside of me, filling me like nothing ever had before and making me scream as he claimed me.
The water pulsed, my body clenched, and as the jet of the shower teased over my aching clit, I lost it. The orgasm washed over me as I pictured Ryker making me come. It was my rough, filthy, crude, tattooed and gorgeous biker of a boss who I imagined, driving into me and fucking me until I came screaming his name — or in this case, moaning it softly into my arm as I came against the shower wall.
He’s not a mind reader, stop being ridiculous.
It’s like I needed a pep talk the next day as I walked up the brick-walled garage — like I needed to convince myself that, no, Ryker could not “tell” what I’d done the night before just by looking at me. I felt like an Edgar Allan Poe character, but instead of a tell-tale heart beating beneath the floorboards, mine was a tell-tale blush on my face. A tell-tale heat still throbbing between my legs at the thought of him.
I swallowed, steeling myself before I took a deep breath and stepped into the garage.
“Morning.”
I said it with a little less pep than I had the first day. But like the day before, I’d brought coffee again. Black for him, this time.
Do NOT think about the fact that you masturbated to the thought of him. Do NOT think about the fact that you—
A hiss and a groan interrupted my inner-mantra, and I suddenly frowned as I stopped short. My eyes scanned the dim garage.
“Ryker?”
The groan game again, from behind a big pickup truck in the far bay, with a big wince holding the engine halfway out of the hood.
“Ryker?”
I started to walk around to spot him, but when I did, I gasped and suddenly rushed over. He was hunched over, a mask of pain on his face as he bared his teeth, holding his arm.
“Shit! Are you— oh my God!”
Blood dripped through his fingers, pattering onto the floor as he grimaced and held his arm tightly.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he grumbled.
“I’ll call nine-one-one!”
“It’s fine, Addison,” he said again, calmer this time. He sighed, and when I looked up, it was like nothing had happened. Well, except for the gash on his arm and the blood dripping all over like a horror movie.
“Stop being macho, I’m calling the ambulance!”
“And they’ll be here in probably an hour, maybe two.” He shrugged. “And again, it really is fine. It’s not deep, it just looks like a fuckin’ horror movie.”
I blushed, turning away.
He CAN’T read minds…
“Look, could you just grab the med kit?”
I nodded, turning and dashing back towards the office. I grabbed the big white plastic box from on top of one of the file cabinets and dashed back.
“Sit.” The word barked from my mouth, startling me and making his brows shoot up.
“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckled lowly, dragging a crate over with the toe of his boot and sitting. He was in his usual uniform of ripped jeans, biker boots, and an old white undershirt — his chiseled muscles and huge tattoos captivating my eyes before I dragged them away to open the first aid kit.
“Have you… uh, done this before?” He frowned as I fumbled and dropped the first roll of bandages.
“Of course.”
No.
“Maybe you should let me do this.”
“With one hand?”
He arched a brow at me, his jaw twitching like he was thinking it through.
“Fine. Start with the antiseptic pad and wipe it down. Then the antibiotic gel, then the gauze, then the bandage on top.”
I saved whatever sass or smart remark I wanted to toss back and just did it the way he said. He was right, after all, I’d never once done anything like this. But slowly, wrinkling my nose and trying to ignore all the blood, I did it the way he said. And he was right, it did look a lot worse than it really was. And slowly, I wiped away the blood and started to wrap the gauze around his arm.”
“So how’d you manage to do this?”
“Lucky,” he grumbled before shrugging and nodding at the truck next to us. “Trying to pull that engine block out by myself.”
“That was dumb.”
He shot me a look, his eyes narrowing but a thin wisp of a smile teasing the corners of his lips.
“Anyone ever tell you got a mouth on you?”
“Once or twice.”
“Guess it didn’t do much good.”
“Guess not.”
He grinned, shaking his head. “Yeah, I think you’ll do okay here. Thanks.”
He eyed the bandage as I finished taping it off and stepped away.
“I brought coffee again. Want some? It’s black this time.”
“I thought cream and sugar was pretty good yesterday actually.”
I rolled my eyes, blushing as I turned to get the two coffee’s I’d left on the workbench. “Hey, um, sorry for yesterday.”
“I was an asshole yesterday.”
“A little bit, yeah.”
He chuckled, this hearty, deep laugh that brought a smile to my face.
“Keep that.”
“Keep what?”
“That attitude.”
I blushed. “I— I don’t have any attitude.”
“Yeah, sweetheart, you do.” His deep, dark eyes held mine. “Hang onto it.”
“Sorry I called you a dirty hillbilly.”
He shrugged. “I am kind of a dirty hillbilly. But it’s fine. Sorry I called you a spoiled little city-girl brat.”
I frowned. “Um, I don’t think you called me that.”
“Shit, is it too late to?”
I rolled my eyes again as he grinned and raised the Styrofoam cup of coffee like he was toasting me.
“Maybe just regular brat, not a spoiled one.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Anytime, sweetheart.”
The accounting stuff kept me busy for most of the rest of the day. Really, really busy, actually. I could tell that Larkin did an awesome job at keeping things in order, but you could tell pretty much exactly when she’d had to step away and go on bed rest. The paperwork in the garage piled up fast, and following the accounting, it was like watching things walk off a cliff the day she had to leave.
Axe came in at one point for a few hours, dropping my suitcase off and helping Ryker finish lifting that huge engine block out of the pickup truck. I felt my face burn as I watched through the blinds of the window that looked out over the garage floor — blushing as I watched Ryker peel his sweaty shirt off, his muscles glistening and rippling as he strained and grunted with the winch chains and the heavy lifting.
I could feel the heat tease through me, my panties growing warmer and wetter. I’d never been around a man like thi
s — not one so rough, and masculine, and out of control alpha like him. And honestly, it was like a breath of fresh air. Or maybe a breath of hot, steamy, panting, body-melting air.
At one point, he glanced up, and I swear he saw me staring at him like a total creeper through the blinds before I quickly looked away with a small gasp. I buried myself back into the paperwork, losing track of everything until suddenly there was a knock at the office door.
I blinked, startled as I turned to find him standing there. His shirt was back on, and I felt my face blush at the thought that I wished it wasn’t.
“Close up, we’re done for the day.”
“Already?”
He smirked. “It’s like six, yeah. C’mon, let’s get out of here. Kyrie goes to my neighbor, Mrs. Weston’s, after school. We’ll grab her, go make some food, and then you can settle into the apartment.”
I nodded, smiling as I closed down the QuickBooks in front of me. “Thanks for that. The apartment I mean.”
“No problem. But I think Braun and Katrina like you here, close to the shop and close to me.”
I swallowed, my pulse jumping quickly. “Oh?”
He shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. “I think I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.”
I felt my face burn hot as I stood, tucking my hair behind my ears as I looked at my feet.
“Supposed to?”
“Or maybe I just want to.”
I shivered, and it suddenly felt like the tiny office was getting even smaller, and warmer. I felt him move closer, and my breath caught as his hand reached out—
…And grabbed the plaid button up shirt from the hook behind me.
I let my breath out in a slow whoosh, feeling my skin prickling at the nearness of him.
“C’mon, let’s go.”
5
Addison
“It’s a tiger bite, I swear.”
Kyrie’s dark blue eyes narrowed suspiciously at her dad’s bandage before she glanced at me.
“A tiger? Really?”
I grinned and she grinned right back at me before she turned and rolled her eyes. “Dad, there aren’t any tigers around here.”