Текст книги "Opening Up"
Автор книги: Lauren Dane
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
Chapter Three
“Taco Friday is your best idea yet.” Asa filled a plate and moved on down the line of ingredients.
Duke shrugged. “I have them from time to time.”
“They generally involve food or liquor. You’re Shaggy and Scooby rolled into one.”
Duke laughed. “Right on. More evidence of how lucky you are to have me around.”
Asa snorted. But Duke was right. From pretty much the time they’d met in the army, Duke had been his friend. Had his back, in both the metaphysical sense and the physical one. Duke had saved Asa from getting killed more than once.
The lunchroom at Twisted Steel currently held all eleven employees, so it was loud and raucous. Which might also have something to do with the fact that it was Beer and Taco Friday.
It had been a hell of a long last few weeks. They’d pushed one total rebuild out as well as two other smaller jobs. Asa had slept on the couch in his office at least once a week rather than face a drive home after three a.m.
But the work had all been delivered to very happy clients, he was soon to be full of tacos and beer, and all was right with the world.
He and Duke had bought the building the shop sat in five years before, and Asa felt like it was only now truly operating to its full potential. They’d had three employees back then and only used about a quarter of the space. Now they had a showroom, eleven full-time employees, and a host of people they contracted work out to.
There he was, a successful business owner. A homeowner. Asa Barrons, the kid who’d grown up in trailers and shitty public housing apartments in Houston, now had multiple cars, money in the bank, and a life free of chaos and pain.
They had built something together, he and his friend – a business both men could be proud of. It was the ticket out he and Duke had barely known to have dreamed about.
“I’m going to sleep the hell out of a lot of hours,” Asa said, taking several long pulls from his beer once he’d collapsed into a chair and set his food down.
Duke settled in across from him. “No lie. I’ve gotta be back here at ten, though. No way would I miss such a fantastic opportunity.”
“What?”
“I told you about this last week. The pinup calendar shoot? They’re using the showroom and some of the bays,” Duke explained. “Don’t worry; I made sure Casey went over everything they have access to. They won’t get near any work in progress. Plus I’ll be here. Looking at hot women.”
“I probably wasn’t listening.”
“See what happens when you don’t?”
Hot women draped over his machines. Now that was indeed a way to spend a Saturday. He’d planned to come in to catch up on paperwork that next afternoon anyway.
Asa tended to keep in his head, especially when he was in the middle of a project. It’s all he thought of, the need to put his hands on something, to stamp it with his vision, to watch it yield under his will.
“Thanks for the save. Guess I’ll be here at ten instead of noon like I planned.”
“I was thinking of heading out to the track on Sunday. You up for it?”
Duke and Asa had recently started a racing team they co-owned with a group of their friends. It brought Asa to the track a lot, and that’s when he’d discovered how incredible it was to drive the track himself.
“Hell yes.”
Duke tipped his chin. “Fastback?”
On a motorcycle trip down the coast to Los Angeles the summer before, Asa and Duke had found the beat-up shell of a 1968 Fastback and had to have it. They’d spent their spare time since restoring it.
Duke was magic with machines. The best mechanic Asa knew. He’d built the engine they’d wanted as Asa had coaxed all the badass back into the frame.
The result was a growling, hellaciously fast beast.
“Indeed. Depending on the conditions I might take the bike out too.”
“Your mom is going to kill me if you eat pavement, you know that, right?”
Fast and hard was his favorite. Nothing else felt quite like driving very, very fast. He didn’t have the talent to actually make a living racing. His talents lay elsewhere in the car universe. But he had access to a track and lots of fast machines, and he used that every chance he got.
“My mom uses a cane, you big whiner. You can outrun her. Then again, she doesn’t need to catch you. I bet she could throw it and knock you out from ten feet away.” Two years before, his mother had to have her foot amputated after complications from diabetes.
“I’m telling her you said that.”
“To Pat, that’s a love poem.” Asa grinned, thinking of how awesome his mom was.
“Speaking of that, the arbor you built over her back patio is really nice.”
Asa had gone into the army because it was that or end up in jail. He’d had more anger and potential for violence inside him than he could process. Years spent on the verge of trouble or running from it had left him feeling out of control and exhausted.
So he’d enlisted and then spent several years using the opportunity to make himself into a better man. A better son. To keep himself from landing in trouble in the army, he’d sent home most of his pay. It had been enough to get his mom and two sisters into a safer neighborhood.
He’d kept sending his mom what he could, even once he’d returned to the U.S. and left the military. Eventually, after the surgery, he’d convinced her and his youngest sister to move out to Seattle. It meant everything to him that he could provide for her at long last after she’d fought so hard most of her life just to survive.
“She needed some shade back there. Those big windows made her kitchen and living room way too warm.” He didn’t like her to be uncomfortable. “Anyway, what were you doing over there? You spoil her worse than I do.”
“I had a bunch of green peppers. I know she likes them. No big deal. She bragged on you so long I made her stop because I was getting a complex. Then she made me a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup to cheer me up. Your mom is rad.”
Asa snorted a laugh. “Just don’t tell her about the motorcycles at the track. She’d make my life hell if she found out I was racing.”
Twisted Steel was magnificent.
PJ turned in a slow circle as she stood in the middle of their showroom. Just to her left, a 1970 Chevelle. Candy-apple red.
Big windows fronted the space, but they managed to still give it a sort of intentionally gritty feel inside with black leather couches placed in a way to look at the cars and bikes on display like art.
She loved it so very much. Bold and clever. It took itself very seriously when it came to the product but also had a little bit of tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation. Delicious design choices all over the place, including a custom Harley Softail in black matte that gave her a little shiver.
She’d thought it impossible for Asa to be any hotter, until she saw this place.
“If you’re done getting all wet over cars can we get your makeup done?” Audra called out.
“Do you see this?” PJ pointed at the Softail’s back tire. “It’s so fat and delicious. I might actually be maybe a little wet, yes. But I’m just telling you that because we’re so close.”
PJ plopped down in front of a makeshift makeup station mirror.
“Go look at your outfits with Stella so she can get you styled for each.” Audra had taken on the task of organizing the shoot. She pointed at a rolling rack of clothes that had PJ’s name on it.
“I see a theme here.” Stella, who was acting as their makeup person for the day, took in each outfit.
Tom bounded into their space, amped up on coffee. “What? She’s like a ridiculously sexed-up girl next door. Guys love that. We all know it. So work it and sell my decks!”
“You can’t be here now. I have it handled.” Audra shoved him out and closed the door to the small conference room where they’d set up.
“He’s like a hamster on crack,” PJ muttered.
“The cutest hamster ever, though. Here.” Audra shoved an outfit PJ’s way.
The first dress turned out to be a pale blue-and-white gingham. She wore it with red glitter pumps, and Stella teased PJ’s hair up in the back and curled her bangs before dividing at the nape of her neck into two braids.
Thick liner, red lips, and a beauty mark and she found herself shoved back out.
“PJ, come over and meet Frank, he’s the photographer.” Tom introduced them. “We’re set up in the shop so come on with me.”
She tried not to trip and fall as she kept stopping to gape at things. Where the showroom had been all about the art of the completed project – a perfect experience for a potential client – the shop, with its bays and workstations, was clearly the heart of the operation.
High windows sent shafts of light down onto the shop floor and to the offices that ringed it. It was orderly and tidy without being compulsively so.
She skidded to a halt when she saw the car she’d be posing with.
“Sweet mother of Bob Dylan,” she breathed out at the sight of the deep blue 1950 Cadillac roadster convertible before her.
“I take it that means you approve?” Frank asked her.
“I might need some alone time with this car later.”
“I know the owner. He might allow it.”
She turned to catch sight of Asa walking over. Walking! Ha. Prowling was a far better word. The air seemed to hum around him, and she found it a little harder to breathe. Especially when he came to a halt just inches from where she stood.
“This is yours?” She might have an orgasm just looking at the car. And now she knew it was his.
He nodded, the corner of his mouth hitching up slightly. “Morning, PJ.”
“Morning, Asa. I’m going to have a moment with your car, but I won’t do anything she doesn’t want.”
He stepped closer. “What if she does? What if she wants it all?”
Man, was she in over her head. Just flirting with him was taking all her effort. What would he be like in bed? What would he kiss like?
“I’d want to take it slow. Just the tip. At first. If she didn’t like it we’d stop.”
The smile on his mouth made her tingly.
“I might try that one. Just the tip has mixed results.”
Oh, well. That one made her a little dizzy. And by the look he wore, he knew the effect he was having.
“I doubt that.”
“What?”
“Mixed results. You strike me as an overachiever.” PJ lowered her lashes a little as she took in the heft of all that steel. Of course he had a Caddy. Big, strong, bold. Totally in charge. Just like him.
“So if I’d given you the ‘just the tip’ line?”
She smiled then. “I don’t know. Why don’t you try it now?”
PJ rather felt as if she was having an out-of-body experience. There was no other explanation for the words she’d just spoken. Out loud.
Asa opened his mouth and everything inside her seemed to still, just waiting to hear what he’d say.
And then Tom called out to get to work and they reluctantly parted.
Asa tried to pretend it was his choice to watch the shoot when really there was nothing else to be done. She sat in his car. Her skin up against his seats. He bet it would smell of her for the rest of the day. That soft, spicy sex she seemed to throw off like pixie dust or something.
He’d put off returning her call and then had gotten so busy with work he’d legitimately forgotten about it for days at a time. But then she’d come back to his imagination so intensely he’d not called her back on purpose. This sort of raw greed she evoked in him had him nervous.
She’d taken him by surprise. Yes, she was beautiful. Gorgeous face. Fantastic body. Big blue eyes fringed by long lashes. Lush lips. She’d changed her hair from purple to a blond he was pretty sure was her natural color.
Pretty women weren’t that rare, though. Certainly not in his world.
She appealed to him in ways he wasn’t entirely comfortable with or even able to really put into words. It was her freckles he thought about more than her amazing tits. The sound of her voice. The way her eyes had lit when she talked about cars.
Across from where Asa leaned, the photographer directed her to put her forearm against the steering wheel, where Asa’d just had his hands half an hour before.
In his car. Touching his things. Satisfaction settled into his bones even as something else stirred to life. A hunger for her that only worsened when she leaned forward, one leg out of the car. Her skirt rose, exposing the tops of her stockings. Big blue eyes lined to emphasize the depth of color, the wide, nearly guileless nature of them. Her tits heaved up at the neckline of that dress.
The whole picture was a slick, hot fist around his cock.
Sweet and hot. Innocence and pure, raw carnal pleasure promised in the curve of her lips.
“No one else in her family looks anything like her.” Duke handed over a cup of coffee.
Asa tipped his chin in thanks. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen anything like her. Ever. If she’s like this now, at what? Twenty-two?”
Duke winced. “Dude, I would not be having these thoughts about her if she was twenty-two. Close, though. She’s twenty-five. The youngest.”
“If she’s like this at twenty-five, what will she be like at thirty? She’ll be unstoppable.”
Duke jabbed him in the side. “You’re defiling her in your head right now, aren’t you?”
Hell yes. An image of her bent over his desk – her hair messy, backs of her thighs hot with welts he’d left from his favorite crop, her pussy wrapped around his cock as he fucked her – took root in his brain and would not let go.
“Man’d have to be dead not to notice that body.” He turned to Duke. “And that age. I’m too old to keep up.”
“I’m old enough to admit it might be a hell of a good time to find out if I could or not.”
Once they finished with Asa’s Caddy the crew moved it outside. Asa grabbed another cup of coffee and a bagel before sauntering out to discover PJ had changed into shorts and a work shirt open to the waist, where it was tied in a knot.
Her hair was artfully messy and wrapped in a bright red bandana, the same color as the bra showcased. She wore her glasses this time, and they perched on her nose, the hoop of her eyebrow ring visible when she arched her brow.
All that skin drove him wild. He wanted to touch. To kiss and lick. Especially that sweet triangle where her breasts and body met at the center of her cleavage. And yet, it could still look nearly sweet on her.
Nearly.
One of the assistants handed her a bottle of handcrafted soda, a root beer Asa really liked. He liked it even more when they leaned her against the front of the Chevelle in the showroom and she wrapped glossy red lips around a straw they’d put into the bottle.
An audible rush of air escaped his lips. The need to see that color at the base of his cock after she’d left it there seemed to take hold like a fever. He made himself turn to tear his attention away. He knew he should leave for a while, but he couldn’t quite force himself to leave the shop while PJ was there.
He moved over to Duke and some of the other guys, hoping for a distraction. They hung out, working a bit, talking a lot, watching the shoot as it moved between models, settings, and products, but toward the end of the day, the photographer approached.
“Hey, Asa, I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Tell me you love me,” Audra said quietly as she took the outfit PJ was about to change into out of her hands.
“I love you. Why did I tell you that, true as it is?”
Audra looked through the clothes on hangers and pulled out a body-hugging black sleeveless cocktail dress, then glanced back over her shoulder to PJ. “Keep the corset and the stockings and garters.”
She thrust the dress PJ’s way. “This.”
PJ gave it a skeptical look. “I’m going to regret that doughnut I ate earlier.” She stepped in and Audra managed to get it zipped.
“Shut up. You look fantastic. As to why you love me? You love me because this last shoot is with Asa.”
Audra said this as Stella started dealing with PJ’s hair again, this time smoothing and pinning victory rolls.
“It is? Why? I’m not complaining or anything.”
“They wanted someone hotter and darker than the other male model.”
It wasn’t like PJ hadn’t noticed Asa watching. He’d wander away once she was done, but every time it was her turn, Asa found his way back to where she was, sliding his gaze over her like a caress.
Normally she was pretty easygoing when it came to flirting and being around men she was attracted to. But Asa was different. More intense. More everything. Having him watch her was foreplay. It made her breathless and nervous.
And she liked it.
PJ slid into towering heels, and with a backward glance at the mirror to be sure everything was in place, she headed out to where Asa stood in black pants, black motorcycle boots, and a snug T-shirt that stretched over the muscled wall of his chest.
Hoo. Boy.
His gaze found hers as she walked closer. Asa fastened a watch but never took his attention from her.
“PJ, you know Daniel, right? He has a line with watches and wrist cuffs for men,” Tom explained. “We thought since you looked so great in Asa’s Caddy, maybe the two of you could do this shoot. What do you say?”
She looked up at Asa and his expression nearly sent her to her knees. All smolder and overwhelming sexuality. PJ licked her lips, trying not to appear nervous and giddy.
“I want natural light for part of this. Come on outside. We’re set up.” The photographer dashed off.
Asa held out an elbow. “Those heels look pretty high, and the shop floor can be slippery sometimes.”
Smiling, she took his arm and walked out with him. His skin was warm and taut against her palm.
Outside they had her stand with her back to Frank, facing Asa.
He encircled her waist with his forearm, splaying his palm right above her ass. He was hot and firm and had a hard-on. All her favorite things.
“Asa, with your right hand, grab PJ’s upper arm.”
All the air left her when he wrapped his fingers around her biceps. His cock pressed against her and with her heels, they were cock to pussy. She wanted him to push her back against something, anything, so she could get at what he had in his jeans.
The tension in his muscles brought a head-to-toe shiver. There was so much strength humming from him, it made her wonder just how much he held back. And what he held back.
His pupils seemed to swallow his irises. He bent his head when Frank told him to, his lips against the side of her neck.
Her nipples beaded so hard against the front of her corset and dress, she was sure he could feel it against the wall of his chest.
“Fantastic. I want to try one more thing. Asa, get in the car. I want PJ to lay across the seat, her head in your lap.”
She didn’t blush, but a burst of heat settled between her thighs.
He took a reluctant step back, letting go of her arm.
Stella took her, fixing PJ’s hair. “Girl, you’ve got me all hot and bothered just watching you two,” she murmured.
“Not just you.” Even knowing everything had been staged by the photographer, PJ was still aflutter after all that up-close contact with him.
Audra, who’d changed back into street clothes, waggled her brows.
Asa held his arm out as they removed the watch he’d had on and replaced it with a leather cuff.
He got in the car and she went to the passenger side.
“Don’t make her struggle,” Asa barked to the photographer’s assistant. “Help her.”
How could she just sit there and pretend it wasn’t hotter than the sun that he’d just ordered someone to be careful with her? Jeez.
She sat and then Frank positioned them both as he moved around. “Turn around here and rest the back of your head on his thigh.”
His really muscly thigh.
Asa looked down at her, wishing this were real. Wishing it were just the two of them. His cock was so hard it seemed to throb with each beat of his heart.
“You okay?”
She smiled up at him. “I can think of worse ways to spend a weekend.”
He smiled back.
“Asa, put your hand on her chest, rest it there.”
He did, pretending he wasn’t itching to slide the top of her dress down to bare her breasts. He wondered if she was pierced anywhere other than her eyebrow. Wondered what sort of ink marked all that pretty skin.
This close he could see the freckles dancing across her collarbone and the curve of each shoulder. He bet that under her makeup she had even more of them.
“Cup her throat. Gentle, like a caress.”
Both of them sucked in a breath, but he bet for different reasons.
Except when he wrapped his hand around her throat, she exhaled hard, her pupils widening. She must have been able to feel just how into this he was, poking her in the back of the head. He was so hard it was beginning to hurt.
The photographer spoke in the background. “Perfect. Jesus, PJ, you’re so pretty like this. Fantastic. You can get up. Asa, swing your legs out, I want her on your lap and your hand on her thigh. Get that last watch on him.”
Asa barely noticed them change out the jewelry because then they had her straddle his lap, artfully arranging the hem of her dress to give a glimpse of a stocking and the strap of her garter belt.
Her pussy was right over his cock, and he had to exercise iron control not to rock himself against her.
“Sorry about this. I’ll try not to smoosh you.”
She was teasing, but he heard the thready tones in some of her words. Took in the jump of her pulse just below her ear. But goddamn, the heat of her was scalding.
The photographer took Asa’s hand and placed it where he wanted at PJ’s hip. But then he said, “Stella, get her hair around his fist.”
But before Stella could move, Asa had done it. Like he was meant to.
He locked gazes with her as Frank took pictures. Asa hadn’t wanted to kiss someone this badly since he’d gotten out of high school.
“Perfect. That’s it. Thanks to both of you.”
It took another few seconds to make his hand loosen and let go of her hair. And before anyone else could step in, Asa helped PJ off his lap and stood as well. There was no hiding how hot he was for her, so he just kept it casual as he kissed her cheek.
“You were a pro through all that,” PJ told him.
“That so?”
“Definitely. I have something for you,” she said. “Will you give me ten minutes? I need to change. It’s not going to require anything from you, so get that look off your face.”
“I’ll be here. My office is that door up there.” Asa pointed and she nodded and left.
Duke snorted. “You doing okay? Need some pain reliever?”
“Hey, fuck off. You try not getting hard when that is on your lap. Or when her hair is wrapped around your fist.”
He’d be remembering that for a while to come. Probably with his eyes closed and that same fist around his cock.
