I can’t get over wondering what the hell ever attracted me to Boone. Not when there’s a real man up for grabs. But how do I let Rand know I’m interested? I can’t just go walking into the garage where he works and anyone could be dropping off a vehicle. I’ve acted like such a little brat around him I’m sure he thinks I’m too young and too… bratty.

Damn.

Sometimes you let a side of yourself come out that isn’t the real you, but then you’re labeled like that permanently. It’s like the Internet – sits there with you forever. And If I did get up the courage to go strutting into the garage, I know I wouldn’t be able to stop myself shivering with lust. Which would probably make me all gawky embarrassed.

I don't know why he has this effect on me – I normally have no trouble being a brazen strong girl around guys. With Rand I’m silly putty. I look at him and my body sparks to life like a live wire connection. My nipples harden under the thin fabric of my shirt. I have to squeeze my thighs in an attempt to stop the squelching arousal that pulsates with a determination to have what it wants.

I need to see him again. It’s like a relentless itch that I can’t reach. I drive to the garage, thinking I can say the car is broken again.

When all I could see of Rand was his large boots sticking out from under the car he’s currently working on, I feel pretty self-assured. Leaning up against the side of my father’s car, my legs crossed at the thigh, arms casually crossed shelving my perky tits on my forearms. I think I must look pretty good, even if that sounds a bit cocky.

But then Rand slides out from under the engine and sits up on the pulley thing to wipe something out of his eyes and my heart fails me. Along with the backs of my knees. His hair is mussed. Some locks of the luscious dark curls are sticking together from the sweat. My heart rate picks up so fast I can hardly gasp at the sultry air. Then he looks up at me and his initial surprise is swiftly replaced by a broad grin.

His mouth fascinates me. The easy smile stretches like a horizontal gash across his chin, no turn ups at the edges. I can’t take my eyes off it, wondering how it would be to have my own mouth under that slash of firm flesh. When he smiles his eyes light up like beacons, filled with a zillion promises and invitations I know I wouldn’t refuse. If only he’d ask me.

But I get the feeling he never will.

He probably thinks I’m too young. And too dumb, after seeing me with Boone. What must he have thought of me for ever going out with a guy like that? Sometimes I do to much to try to make my father happy.

That can be the only thing that ever kept me with Boone and I wonder again what I ever saw in him. Why didn’t I detect his aggression earlier? It was certainly buzzing around him. I know now he’s a man that could never win me over. For all that anger, he could never protect me in a real sense. And he doesn’t excite my body either. Sex with Boone is kind of mechanical in truth.

I never feel my body is being adored and reveled in. I never feel like I can let go to the pleasure and completely lose myself in connection with a real man. The smell of masculinity, the hard muscle stretching his leather skin, the chiseled jaw where manly stubble roughs his skin and mine when he kisses me. I wonder how it would be with the mechanic because he has all that to spare.

Rand’s gaze pummels into me, so intense I feel like I’m being fucked by his eyes. Tingles fall through my body and I don’t feel so sure of myself now. I’m trembling, I realize. Sure he can see right through me and laughing to himself at the girl having a secret filthy crush on a sweaty, filthy, hard-working older man.

I’m certain of it when he scoots his rolling platform across the distance between us and stops right at my toes. Involuntarily my arms uncross so my hands can fly back to the metal I’m leaning on for added support. He sits there beneath me, looking up the length of me and my heart is pounding so hard under my ribs it’s actually painful. I’m so aware of him, it’s like pinpricks in my skin. His face at that point where my thighs end, his mouth just inches away. It’s a damn good thing my legs are crossed because I’m getting wet there just from his closeness.

Little beads of sweat break out on my upper lip and my tongue is drawn without my permission to glide across them. Rand watches the pink point like it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. My quivering increases when his eyes slide down over my chest, my hips. Reflexively, I press my thighs to squeeze the dampness pooling between them and his gaze is transfixed on the flesh molding together. Oh god, can we do this?

Right here in his garage?

I’m so hot, trickles of sweat run down the side of my neck and spine. I gulp down, trying to halt the rate of my breathing.

In another reality I see myself casually lifting one leg and draping it over his solid shoulder. My spread stretched open an inch from his wide lips. Oh god, stop thinking stuff like that. I just want Rand’s rough chin buried in my pulsating chasm, his tongue parting my folds. A shiver runs up my skin and Rand grins again, like he knows what I’m thinking. Like we’re sharing every image in a dual fantasy.

“This heat is getting to me,” I murmur, twisting my head side to side like that’s gonna help.

He grins again, a filthy provocative smirk.

“I know what you mean, Caila.”

Does he? I doubt that.

Wasn’t he meant to be the sweaty one? So how come he’s sitting there all calm and collected while I have a hot flash, grinning up at me his mouth just inches from where I long for it to be.

“You think it will break open any time soon?”

Damn what am I raving on about?

“I hope so. It would be great to get soaking wet and relieve this searing heat. Don’t you think?”

What’s happening? I can’t tell if he’s flirting back with me or actually talking about a rain shower. His eyes are always sparking so it’s difficult to be sure. What I’m in no doubt about is how much my body is yearning for his hard hands on it. Even if he is all dirty from his job. I don’t care. I want his hard heat compressing me, squeezing and stroking every part of me.

“Yes I’d like that too,” I say, the words falling from my mouth like a whimper.

“You would?”

“Yes,” I breathe.

It’s like the world of the garage has fallen away and there’s only Rand and I locked in this fantasy of being rained on, arms entwined in knots as our bodies writhe and slip over each other.

Where did this come from? This sudden insta-attraction for my father’s mechanic? I have no clue but it’s overwhelmed me like a flash virus and I have no control over it even if I wanted to.

“You know, I worked especially hard on that car,” he says, putting emphasis on the ‘especially’. Like he’s saying he did that for me. “If there’s something not right with it, I won’t send your father the bill.”

“Oh no, it’s not that. I’m sure it’s fine. Bill away.”

He grins up at me from between my thighs, I mean in front of them, oh god….

I don’t think it’s that he’s relieved about the money either. I think money’s the last thing in his mind at the moment.

“I -” I have no clue what to say, nervousness is making me babble. Anyway my lips are quivering too much to speak.

“Yes?” Rand says, waiting like I’m about to spout the most interesting statement.

“I just wanted to thank you,” I stutter out. “For sticking up for me earlier.”

“That’s okay,” Rand shrugs and just like that, he rolls away from me.

The heat surrounding me drops away in an instant and I’m left, half panting, up against my father’s car. Feeling as though I’ve been thoroughly taken without a single finger being laid on me.

What happened? He’s switched off just like that, all business. He powers his thighs to rise without needing any help from those huge dirty hands, then walks over to his tool bench.

“I’m not going to stand by while a man gets rough with a woman, even if he is her boyfriend,” he grunts.

His back is facing me so I can’t see his expression but I can hear the thick tension in his voice gritting out through the words.

“Boone’s not my boyfriend,” I blurt out.

I don’t want Rand to think I’m with Boone. Or anyone else. I need to know whether he wants to be with me.

“He sure looked like he felt possessive over you,” Rand snaps, not turning around.

I walk across the garage and stand beside him. I barely reach his shoulder, he’s so tall and wide. And the heat emanating from him is there again, making it hard to inhale, or stand up without my knees giving way like melting ice poles.

“No one takes possession of me unless I want them to,” I say, turning my eyes up to Rand so he can be in no doubt about my meaning this time.

I need him. I need to know – does he feel the same?