Chapter Fourteen – Jamie

 

We both sat on my front doorstep, illuminated by the hallway light thanks to the front door being open. I’d discarded my shoes in the car after we’d bought pizza, and Dex had undone his shirt another button and untucked it.

With the pizza between us, we ate in silence. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I’d been all kinds of tipsy before we’d gone outside and he’d tucked my hair behind my ear.

All night.

It’d taken him all night to realize that was what was different about me. Did that mean he’d been looking at me all night to figure it out? Or had he had a lightbulb ping over the top of his head?

Why did it matter? Why did I care?

Oh, because it’d felt damn good when he’d tucked it behind my ear. When he’d forced me to take it off my face, to stop hiding. When he’d run his fingers right through my hair to the tips as he’d looked at me and…

I shoved some of the stuffed crust into my mouth.

I’d known this was a bad idea, and this was why. I knew I’d see him as something more—or that alcohol would do that.

Him touching me had sobered me up in seconds. Pizza had been the best way to disguise that fact.

“So. Your family is crazy.”

Dex peered over at me, licking his fingers. “That’s one word to describe them.”

“No, seriously. I thought my family was insane, and then I met yours.”

“Your family sounds perfectly normal as far as I know. Your best friend…” He put out his hand and waved it side to side. “She’s a little sketchy.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

“Well, I mean,” I paused, putting a bit of stringy cheese into my mouth before swallowing it and continuing. “My parents broke up when I was eight, then my dad remarried, then divorced her last year. My parents got married the week after.”

Dex choked on his pizza. “Wait, what?”

“My parents broke up. Then my dad got married again, except she was golddigging whore with one hell of a shovel in her ass pocket.” I uncapped my bottle of water and sipped, motioning for him to give me a minute. “Long story short, she spent money we didn’t have, and that’s why my dad had to sell the garage. He divorced her, but it wasn’t enough. My parents stayed really good friends, and I guess they fell back in love again.”

“Wow. That is crazy.” Dex put his half-eaten slice back in the box and licked his fingers again, this time wiping them on his jeans.

I did the same on my clutch.

Hey—a little cheese grease was nothing compared to what we dealt with every day.

“Are you done?” he asked, motioning to the box.

I nodded, cradling my water bottle.

He moved it the box away to the side and rested his elbows on his knees, leaning right forward. “Well, thank you. Tonight was fun. More than I thought it would be.”

I propped my elbow on my knee and rested my cheek on my hand. “Me, too. Thank you.”

He stood up and held his hands out. I put mine in his, and he wrapped his strong, rough fingers around mine and pulled me up. I staggered a little, but steadied myself with a giggle.

“Thanks. So, I’ll see you on Monday?” I tugged my hands, but he tightened his grip on them.

“Monday. Bright and early. It’s a busy day.”

“Perfect.”

We shared a smile, and I finally managed to get my hands out of his grip.

He half-turned, then stopped. “Jamie?”

With my fingers through the straps of my shoes, I straightened. “Yeah?”

Dex took a step toward me. “I have something I forgot to tell you.”

“Oh?” I looked up with interest. “What’s that?”

For the second time tonight, he reached up and tucked my hair behind my ear. I drew in a deep breath, my face tilting into his touch.

“You looked beautiful tonight.”

I smiled, laughing softly. “You didn’t look too bad yourself. Shit—did I say that out loud?”

Laughing much louder than I had, Dex dropped his hand and stepped back. “You sure did, darlin’.” He grabbed the pizza box and backed toward his truck. “Good thing you did. If you hadn’t, I’d be kissing you right now.”

My lips parted.

His words had sucked the air out of me, and I didn’t move, except to breathe, as he got in his truck with a cocky grin. He dumped the pizza on the passenger side seat.

With that grin still in place, he started the engine and reversed down my driveway.

I saw the shadow of that grin—and heard the echo of his words—long after his headlamps had disappeared from my view.

 

***

 

I was early.

Only half an hour early, but early all the same. I hadn’t even checked my clock when I’d left. I just wanted to get here. Beat Dex to it. Put my head in the right place.

The whiskey had won yesterday morning. I might have been sober by the time I went to sleep, but I’d forgotten to drink water, and I deserved every second of the headache that had plagued me for the entire day.

It’d also done some addling to my thoughts in that I hadn’t been able to think about what he’d said. Honestly, I didn’t want to. I could take the flippant, off-the-cuff remarks about looking at me, but straight up saying he wanted to kiss me?

Well, hello, inner teenage self. I missed you.

I leaned forward and rested my head on the steering wheel.

I wish he’d just damn well done it. If I was going to overthink this, I may as well have had something tangible to overthink.

Because, yet again, I wished he’d done it. Wished he’d taken the moment and kissed me.

Three times he’d tucked my hair behind my ear.

Twice he’d almost kissed me.

Once, just once, I wanted him to do it.

To get it over with so I’d stop wondering. To get it out of his system if he had to. To kill the elephant that I now knew would be sitting in the corner of the garage until it happened—if it happened.

To kill the tension that would undoubtedly be there, no matter what we did or said.

Knock. Knock.

I screamed, sitting back upright and hitting the back of my head on the headrest.

Outside my car, Dex roared with laughter.

I set my jaw and got out. “What the hell? That wasn’t funny!”

He leaned back against his truck, clutching his stomach. “Maybe not for you. Were you sleeping?”

“No. I was thinking I’m early and there’s no coffee. Now I’m thinking I already want to kill you!” I smacked his arm.

He grabbed my wrist, his lips curving into a half-grin. His shining eyes met mine. “Good morning to you, too.”

I snatched my wrist from him. “God, I hate you.”

“I know. I get a thrill every time you tell me.” He pulled the keys out of his pocket with another laugh. “Come on. If you haven’t had coffee, I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

I pulled my purse out of my car and locked it. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I know the answer to that, and it’s silence. I’ve already had that conversation with my still-hungover sister today.”

“Oh no.” I followed him into the staff area. “That bad, huh?”

“Well, I’d just gotten home when my mom called and said I needed to rescue Roxy. Greta was plying her with shots, and she was so drunk she thought the vodka was water.”

I put down my purse. “How do you even mix that up?”

“I think you get so drunk you pass out, but not so drunk you choke on your own vomit.” He shrugged and turned on the coffee machine. “It’s a miracle she didn’t vomit at all, actually.”

I winced when he set a cup going and turned around. “That sounds…fun?”

“No. I should have ignored the call and pretended to be asleep.”

“There he is. There’s the asshole who went missing the entire evening on Saturday.”

He grinned, eyes dancing with silent laughter. “I told you, I was behaving. Now, all bets are off.”

That sounded like he wasn’t just talking about being an asshole.

Ahem.

“Well, at least you stuck to the ground rules,” I said. “Just.”

He folded his arms, gaze locked onto mine. “Are they still in place?”

“Always. Not that you care.”

Another grin. “That sounded like permission to break them.”

My lips parted. “It was nothing like that!”

He poured cream into the cup and stirred. “Calm down, shrilly pants. I’m fucking with you.”

“I will pour that coffee over your head, Dexter Ryne.”

“It’s kinda hot when you full-name me like that.”

I took a deep breath in. One. Two. Three…

“Here.” He held out the coffee. “I made you a bitch pill.”

I glared at him without taking the mug.

His shoulders trembled as he held in a laugh. “Oh, I’m sorry, my tongue slipped. I meant a coffee.”

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five…”

He laughed as I counted under my breath.

“Take it. Come on. It’s the last of it and I have to go and get more before I do something stupid.” He pushed it closer to me.

I took it. “Thank you. And you assume you haven’t already done something stupid.”

His gaze dropped to my lips and lingered there for a moment before he raised his eyes back up to meet mine. “Not the kind of stupid I’m talking about.”

Once again, he left me speechless and staring after him as he left.

Fucking hell.

 

***

 

Wide berth.

Give Dex a wide berth.

That was my plan for today. Don’t speak unless necessary, and absolutely do not brush hands in the toolbox again.

Hormonal Jamie had taken over, and Smart Jamie was struggling to take back control from the little hussy.

I wiped the dip stick from the oil and put it back in to check the level. It didn’t need much, but since I was here, I’d do it anyway. I grabbed the oil, filled, and rechecked the level.

Dex was still working on the car that had driven over scaffolding planks, which meant I was doing service after M.O.T after service. Not that I minded—it kept me busy, which meant there was less time to bitch with him.

The silence was quite nice, actually.

I ran through the rest of things under the hood for the service, changing where necessary, topping up and tightening various things. It was no more than routine. I leaned right over to the back where the engine coolant was. It was on the minimum level, so I bent down to grab it from the floor so I could fill it.

When I was done, I screwed the cap on both the bottle and the tank.

And paused.

Someone was staring at me.

And there was only one other person in this garage.

I put down the coolant bottle and cleared my throat, then slowly turned my head to look over my shoulder.

Dex stood in the doorway, his tank messed with oil and grime, his hair a sticking-up mess, and his light jeans ripped and dirty. His hands were that awkward stage between “I just washed them” and “This won’t come off”, something that was only exaggerated by the water bottle he held.

And his gaze was firmly on me.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

He blinked and met my eyes.

“What the hell are you doing over there?” I pushed to stand up straight.

“Right now?” He capped his water bottle. “Well, honestly… I’m just thinking you’d look better over the hood of that car than under it.”

I unhooked the hood and slammed it down, spinning on the balls of my feet.

Our eyes met properly. I didn’t like what I saw in his—desire, attraction, need. Which was obviously why a shiver ran down my spine.

I cocked a hip, putting my hand on it. “The only time you will ever get me over a hood of a car is if a wiper blade needs changing. So, unless you’re a wiper blade...”

Dex pulled his phone from his pocket and started tapping the screen.

I blinked. “What are you doing?”

He peered up at me through his unfairly thick eyelashes. “Seeing if I can get a wiper blade costume for Halloween.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“You can buy wiper blade glasses.”

“What?”

He raised his eyebrows. “And a lady here on eBay will hand-make any costume. There’s my Halloween sorted.”

I stared at him. “You’re not getting me over anything, Dex. Definitely not a car hood. No matter what you think.”

He clutched his chest dramatically. “You wound me.”

“Unfortunately not fatally,” I muttered.

“You also underestimate me.”

“There’s a lot of that going around in this garage.” I put the bottle of coolant away.

“Touché.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I ask you something?”

I sighed and turned to face him again. “What?”

Earnestly, he asked, “Can you stop wearing those tiny shorts? Or yoga pants that make me want to touch your ass every five minutes?”

I looked down at the ripped shorts of my dungarees. “Can you keep your thoughts to yourself? Control yourself, maybe? Not look at me and see someone worth screwing?”

He licked his lips. “I don’t understand the question.”

“Oh my God. You’re like Jekyll and Hyde, aren’t you?” I grabbed a clean town from the shelf and wiped my hands. “I swear, you’re two different people. Inside this garage, you’re a raging fucking asshole. Outside of it? You’re actually a nice person who isn’t torturous to spend time with.”

“Interesting. I feel the same way about you. Except wanting to kiss you. That doesn’t seem to change no matter where we are.”

“Yeah, well, you should have done that on Saturday when I actually wanted you to, because now the moment’s gone.”

I froze, halfway through wiping my hands.

Did I just say that?

Aw, shit, I did.

Was there a chance he didn’t hear me?

Judging by the way his bright eyes were hot on me, the answer to that was no.

“Never mind,” I said quickly. “Slip of the tongue. I didn’t mean to say that. Oh look, it’s time for lunch.”

I threw the towel to the side and ran past him into the staff room. I grabbed my purse and ran back out, feeling his eyes on me the entire time.

How could I have said that? How could I not have thought that through?

Jesus, the last thing I needed was for him to know I’d wanted him to kiss me. Now, he’d know I’d thought about it. Now, he knew I was attracted to him.

This was a hot mess.

I put my purse on top of my car so I could fumble for my keys. Adrenaline trickled through my veins and my hands shook as I tried to find them.

Finally, my fingers curled around the cold, metal ring full of keys and keyrings.

I was yanked away from my car.

A tiny scream escaped me.

Rough hands framed my face, and all I saw before I was pushed against Dex’s truck was a flash of his bright blue eyes.

Before I could ask what he was doing, he kissed me.

His lips were soft, but his kiss was not. Rough and needy, he pinned me to the truck with his solid body as he moved his lips across mine.

A bolt of pure desire shot through me, and my keys fell to the ground. His grip on me was so tight, his body so hard, and Jesus, it felt good.

I’d all but asked for this.

His fingers teased my hair as his tongue teased the seam of my lips. I wound my fingers in the sides of his shirt and gave in. It was a battle I’d lose anyway—one I didn’t want to win. Goosebumps were prickling across my skin as our kiss deepened.

This was a mistake, one we’d both regret the second it was over. It was fueled by angry desire and pent-up frustration toward the other. It wasn’t romantic or swoony. It was raw, but it felt so damn good I didn’t even care.

It felt so damn good, I wanted more.

Dex pulled away first. When his eyes found mine, I saw the battle.

He wanted more, too.

I could feel that he wanted more, thanks to the fact his cock was pressing against my stomach.

I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t. My lips felt so swollen, like it’d lasted a lot longer than it had.

He pulled his hands away from my face and stepped back, pinching his lower lip. Bending down, he picked up my keys and handed them to me. “Since you’re going out…Would you grab me lunch, too?”

I nodded, swallowing.

“Does that taco place do take-out?”

Again, I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

“I’ll pay you back when you get back.”

This time, I got in my car. I didn’t care about that. I recognized the request for what it was, and I appreciated it.

Apart.

We needed to get away from each other, and we needed to do it now.

I started the engine and tore away from the garage before he’d even made it back inside.