And I mean just freakingmasculine.Like just testosterone and whatever the heck else was all man.
I saw gorgeous men in the wild every once in a while. I saw them online even more often. Butthat one, the one who I instinctively knew was going to be my new boss, the one sitting in the chair swallowing it whole with shoulders and an upper body that belonged on a professional wrestler, had to beat most of those men I’d seen in the past. He wasn’t what my sisters would have drooled over. He didn’t look like a model. His cheekbones were broad, his bone structure square, and his mouth hadn’t even been exactly full. Yet packaged together it was an unforgettable face.
A stunning face.
And I’d known instantly that his face and those thigh-sized biceps and calf-sized forearms that were covered in a tight long-sleeved shirt were going to haunt me.
Andthathad surprised me.
Then it had irritated me for a second as I thought about how much I didn’twanta new boss. Hot or not. I loved Mr. Cooper, and I knew where I stood with him. He made me feel safe. This new man was a stranger I wasn’t sure what to do with. He wasn’t just going to be someone I might casually work with.
Looking back on it though, there had been no way for me to know then how much Lucas Ripley would haunt me in the future. I’d had no idea as I had walked into that room to introduce myself what he would end up owing me.
And I definitely hadn’t known how much that debt would end up bothering him day in and day out.
What I did know and remember was how I’d gone to stand at the doorway to the original Cooper’s Collision and Customs office and waved and smiled at the two men inside.
“Luna,” Mr. Cooper had greeted me immediately, grinning so wide that, if I hadn’t known him so well, I would have missed how tense his shoulders were. “Good morning.”
“Morning, Mr. Cooper,” I had replied before turning my attention to the giant man sitting on the other side of the desk.
The huge man had looked at me, looked back at Mr. Cooper, then finally glanced back in my direction. That face, mean-looking because of the tightness along his jawline and the constant notch between his eyebrows, hadn’t changed at all. He hadn’t smiled back at me or even tried to look friendly. He’d just… looked.
In the blink of an eye, that look turned into a glare.
And my heart did what it always did when I met someone who didn’t want to like me—it made the rest of mewantthis person to like me, this maybe-possibly new boss of mine.
That was another curse I hadn’t been able to shake off even after all these years; the need to be liked. Realistically, I knew I could and would survive someone not being a Luna Allen fan, but… I had always tried. I could blame Those People I Wasn’t Going to Think About for that need, if I ever let myself think about it.
But I wouldn’t.
“Hi,” I had said, taking a step in and immediately putting my hand out between us. “I’m Luna.”
And Mr. Cooper, being Mr. Cooper, had said, “Ripley, this is Luna Allen. She does all our paint and helps out a lot with bodywork and detailing if we need her. Luna, this is Ripley, my… business partner.”
I had totally picked up on his hesitation at referring to the new man as his business partner, but I hadn’t thought much of it afterward. Especially not when my new boss took his sweet time raising his hand from where it had been resting on his thigh and slipped his long fingers and broad palm against mine, giving it a squeeze for a moment before releasing it almost as quickly. His eyes had narrowed just a little, but I had noticed, and it had just triggered that need in me even more.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I had told him, drawing my hand back.
My newest boss had watched me carefully; his eyes—this shade somewhere between an unreal blue and green—had slid back to Mr. Cooper one more time before returning to me.
I hadn’t been prepared for the question that came out of his mouth almost immediately. “You old enough to work here?” he’d asked in what I was pretty sure was the closest thing to a rumbling voice I’d ever heard in person.
I couldn’t help but glance at my longtime boss, but that was because he’d asked basically the same thing right before offering me a job when I’d been seventeen. So I smiled even wider when I put my attention back on the man with dark-colored tattoos that went up to his jaw. “Yes.”
He didn’t miss a beat, and those blue-green eyes, which seemed to pop beneath short but super curly black eyelashes, narrowed again. “How long you worked here?”
I didn’t miss a beat either. “Six years.”
That got me a blink before that deep, raspy voice asked, “What do you know about paint?”
What did I know about paint?
I’d almost lost my smile then, but I had managed not to. He wasn’t the first person to ask me that kind of question. I was one of the few females I’d ever met who did auto body paint. As a kid, I would never have thought that painting cars and parts was what I would end up doing for a living—much less, that I would grow to love it and be pretty damn good at it, if I did say so myself—but life was crazy that way.
So I told this man, who was making the same mistake just about everyone I had ever met had made too, the truth. “I know everything about paint.” And I’d smiled at him because I wasn’t being cocky. I was just telling him the truth, and I didn’t miss the way Mr. Cooper smiled as I did it.
The new man blinked again and his voice got even lower as he raised thick, dark brown eyebrows at me. “What do you know about bodywork?” he’d shot off next, referring to the act of fixing minor or major physical imperfections or damage to a vehicle.
