Chapter 8

Eight

SARA

A jazz singerserenaded us as Tom turned up the volume a couple of notches and we waltzed through the streets, now diluted of traffic, free as a river breeze. The city never felt so magical and surreal. It didn’t take long for my soul to sally off into a daydream, a dance concerto gliding my spirit through a routine of leaps and arabesques. I was so lost in the beauty of the music, before I knew it, we’d arrived back at the club.

As it seemed, my battery was not only drained, it was completely and utterly dead. There was no reviving the damn thing.

“Just great…” I droned behind the wheel of my Jeep.

Tom walked toward me after storing his jumper cables. He stood at my open car door, crestfallen. Perhaps he wasn’t used to not saving damsels in distress. “I’m sorry,” he lamented.

“Don’t be. Not your fault.”

He shrugged apologetically. “So, what now?”

“Don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I guess I call a tow truck and have it taken to a mechanic somewhere?” I seldom drove, so I had no idea where to take it. Having a car in the city was a luxury I couldn’t really afford, but parting with the Jeep would be carving out a chunk of flesh from my bones.

It was my mom’s old car. We beat it up driving up and down the East Coast chasing competitions. That Jeep was as much a part of my life as my childhood home. I’d already lost that one. No way I was losing this, too. Nah-uh. Never. Too many memories lived inside, vibrant as if they happened yesterday. Happy. Sad. They all mattered. People told me the memories lived in my heart not in the car. That I should stop holding on to the Jeep as if losing it meant losing the memories. No. To lose it was to lose my mom all over again. So, fuck ’em. I’d scrape pennies for Asian noodles just to keep paying for the parking garage.

“You don’t have a mechanic?” he asked.

“Not one I use regularly. Jen might know a guy.” I reached into my purse for my phone but when I pressed the ON button, it didn’t power up. “Shit.” I threw my head back. “I always forget to charge this stupid thing.” A strangled breath strained out of my lungs.

“Hey,” he intoned softly as he reached for my face and cupped my chin with his fingers, turning my gaze toward him. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

We’ll figure it out…

I stared into his green eyes. They shimmered with a twinkle of hopefulness, as if saving my sorry ass tonight was his sole mission. He wasn’t planning on abandoning me to my bad luck. I smiled, offering him a silent thank you. Sorrier still was the fact that I wanted him to save my sorry-ass. I wanted to play the damsel in distress, the princess rescued by her knight in shining armor. Anything to keep this night from ever ending, and to prolong the kindling fire deep in my core, blazing like a pyre when he looked at me like this, as if he’d always known me, as if he never wanted to let me go.

He dug into his jeans pocket and retrieved his phone. “I’ll give my guy a call.”

“His shop is open at this hour?”

“Not his shop. I have his personal number.”

“What? No. Don’t wake this guy up for me. This is silly. Don’t—”

Tom turned from me as I jumped out of the car to stop him from making the call. He smiled as he spun in the middle of the street. “Juan, hey man, thanks for taking my call. I got a bit of a situation.” He paused to listen then turned to me.

My eyes bulged as I whispered to him to end the connection. I was mortified.

“For a friend,” he went on before another pause. He squinted and crossed his fingers as he listened to the guy. Tom made a rolling motion with his hand, silently urging the person on the other side to speed up the conversation.

Then he turned to me once more and gave me an okay with his fingers, his face beaming. “Perfect. Thanks, man. I owe you one.” He ended the call and polished his nails over his shirt with a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

I shook my head. He was absurd. I could have left my car there overnight and figured this out in the morning. But he wanted to be the one to save the day. And there was no denying that I secretly enjoyed every bit of his efforts to impress me.

“So, he’s gonna see us tonight?” I wondered.

“I’m good but not that good. He told me to have it towed to his shop and he will take care of it first thing in the morning.”

“Where’s this shop, exactly?”

* * *

Our drive to Jersey was serene. Jazz continued to dance in the background as we crossed the George Washington Bridge, following the tow truck to Juan’s Auto Shop located in Fort Lee. I stared out the window, gazing at the evening panorama of the Hudson River. Enveloped in the plush of his seats and the scent of leather mixed with the musk of his cologne, I sat in utter disbelief. How the heck had I ended up in this crazy scenario with this man who only days ago was just a guy at a coffee shop?

Tom shut off the engine as we approached a garage. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he said, “We’re here. Gonna talk to the driver. Wait in the car.”

I straightened. “Um, wait…wait. I have to pay him.”

“I got it, Sara. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right back.”

As he stepped out of the car and closed his door, a chill from the cool night prickled my skin. I rubbed my arms together and held myself in an embrace. I stared out the car window as he gave the truck driver a strong handshake and patted him on the shoulder with his free hand. The driver tipped his cap and turned to jump back in his truck.

As Tom walked back to the Rover, I gasped. He was agonizingly breathtaking. I salivated at the thought of his body underneath those clothes. I observed every small detail, from the way his golden-brown hair sat soft and wavy atop his head, to the thickness of his eyebrows and the depth of those eyes dusted with long lashes. His lips were full and his square jaw was strong. His perfectly tailored shirt clung to him, and I could only imagine the ruggedness of his arms and the rip and tone of his torso. And talk about those long powerful legs waiting to burst out of his jeans—that I didn’t strip down to my birthday suit and wasn’t on all fours panting “take me” like a lioness in heat was a shocker even to me.

Christ, the sexual hunger growling inside me was unavoidable. My body tingled at the anticipation of his return. The thought of being savagely consumed by him rocked my senses. Against all better judgment, I wanted to be there trapped with him, hoping to be his prey.

As he jumped back in the car, he noticed my arms wrapped around myself. “Are you cold?”

I nodded.

He leaned into me, and my heart immediately began to ferociously beat against my chest. Blood throbbed at my temple. With a strong inhale, my entire body tensed with fervor. My legs parted slightly as heat migrated to my center. The whole scene played out in slow motion inside my brain. I licked my lips, preparing for a kiss—as if kissing right now made any type of sense.

And just as the cleft of my lips peeled open, he sliced his head to the right and reached for the seat behind me. He grabbed a black leather jacket and handed it to me. “Here, wear this,” he said with a smirk.

Damn him.

“Oh…thanks,” I said, my voice deflated. I took the jacket from his hands and dropped my gaze, hoping to hide the foolish thoughts probably evident in my hungry eyes, but as I peered up, the gratified look flashing in his told me he knew exactly what I’d been thinking. His lips twitched.

Arrogant sonuvabitch.

He thoroughly enjoyed watching the reaction my body had to his.

The things he did to me without even touching me made my head spin. That he basked in torturing me with such subtleties only made me crave him more. If he could fire me up with a simple look, I could only imagine what having his hands all over me could do.

The jacket was too big for my frame, but I was deliciously warm, and when I realized I was bathed in his scent, I wrapped it tighter around me.

“Better?” he asked, holding back a trembling smirk pulling at the corners of his lips, trying to mask the satisfaction bouncing in his eyes.

He wasn’t very good at it.

I shot him a steely gaze. “Much, thank you,” I replied coolly, trying to squelch his overheated ego.

He reached across and ran his knuckles over my cheek. “Anything for my damsel.”

Christ. Really?

I’d just managed to cool myself down and he went in for a knuckles-over-the-cheek move? What could I do? His touch emitted a calming warmth. I stared at him, trying to figure him out. Hot/cold, hot/cold. Could he make up his mind? He dropped his hand and reached inside his pocket for a piece of paper and pen.

Back to cold.

“You need to leave your name, number, and keys in the drop box.” He scribbled down my name then hovered the pen-point over the paper, waiting for me to drop him my digits.

“You know, if all you wanted was my number, you could have asked me back in New York. You didn’t have to construct this whole rescued-princess tale.”

He swung his head toward me, his eyes unblinking. “Now you tell me.”

Both of us tried to stifle a laugh, but we failed miserably. I gave him my number and after he left to put the paper and keys in the drop box, he popped back inside.

“So, thanks for all your help. How much do I owe you for the tow?” I asked.

He tilted his head to the side, his forehead lined with offense. “Please, you owe me nothing. This is the least I can do for kidnapping you this evening.”

“Is that what you’re calling it?”

“Maybe.” He chuckled. “It’s getting late, and I should bring you home before your mom grounds you and I can’t see you again.”

“You want to see me again?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

A wolfish grin stretched across his lips. “If you’re a good girl.”

I sat in my seat unable to come up with a retort. My mind swirled. Did he mean good as in good, or good as in bad, in which case being bad was good? I turned from him and simply stared out the window in stunned silence.

A few minutes later, we were driving across the George Washington Bridge again. We drove the rest of the way with bluesy tunes crooning in the background. As we approached my apartment, a sense of loneliness enveloped me. I didn’t want the night to end.

“You are home, Sara. Safe and sound, like I promised.” He turned to face me as he ran a hand through his silky hair. The lights from the street lamps sparkled in his eyes, lips soft and beckoning. Then he smiled, causing my heart to squeeze in my chest. I was so drawn to him, the feeling teetered on being painful.

Fearful of losing myself in him, I looked away and dropped my chin to my chest. With a sigh, I peered up at my building through the car window, whispering to myself, “Yep, I guess I am home.” Then I turned toward him, hoping the charm had been broken. “What now?” I asked.

Eyes aflame with bewitchment, he mystified me, and I realized I wasn’t sure if the spell could ever be broken. Tom inched closer, his gaze continuing to arrow deep into me for another brief moment before narrowing slowly over my lips. In a sultry bedroom voice, he uttered, “It was lovely meeting you, Sara. You made an adventure of what would have been an otherwise uneventful evening.”

Whatever it was, purposeful or not, his voice did insane things to my feminine parts.

I swallowed hard. “Likewise,” I whispered as we both inched closer to one another, eyes focused on the other’s mouth. The knock of my heart hammering against the walls of my chest muted every other sound around me. His large hand reached for my jaw, where he carefully outlined my chin with his thumb before brushing its pad over my bottom lip. My breath caught at the tingling sensation. He licked his lips as he watched my reaction to his touch.

As his chest rose with one heavy inhale, his hand lacing through my hair, palming the back of my head and bringing me closer to his lips, I turned away, cutting the tether holding us together, shattering the tension, obliterating the kiss I had longed for all night.

“Um, I guess I will call your mechanic in the morning?” I asked, instantly regretting the question. I didn’t know why I did it, but with those words, I dropped an iron wall between us.

It was a mistake I could never take back. His hand fell to his lap, and from the corner of my eye I noticed he lowered his gaze, shaking his head in confusion.

Dammit.

Like a fool, I swiftly maneuvered away from the one thing I wanted most. He leaned away from me to reach into his back pocket and took out his black leather wallet. He pulled a business card out from one of the folds and handed it to me. “Here, this is the contact information for his shop. I’ll call him in the morning to remind him.”

I took it from him, making sure to touch his hand as I grasped the card. “Thank you. For everything.” I stalled, trying to think of something else to say, but he interrupted my thoughts.

“Get upstairs and go to sleep, you have to get up for work tomorrow, and frankly, I need to get my ass home too.” His smile lacked the humor he intended.

Yep. I fucked up.

Royally.

I went to open the door, but not before looking back at him. For a few seconds, we were anchored to one another, unable to break free. There was urgency in his eyes, the dancing fire was gone. I wanted to jump across the console and bury myself in his mouth, but I’d blown my chance already.

“Good night, Tom,” I said, stepping out of his car and closing the door.

As I climbed the front stairs of my building, I heard his voice call out to me. “Sara.”

I stumbled as I turned around.

“Nice Jacket.”

Crap. I mouthed I’m sorry and attempted to walk to his car, but he put his hand up, signaling me to stop.

“Keep it.”

“Why?”

“As insurance.” Then he flashed me those pearly whites and drove away.

Speechless and utterly enchanted, I entered my building.

* * *

After gently closing the front door, I tiptoed to my room. Skiddles followed behind me, purring her welcome. “Hey, girl, momma’s home.” I scooped her up and stepped onto the soft carpet of my bedroom. As I flicked the lights on, my reflection stared back at me through the bedroom mirror. A wide grin creased my face.

Skiddles squirmed out of my arms as I walked closer to the mirror. I reveled in the feel of Tom’s jacket. The fine leather was cool and soft and was imbued with the smell of him. I inhaled deeply, wanting to make his scent a part of me.

As I continued to stare, my grin faded, recalling the reason I’d given up on love. My heart throbbed with longing. It was so starved of affection, it now hungered voraciously for passionate, all consuming, dangerous love. I felt so safe and secure inside my iron prison, I didn’t bother to feed my heart, believing I didn’t need anyone in my life to feel fulfilled.

Deep inside, I knew the truth.

I wanted to fly.

And tonight, Tom bent open the bars of my cage.

I stripped his jacket off my body and changed into a pair of pajamas. As I padded to the kitchen for a glass of water, Jen called my name. Her door slightly ajar, I poked my head through. “Thought you were sleeping.”

“I was, but I heard you come in. So, how did it go?” She could never pass up girly gossip, no matter what time it was.

I walked over to the bed and laid under her covers.

“Sara, is everything okay?

“Everything…is…perfect.”

She sprang up and switched on the lamp by her nightstand. No longer groggy, she teemed with excitement. Crossing her legs, she sang, “Tell me everything.”