Page 58 of Till The Sun Dies (Checkmate 2)

Her shoulders bounce with laughter. Even under the thick hoodie I suspect belongs to Kane, I see her delicate shoulder blades roll. “Ew. Now my ass itches with imaginary sand.”

“Yeah, well…” Now that my meatballs are a few clicks cooler than lava, I push half the sandwich into my mouth and take a chunky bite. Laine sticks to her girly picking, but she watches me with light eyes that don’t show the fear they did when I got here. “Anyway… Fine. You saw me angry that one time. A guy’s entitled to one or two pissy days in his life.”

“Then you had to do it again the next weekend.”

I laugh. “Yup. Who’s the idiot?” I poke my chest. “Angelo’s the idiot.”

Somehow, for some reason, that group of girls chose me as their sacrificial lamb. They got me invested, turned me into an accessory to their crimes, until eventually, I became designated driver and traitor to my best friends.

I had to play with the band every weekend at The Shed, so the girls knew where we were between the hours of nine to one every Friday and Saturday night. They knew their brothers wouldn’t come looking until after that. I’d play my set, do my job, collect my cash, pack away the instruments, and the whole time, I’d think about the shenanigans the girls were getting up to in their brothers’ absence.

Magically, somewhere around one-thirty in the morning, soon after we’d packed up, I’d get a call from a particular blonde that liked to play with fire and ride around in a car that belonged to a guy that had no business driving her around in the middle of the night.

It wasn’t as lewd as it might sound. Everything was made innocent by the girls’ laughter as they came along for the ride – if you ignored the underage drinking thing – but still, it became athing. A secret I vow to keep from my brothers until my dying breath.

For years, I was her middle of the night call and friend in secret. Until I wasn’t…

Nat King Cole’s voice slides from the boombox and sings of smiles and heartbreak. He makes me think of old diners and slow dancing. Flaring dresses, curled hair, heels, and a soft body pressed against mine.

Laine creates this clear division between my heart, my body, and my brain. She’s not underage anymore, and I’m not a hell of a lot older than her.

But she’s been hurt…

She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life, but putting that aside, looking past her pretty eyes and inviting smile, her body does things to mine. Even in a hoodie, she’s alluring the way Eve was in the Garden of Eden. For a decade, I’ve wondered what it would feel like to slide my hands over her hips. Over her ass.

Her breasts.

Inappropriate or not, I’ve fought back the million thoughts of the million different ways I could fuck Laine until I worked the incessant need from my veins. I’ve had to fight down a thousand inappropriate erections, and when they wouldn’t be fought, I had to touch my cock while I thought of her.

Only her.

For the longest time, she’s been my every filthy dream. My morning savior when my dreams left me with lasting effects. My shower companion, when I had a hand full of liquid soap and barely enough time to get it done before I was officially late for work.

Laine has been used, abused, broken, and tormented, and yet, I still have to fight back a twitching cock when she walks by and her scent wafts beneath my nose.

So fucking inappropriate.

So coveted I could be sick.

I’m a red-blooded male in the prime of my life, and the woman I crave sits barely ten feet away. Oversized hoodie or not, I know what’s beneath the black fabric.

“Hey, Ang?”

I scrunch my lunch wrapping and toss it into the front seat of the Buick. “Yuh?”

“When you finish the car…” She watches me with wary eyes. “When it’s done and you’re thinking about what’s next, can you talk to me first?”

Instead of a verbal ‘huh?’ I simply lift my brow.

“Before you whack aFor Salesign on it, can you offer it to me first? Maybe I’ll be in a position to buy it. I have cash, that’s no problem. But by the time it’s done, maybe my life won’t be so messed up and I’ll be ready to drive something as pretty as this.”

“Sure.”It’s already yours.“You’ll know when it’s done, anyway. Especially if the engine continues to dismantle itself when I’m at work.”

“Yeah…” Chuckling, she drops her eyes and takes an actual man-sized bite of her sandwich. A slop of sauce lands on her knee, and instinctively the way you do things without thinking, she leans forward and licks it up.

Her face flares when she catches herself. Her eyes widen, and her cheeks turn beet red, but when I simply stand with a chuckle and walk to the open hood, she lets out a relieved breath and continues pulling the foil back to eat more.

“I got an entire new crankshaft. New counterweights. New wiring.” I don’t peek at her around the hood. I leave her be. “New headlights, too, since the set now are fishbowls.”

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