The Mechanic Read online

  “Do you two need a room or something?” Davy asked us.

  I slumped a bit, tired from the day. “Can you get a new line? That one is getting old.”

  Davy folded his arms over his chest. “Okay. What happened in the office after I left?”

  “Goodnight, Davy.” I turned and forced my aching feet in the four-inch heels to carry me to my car.

  I pushed the metal door open and was hit in the face with hot, muggy air. Nothing sounded better than a cold shower—for more reasons than one. I unlocked my car with the keyless remote and opened the door. Getting home and getting naked was a priority.

  Taylor came out of the building as I sat my bag in the backseat. I held my breath as he walked toward me, though at the last minute he made a right turn to the vehicle next to mine.

  “Have a good night, Eve.”

  I turned, watching him climb into the large black monster of a truck. He started the engine with a rumble and backed out of his parking spot.

  I waved a second before he returned the gesture and drove off. A part of me felt like a teenager with her first crush. Taylor would definitely be the boy every girl wanted.

  “You okay?” Davy asked as he walked outside the building.

  “Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I’m leaving.”

  He arched an eyebrow but didn’t say anything to me. I rolled my eyes and climbed in the driver’s seat. I really needed to get my mind off Taylor. I had so much to do and so little time to do it.

  Distractions were not needed.

  Chapter Two

  Taylor

  “You keep fucking my sister with your eyes and I’m going to poke them out,” Joe commented as I reached for a torque wrench.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Joe glared at me. “Don’t think for one second I don’t see you staring at her legs and her chest. That’s my baby sister. Boys have been ogling her since she hit puberty.”

  Had I really been that obvious? I chose to ignore Joe and work on dropping the new engine in the vehicle in front of me. Eve was one sexy woman. She’d come by the garage at least once a week before her mother stole everything just to check up on her dad. She always wore those damn sexy heels and those business-professional skirts. I thought about what it would be like to have her long legs wrapped around my waist more than once. Or my head. My cock stirred in my pants as I tried to gain some control over myself. Instead, I missed the bolt I was trying to loosen and dropped the wrench inside the hood.

  “Fuck.” I stared at the shiny metal mocking me. It fell far enough under the hood that I couldn’t reach it in the tight space. After pushing up from the vehicle, I took a step back and selected a grabbing tool.

  “Distracted?” Davy asked as he eyed me. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with my sister arriving now, would it?”

  “I didn’t even know your sister was here.” I stuck the tool under the hood and gripped the wrench. “Besides, why would she distract me?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Davy leaned against the vehicle. “She’s pretty. Single. She’s got a good heart. She’s a hard worker. Smart. There are a thousand reasons she could distract you.”

  I chose to avoid looking at him. “I’m working.”

  “Would it make a difference if I told you she was into you?”

  I licked my lips. “No.”

  “Liar.” Davy moved away with a chuckle.

  I’d been friends with both him and Joe for as long as I had worked at the garage. In more ways than one, they’d basically adopted me into the family. Or at least it felt that way. I didn’t have much of one myself. I came home after being honorably discharged from the Army and spent one night on my mother’s couch before I ended up in a fist fight with my stepfather. I needed this job more than anyone knew. I think Doug got that when he hired me.

  “Taylor?” Eve called my name from across the room. “Can you come here for a moment?”

  Joe glared at me. Davy wiggled his eyebrows. I sat my wrench on the tray behind me and grabbed a shop rag. I walked toward the office, wiping the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. I hated the hot temperature. It reminded me too much of the war and I tried to forget my time spent there as much as I could.

  “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it,” I said as I walked in the office.

  She stood beside the desk and glanced over at me. “Guilty conscience?”

  “Probably.” I shut the door behind me. “What do you need?”

  “How many of your paychecks have bounced?”

  I didn’t say anything. Eve leaned against the desk, her attention on me. The purple shirt she wore was unbuttoned just enough that I could see the swells of her breasts. The skirt clung to her ass and thighs, hitting just above her knee. She wasn’t stick thin, but she wasn’t too plump either. She could definitely stand to eat more.

  “Tell me,” she finally said.

  “Since it started.”

  “Six months?” Eve’s eyes widened.

  “Not quite.” I ran a hand over my face. “Probably six paychecks though. One per month. I have them all at home.”

  She stared at the papers on the desk. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I did.”

  “Who did you tell?”

  “Your father.” I cleared my throat. “And your mother.”

  “What did she say?”

  “It would be taken care of.” I licked my lips. Eve looked more like her father. The blonde hair came from her mother, but that was where the similarities ended. She was nothing like that bitch.

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “No. She paid me for my regular weeks. About once a month, the check would bounce. I knew better than to assume the business didn’t have money. We had so much work, there was no way we weren’t making a profit. But when I talked to your father about it, he gave it all to your mother. She was elusive. I didn’t have any intention of causing trouble so I just let it go.”

  “We owe you thousands of dollars.” Eve stood to her full height. “I can’t just let that go.”

  I shifted in my seat. “I meant what I said before. You can pay me when everything is straightened out.”

  “I don’t know when that will be.” She folded her arms over her chest and shook her head. “We cannot afford to pay you right now. I’m going to have to lay you off.”

  I blinked a few times, afraid I didn’t hear her right. “You’re letting me go?”

  “For now.” She chewed on her lower lip. “If things get straightened out and the business can afford your salary, then you can have your job back later.”

  I scoffed. My job was my lifeline. I didn’t give a shit about the money. I liked my boss. I liked my coworkers. I felt part of a family for once in my life.

  “I told you that you can pay me when you can afford it. Please don’t take my job away.”

  “I have to.” She shook her head. “I have tried to figure out every possible angle and the truth is, we cannot afford your salary. Or the salary that we owe you. This opens us up for legal problems and I promise I’m going to work as quickly as I can to get what we owe you paid.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about the money.” I raised my voice louder than I intended.

  Eve jumped slightly as she stared at me. There was something sparking between us. I had nothing aside from this job. I couldn’t afford to lose it.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked, almost a whisper.

  “I don’t expect you to understand, but if you’re half the person your brother thinks you are, maybe you can. I have nothing in this world but this job. I don’t give a shit about the money. These people are my family. My friends. I consider Doug to be a father figure. Davy and Joe are like my brothers. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for any one of you.”

  “Keeping you on salary is playing a game of legal roulette. You can sue us and it would close down the shop for good.”

  Furious, I shook my head and stood. “If you
really think I’m that kind of person, you don’t know me at all.”

  I opened the door with a jerk and stepped out, drawing everyone’s attention to me. I went to the vehicle I’d been working on and cleaned up my area.

  “What’s going on?” Davy asked.

  “Your sister laid me off.”

  “What?” Davy nearly yelled. He glanced over to the office.

  “I no longer work here.”

  Doug’s face blanched. “I’ll talk to her. There must be some mistake.”

  I took a deep breath. To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t know what his wife had done to him. Davy, Joe, and Eve did their best to protect him from her and unfortunately, that meant keeping him in the dark about everything. I shouldn’t be mad about it. It was a struggle for them as much as it was for me.

  “I’m going home.” I turned and headed toward the metal door leading outside.

  I did my best to try to understand where they were coming from but I couldn’t. It was like being thrown out of my family all over again.

  Story of my fucking life.

  ****

  I stepped out the shower the moment someone rang the doorbell. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my waist before making my way to the front of the house to answer. I jerked the door open and found Eve standing there, fist posed and ready to knock.

  She sucked in a breath and took in my lack of attire before licking her damn lips. As much as I wasn’t happy with her at the moment, the single action went straight to my cock. Considering I had very little to hide my reaction, I fucking needed to keep myself in check.

  “I stopped by to get those returned checks.” She cleared her throat.

  I stepped back and she moved inside the foyer. Closing the door behind her, I left her to retreat to my office to find the papers she wanted. A smart man probably would have taken the time to put some shorts on, but I never claimed to be smart. I walked around with the towel simply because it was my damn house. I could do what I wanted.

  She took the envelope I handed her and searched through the six or seven checks inside. Once she was through, she glanced up at me.

  “You’re not talking to me now?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Look, I got a tongue lashing from my father and my two brothers, not to mention the other guys at the shop.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t want to get rid of you. I can’t pay your salary and pay the bills for the shop too. I have to pick and choose. There are no other options.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “The money doesn’t matter. I’ve already told you that.”

  “But it does.”

  Frustration ebbed at me the longer I stared at her. Part of me wanted to wring her neck and the other part wanted to strip her bare. I didn’t know what to say to get my job back. I didn’t know how to make things right again.

  “Then pay me some other way.”

  “Huh?” She frowned.

  “Services. You could do something for me that would make us even.”

  She pursed her lips, meeting my gaze. “What do you want me to do?”

  That was a loaded question if I’d ever heard one. Fuck. Just the way she said it went straight to my dick and all the possibilities roaming through my head had me hard within seconds. I didn’t fucking want sex as payment for the money owed, but I did want her.

  God, how I wanted her.

  “If it’s any consolation, I’ve done some forecasting and I think the business will be back on track in nine months. I know it’s a long time, but your job isn’t going anywhere. It’s just on hold.”

  “That’s not a consolation, but at least you’ve got that much figured out.”

  “What do you want me to do? It is completely irresponsible for me to allow my father to employ people he cannot pay. He’ll never climb out of the hole my mom buried him in.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about the money.” I took a step toward her. “Don’t you get that? Not everything is about money.”

  “In business, it’s all about money.”

  “Maybe this isn’t business. Maybe it’s personal.” I shook my head. “I know you’re technically related to them, but I have nothing without that job. My relationships with your family mean more to me than money.”

  “You could still sue us. It’s your legal right and you’d win.”

  “Fine. Figure out some other damn way to pay me.”

  “How? I asked you what you wanted.”

  “Strip.”

  She barely hid her shock. I waited, knowing she wanted an excuse to take the next move. I wanted to give her a reason to shut up about the job. Sex seemed like the answer, and a damn good one at that.

  “I’m not having sex with you to compensate for your back salary. That’s illegal.”

  “Who said anything about sex? I said strip.”

  Her gaze lingered a little too long on my body. I didn’t even dry myself off and droplets of water clung to my chest hair. She struggled. If I weren’t so damn amused, I would have taken pity on her and asked her out instead.

  “So you’re suggesting I take off my clothes as payment for your salary?” She frowned. “Is that really what you’re saying?”

  “You don’t have money. I don’t want money.” I held my hands out. “You have a fucking hot body, and well, that’s something I wouldn’t mind having.”

  “My father would fire you for real if he knew what you were suggesting.”

  “I’m not forcing you to do anything.” I walked away from her and plopped down on the sofa with the towel dangerously hiking up my thighs, barely covering my balls. “You’re a grown woman. You can decide what the hell you want to do. I just gave you a suggestion.”

  She followed me into the living area. “Isn’t it a bit juvenile to suggest I show you my tits for compensation? Surely you’ve seen breasts before.”

  “I have.” I kept my attention on her. “But not yours.”

  “And I’ve got something great?” She laughed. “I doubt that. Boobs are boobs.”

  “If that’s the case, then what’s your problem?”

  She hesitated. Opening her mouth, she started to say something before she clamped it shut again. I relaxed against the sofa while she seemed to work it over in her head. She hadn’t left yet. I honestly didn’t want her to go. A part of me thought she wanted to stay for a reason and stalled as a result.

  “So you see me naked one time and it excuses seven paychecks?” She chewed adorably on her lip. “That’s nearly seven thousand dollars to see me naked.”

  “Seven times.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “One thousand each time. Seven checks, seven times.”

  “I just come by after work to show you my body and leave?”

  “You can do whatever the hell you want … naked.”

  “Do you know how ridiculous this sounds?” She shook her head. “It’s completely nuts. I can’t even believe you’re suggesting this.”

  “Yet you haven’t stormed out of here in a fury.” I propped my arm up on the back of the sofa. “Quit stalling and take your clothes off.”

  She tossed the checks to the coffee table. “Do you have music or something for this striptease?”

  I grinned. “Are you willing to dance for me?”

  “I was being sarcastic.” She kicked her heels off. The damn things looked uncomfortable and I didn’t mistake the relief crossing her face as she sank her toes in to the soft white rug covering the dark hardwood floors in my living room.

  She unzipped the side of her skirt and pulled her shirt out. The purple was a good color on her tanned skin. It brought out the blue in her eyes. She unbuttoned each button, taking her time sliding the little nobs through the tiny slits in the fabric. When she was done, she pulled it off and revealed a sexy, satin plunging bra that barely contained her breasts. I didn’t even realize I was grinning until she arched an eyebrow at me.

  “You’re like a teenage boy seeing his
first naked girl. Stop it.”

  I laughed and rubbed a hand over my face. My cock ached underneath the towel and before too long, she’d see the evidence of how much I wanted her.

  The skirt went next. It was tight around her hips and thighs so she not-so-gracefully shoved at it until it pooled around her feet. The satin panties were just as sexy as the bra. Lace trimmed the legs, dipping into the front where I was fairly sure she was wet. She turned slightly to reveal that the cheeky panties had a cut out in the back that crisscrossed over her ass crack. A little bow was at the top in the center.

  Happy fucking birthday to me.

  “So it’s just my tits?” she asked.

  “Naked.”

  Sighing, she reached to the back of her bra and unhooked it. She kept her back to me and I took in the way her luscious ass begged to be spanked. God, she was perfect. Even more than I had realized.

  “This does not leave this room.” She turned with her hands over her tits. “I mean it. If anyone finds out, I will murder you.”

  “I’ll keep your secrets.”

  Her wet tongue pushed out to moisten her lower lip. “I still think it’s juvenile.”

  She was nervous and it was cute. “Drop your hands.”

  Slowly, she lowered her hands to her sides. Her dark nipples hardened beneath my gaze and I ached to taste them. She didn’t take her eyes off me and there was no fucking way I’d focus on anything but her. The longer I stared, the more annoyed she seemed to get.

  “Now your panties.”

  “Is that really necessary?” She shook her head. “I mean, I’m not having sex with you.”

  “A deal is a deal.”

  “Fine.” She hooked her fingers into the sides of her panties and shoved them off her legs, kicking them to the side. “Do you want me to bend over so you get a good view?”

  I chuckled at her attitude. The way she stood barely showed anything other than she had a regular waxing appointment at the salon. I motioned for her to come to me.