“I’m here!” Amelia’s voice is even higher than usual when she calls out quickly to Wyatt, deceptively innocent. Now that I’ve seen those tits she’s sporting, I feel pretty damn confident there’s nothing innocent about this girl.
She’s got the face of a doll, the humor of a mortician, and the tits of an angel. In short, my dream girl.
Somehow I didn’t see the nipple ring coming.
That’s a sight that’ll be hard to get out of my head anytime soon, but if anything could kill my growing boner, it’s the sound of my brother’s voice crashing this party.
Did I come here tonight to flirt? No.
Did I mean to start something that I’m not supposed to finish? Also no.
I came here to do him a favor, that’s it. But I wasn’t about to leave her feeling awkward about that snafu of an entrance. Not in my nature to make a woman uncomfortable or leave her without a smile on her face. Had to turn that around before I could get back to business as usual.
Though now that I recall the text exchange with my brother, I’m thinking he wanted an answer immediately, and I may have left my phone in my truck when I got here and headed straightover to her. It’s highly possible he’s been buzzing me the whole time I’ve been in here, wondering if the boundaries he set apply to girls who are onlyvisitingthe town, not locals. He must’ve zipped back to the garage to get the answer himself rather than wait for me.
“Give me a second!” she hollers to an answering grunt.
No matter how you paint this picture, he’s not going to see this as something virtuous, or me succeeding at the task he gave me if he opens this door and finds the two of us in here alone, still breathing heavy from the aftermath of thealmostthat just occurred.
“Hide,” she whispers in a hiss through her teeth, accurately interpreting that deer in the headlights look on my face ashe can’t find me here.
“I’m taller than your van is long, how am I supposed to do that?” I whisper back at her in a panic.
“You are not, just get in my bed.”
“All you had to do was ask.” I can’t resist the line.
She points her narrowed eyes at me, finger inches from my nose. “You want him to find you here?”
I shake my head quickly, and her face goes from stone to something softer. “Get in the corner and shut the fuck up for once in your life.”
“Says the woman who apparently talks to herself. You’re still going to need to come clean on that to me, by the way.”
Her palm claps down over my mouth, trying to silence my hushed whispers, and I obey, falling quiet under the feel of her velvet soft skin and the flurry of images it calls to mind.
Amelia grabs a sweatshirt from next to me on the bed and quickly dons it before opening the door wide enough for her slim body to be visible to Wyatt on the other side.
“Hey, sorry to intrude. Weston’s not in there, is he?”
My stomach dips in a way that’s a lot less of a flirtylet’s do this, darlin’and a lot morestay six feet back in case of projectile vomiting.
“The blond mythological sex god also known as your brother? Yeah, we fucked all day and I just cut him loose.”
Incredulous laughter almost bursts out of me at her gall, but I can practically hear my brother’s disapproving glare. Not sure there’s a brand of humor that’s for him, but thatdefinitelywasn’t it.
“He said he’d come by to check on a part for me.” The next line is grumbled so low I’m surprised I can even make it out. “Should’ve known better than to ask him to do something that was important.” The heavy sigh that follows weighs me down where I lay crouched down out of sight, an extra hundred pounds of disappointment on my shoulders.
“Maybe he got caught up working on his car or something?” She offers an alternative to him thinking the worst of me, because she doesn’t realize yet that Wyatt will always jump to the worst-case option when it comes to me and my responsibility.
Amelia’s so casual, so quick on her feet, I bet he has no clue she’s lying to his face. The practice it must take to master that skill, to be so smooth, so effortless as you’re pulling the wool over someone’s eyes. I’m not sure if I revere her or fear her as I watch.
There’s quiet for a moment, where I imagine my brother looking down the lot, eyeing my truck parked near the shop, the bay doors wide open, trying to spot where I might be hiding, what I might be doing that’s more important than what he asked for my help with. More likely he’s assuming I just forgot entirely.
“Anyway,” his gruff voice goes on. “Supplier’s out of one of the parts we ordered, and I just needed to double check if thesubstitute they offered will work. Okay if I drop under your hood for a sec?”
“Sure, I’ll pop it.”
The door latches shut and I stay hidden as she climbs into the driver’s seat, releases the hood and waits for him to finish what he’s doing. Thethunkthat rocks the whole van not a minute later tells me he’s got what he needed. She smiles out her window, waving at him as he drives off in his dark blue pickup. If I had the love of my life to get home to, I’d probably fly out of work every day too. The pressure on my chest turns into a knot in my stomach that’s all too similar to the food poisoning that burrito gave me, and I do my best to ignore it.
