I was laser focused through my work day at Tire Depot because all I could think about was finishing here and going straight to Mercedes’s house when I was done. Or Kate, I should say. I need to talk to her. I need to make sure that what we had was real. I also need to tell her that I don’t want casual anymore either. I want her. Only her.
I’m done with this half-ass attempt at making up for my twenties that I missed. I just want her. She’s right, I can’t compare her drama to Jocelyn’s drama. I’ve been fighting my feelings for Kate for all the wrong reasons, and I’m done with that shit now.
I sling a tire up onto a stack of eight that are set to go on a semi tomorrow morning when I hear a voice behind me. “I’m wondering if you can help me with some more book research. It has to do with a happy ending.”
I turn and see Kate standing by the stairs about twenty feet away from me. Red hair stacked up in a ball on top of her head. Curly tendrils slipping out all around her face. She’s wearing a T-shirt that’s tied in a knot off to the side, revealing a strip of flesh right above her Daisy Dukes. She looks dirty and sweaty and exhausted.
She looks perfect.
With a soft smile, I grab the bottom of my white tank top that’s covered in black from tire rubber and swipe at the sweat running down my forehead. “What are you doing here?” I ask, licking my lips and trying to stop my blood pressure from spiraling out of control.
She moves something metal back and forth in her hand that I can’t see from this far away as she says, “Did you pay off Sam’s uncle for me to write inside the comfort center?”
My face falls, my brows furrowing when I realize she must have spoken to Sam. “Not in money but in labor, so yeah, I guess so.” I look around at the sea of tires surrounding me in answer.
She nods and chews on her lower lip as she walks closer to me. “Do you know what this is?”
I frown down at the hunk of metal in her hands. “That looks like a carburetor.”
“Do you know for what kind of vehicle?” she asks, her blue eyes pinning mine in place.
I shake my head and shrug. “I can’t tell from here.”
She pauses and sets it down on a cart next to the clipboard of tire orders that I check off as I stack. “It’s for a 1965 Ford F100.”
My jaw falls open.
“That’s the one you have at home, right?” she asks, blinking her wide eyes at me.
I nod.
She smiles.
“Where did you get it?” I husk, my voice raw with shock and disbelief.
“It’s kind of a long, crazy story.” I see her throat swallow slowly. “But I’m hoping it has a great ending.”
My stunned expression morphs into wonder. “What kind of ending?” I ask, wiping my hands off on my jeans as she stops ten feet in front of me now. I can see the brilliant blue of her eyes and the light sheen of sweat all over her body.
She’s stunning.
She exhales heavily through her nose, a flush crawling up her cheeks as she replies, “The kind where you let me apologize for lying to you.” She hits me with a serious look and says, “I’m Kate Smith from Longmont, Colorado, whose ex technically still lived with her until two weeks ago when she moved in with her best friend, Lynsey. I’m not some brave erotic romance author who’s into kink and cool with casual and uses a mechanic for ‘book research.’ I’m a girl who’s been falling for a guy who works at Tire Depot and would really like to go home with him and just take a frickin’ shower.”
She exhales heavily, clearly out of breath from her long-winded confession.
I’m out of breath too.
Because suddenly, with one intense look, I’m transported back to that night when there was a storm overhead and I crashed into her like I was the thunder to her lightning. Everything around us disappeared.
Now in a sea of tires, all I see is her.
In a flash, I’m striding toward Kate, and she’s striding toward me. We connect, and within a single breath, she’s up in my arms, both of us covered in sweat and dirt, my left arm circling her waist, my right hand splayed wide on her back, holding her flush to me as her legs wrap and tighten around my hips.
She feels good and light in my arms. Warm and soft. The heat of a woman fucking made for me. At first, I press my forehead to hers and breathe in the smell of her. Amongst all the shop smells, nothing beats this girl’s scent. I press my lips to her damp forehead, then her temple, then the curve of her earlobe. I trail my lips along her jaw and sample the corner of her mouth with mine.
She lets out a soft moan, which parts her lips to me, and I take that as an invitation to feast as I connect our lips straight on. My demanding tongue thrusts in to meet her eager one, our flesh dancing against each other with desire. With apology. With two weeks’ worth of anxiety, stress, and confusion.
She sifts her fingers through my short hair, humming her appreciation into my mouth and squeezing me into her center so tight, I pulse inside my jeans with need.
I pull back to look at her. “Were you serious about that shower?”
Her mouth tips up with a breathy laugh. “God, yes.”
“Good, because I’m disgusting, and all I want to do is bury myself inside you right now.”
She laughs and releases her legs around my hips, sliding down to the ground. I grab her hand with mine, hauling her behind me as I approach the carburetor she placed on the cart.
“I can’t believe you did this,” I state incredulously, picking up the rare part in my hand. “This had to cost a fortune.”
She lifts her shoulders. “I needed you to know that everything we experienced together wasn’t fiction. The important stuff mattered to me. A lot.”
My eyes soften with emotion as I take in the sincerity on her face. I should have never doubted her. I should have never put her in the same category as anyone else. Kate Smith is in a league all her own.
I crook my finger under her chin and brush her lips with mine. It’s not a sexy reclaiming like I want the minute we get to my place. It’s a tender thank you.
“You’re amazing,” I murmur against her lips.
She smiles softly. “So are you.”
I slide my hand into hers as we make our way down the stairs to my shop station where I grab my helmet and the keys to my bike.
“Where’s your car?” I ask, as we step out into the back alley where my bike is parked.
“It’s staying here overnight. It needs a service, and I got a flat.”
My eyes pin her with a curious look.
She brushes me off. “I’ll tell you about it later. Now, I really want to climb on the back of your bike.”
With a smirk, I pass my helmet to her and help her aboard. With a thunderous start, my bike roars to life, and I pull out of the parking lot, out of Boulder, and head to the little place I call home.
Our lips are locked on each other’s all the way up my garage steps, all the way through my living room, my kitchen, down the hall, and into my bedroom. We break our kiss briefly to ditch our shirts. We resume said kissing as my hands reach behind Kate’s back and unclasp her bra. In one swift motion, her breasts are bare, and I’m crushing her to my chest. Lifting her feet off the ground so I can reconnect our lips and feel her bare skin against mine.
She fumbles with the button on my jeans, so I set her down to help rid her of her shorts and panties. Turning to get the showerheads started, I kiss her for a minute longer, then pull away to guide her into the shower with me. Placing her under her own spray and myself under mine, I stare down at her as the hot water pours over her face and down her body.
She tips her head back, her red hair slicking to her head. She drops her chin and her blue eyes are bright and rapidly blinking against the water as she looks at me looking at her.
I step into her spray and run my hands along her collarbone and shoulders. “I fucking missed you, Kate.” My hands slide lower to run over the swells of her bare breasts, cupping them to test the weight of them. “It’s weird to call you Kate.”
Her breath quickens as I pinch her pink nipples between my thumb and index finger. “You can call me Mercedes if you want,” she says with a soft moan.
I shake my head slowly, gliding my hands down her ribs, over her lower belly and teasing the slit at her mound. “I like Kate. It suits you.”
She bites her lip as I increase the pressure and then croaks out, “You don’t think it’s boring?”
I shake my head and wait for her to open her eyes to look at me before replying, “No, I think it’s sexy. And shower sex with Kate is just what I want.”
She squeals in surprise when I haul her up against me and press her back against the cool tile wall. Her legs wrap around me as I position myself between her thighs.
I find where I need to be, and with one strong thrust, I push into her, hard and bare, my head pressing down on her shoulder as I stretch her.
She cries out, her voice echoing off the walls. “Oh God, Miles!”
My fingers bite into her ass as I pull back and thrust in again. “Kate.”
“Miles!” she screams again.
I grind up into her deeper and growl, “Kate,” one more time. It’s a claiming. An ownership of her name in my mouth. And it feels right. “Kate,” I state again huskily, licking a trail up her neck to her ear. “Kate, this isn’t casual.”
“No?” she cries out in question against another hard thrust.
“No,” I confirm with a growl. “This isn’t fiction, and I don’t want to be casual anymore. I want you to be mine.”
“Okay!” she cries, her hands tightening around my neck as she scrunches her eyes shut and tries to find release against the tightness between her legs.
I pull back to look at her. “Babe, open your eyes and look at me.”
She rolls her head against the wall and finally flutters her lids up, but she doesn’t look happy about it. “Yes, Miles,” she says, stroking her hands down my cheeks like she’s trying to appease me.
“I’m serious. I want to be your man. And I want you to be my woman.”
The smile on her face is stunning, and the giggle that rolls through her body does seriously awesome things to my dick. “You want to be my boyfriend?”
“Yes,” I reply with a frown at her choice of word. “But none of that book boyfriend bullshit. I’m as real as they come, and I’ll put all your fictional studs to shame, you got that?”
She bites her lip and runs her fingertips down my face. “You already have.”
“Good,” I reply, grinding my hips up into her further. “So we’re in agreement?”
“Totally,” she moans out loudly, making weird, uncontrollable noises in her throat.
But she grows more and more silent as I slam into her again and again until we’re both floating somewhere up in the hot shower steam clinging to the ceiling and at last falling down like rain.
Together, as one.