Chapter Eleven
I crawled into bed after my shower and pulled the blankets around my body. Asher had knocked on the door and rang the bell after I took off but I’d turned all the lights out and ignored him.
Did he not realize how humiliating that was for me?
Like I wasn’t already insecure enough about all the women he had been with. Now I had to feel ashamed about the fact that I was a virgin, too? Your first time was a big enough thing in itself, the last thing I needed was Asher adding more insult to injury.
I tossed and turn, growing more and more frustrated.
All I wanted to do was fall asleep but it was no use.
All I could think about was Asher.
The way he tasted, the way he felt, and the way he had looked at me while he touched me all over the place. The thought of his perfect stomach and huge arms around my body sent shocks up and down my entire body and it wasn’t long before it was starting to affect the place between my legs.
I pushed myself together tight, pulling the covers even closer to my body. I wasn’t going to give into temptation; I wasn’t going to touch myself while I thought about the man who had just turned me down less than an hour before. There was no way.
But no matter how many times I reassured myself, somehow my fingers kept finding themselves lower and lower on my body until they were under my blanket and in-between my legs.
My eyes snapped shut and Asher’s perfect body popped into my head.
Next came his smile and brooding eyes… and his arms. The way he held me made me feel safer than I had with anyone else in my entire life. And they also made me feel like I could be taken to places I’d never been in my entire life. Deep and sexy places… places of desire people didn’t even know existed.
I moved my fingers rapidly over my center; hungry for the feeling he had given me. Desperate for one more taste of him, even if it was just for a second. I wanted to be taken back to the barn… back to when I could admit how bad I wanted him without it hurting me.
I thrust my body over and over into my fingers, squeezing my eyes tight as I imagined every curve of his body until I finally came all over my fingers. My body sat in a heap of pleasure, struggling to get my breath back down to reality.
I pushed the sheets away from my body and breathed heavily.
Only then, did I finally fall asleep.
***
The guy behind the desk at Al’s Auto repair looked me up and down with a confused look on his face. “So… you don’t have a car you need us to take a look at?” He pulled on the belt of his jeans, tightening them around his overgrown stomach while he ran his tongue over his too yellow teeth.
I sighed, frustrated. “No, no, I don’t. Like I said before… I’m looking for a car that might have been brought in here three nights ago… or maybe early the next morning… it would have been pretty beat up from an accident.”
The guy looked down at the computer in front of him. “What’s the name?”
“I don’t… I don’t know the name exactly.”
“Okay,” the guy looked skeptical. “What’s the make and model?”
“I don’t know that either. If I could just…”
“You don’t know what kind of car you’re looking for or the name?”
“If I could just take a look around back there, maybe see what’s been brought in recently, I know I would recognize it if I saw it.” I took a deep breath. “Please, I… I’m trying to help my dad out, he’s been in an accident and he really needs to find out what happened to his car.”
Okay, so it wasn’t the total truth, but it wasn’t a total lie either. My dad did need to know what happened to the car, even if it wasn’t exactly his. This guy didn’t need to know the specifics.
“I’ll be in and out, I swear,” I pleaded.
The guy glanced out the side glass window where a bunch of his buddies stood in a circle, smoking and talking loudly with one another. “Okay, you can sneak in through the side door over there… but if you get caught, I didn’t see you and I don’t know you… got it?”
“Thank you!” I reached out and tapped the top of his hand. “Really.”
He waved me off. “Make it quick, if my boss catches you it’ll be the last thing you ever do.” He picked up the phone and hit the answer button, taking one of the four calls he’d put on hold since I walked in five minutes earlier.
I didn’t need to be told twice, I moved past him fast, ducking down when I passed the window just in case any of the other guys happened to be looking, and opened the side door a crack, squeezing through and hurrying down the hallway until I was in a cold garage filled with cars.
Not just a few cars, either, twenty or thirty of them. Rows and rows of cars lined the walls, waiting to be worked on. Some had covers on them and some didn’t, some were raised off the ground and some were settled on the ground.
This was going to be harder than I thought.
I got to work, starting with the cars that weren’t covered so I could eliminate them from the possible cars that crashed into my father. All of them were different sizes and colors but none of them had the kind of damage it would have taken to crash into the truck that was the size of my dad’s and totally wreck the car. If it was here, it had to be under one of the tarps.
I hurried toward the front of the garage again; desperate to start looking under the tents that hid the cars I hadn’t gotten to yet. I didn’t know how long I'd been back there but I could assume time was adding up faster than I realized. Sure enough, just as I was about to pull back the first piece of coverage a large hand yanked on my wrist, pulling me backward.
“What are you doing back here?” The guy standing in front of me looked furious, his eyes blazing red. “How did you get back here? You shouldn’t be back here!”
I pulled my arm away from him. “Oh, I’m sorry… I must have got turned around, I was looking for the bathroom.” I planted my best damsel in distress look on my face and looked up at him helplessly.
He wasn’t buying it.
“Uh huh, you can tell it to the sheriff, missy.”
“The sheriff?” I asked, taking a step away from him. “Is that really necessary? I mean… I just got turned around for a second.” The more distance I tried to put between us the less success I had.
“Now you listen here,” he snapped. “Someone’s been sneaking around here for months stealing scrap metal to bring to the old yard across town for an extra profit and I think you look just like the type of girl the boss would like to have a word with about something like that.” He put his arm on the back of my shoulder and started to push me toward the front of the garage again.
I pushed his arm off me. “Don’t touch me!”
“Oh,” the guy said, grinning. “We got one with a smart mouth, huh?” He grabbed me again, harder. “You can do all the talking you want in the back of a cop car, missy.”
“Honey, there you are!”
I turned around, startled to find Asher walking toward me with an easy smile on his face. He was wearing dark jeans with a button up navy blue sweater; dark tan boots lined his feet.
He untangled me quickly and pulled me toward him protectively, pushing me into his chest and tucking his hand around my waist. “I was starting to get worried about you.” He leaned down and kissed me hard, holding my head in place as he ran his tongue over my lower lip a single time.
Not that I would have pulled away.
Asher backed away, his eyes lingering on mine a second longer. “Sorry about that, Tony, I just can’t seem to keep track of this one.” He patted me on the back of the head, nuzzling me like I was a lost puppy he needed to keep track of.
I tried to not roll my eyes.
Tony looked back and forth between the two of us. “You know this girl, Asher?” He let his eyes linger on me, seeming unsure. “She doesn’t seem like your usual type.”
“Hey!” I said, not sure if I should be offended or not.
“She’s with me,” Asher said, moving me away from Tony. “I just came to see what you guys have for me today and when I came back into the waiting room, this little darling was nowhere to be found.”
“I was looking for the bathroom,” I said sweetly. “Sorry, baby.”
Acting like I was Asher’s girlfriend wasn’t a hard task considering my legs were pure jelly at just the touch of him. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, even for a second, being in this arms like that felt right.
Tony rolled his eyes and huffed out his chest. “How many times do I have to tell you to keep your little girlfriends out of the garage, Asher?” He looked at me like I was a piece of meat. “This is no place for a woman.”
I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind but Asher cut me off, moving me toward the back door of the garage. “I know, I know, it won’t happen again, Tony.”
Asher pushed the door open and slapped me on the ass as I passed through.
I punched him in the arm when the door slammed shut and pushed him, though it barely made him budge. “Such a jerk.” I kicked a spare bottle of beer that was on the ground and sent it flying into the side of the building. “Damn it!”
“Is that any way to thank the person who just saved your fine ass?” He raised his eyebrows and looked me up and down, letting his eyes linger over my butt as he licked his lips.
“Oh, shut up.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I was doing just fine.”
“Yeah, you looked real fine,” he agreed jokingly.
“I was this close,” I mumbled, shaking my head back and forth and running my hand through my hair. “There was something in that garage, something was wrong… I could, I could feel it.”
Asher stuck his hands into his pockets. “You’ve clearly never broken in somewhere you aren’t supposed to be before, most of the time you don’t do it in the middle of the day when everyone is there and anyone can see you.”
I brought myself out of my own thoughts and remembered where I was and who I was talking to. “Forget it.” I moved past him and started to walk toward the front of the warehouse. “It’s really none of your business.”
“Oh, really? So you aren’t here looking for the car that hit your dad?”
I swung around. “Jesus, what have you been doing? Following me?”
“If that’s what it takes,” he told me matter-of-factly. “Are you going to keep running away from everything that gets a little messy your whole fucking life, Bella?”
“When the hell did I run away, Asher?”
“You aren’t right now!” he spat out, gesturing to the open space between us with his hands. “Just like you did five years ago and just like you did last night!” He pointed at me. “The second things get a little tough you run screaming for the hills, like everything worth having is supposed to be this easy thing. News flash Bella; easy isn’t real!”
My veins felt like they were about to burst through my skin I was so upset. “Oh, last night… you mean when I threw myself at you, AGAIN? And when you pulled back from me and shut me down, AGAIN? Excuse me if I didn’t feel like reliving history with you, Asher.”
“No, I mean last night when you freaked out because I didn’t want to take your virginity on the floor of some fucking barn with your pants halfway between your ankles!”
I gasped, opening my mouth but no words came out.
Asher blew out a cloud of air and ran his fingers over his temples. When he opened his eyes again, he looked calmer, more determined. “It had nothing to do with it being your first time, okay?” He moved closer to me and ran his finger up and down my check. “Are you joking? Do you even know how fucking sexy that is?”
I flushed and tried to keep my feet on the ground. Why couldn’t I be around him for two seconds without turning into a middle schoolgirl? “Are you always going to have this effect on me?” I whispered out loud.
“Probably.” He didn’t pretend to be confused about what I meant. “I hope.”
I bit down on my lip and buried my head into his chest.
I could feel his breath on my neck, filled with mint and a hint of whiskey. “I want to be the first person inside of you, Bella, trust me. Just not like that, not for the first time.” He pulled my head back and made me look up at him. “I want to be the only thing inside of you.”
I cleared my throat from a lack of words. What could I say to that? Everything that popped into my mind sounded absolutely ridiculous. I backed away from him and turned my back to him, taking in the view of trees that lined the scenery in the back of the garage.
Asher didn’t speak for a few minutes but I could feel his presence, not rushing me to say anything or do anything before I was ready. Just having him near me felt right, it always had.
“I thought if I could find the car then I could find out who hit my dad… I just… I want him to have something good to wake up to. Not just with the barn but with justice, too. Whoever did this…” I trailed off and inhaled deeply, letting the rest of my sentence get lost in the trees laid out before us.
“Deserves to pay,” Asher finished for me, anger laced his tone.
I turned around. “Yeah, they do.”
Asher nodded. “Well then, you’re going to need my help because you have no idea what you’re doing,” he pointed out. “I mean; the old I couldn’t find the bathroom line?”
I laughed loudly. “That was pretty lame, wasn’t it?”
“Just a little.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and started to back away from me. “Tonight, midnight, the dirt road at the end of Main, you remember it, right?” The wind blew his dark hair in ten different directions as he moved.
“You’re going to help me?”
“Of course, I’m going to help you.” Asher stopped mid-walk. “Just one thing, Bella… no more Josh Parker.” Anger clouded his face for a split second as he met my eyes. “Period.”
What was it with this guy? Why did Asher hate him so much? I wanted to push him on it, find out what had happened between the two of them, but I knew now wasn’t the time or place for that conversation.
“That won’t be a problem.”