Leo Read online

  “What about your colleagues? How are you getting on with them?” Particularly Julio, I think, with a vicious edge. She smiles at that kid way too much, and he looks just as strung out as ever. But again, until I actually have proof of wrongdoing, there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Can’t fire a guy for looking like a stiff breeze would knock him down. Nor for smiling too much at my g— I mean, a girl. Any girl. Not mine in particular. He doesn’t smile at her quite as much now, certainly not when I’m looking, but still.

  She raises an eyebrow at me. “Do you interrogate all your employees like this? Or am I getting special treatment?”

  I glare at her as I pull into the junkyard. She’s right. Of course I’m not as bothered about how anyone else is doing. I’m certainly not planning on digging deeper into how Frank or Julio are getting on. It pisses me off that she’s calling me on it, though. I’m usually more in control of my relationships, if you can call my prior hit and runs ‘relationships’. Something about her, though, just gets under my skin. I want to know everything about her, want to see what makes her tick, what makes her tremble and sigh…

  I grimace through the windshield as I pull up outside the office and force myself to focus on the matter at hand. The owner of the junkyard is more than happy to direct us to the Impalas, but I tell him we’d like to stretch our legs a little and get him to draw us a little map.

  I don’t want company. I want Charlie all to myself. I know, even thinking it makes me a goddamn caveman and I don’t care.

  We head into the junkyard. It’s a hot day, the sun beating down, reflecting off a thousand cracked wing mirrors and crumpled fenders.

  “Maybe we should have brought water and rehydration tablets,” Charlie jokes after a few minutes, and I open up my rucksack and hand her a bottle. She stares at it for a moment, then at me, and I stare back, daring her to say a word.

  Wisely, she just takes it from me, cracks the lid and gulps down great mouthfuls. Seeing her throat work to swallow the water makes me hard all over again, but there’s something incredibly satisfying about taking care of her needs, not just the sexual ones, even with such a small act as this.

  I can understand her not knowing me well enough yet to trust me with her true opinion of Frank, or anything else relating to the shop. I’ve got time to win her over. Not as much time as I’d like, but I can make it work.

  Especially since I’m willing to fight dirty.

  I look up and see a small Volkswagen camper van, dating from some time in the sixties, judging by the shape. “Hey, you don’t see many of those anymore.”

  I start towards it, and smile to myself when I hear her footsteps behind me.

  “Aren’t we here for Impalas?”

  “Yup,” I tell her, opening the door and gesturing inside. “But you should never pass up a chance to experience a piece of automotive history like this.”

  I close the door behind her, then push her up against it and bury my face in her neck, reveling in the soft, smoky scent of her and her soft sigh as I kiss the side of her throat, swirling my tongue over her silky skin. I run a hand down her leg and lift it to curve around my hip, settling my painfully hard erection firmly against the juncture of her thighs. She gasps and arches against me and I nip her throat, smiling as she yelps, then moans.

  I slide a hand under her shirt, skimming my hand over the smooth skin of her belly and push her bra aside. Bowing my head, I take her nipple, already taut with anticipation of my touch, into my mouth and roll it between my teeth. She makes a strangled sound and presses harder against me, her hands delving into my hair, skittering over my shoulders as I concentrate on driving her out of her mind.

  Suddenly ‘Sledgehammer’ blasts out of my ass, my cell phone vibrating for all it’s worth in my back pocket. She jumps, then stares up at me as I lift my head. Her eyelids droop, her cheeks are flushed, and I’m pissed as hell that I have to cut this short, but we are on the clock, and that’s the song I’ve assigned to the auto shop.

  ***

  Charlie

  I stare at Leo talking on the phone. His breath is perfectly even, his face calm and composed. I, on the other hand, feel like a hot mess, struggling to drag air into my lungs, my body quivering with pent up need. Is he affected by me at all?

  Then I remember the size of the package pressing against my pussy up to a few seconds ago. I hate myself for checking his groin but I’m actually relieved to see pretty irrefutable evidence there that he’s as into me as I am to him.

  I look up and my face flames as my eyes meet his. The corner of his mouth twitches, even as his voice remains steady. He knows I just checked out his crotch and he’s amused by it. I glower at him and turn to stomp out of the camper van.

  A hand wraps around my arm.

  “I’ve got to go,” he says behind me. Then his other hand slides around my throat from behind. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I snap, feeling all kinds of stupid for caring so much about what he thinks of me. I’ve been written off as the silly little girl who likes to play with cars for too long to handle even the suggestion that he might not respect me as an equal. Whether my hands are delving deep into an engine or a guy’s hair, I need to know we’re on the same page, and that page does not have ‘amusing little plaything’ written on it.

  “It’s not nothing,” he says, his voice lowering in my ear. He turns me around and presses me back against the door. “What is it? What’s going on behind those beautiful eyes?”

  It’s precisely the wrong thing to say. I glare up at him. “I’m not just a pair of eyes,” I snarl, attempting to push him away. It’s like trying to shove a tractor trailer. I might as well not bother. I grit my teeth and look away, trying to contain tears. Was I really stupid enough to think I could get it on with my boss and have him take it as seriously as I do? I’m not a ‘one and done’ kind of girl.

  Should have thought of that before you let him put his hands all over you, missy, says that voice, and tears prick at my eyes.

  His hand cups my jaw and he forces me to look at him. “You’re an amazing woman, and a spectacularly talented mechanic. Of course you’re more than a pair of eyes. Everyone’s a hell of a lot more than the package they come wrapped in. Have I made you feel like less of a person just because you’re beautiful?”

  Now I’m feeling kind of stupid. More than that, I feel like an ass, because all he did was smile at me, and I made him feel bad for it, made him question himself, when he’s been nothing but sweet and caring and, yeah, sensitive to my feelings. Considering how I felt, I must have looked like a complete disaster. But I have to tell him something, try to make him understand, because otherwise he really is going to think I’m a stupid little girl, and why wouldn’t he? I’ve basically picked a fight over a smile.

  “I...there have been a few guys who liked the sound of a girlfriend who knows cars. Only, they don’t like it so much when you know more than they do. And they really don’t like it when you rip their mechanic a new one for doing work that didn’t need doing, and to a shitty standard, and force him to reduce the bill because there was no way he spent three hours installing a windshield wiper motor. Especially not when I can open up the hood and see a blatantly not new one sitting right there. Why are you laughing at me?”

  He’s trying not to, but he can’t keep his lips from twitching. It shouldn’t piss me off but it does. My last three boyfriends were so embarrassed by my knowledge that they dumped me over it. ‘Know your place’, was the last thing Gerry said to me. Like, what place? The place where I know more about your car than the guy who services it every six months? Badly, I might add?

  Damn. Did Leo bring me all the way out here just to get his hands on me again? The thought makes me miserable. I mean, the man brings me pleasure I didn’t even know existed, but I thought I was more than that.

  “I’m not laughing at you,” he says. “I’m smiling because I love the fact that you’re proud of yourself, and you won’t back down, even wh
en it’s arguably not in your best interests to keep fighting. It’s sexy as hell.”

  My brow furrows as I stare up at him in confusion. “It is?”

  “Charlie.” He rubs his thumb over my lips and I gasp at the tingle that envelops my mouth. “You know who you are and what you are and you make no apologies for it. I can imagine a lot of guys would be threatened by that, but that’s because they’re jealous. They want your knowledge, but they don’t want to work for it. I know who I am and what I am, and I’m fine with it. I’ve worked for my place too, and I’m happy to admit my old man gave me a leg up. But I’ve earned where I am. You’ve earned where you are, and any man who can’t see that… well, I’d have to thank the idiot, because it means I get to have you now.”

  The thought of him ‘having’ me sends all conscious thought right out the window as my brain short-circuits and heads straight into an XXX-rated daydream.

  Warm heat on my lips has my eyes snapping open, before drifting shut again as his mouth covers mine. When he lifts his head, we’re both breathing hard.

  “We should probably get out there and check out those Impalas,” he says, his voice laced with regret. “At this rate, we’ll still be here tomorrow and there’s too much work to be done.”

  I reluctantly agree and he opens the door, letting us both out into the warm summer air. The Impalas aren’t far, and I force myself not to touch him as he leads the way.

  Once there, we pause for a moment to take them in. One of them is crumpled beyond belief, even worse than the one we have back at the shop. Sadly, that’s the good engine, otherwise we could have probably just switched it for the one we have and resprayed. The other one’s in better shape, just a few crumpled panels, and promises to have most of the rest of what we need.

  “Right,” says Leo, opening up the bag of tools and taking out the list of stuff we need. “We need the engine out of that one, and the gearbox.”

  He gestures at the car, then stands there, apparently waiting for it to start disassembling on its own.

  “Uh—”

  “What are you waiting for, Steele? An engraved invitation?” He points. “Engine. Now. Let’s go.”

  He wants me to get it out. He’s actually trusting me to do that, even though I know damn well he could do it himself.

  I guess he didn’t bring me along just to get his hands all over me after all. I blush furiously as it occurs to me I wouldn’t exactly have minded that, and lunge for the tools and the hoist. That engine is coming with me.

  ***

  Leo

  It’s nearly a week before I get Charlie alone again. Six productive days in the auto shop and seven almost sleepless nights in the office or, once or twice, in my bedroom back at the house.

  The car is coming along well, but everyone’s exhausted. We’ve all been pushing hard, although I can’t help noticing Frank is the least productive of anyone. Every time I turn around, he’s vanished for another smoke break, and it’s pissing me off. I can’t fire him in the middle of this job, though. Even at half steam, he’s still better than no one at all.

  Julio keeps dropping shit and every time Charlie picks it up and hands it to him, I want to punch him. He’s turning out to be a hell of a panel beater, though, so when Charlie makes up a couple slings to stop him from dropping the damn dolly, I can’t say a word. His work rate improves and he’s here by seven every single morning.

  But no one’s leaving much before midnight and I know we can’t keep going like this. We’ve still got at least two weeks’ solid work on this car and when people get tired, they get sloppy. Even if this was for a standard client, I’d want to do the job right, but it’s for Nash and he’s a friend. Moreover, the car is for his wife. There’s no way I’m putting the love of his life at risk just for the sake of a deadline.

  It’s past eleven o’clock at night now and Sheila has fallen asleep over her desk. She took my rejection well and has been a brilliant backstop over the last ten days, ordering in parts, rescheduling other jobs, handling the occasional call from the various other offices around the country, and keeping us in coffee and takeout.

  I look around the shop and see Charlie with a spark plug in her hand. She’s staring at it like she can’t remember what it is, her face pale and pinched, and that’s when I realize enough is enough.

  “Okay, everybody, that’s it for today.”

  There’s a muttered ‘thank fuck’ from somewhere behind the Impala. It sounds like Frank but I don’t make anything of it. I can understand the sentiment.

  “And guys, take the day off tomorrow. I know we’re on a time crunch but there’s no point running ourselves into the ground. I don’t want to cut corners on this one, and mistakes happen when people get tired. Sleep in, eat good food, Netflix and chill, whatever. See you back here at eight am the day after.”

  “Eight, Boss?” asks Julio and I have to smile at him. Whatever my opinion of him smiling at Charlie, he’s got a work ethic that would put a mule to shame.

  “Make it nine,” I tell him with a grin, enjoying the sight of his eyes bugging out.

  “Sure thing, Boss.” He quickly tidies his tools away and shoots out of the shop like a pony car on a drag strip. I laugh and turn to see Frank slipping out the back. Charlie is standing in the middle of the floor, her bag on her back.

  “See you day after tomorrow then,” she says, then heads out.

  I watch her go, trying to put my finger on what’s bothering me. She seems...sad? To have a day off? That’s just plain weird.

  By the time I lock up and make it out into the parking lot, I’m just in time to see her taillights disappearing around the corner. Without thinking, I pull out in the GTO and follow her. I imagine she’s staying at the Clubhouse, a small motel on the outskirts of town, but to my surprise, she turns left at the end of the road instead of right. I dip my lights and follow her, only to lose her in a bunch of twisting backroads.

  I pull up at a junction, not a flicker of red light to be seen. Where the hell was she going out here? There’s nothing for miles, not even a hunting cabin. I shake my head, unable to make sense of it, then pick a direction at random.

  Half an hour later, I stare out the windshield, wondering if I’m hallucinating. As I draw closer to the shadow at the side of the road I discover, no, it’s definitely Charlie’s Mustang. It’s completely dark inside and the GTO’s headlights make it clear she’s not checking the engine or any of the wheels.

  Where is she? And why should she leave her car by the side of the road? These things go for tens of thousands, or more, depending on the condition of the vehicle, and hers is pristine.

  I park behind her, then head over to have a look inside the car and see if I can figure out where she’s gone.

  The mystery doesn’t take long to solve. I use my phone as a flashlight, holding it up to the window, and my stomach flips to see Charlie in the front seat, curled up in a blanket with what looks like a folded up sweater under her head.

  Oh, HELL no.

  I rap on the window and take a certain amount of savage satisfaction to see her jerk awake, then focus her startled eyes on me. For a moment she looks utterly terrified, and my satisfaction turns to regret. I turn the phone’s light on myself, then back to her, in time to see her eyes close in a universal I am so busted expression.

  “Yes, you are,” I mutter, and reach out to open the door. It’s locked, and I glare at her through the window, until she winds it down.

  “What?” she asks, clearly not feeling apologetic, and for some reason that pisses me off even more.

  “What? What the hell are you doing out here? Don’t you know how dangerous it is? Anyone could come along, jack the car, rape and murder you and throw your body in a ditch on their way to the nearest chop shop!” My voice rises until I’m roaring at her, and she winces, but her head stays high.

  “I don’t have any other option right now,” she says. “Motels costs money. I haven’t received my first pay yet.”

 
I stare at her, absolutely dumbfounded. It never occurred to me that she was that hard up for cash. “Why the hell didn’t you say something?”

  ”Why the hell would I? I get paid in a few days. I figured I’d reassess the situation then, but really it’s not that cold, and who would come by here anyway?”

  “I did,” I snap.

  “Yeah, because you’re so the raping and murdering type.”

  I take a deep breath, mainly to prevent myself from reaching into the car and throttling her from sheer frustration.

  “Turn the engine on. You’re coming with me.” I turn towards my car.

  “The hell I am,” she snaps behind me. “I told you, I don’t have the money for a hotel, and I’m not shacking up with you. I’m fine right here.”

  I turn back to face her. “Come with me now, or find another job.”