Chapter 13
Coffee. I need coffee.
Megan shuffled her way to the kitchen, making a beeline for the pantry. Squinting against the bright light streaming in from the living room windows, she pulled the foil bag of ground coffee off the shelf.
The temptation to squeeze a bag of ground coffee beans was always too much for Megan to resist. Holding it in both hands, she slowly sunk her thumb and fingertips into the pliable package. It was so weird. Why did squeezing coffee grounds feel so good?
A smile spread across her face. She wondered if this was what it’d felt like for James when he’d squeezed his hands around her hips as she’d arched in front of him against the hood of a car.
Last night had been… God, was there even a way to describe it? Not adequately, that was for sure.
The sex itself had been incredible. The feelings and sensations had been beyond words. And afterwards, when she’d expected a huge crashing wave of regret, it never came.
James hadn’t said much on their way home. And neither had she. Although the silence hadn’t been exactly comfortable, it hadn’t been tense either. He’d walked her inside her apartment building. As they’d waited for the elevator, he’d tipped her chin and kissed her. She’d felt that slow, gentle kiss all the way to her toes. And after she’d stepped inside the elevator and wished him a good night, he’d smiled at her just before the doors slid shut.
She only wished she felt as good this morning.
Her eyelids were swollen, and her head wanted to roll around on top of her shoulders like a tetherball. Her body was stiff in so many weird places, and it felt as if she’d just gone to bed an hour ago.
Not that she was complaining or anything.
Bending over with some effort, she opened the lower cabinet and paused when she noticed the coffeemaker wasn’t there.
“Morning, sunshine,” an amused voice rang from behind her.
Megan jerked her head to see Calli smiling over at her from where she sat at the kitchen island. She was clad in a tiny black tank top, her bedridden hair stuck out in every direction. A half-eaten scone was scattered on her plate, and her hands were wrapped around a big red mug of steaming goodness.
“Coffee’s already made,” Calli announced.
Megan turned back to the counter. Directly in front of where she stood was a pot of freshly brewed coffee.
“Oh, right.”
She pulled a mug down and filled her cup. Shuffling over to an empty seat at the counter, she hefted herself up onto the high stool.
She rocked back and forth to get comfortable, feeling the sting from her tailbone and the ache in her lower abdomen. Taking a sip of coffee, she closed her eyes and let her shoulders relax.
Oh, the bliss of a first sip of coffee and the delicious morning-after soreness of being thoroughly ravished. Coffee she’d had a million times. Being ravished? That had been a first.
“You’re up late today,” Calli said, interrupting Megan’s moment of quiet recollection. “You’re usually showered, dressed, and halfway done with all your grading by now.”
Megan looked at the clock on the wall and was surprised to see it was half past eleven. “I guess I did sleep in.”
She spent most Saturday mornings finishing up schoolwork, and then in the afternoons she curled up with a good book. It looked like her pleasure reading was going to have to wait until tonight. She had a stack of projects and quizzes to grade that would take her at least four hours.
“How was your night?” Calli asked.
Megan smiled into her cup of black coffee. Not knowing how else to describe her evening, she settled for simply, “Amazing.”
“Yeah?” Calli smiled. “Do tell.”
“Remember I told you I had an incident a week ago at school with a student and his mother?”
“Yeah. The one who showed up high and was arrested in the lobby.”
“Right,” Megan answered. “Well, the father of that student is the guy who owns the auto garage I take my car to. It started making weird noises on my way home last night, so I drove it directly to his shop. James offered to drive me home, and we ended up grabbing some pizza and beer.”
“Ah-ha. Did Mr. Mechanic put the moves on you?”
“Not at first. But I had the most amazing time. It was so easy to talk to him. We talked and talked and he actually listened!”
Finding a man who listened to what she had to say was like discovering Bigfoot. She’d heard rumors they existed, but she’d never seen one before.
“So what does he look like?” Calli asked, her eyes bright with anticipation.
“Tall, dark hair, and the most gorgeous chocolate-brown eyes you’ve ever seen,” Megan said with a sigh.
“Beard?”
Megan pursed her lips in thought. “More like a manicured stubble.”
“Teeth?”
“Umm,” Megan paused to think. “Straight, I think? And white.”
“Body?”
“Hard.”
Calli smirked. “And how would you know that?”
Taking another sip of coffee, Megan debated how much she was willing to share. She decided to give Calli the abridged version.
“After we went for pizza, we decided to go for a concert at the Atrium.”
Calli almost spit her coffee back into her mug. “You went to the Atrium?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes, and we saw Torrid.”
Coffee sloshed out of Calli’s cup when she dropped it on the kitchen island with a thud. “What? You saw Torrid? They were in town last night?”
Megan felt bad for laughing at her roommate’s shrill questions, but she couldn’t help it.
“You know their music?”
“Ummm,” Calli huffed. “Is the Pope Catholic? Fuck yeah, I know Torrid. I love Torrid. I’m so jellyfish!”
“Jellyfish?”
“Jealous! I’m so fucking jealous!”
“I’m sorry. If I would have known, I’d have texted you.”
Calli quickly shook her head. “Sure, okay. We’ve digressed. You were telling me about your hard mechanic.”
“Right. We saw Torrid at the Atrium, and then we went back to his garage and had sex.”
Calli’s mouth dropped open. “You what?”
“We had sex. Hence the reason my night was amazing. Also the reason I know his body is hard. Very, very hard.”
“OMG! You dirty, dirty girl! I love it!” Calli yelled, hopping down off her stool. She rounded the island and flung her arms around Megan’s neck. “I’m so proud of you. Welcome to the wonderful world of casual sex!”
Megan’s smile slipped slightly. Casual sex sounded so…impersonal.
Calli must have felt Megan’s body still because she stepped back. “There’s nothing wrong with having casual sex, Megan. Just because you’re not in a committed relationship with someone doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun.”
Megan nodded while thinking about what Calli said. It was true that she and James weren’t in any sort of relationship, but after what had happened last night, she kind of assumed that they would possibly start…something?
Calli narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me you think you’re in love with him after one time?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. I haven’t really thought much about it actually. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m not sure what to do.”
Her roommate—who incidentally Megan just realized wasn’t wearing any pants, only tiny boy-shorts—leaned against the counter. “Okay, here’s what you do,” Calli began. “You let it rest a few days. No calling him. No texting him. The last thing a guy like your hard mechanic wants is for some chick to be blowing up his phone just because he fucked her.”
Megan blinked. Did most men have casual sex with lots of women? James hadn’t said anything about dating other women, but he hadn’t hinted that he wasn’t either. The thought made Megan a little sick. Maybe this was something she should have thought about before she allowed him to bend her over the hood of a car.
Regardless, she definitely didn’t want to come across as clingy or desperate. “I’m going to have to go in and get my car when it’s done. I’ll probably see him then.”
“That’s fine. But just make sure you aren’t the one who initiates your next meeting.”
“Okay.”
“If he wants a repeat of last night, he’ll let you know. And Megan, because your hard mechanic is a red-blooded male and you are drop-dead gorgeous, he’ll be wanting a repeat. So don’t worry.”
The thought of being with James again made Megan’s stomach flip and her body temperature skyrocket. Future sex with him was obviously appealing to her body, but was it smart for her heart? And maybe a more relevant question was, did James want to be with her again? An ache spread across her chest at the thought of him rejecting her.
“And when he does call and you do see him again, just have fun,” Calli advised. “Don’t get tied down with the first guy who’s come along since your divorce. You’re young and beautiful. We live in one of the greatest cities in the world. It’s time to sow your oats, chica.”
Nodding slowly, Megan considered the idea of just having fun.
“What if James wants a relationship?” Megan asked.
“Do you?”
It was a valid question.
“I don’t know.” And she really didn’t.
“Well, I suggest until you figure it out, you don’t jump back into a commitment.”
Before her divorce, she would have said that being in a committed relationship meant safety. It meant that her heart and well-being were looked after by someone she trusted. It validated her. Someone else in the world thought enough about her to make her his.
But post-divorce Megan might not agree. Her divorce left her questioning so much about herself. She’d made many mistakes in her marriage, but the biggest one of all might have been marrying Niall Dempsey in the first place. She’d been so sure of him and his love for her.
She didn’t know if she could trust her own feelings anymore. She’d been completely wrong about Niall. What if she was a bad judge of character when it came to other guys as well?
Maybe not being in a committed relationship was a good thing. What if she got to see James when she wanted to, got to have amazing, body-numbing sex when she wanted to? The idea was sounding better with each passing second.
“Okay, so wait until he calls about my car before I contact him. And when I see him, explain to him that I’m not interested in a committed relationship.”
Calli grabbed her remaining coffee and dumped it down the sink. “That’s what I’d do. And maybe he’s thinking the same thing, and you guys can get all hot and sweaty every now and again.”
###
After tightening the remaining bolts on the muffler, James let the heavy wrench rest on his chest. He relaxed there for a moment, looking at what years of living in the cold north and driving on salt-treated winter roads could do.
The underside of Megan’s Honda Accord was badly eroded. He’d replaced not only the muffler but just about every connecting joint on the exhaust system so the bottom of her car didn’t fall to the ground one day.
He’d saved her Honda for himself. Feeling strangely possessive of her car, he didn’t like the idea of any of his guys getting their hands on it. Or its undercarriage.
His weekend had crawled by. Who knew that sex with Megan could slow time? That it could delay the earth from spinning on its axis? He’d bet that wasn’t in any of Cade’s geography books.
James found himself in an unfamiliar situation. He couldn’t remember wanting a woman as desperately as he’d wanted Megan last Friday night. And four days later, he still caught himself thinking about her. But that wasn’t the unfamiliar part.
His indecision was causing him to lose sleep. He wanted her, but he didn’t want to deal with any fallout from getting involved with his son’s teacher. His body immediately responded to the thought of her gorgeous skin and the sound of her need when he’d taken her from behind in his garage, but the idea of getting tangled up with any woman wasn’t the brightest.
He was hesitant for a lot of reasons. There was the whole process of explaining a new relationship to his son. As far as he knew, Cade had no illusions that he and his mom would ever get back together. But a new woman in James’s life would require a discussion and a lot of explaining.
And then there was the matter of time. Committed relationships took time and that was something he didn’t have. Between family and work, his schedule was tapped out.
But maybe the largest sticking point was that commitment wasn’t something he was sure he could do again. Holly had leveled him, and he didn’t know if he could stand that sort of disappointment a second time.
It just sucked that he’d met someone as great as Megan and couldn’t offer her more.
James wanted to call her and hear her calm, melodious voice, but he knew that doing that was sending the wrong signals. It all boiled down to this—his body wanted her. Over and over again. But he was absolutely not interested in any sort of commitment beyond sex.
And he couldn’t imagine Megan settling for anything less than a commitment.
Releasing a long sigh, he pushed himself out from underneath her Accord and threw his wrench into a middle drawer of the tool chest. He skimmed his hand over the top surface of the glossy red chest, the same one he’d had Megan on. Just thinking about the way she’d come with his fingers inside her was enough to make him hard.
Inwardly groaning, he moved to the utility sink along the back wall. While washing his hands, he saw Janie approach from the corner of his eye.
“Hey, boss,” his office manager said, slouching against the wall.
“How ya doing, Janie?”
She shrugged, her dark, curly ponytail swinging from side to side. Janie was a year or two younger than he was. He’d hired her five years ago, and she ran a tight ship. She was the perfect mix of mother hen to the young guys at the shop and no-nonsense to his suppliers.
James appreciated the friendly face Janie always greeted customers with, but behind her smile was an intelligent woman who knew how to press his buttons to get what she wanted. Whether it was a new ergonomic chair, those stupid plug-in air fresheners that smelled like the beach, or even a new “cheerier” paint color on the front office walls, Janie knew how to play him like a fiddle.
The tiny smile he saw lifting the corner of her mouth signaled to him that she was after something.
Before she could hit him up for some request that was going to cost him money, he asked, “Can you please contact Megan McKenna and let her know her car is ready for pickup?”
“Yeah, sure. No problem.”
Nodding his thanks, he scrubbed his hands with a special pumice cleanser. He’d learned long ago that washing his hands several times a day went a long way in keeping grime from underneath his nails and in his cuticles. Not to mention, it kept greasy fingerprints off his office keyboard.
“I forgot to tell you,” she began, “that yesterday when I got into the shop, I noticed the surveillance system was off.”
He hoped she didn’t notice his pause while rinsing his hands off. Fuck, he’d forgotten to turn the system back on. He’d also forgotten to go back through the tape to make sure the cameras hadn’t captured his and Megan’s first act.
“I turned it back on,” Janie added. “But I thought you should know, just in case it was acting up again.”
She continued to watch him with an unnerving look that gave him the impression she knew exactly why the system had been shut off. But unless she’d gone back through and looked at the tape, there was no way for her to know that.
“Thanks, I’ll take a look at it.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Janie said before snickering. She started to turn away but stopped. “By the way, I’m going to order lunch for the shop today. It’s Eric’s birthday. Hope that’s okay?”
“Sure.”
Jesus, since when had they started throwing birthday parties? Next thing he knew they’d be having afternoon tea.
With a knowing smile, she walked toward the front office. The only reason he didn’t balk at the lunch order was because he felt so fucking guilty. If he found out one of his employees was having sex at the shop, he’d blow a gasket.
Silently resolving himself to never have sex again inside the shop (or on a customer’s car, for God’s sake), he dried his hands on a clean shop cloth. Next thing on his to-do list: erase that goddamn tape from Friday night.