Tucked away somewhere on the backroom shelves, a perfect replacement knob waited. Kit pushed aside the more modern parts-donors. The radio carcasses held a wealth of useful materials, but her current project demanded 1940s styling.
Holding the pristine exemplar from the client’s vintage set, she searched for a match. Wood, smooth, with a basic round-shiny-button look. No frills. The owners would be getting their radio and record player combo—a wedding present way back in the day—returned to them in brilliant restored and playable condition for their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary as a gift from the granddaughter who’d smuggled the poor neglect victim out of a damp basement.
Three weeks ago, the machine had been a wreck. Now, the degunked insides and refinished outsides waited on her worktable. She should’ve had the whole project done by now, but Monday afternoon had been busier than usual.
Couldn’t complain about good business, especially not when she’d offloaded a classic early-seventies pinball machine to a collector who’d driven up from Omaha to take a gander. Could complain about the damn just-in-case brace on her left wrist and the shoulder sling. Take it easy, let the sprain heal for three or four days. Right. Great advice from people who didn’t have deadlines to meet. An extra pair of hands would be heaven-sent. The woman would be in tomorrow to pick up the radio, and the restored grand dame still needed to be assembled and given a test run.
But first—ah, perfect. “What a beauty you are.”
She plucked the knob from a basket of loose parts. The dark lacquer under the thin dust-fuzz would match the piece in her hand with some spit and polish. She gave the wood a quick buff against her orange tank top.
As she rounded the shelves, Grandpa Jake’s desk leveled an accusing stare. Dust shrouded the surface. Particles drifting down since August formed a snowy film over the train set he’d been tinkering with. Nothing for a specific client, just a set they’d picked up together at a junk sale. He loved working on miniatures. His magnifier waited for hands to swing the lens from the cradle and extend the arm over the tiny engine.
He’d called before he left the shop that Sunday. Extra time on the projects he loved but rarely indulged, always finishing just one more job for a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a stranger he’d made into a friend in five minutes of talk. She’d teased him about the train never regaining its spark.
“It’ll keep. We’ll get her running tomorrow. You tell your mom I’ll be over in time for supper, Kitten.”
But he hadn’t.
He’d had a heart attack behind the wheel and driven into a drainage ditch in front of a minivan whose driver had called 911. The paramedics couldn’t have arrived in time. The doctor had said so, in her short but kind condolences about how Grandpa Jake hadn’t suffered.
The shop bell chimed.
“Be right with you.” The desk would keep. The dust would keep. The anniversary radio wouldn’t. She hustled to her own workbench and set the knobs amid the lineup of parts beside the empty cabinet.
The wall clock showed five-thirty as she reversed course, empty-handed, and headed out front. Probably a post-work customer, though nothing waited to be picked up tonight. A drop-off or a walk-in.
She dug deep for a smile. Her loneliness would keep, too. “Hey, if I can help you with any—”
Brian stood before the counter. He hoisted a picnic basket, an honest-to-God woven basket with dual handles, onto the top. “I brought an apology.”
“Why the hell are you here?” She clutched the stress ball tucked in her sling. Stretching exercises to work her wrist without overworking it. The doc hadn’t seen her crush the squishy foam into ball bearing size. “I told you not to contact me.”
A persistent man didn’t have to be a bad thing, but she’d driven off and left him standing in a parking lot, for chrissake. Her tantrum-throwing skills rivaled a toddler’s. One with a driver’s license.
“You told me not to call or text, and I didn’t.” Frowning, he tracked the strap of her shoulder sling down to the fist sticking out. “No matter how bad I wanted to know how you were. Doesn’t look like nothing.”
“It’s only a sprain.” An aching nuisance slowing her down all day. The way Brian frowned, best he hadn’t shown up during one of her frustrated fits, when she’d balled up the sling and flung it into the corner where her desk met the wall. Impossible to properly hold small parts and degunk with a bristle brush one-handed. Or to wipe down and pat them dry after. “Work’s still gotta get done.”
“You’ve got to be the one to do it? Your dad or somebody—”
“My responsibility.” Dad ran himself ragged with the house calls for the large appliance repairs. Erin slept half the day away after working late shifts at the warehouse. Mom kept everything running at home. As if she could hand the shop over to the girls, who were supposed to be enjoying their summer break but had picked up babysitting and lawn-mowing gigs. Nobody to mind the store and get the orders done except her. “We have a reputation to uphold, you know. Sixty-five years since my grandpa opened the shop. I can’t skip out and do whatever the fuck I want. People depend on us to keep our promises.”
The stress ball bounced free and rolled across the counter. Past the picnic basket, the neon green slipped over the edge.
Brian scooped the ball up as it fell. “You keep your promises.” Holding out his hand, he offered her the ball on his flat palm. “I believe you. Let me help you do that.”
“You don’t know how to rebuild radios.” She snatched the ball with her good hand. She’d meant to be quick, darting out and back, but he curled his fingers in a teasing brush, and she scraped him with her nails as she clenched. She yanked free. Distraction, distraction—“And your dinner will go bad.”
He patted the basket lid. “Cold packs inside. The food’ll keep.”
She jerked back from his smile and his certainty. So, so ridiculous to imagine Grandpa Jake had sent him. Working his ghost magic from up in heaven. Believing angels existed at all, let alone meddled on Earth, belonged in the minds of little kids and insane people. Kids, crazies, and schmaltzy movies. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Okay, I don’t know how to do what you do. So tell me.” Charming grin well in place, he shrugged beneath his collared dress shirt, the top two buttons open but the fabric still stiff. “You say what to do, and I do it. You direct, and I’ll tinker. I know how to take orders.” He leaned in, elbows on the picnic basket. “Worked for changing a tire, didn’t it?”
Who the fuck was this guy who ignored her rudeness, who acted as if they could carry on some hybrid relationship of friendship and romance—fucking romance, Jesus, not even lust relief but picnic dinners. He had to be a trick. He had a game, or an angle, and she hadn’t plucked loose his motive yet. “I ran out on you Saturday. I just swore at you. Why are you still trying to help me?”
* * * *
Because his heart beat for her.
He stuffed the true answer down deep. Telling her he’d never felt this intensity with another woman would upset her. Drive her further from him, to where she pretended their connection meant no more than cock-hardening, pussy-wetting hormones.
He packed his hopes into a shrug and a headshake. “I told you I’m not giving up on you, Katherine.”
Even though she trusted him so little—or feared their attraction so much—that he hadn’t been allowed to check on her over the weekend. Wasn’t allowed to know her home address, though that’d been easy to remedy. He’d granted himself only the superficial background snooping available to any idiot with a computer and a rudimentary knowledge of Google. No re-tasking sats.
She lived with her parents. No shame in it, but he’d run his mouth off about Lucas on Saturday and she hadn’t said a word. He couldn’t apologize for his speechifying without admitting he’d checked up on her. Maybe her folks needed the help, or her granddad’s death had drawn them closer, or she’d been running from a bad relationship. Hopefully not a situation where she’d ended up with her arm in a sling often. He’d sure as fuck nailed worst way to end a first date.
“I’m sorry about Saturday. You being hurt, that’s on me. Let me make it up to you tonight. Put me to work.” Too close to begging. He dialed back the pleading before his fear of her rejection brought the boogeyman to life. “Look, I wasn’t always a guy who meant what he said. I chased the biggest laughs. Maybe you were hurt by a guy like that once upon a time.” An asshole he’d cheerfully hunt down and beat the shit out of. “But I won’t let you down.”
Her mouth dropped open, but otherwise she stood still as a poster hung behind the counter. Her navy blue sling cut a swath across the front of her tank top. Orange today, the shirt somehow brought out the glow in her eyes and the deep reddish hues in her hair without clashing.
He held his tongue. Telling her she looked beautiful when he dumbfounded her would be pushing things.
She turned away.
No, no, no. He reeled under the weight of a full-gear pack slamming into his chest. Mission Picnic Dinner: a plan turning out more clusterfuckingly worse than taking her to softball.
“You coming, or what?” She glanced over her shoulder as she disappeared through the doorframe. “You can’t be my left hand from way the hell over there, Brian. Bring your basket. We’ll get to the food when the work’s done.”
Salvation. He snatched up the handles and barely stopped himself from vaulting across the counter. Standing outside, he’d donned imaginary cold-weather gear for the frosty reception he’d expected.
Their connection mattered to Katherine. She always left him room for convincing her—first softball and now dinner—and she let herself be convinced. With coaxing, her sharp edges were softening into curves molded to his hands. Her heart would follow. Time, patience, and not holding back so far that she went looking elsewhere for satisfaction—those would be the keys to success.
Shoulders rubbing, they sat on tall work stools with the patient laid out before them. A radio, she’d said, but every delicate bit had to come together from her neat spread of coils, wires, tubes—hell, even an old, swing-arm turntable—and fit into a refinished wood cabinet.
Hampered by her sling, chafing under what she repeatedly called damn-fool restrictions, she directed him in brisk, bossy tones. But she prized kindness, too, despite her irritation and haste. With gentleness, she adjusted his finger-holds when he misunderstood her directions as she rebuilt the guts piece by piece. Showed him what she wanted while she repositioned things this way and that. The whole time, she talked about what she did and why. Not so much about herself, though he sneaked in a few questions. Her short answers leaned heavily on her granddad’s teaching, a sore spot, judging from how quick her smiles turned wistful. Missing the old man.
Whenever she rolled her shoulders, he stopped digging for personal details to store away. They had time. He’d learn eventually. If he pushed for emotional intimacy as hard as she pushed for the physical, he’d send her running. So he soaked up her voice and her faint hint of pineapple amid the grease-and-solvent odors under their noses, and he held his tongue.
Going on seven, the turntable lid lowered into place. No thuds or clicks, thanks to the thin felt bumper around the edge.
“I bet that baby didn’t look half so good the first time it came off an assembly line.”
Stroking the side panel, Katherine smiled. “It’s a beauty.” She fiddled with the knobs, and static crackled. “Can’t tell now how broken it got, shut up in a basement all those years.”
A classic rock station twanged and drummed into existence. The tuner translated nonsense into signal. Fading chords shifted into a new song—longing and love floating on a slow-moving guitar river. Perfect for dancing.
He extended his hand. “May I—”
“It’s after seven.” She scurried back from the worktable. “I need to lock up the front. Don’t touch anything.”
Not touching a thing. Especially not her. And not the wall five feet away where she’d rocked against him, her ass thumping his cock while she rode his fingers. Six days ago. Closing his eyes, he added the soundtrack of her gasps and moans to the radio.
“Daydreaming?” She spoke beside him, almost in his ear. “I’ll have to dock your pay for that, apprentice.”
His cock stiffened, but he maintained his cool. Tough to sneak up on a man trained to stay alert, even when said man took a desk jockey analysis post. The tease in her voice, though, fuck. Irresistible, despite instincts reading her move for a deliberate counter to anything deeper than sex.
“Consider the labor free—in trade for you sharing dinner with me. You don’t want to go out, so I brought the food to you.” He patted the picnic basket with overzealous enthusiasm and flashed slapstick comedy eyebrows. Hell, he’d throw in a fake glasses and nose routine and chomp on a cigar if burying his heart under more layers of laughter helped put her at ease. Whatever she needed to realize and accept that he wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Her squinting suspicion lost ground when she gave in and chuckled. “Set up your dinner, then. I need to make a call.”
She lifted the old-fashioned phone off the wall-mounted base beside the door and dialed. Push-button, not an old rotary, but the handset was the clunky kind from his childhood with the long corkscrew cord perfect for strangling brothers in the kitchen.
Twisting the cord around her fingers, she swayed in the doorway. “Mom?”
He set the basket on the cleared space in the center of the floor. Blanket first, a blue-and-gold plaid he’d picked up three aisles over from the deli counter. The checkout gal, old enough to be his grandmother, had thrown herself headlong into helping when he’d sheepishly explained he needed a last-minute picnic.
Shaken out, the thick blanket covered as much ground as a king-size mattress. Waterproof backing, padded fill layer, soft top. He might’ve gone overboard.
Katherine stood with her back to him, rubbing her toe against a worn spot low on the door frame. “No, don’t hold dinner for me.”
Seemed like she’d grown up in this shop. Maybe she’d played jump rope across that coiled phone cord while grown-ups talked. Dragged over the battered metal-and-rubber stepstool to answer the phone in a little-gal voice weighted with big-girl importance.
“I’m going to grab something and eat in while I finish up.” She twirled, slowly, winding the cord around herself. “Oh, from the drugstore counter up the block, I think.”
Busted. He laid the cold-cut subs beside the container of macaroni salad—two forks—and bottled waters. Made fresh today, all but the water, and the label promised it’d come straight from a mountain spring. As close to a homemade picnic as his skills allowed.
Katherine folded her lips over, tucking away the smile filling out her cheeks. “They have those ready-made deli sandwiches. And pasta salad, maybe. I’ll make sure I eat something filling.”
He moved the basket off the far side of the blanket to hide his own smile. Bristly surface, soft-center Katherine would be slow to admit liking his picnic, if she admitted it at all.
“I promise, I will if I need you.” She drifted toward the wall hook. The cord untangled as she spun. “Uh-huh. Love you, too. See you tonight.”
The phone clicked into the cradle. The radio station played a low, rocking beat.
He patted the wide, empty fabric. Plenty of room for her to sit as far away as she liked. “Hungry?”
“Famished.” She dropped into a tailor pose, crossing her legs as she sat. “We’re not dating, so you know. This is not a date.” Her furtive glances between the food and his face made her seem spring-loaded. “I’m eating this food because I told my mom I would.”
“Of course.” Her excuses slid right off him, not least because of how she kept checking his bullshit meter. She’d broken the mechanism with her last whopper. “We’re not dating.” Never mind he’d made history by bringing her a picnic at her office, a first-time event in the annals of Brian’s Guide to Getting the Girl. “You’re just not lying to your mom. I respect that.” He nudged the plastic salad container her way. “Better eat up.”
She unsnapped her sling and laid it aside. A blue brace supported her left wrist from her knuckles almost to her elbow. “Points for the stylish way you’re trying to get in my pants, though.”
“What?” Maybe he should tell her to keep the sling on. Or offer her an ice pack from the picnic basket. “Not trying to get in your pants.” Well, fair enough, he did mean to—just not yet. Not until when he did, she promised the first time wouldn’t be the last. “Besides, you’re injured.”
Bite by bite, she devoured a third of the turkey club. She swigged her water and smiled at him. “I can lie back and think of endorphins.”
He coughed through swallowing macaroni salad. Christ, she delighted in tempting him to step across the lines he’d set. Sex with her would be one dare after another. “I’d like our first time to rank a few rungs higher than tolerable. At least not registering on the pain scale.”
Watching him, she chewed through a few more bites. “You say first like there’s going to be a second.”
“I’m an optimist.” That he wouldn’t choke to death trying to eat a meal with her. The ham and Swiss on rye went down easier than the slippery pasta.
Katherine picked at the salad. She raised her fork with a single noodle and wrapped her mouth around the plastic, overlooking the less-than-full serving. “I haven’t.”
Backtracking gave him nothing. “Been an optimist?”
“Been hurt by an ex who lied to me or broke his promises.” She laid her fork tines-down on the lid. “That’s what you think, right? Some guy broke me and you can fix me. Because you’re a nice guy. Mr. Fix-it.”
“I don’t—” want to fix you. He wanted to understand her. But maybe, kind of, yeah, to fix her. To ride in all white-knight and be the hero like Sherwood instead of the Michigan Surfer Boy. Shit. No wonder he’d avoided relationship complications before. “I want to get to know you. Why you are the way you are. Is that so bad?”
“Why I am—” Her laugh echoed to the metal crossbeams in the ceiling. “Jesus. A woman can’t enjoy sex just because she does?”
“No, you can, I want you to.” Nope, making things worse. “I, not that I’m giving you permission, or—fuck.” Taking a deep breath, he reached for the calm center of the shooting range. The peaceful pause before the punch in the boxing ring. “You’re angry about sex, or dating, and I want to understand what makes you so defensive. Secretive.”
With a quiet snort, she tipped backward and lay with her knees up and her arms folded across her stomach. “Yeah, because the reaction from society is so fucking positive. A woman who likes sex is still a slut.” She snipped the “T” in a hard bite. “Even people who don’t say it are thinking it.” She stared at the ceiling. “You are.”
Christ, he’d done more than given her the wrong impression. He’d landed in the lump of sad sacks who cast judgments while they sampled the forbidden fruit. “I’m not, I swear I’m not. I just—the guys you’ve been with, none of them hurt you?”
“No.” She sighed, and the snap in her voice softened. “I’ve always been in control. They were my choices, Brian.”
He pushed the food aside and settled on his elbow beside her. “Then I don’t care who or how many. They don’t matter to me or change what I think of you.”
“My sister…” She flinched. “She married her high school sweetheart. Two weeks after graduation, both of them eighteen and dumb as fuck.”
Ouch. Her bitterness stung sure as a smattering of BB pellets on unprotected skin. He’d received the full blast more than once, courtesy of his older brother’s teenage stupidity. Katherine’s brother-in-law could’ve gotten the marriage version from one angry dad. “Shotgun wedding?”
“I wish. At least then we might’ve seen the end coming. But no.” Her breaths lifted her arms in a rolling sine rhythm. “I was twelve, and their marriage seemed like a fairy tale. The heaps of flowers, the yards of fabric on Erin’s dress—so extravagant it had to be true love, right? He was her perfect husband for three years. And on his twenty-first birthday, he walked out and never came back.”
She didn’t deviate from her cynical tone as the wave crashed in his head. The blue of her wrist brace, the slip in the mud, the anger that had driven her to swear at him and run. He’d cracked a fucking joke about wedding rings. About guaranteeing faithfulness and forever.
“My sister had a one-year-old and a nine-week-old. She and the girls moved back home. My nieces don’t remember having a father.”
He’d been half-right, at least. A guy had broken her trust. He just hadn’t been her guy. “You know you’re judging every man for one asshat who couldn’t hack responsibilities, don’t you?”
Huffing, she rolled her eyes, as rebellious as any teen. “You know not every woman’s dying for a big wedding and a bunch of babies, right?”
“Good. I don’t want a houseful of babies, either.” Just her. They’d rewrite her fairy tale with a woman who didn’t wait to be rescued and a man who wanted commitment, in whatever form it took. “And a piece of paper wouldn’t change how I feel about you. Signing on the dotted line just tells the state where my assets go and who gets to visit me in the hospital.”
* * * *
Holy—marriage.
In his casual, offhand way, he’d yanked happily-ever-after from the scrap heap and set to tinkering. He seemed to think he’d stick out a commitment without a ring and a legal obligation. As if he believed in keeping promises, too.
Heart racing, she turned liquid. Flooded with heat for a man who might stand by what he said, and—“Do you mean that? About not wanting kids?”
She prayed to God his answer would stay yes.
Propped on his elbow beside her, he squinted beneath lowered brows. “Do you?”
Ah. He hadn’t been serious. He wanted one or two, the same as most guys, enough to keep up with his married friends. He’d fallen behind on the life track. Not the future she wanted for herself. Thanks for playing, folks.
Still. Fucking him once without keeping him remained a solid option. With her good hand, she gave his shirt a teasing tug. So formal in his tucked-in button-down. The tails ought to be out. “You know how babies are made, don’t you?”
He clasped her wrist and curled her fingers away from his stomach. “Yeah, but I don’t want one.”
“Seriously?” Some kind of thing between them might just work. Without kids, without commitment, but more than a backseat fuck in a deserted parking lot.
“I’m thirty-seven.” He rocked forward and back. “I like my space.” Dragging her arm along for the ride, he gestured in wide swings as his voice picked up speed. “I like not having kiddie shit all over the place and demanding munchkins deciding what I can do and when I can do it.”
A quick shove would roll him on his back. His belt might take two hands to unfasten, but she’d be nimble despite the brace. Her jeans, though. She’d need to shimmy out of them for the main event. Lying down or stand up and give him the full ass-wiggling show?
As he caught his breath, he clamped his mouth shut and watched her with wide eyes. He peeled strong, gentle fingers from her wrist. “Sorry, I—”
“God, that’s hot.” Fuck, too much daydreaming and she’d left him wondering.
“It is?”
Yikes, he must’ve met way too many baby-hungry women. She should take him off the market, make him hers on her terms. And when he someday changed his mind and wanted a settle-down gal, she’d cut him loose.
“Nice guys always want babies.” She sneaked back to his shirt and restarted the undressing effort. “They’re all, ‘Oh, boo-hoo, I’m missing my chance at fatherhood.’” Spreading beyond the bottom button, his shirt slid out of his dress pants in a vee. A sexy patch of pale curls filled the gap. “I half-raised my sister’s kids. I don’t need my own.”
“Being Geezer Dad at graduation isn’t a dream of mine.” He ran his knuckles across her shoulder and down her bare arm to the edge of the wrist brace. “Besides, Rob and Nora plan to fill their farmhouse to the rafters. If I get a yen for fatherhood, I’ll borrow one of theirs for a day, and that’ll cure me.” On the return trip, he kept going, tickling her neck and ruffling the hair above her ear. “I didn’t look at you and say, ‘Wow, what a baby factory.’”
“Yeah? What did you say?” With a tug and a push, she freed his shirt button. Peek-a-boo, solid wall of abs.
“At first sight?” He arched toward her, resettling his hips.
She dared a hand inside. “Uh-huh.” Closed buttons above and below gave her enough wiggle room. She scraped her nails beneath the edge of his ribs. “Tell the truth.”
“You were bending over to look at your tire.” The front of his pants rippled around his cock.
Too hard to hide himself now. His inner bad boy wanted what it wanted. Convincing him to take it would be her job.
“Uh-huh.” Fuck, his outline deserved a mouth around it. In a minute, she’d toss good-girl restraint aside and go after him right through the fabric.
As redness tip-toed through his cheeks, he ducked his head. “‘Wow, I’d like to get my dick in that’?”
Perfect. Bottling up her moan, she gave in to laughter. Underneath Brian’s nice-guy surface lay the darker instincts she needed from him. The desire to fuck for no other reason than incredible pleasure.
“But then we talked, and it was more than—”
“Nope.” She shushed him with a finger against his lips. “I asked for honesty and you gave it to me. Don’t go backpedaling now.”
Not when she had plans for him. She owed him the blowjob she hadn’t been able to give him last week. No customers would interrupt them this time. All closed up tight, the two of them in secluded bliss. She owed not only him but herself. Her mouth had been watering for the taste of him. She’d given him his five minutes to play with her body. Tonight, she’d take hers.
Fingers spread, she caressed down his neck and across his stiff collar to his breastbone. Her firm push sent him onto his back, a move impossible without his complicit cooperation. Good boy. This would be her show, not his.
He breathed harder, his chest rising and falling beneath his half-open shirt. As he tracked her movements, his gaze followed her, and his hand clenched at his side.
With a roll and a wriggle, she knelt between his thighs. Too bad she didn’t have a pillow to stuff under his head. Fuck, she wanted him watching her. Desperate to see her going down on him. Palming him through his pants, she savored the satisfying flex in his hips as he rose to meet her. “I don’t think I’ve ever sucked an honest guy’s dick. This’ll be a first.”
He blocked her reach for his belt. “What?”
Had he misunderstood her? Hard to believe he’d missed her intent. She snagged the black leather and pulled the tail through the buckle. “Blowjob time. Let’s go, Prince Charming.”
Hoisting himself on an elbow, he held her off with his other hand. “I’m not some sex-crazed beast, Katherine. I’m a man.”
A man with a cock tenting his pants. She worked her fingers under the waistband and teased the top open. The zipper slid. As he moaned, she smirked. “Same difference.”
“No, it’s not.” He poured an insistent edge into his voice. The blushing comedian had vanished. “My dick doesn’t make decisions for me. Not with you.”
Sonovabitch. She rarely offered blowjobs to the guys she fucked. Aside from the power struggle, putting her mouth on them would’ve been more…intimate. Not that she wanted intimacy with Brian. The blowjob was a thing for a thing, her mouth for his fingers, that’s all. What guy wouldn’t be happy to take that trade?
Unless he—
She yanked her arm back. If he didn’t want her, fuck him and his dating runaround. “Look, if you aren’t interested in me, say so. I don’t need to waste my time chasing a man into bed.”
Brian growled through tight-pressed lips. “I am interested. In you.” Sliding his knees high around her, he squeezed her sides. “Not how warm and wet your mouth is, but you, Katherine, the damn stubborn woman who’s making me argue against my own blowjob.” He chased her gaze until he pinned her down with pale green persistence. “Jesus, who does that?”
A guy who wasn’t truly interested, obviously. One who didn’t fully desire her. She didn’t entice him enough to make him lose control. But she aroused him. His hard cock proved that much. She rubbed the ridge thrusting out of his open fly, covered now only by blue-gray cotton boxer-briefs.
Watching her without argument, he arched into her hold.
“I’m not making you.” A gentle stroke, two fingers along one side and her thumb against the other. Light enough to tease, hard enough to feel him pulse. “You could just agree.” She circled his tip. Plucked the elastic waistband of his undershorts. Why wouldn’t he let her give him the lone tie they had in common? Nothing but lust bound them together. “We both know you want this.”
* * * *
Of course he wanted to. In no world was his interest questionable.
But grabbing what he wanted would be going back on his word to take things slow and show her she meant more to him than sex. Yeah, he’d be the only one who knew, but that would be one too many.
“I could agree.” He curled his hand around hers, and her forearm tensed. Slender strength wrapped in a dotted layer of freckled skin. Her hand felt more than good enough through his shorts. Imagining her mouth—Christ save him from temptation. “And maybe I do want this. But if I said to you I knew what you wanted and told you to lie back and take it, we’d be drifting into pretty dark corners.”
Losing her sexy smile, she ripped her hand free and sat back on her heels. “You think I’m trying to rape you?”
“No.” Fuck. His vigorous headshake failed at erasing her open-mouthed horror. He tapped his knees against her sides and tried a soft smile. “I think I’ve said slow down, and you aren’t listening, because you want our connection to be only about sex.”
She angled her head like old-fashioned rabbit ears picking up a fuzzy signal. Receptive to his message, if he stopped shoving his feet in his mouth.
“Seems like so far, that’s worked for you, because you pick guys who’ll happily walk away after. Nothing wrong with that.” Shit, he’d been the easy and available one day, gone the next day kind of guy for years.
Those surface games wouldn’t fly with her. Hadn’t since he’d first watched her stride to his car with the same no-nonsense purpose the handful of women in basic training had worn like armored jumpsuits. Katherine would make a hell of a commander. Strong and capable, she’d muscled through her own tire change and delegated jobs as if he’d been her hop-to right-hand man for years. She was chock-full of get-the-job-done grit. The two of them together, they worked.
She hadn’t seen the truth yet. He needed more days and nights together before she’d trust him to keep his word.
“But I’m not that guy.” Not with her. Not ever again, because from now on he’d be the steady man she deserved. And still put his foot in his mouth half the damn time. “If that means I don’t get blown but I do get to take you out, I’ll take that trade.”
Leaning against his upraised leg, she wrapped her injured arm around his knee. Her speculative gaze, darting between his face and his gaping pants, pumped him harder. “But you’d rather have both, right?”
“Fuck yes.” As if he’d been hiding his unrelenting desire for her. Fine, she hadn’t seen him jerking off to fantasies of her every night. Arching his hips, he grabbed his pants and shorts and shoved them to his thighs. His cock sprang free. “Does this look uninterested to you?”
She gasped, a mewling half-moan, and her arm tightened around his leg. Her tongue, pink and pointed, flicked her lips.
Between her stare and the air flowing across his tip, he might come quick as a kid with his hand on his dick for the first time. Clamping the base of his shaft, he wagged. “Soon as I walk outta here, I’m gonna end up jerking off in my car. Again. Am I only a man if I jam my dick in you every chance I get?”
Sparks flew in the fiery orange centers of her eyes. “Maybe it’s the only way I’m a woman, damn you.”
What? No, impossible for her to believe—
“Maybe I want to be desired.” Her voice loaded with righteous fury, she shook beneath a blazing halo of auburn hair. “Maybe I don’t want more baggage and expectations. Maybe I want guys to be available and uncomplicated.”
Her breasts heaved with her breath. Her muscles ran in taut lines from her neck down. She knelt trembling between his legs, her face an angry mask demanding he let her fuck him.
His delays, fucking hell, his delays read like rejections in her book. The signals he meant as “I value you most” came through on her end as “I don’t value you at all.” A blanket no now to all fooling around would do him more harm than good.
He stroked her fingers, trying to uncurl her clenched fists. “Katherine, if you’re determined to keep believing a man can’t be worth more than one night of meaningless sex, nothing I say will stop you.” Swallowing, he picked through the minefield in his head. A safe route with her existed, and he’d damn well find the thing. “But I won’t be your proof.” Please, God, don’t let her call his bluff. He couldn’t give her up any more than he could give up breathing. “You want to fool around? I want another day out. It doesn’t have to be a date.”
Every moment he spent with her was a date. God would forgive him those white lies.
Resettling her hips, she rocked sideways between his thighs. The tension in her shoulders eased. She narrowed her eyes, drilling him with laser precision. “If I say yes, are you gonna shut up and let me suck your cock?”
His dick jumped. Eager bastard had been leaping toward her for days now, but never while naked in her presence. “Yes, ma’am.”
Hell yes. Dropping his head to the blanket, he let his arms fall. He knew an order when he heard one.
* * * *
Heat danced through her as she scrunched her toes tight, a hidden outlet for the exhilaration of his surrender. Every day, she fulfilled a dozen roles—dutiful daughter, understanding sister, doting aunt—but the days when she fit all the pieces together into a woman with needs and desires of her own arrived few and far between.
But Brian would let her be that woman tonight. Flawed and hungry, aching to own all of him her way.
“Fine.” She surveyed her territory. Hints of solid chest flashed in the gaps of his tangled dress shirt. His pants spread across his upper thighs. In between, a masterpiece waited for her mouth. “I’ll take you out Saturday.”
Bending over his bunched-up pants, she puckered her lips and blew across him. The twitch in his cock echoed inside her. Pure power hummed louder than the radio playing its low serenade from her worktable. Her fingers had rebuilt those connections. They’d configure these wires, too. “You sure make a girl work for your dick.”
His eyes glowed, soft and grounded. He shoved one hand beneath his head in a makeshift cradle, his elbow out. “Watching you work gets me hard. Fuck, thinking about you working gets me hard. You.” He swayed from head to hips. “You get me hard, Katherine. Morning, noon, and night.”
Lowering herself over him, she braced on her right hand. Her left wrist wouldn’t stand the backbend and support her weight, but her fingers held enough agility to deal with his pesky buttons. Her jeans rasped against his pants. She laid her hand in the gap at the top of his shirt.
Adam’s apple bobbing, he otherwise stayed still. His collar stood stiff, buttoned down tight. As she teased the vee between the two buttons he’d left open, he hissed in a breath. His outfit screamed professionalism. Office-serious, minus one crucial element.
“Did you wear a tie today?” She nestled her knees against his ass.
His chuckle dipped into a moan. “It’s, uh, in the car.” He grazed her good wrist in a fingertip caress. “Seemed a little formal for a picnic.”
He’d loosened up for her. Ditched the tie. Opened his shirt. Tingles spread up her arms as she slipped the rest of the buttons free. “You’re still kind of overdressed. A good picnic offers a nice view.”
Fuck, he qualified. With his shirt pushed wide, he showed off the toned layout of a man who worked for a living. Maybe he came by his in the gym, but he put his time in. Firm flesh under the hood as she laid into him, dragging her fingers in furrows that rose again in her wake.
Catlike, he stretched and pushed into her heavy caresses. Owning a Brian-cat wouldn’t be too much work. A sleek, independent fuck-buddy who came around when he needed help scratching an itch. Flashing his coiled muscles as he paraded in front of her until she pounced.
Bending low, she flicked her tongue against his nipples. Back and forth. Building a line of teasing bites between. Not kisses. None of that soft romantic bullshit.
He hissed and groaned as he rippled beneath her and the blanket backing scratched against the bare concrete floor. Their rough symphony rivaled the radio still going strong, a testament to her skills.
Well—and their teamwork. He deserved a smidgen of credit.
Thick muscle wrapped his abdomen, curving in from sides she squeezed and nipped. No patch of flesh left untouched.
And he chased her attention, Jesus, begged for her hands and mouth with his rocking. His low swearing rose like pleas to his god for mercy.
But she was his god tonight. She’d choose when to offer mercy.
The heat in his cock warmed her neck, his stiff erection tucked beneath her chin while she built anticipation nuzzling his stomach. As his legs closed in around her, she pushed them back. Spreading his thighs, she ignored the twitch in her left wrist. Leaning into him, forcing him to stay open for her, filled her with fire. Her nipples, hard points under her tank top, ached for his mouth.
Twisting temptation into power, she swirled her tongue around his cockhead.
His fingers curled beside her face as he gasped. He dug his hand into his hip without touching her.
On the rare occasions she’d gone down on a guy, she’d told him to keep his fucking hands to himself. One goddamn tug at her hair, and she’d be done. No second chances.
She sampled him again, flicking his tip and tasting salt. The start of a rich, slick coating she’d give him to let her take him deeper, to help him slide over her tongue so his soft skin and musky-male warmth filled her senses as much as his hard cock filled her throat.
Covering his cockhead, she sucked in tiny pulses and pressed her tongue against him in counterpoint. Simple men, stupid men, figured blowjobs were about their pleasure. Wrong.
He rocked his hips and uttered nonsense syllables, maybe her name. Helpless and obedient, he gave in to her demands.
The real joy of a blowjob: power. Hers over him. Her ability to command his entire body on the point of her tongue. In the firm suction of her lips. All of his desire focused on her, and he had no say in what she’d choose to do about it. Satisfy him or leave him hanging.
She took him deeper, in steady strokes, his gaping pants tickling her chin. No man would ever control her. But as he laid his hand against her head, resting his palm in her hair, she burned with the unprecedented urge to order him to pull harder. Her body tightened, a twisting screw catching hold, as she imagined a bossy Brian.
With her hand slipped between his thighs, she cupped his balls and squeezed.
He bucked into her mouth. “Fuck, Katherine. I’m—you’re—fuck.”
Heart racing, she pulled back. Too close to gagging. Or to coming herself. He’d gone deep, and the thrill tingled like fingers on her clit.
Palming her cheek, he trembled. “Fuck, did I hurt you?”
She covered his hand and dragged him back into her hair. “Don’t you dare apologize. Just hold on tight.”
Letting him go, she bent her head. She’d brought him to the edge. This time, she’d push him over. With one hand to hold him, so she wouldn’t have to stop no matter how enthusiastic he got. He’d damn well better be enthusiastic. Hell if she’d be the lone participant enjoying this blowjob.
He gripped her hair. Tight, not tentative, thank God. He didn’t push, but he held on.
Perfect. She swallowed his cock. The salt flowed faster, stronger. She’d taste all of him in a minute. She sped up her strokes. Soon he’d surrender in this contest of wills. Nice-guy Brian would be her bad boy, coming in her mouth and spilling over her lips because she was impossible to resist.
* * * *
A lifeline, her hair in his fist. Auburn and shimmering under the lights, Katherine rose and fell with the beauty of the sun setting across the lake. Enticing, luring him to paddle out to meet her, to dive into her glowing fire and lose himself.
Fuck, she’d nearly made him come already, the way she wrapped herself around him. Kneeling between his thighs and bending over his dick. Her tank top dipped, and her breasts flashed between light and shadow. Her mouth gleamed, her lips impossibly wet.
She treated him like a dessert she meant to devour down to the last spoonful and lick the bowl after. Amazing. An amazing woman he wanted to see again. Every night. Every morning. To lie naked in bed with her and roll over and kiss her mouth—
Hips jerking, he tugged her hair. “I’m almost—”
Christ Jesus, fuck, she worked her tongue up his shaft and moaned, fucking moaned as if she might come when he did.
Choice. He ought to say something before he got too far gone to warn her. “You don’t have to sw—”
With a hard, fiery stare and a slow, deliberate suck, she silenced him.
So goddamn gorgeous. Bold. Unflinching. She spread her arms across his hips and held him down with her weight. One hand clamped around his dick, she lowered her mouth to meet her knuckles again and again. Watching him, fuck-fuck-fuck, watching him while she swallowed him down and dared him to come.
Heat rushing through his cock, he gave in. His hips bucked. His eyes tried to close, and he forced them open. He refused to lose Katherine, to deny his connection to her. Their gazes locked as she drank from him.
Fuck, he loved her.
He slammed his teeth shut on that confession. Best case, she’d take it for the addled ramblings of a post-orgasm mind. Worst case, she’d throw his picnic at him and order him out the door.
Lifting her head, she gave an exaggerated swallow and licked her lips. “My show, my rules. If I wanted you to come somewhere else, I would’ve handled the arrangements.”
Her smile said she’d won something, but no obvious answer presented itself. He’d gotten to come, for one thing, and she’d agreed to his condition for another date. Two wins for him. And fuck, she gave a fucking fantastic blowjob. How many men had she practiced—
He shoved the worrisome flicker aside. Whoever she’d been with before, however many, didn’t matter. She was with him now. Wasn’t she?
“Lady’s choice, that’s fair.” Hell, she could pick where he finished as often as she liked. He unknotted his fingers and stroked her hair, his aching knuckles welcoming the stretch. He’d taken control with most of the women he’d spent a night with, but sharing the lead with Katherine heightened the excitement. “Do your rules let me do something for you, too?”
He wouldn’t be a gentleman if he didn’t ask, but he’d thrown the question out there because his mouth watered for her. The salty tang of her on his tongue and the strength in her thighs clamping around his face when she lost control. Even though reciprocating might be moving too fast for his own rules. She wanted his desire without the emotional ball of wax.
She knelt between his thighs, her weight no longer balanced on her arms across his hips. With a speculative tilt to her head, she slipped her gaze sideways.
If she pushed for sex, he might lack the strength to say no. He needed to hold back enough to keep her interested in the rest while she grew comfortable with the whole not-just-fucking, long-term love they deserved together.
Scooting free of his legs, she shook her head. “Not tonight.”
A-fucking-men. The sad twist of his tongue for the lost opportunity didn’t sour the air-guitar and drum-frenzy cranking out solos in his head. She hadn’t said no—she’d said not tonight.
As in, on another night, the answer might be yes. Because they’d have another night. More chances to demonstrate her importance to him and lead her deeper into the big, scary sea of coupledom.
“A hug at least?” He crooked his finger and his smile, aiming for a light tease. A snuggle those bad boys of hers wouldn’t deliver. “Have you seen my arms? I hide ’em well in my sleeves, but they’ve got some serious power.”
“Yeah, I’ve felt your grip, tough guy.” Chuckling, she ducked her head and smoothed down her hair. She stretched out alongside him. “Peak performance.”
An encore would be in order if she threw out more compliments. Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to kiss her right now, roll her under him and eat her for dessert until his dick returned to mission-ready status.
He managed a one-armed hug. Landed a kiss on her temple, maybe because she hadn’t expected the move. She hadn’t avoided him like she had when he’d gone in for a true kiss the first night.
She squirmed away after a few minutes. Not close enough for snuggling, but maybe she’d never been an afterglow kind of woman. Her emotional progress would be measured in fractions of an inch.
The foot of space between them would have to stand, tonight. He raised his hips and wrestled his clothes back into place. As she lay on her side, facing away and propped on her good arm, he risked a graze against her back. “So, where are you taking me on our not-a-date Saturday?”
“Unh-uh, nope.”
The tease in her voice held his heart suspended. If she backed out on the deal—
“You surprised me with this picnic thing.” Craning her neck, she rolled toward him. “I’m not telling what I’ve got planned for you.” Her sparking eyes challenged him while her barely-there smile seemed half-shy. “But dress down. I’ll pick you up.”
A dare. If he dismissed the instincts barking at him to command the situation and instead let her take control again. Made himself the one who waited and wondered, who got picked up at his door and whisked off on an adventure. Probably a place out in the boonies where she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew, folks who might fuss at her about having a boyfriend. Hell. One step closer to a true date. Stealth mission. Whatever Katherine needed to feel comfortable with him for more than one night.
“I got no problem with that.” He shrugged, putting effort into nonchalance. “Your show, your rules.”