#Swag (GearShark #3) (13 page)

Joey

Drew and Jace were having words.

Funny how he was no longer Lorhaven to me, not at all. He’d slowly, over the course of the past week and a half, become Jace.

The article was a big push in that direction, and it wasn’t because he was so sensitive and sweet in it. Those two words could probably never be used in the same sentence with him anyway.

Sensitive and sweet would never be my thing. I was too jaded for that. Too independent. I wanted strong. I wanted capable. I craved a man who would be confident and resilient enough to handle me, even at my worst.

It was cumbersome to be a “rough and tumble” woman. I still searched for balance. Balance between the woman I was and the one deep inside that wanted something… maybe just a little softer to give all the hard edges in me a break.

Strength was the only thing that could achieve that softness, though. Most would assume the opposite, that in order to give me something soft, they would have to
be
soft.

Not true.

Authority was the key in allowing someone like me to be vulnerable. So was trust. I could never trust someone with that side of me if they weren’t made of steel. Not many men were made that solid. It wasn’t something that was learned. It was a trait one was born with and honed with life.

I wasn’t sure if Jace was that man.

But I found myself more and more drawn to him, more and more interested to find out.

Watching him even yards away as he and Drew seemed to size one another up, I felt it. He still looked like Lorhaven. Tension and danger emanated off him; so did his asshole persona. Danger permeated the energy always surrounding him, and he was still as smug and sexy as he’d ever been.

But there was more.

I thought I might be the only one to see it. To feel it.

No. He wasn’t Lorhaven to me anymore.

He could only be Jace.

And I wanted more.

The two men broke apart, Drew remained planted where he was, but Jace started toward me and the hangar.

I felt his eyes, Drew’s, and Trent’s.

First, I glanced at Jace. He was shrouded in the darkness, but the familiar way he walked and the way his hips swiveled was entirely visible.

Excitement tingled my nerves, causing my belly to jump.

In an effort to calm myself, I looked to Drew, who still stood in the same position, only now Trent was right beside him. Both men looked at me like they waited for a sign, some kind of gesture to let them know I didn’t want to be alone with Jace.

But I
did
want to be alone with him.

I waved, a sort of see you later kind of wave, then dropped my hand.

They stared for one more long moment before Arrow called out to them. My stare followed his call; he was inside the hangar beside the black Camaro, with a few bottles of beer in his hands.

Drew and Trent relented and went toward their friend.

More excitement unfurled inside me.

Jace was much closer now. His hands were in the front pockets of his jeans, and his footsteps were heavy against the ground. He was tall, he had a good, strong build, but he wasn’t huge like Trent. He didn’t need it, though, because everything about him screamed strength.

His dark hair looked a lot like it had the last time I saw him (at the shoot), cut very close on the sides, but the top was long and brushed back off his face. The angular planes to his face might have been too much, but the light dusting of scruff over his jaws served to dull the edges.

And make him look even sexier.

He arrived close enough all his features were visible from the light inside the hangar. It didn’t matter how much light there was, though—whether it be the dim lighting from an overhead behind us or the brightest light from a bright sun—his eyes remained the same.

Dark as secrets but as all-knowing as truth.

Slowly, the black leather jacket tugged over his shoulders and slid down his arms behind him. He wore a white T-shirt, plain, thin, and surely soft to the touch.

It was the same kind of T-shirt you saw on the underwear commercials or in those hot as hell Calvin Klein ads. It made me think of sex, like he was dressed for the bedroom and not the car garage.

The right sleeve had somehow rolled up a little beneath his jacket, exposing more of the well-defined muscles in his arm.

Because the shirt was really what I suspected was made to wear beneath another shirt, it was shorter in length, and the hem caught on the front of his jeans, almost like it tucked itself into the front behind the fly because he was just that desirable.

It drew attention he already didn’t lack down to the bulge between his legs.

I worked with men on a daily basis. A lot of them were good-looking, but I never had a problem focusing on my job or what I was doing until now.

He reeked of sex. Like he’d just had it, like he wanted it right then… And the way he moved promised he’d want it again in just an hour.

Hunger gnawed at me, low in my belly, at the tips of my fingers. My lips tingled remembering what he felt like, and my brain whispered,
More
.

“Pop the hood,” he said, barely pausing beside me, continuing to toss his jacket on the workbench nearby. Turning on my heel, I went around my car to where the hood was still unlatched.

Jace flipped on some more lights, making it brighter as I propped up the hood to let him have his coveted
look
inside my engine.

Before he came to see, a switch was thrown, and the sound of the hangar door sliding closed filled the space.

I leaned back against the front of my car, bracing my hand on the metal body. Jace appeared, his body close, his eyes touching on mine before sweeping over my body.

It was hot in here, too hot for the jacket I’d put back on before driving to the airport. I wanted to take it off, but I didn’t want him to think I was taking it off because I wanted to make him look at me.

Wait. Fuck that.

I didn’t do anything in the name of someone else. If I was hot, I would take off my jacket, and he could get over himself.

I tugged it off and tossed it on the roof of the car. When I came back, he already had his hands down in my engine, looking at all my shit.

“Whoa,” I called. “I said you could look. I didn’t say anything about touching.”

He finished what he was doing before pulling back. “You had a cap loose.” He gestured to it, but I was too busy studying the way dark grease smeared his fingers.

“This is some nice shit,” he said, putting his hands back where I told him not to and tinkering with more.

A strand of hair fell over his forehead, but he ignored it and kept looking. Some of the parts were special ordered from places only pros could order from.

He gave me the third degree about some of them: performance, cost, maintenance, etc.

I answered, relaxing into the conversation and forgetting all about how riled up he made my insides.

I liked talking cars with him. He didn’t talk down to me or assume I didn’t understand exactly what all the shit beneath my hood did. That’s what usually happened. Even after I proved I knew what I was talking about, they still had shit to say. It never ceased to amaze me how big of dicks some guys could be.

After a little while of car talk, he shifted, pulled his body up, and glanced at me. “You break your hand?”

“What?” I asked, startled by the turn of conversation.

Without any thought, he wiped his greasy hands on the front of his once pristine white shirt. Instantly, it became smudged with dark streaks and shadows.

“When you punched Kurt.” He gestured at me, noted more grime, and lifted the hem to wipe his hand further.

The action exposed his flat abs and hips.

“Uh…”

The shirt fell back into place, now wrinkled and even dirtier.

I cleared my throat and glanced down. I’d been favoring it without realizing. “No,” I hurried to say. “It’s just kinda sore.” There was no point in lying; he’d already seen the way I’d been acting.

“Let me see.” He reached for my hand, lifting it between us. “It’s red,” he murmured, brushing the back of his thumb over the knuckles.

A streak of oil got on my skin.

“Flex your fingers,” he instructed.

I did without thinking. Did I mention yet that his dirty appearance only added to the rogue reputation he exuded?

“Not broken,” he announced.

“That’s what I said.” I reminded him.

“Looks like it hurts, though.” He glanced up. His endless night-colored eyes teased me. “That’s what happens when you slam it into someone’s face.”

“That asshole deserved it,” I snapped, moving to pull back my hand.

Jace nodded. “He did.”

He agreed with me? I thought it might be a first.

“I got what you need for this,” he said. The words stroked down my spine like an hour-long massage.

Instead of releasing my hand, he tucked it under his arm and towed me toward the back of the hangar.

I barely made out anything beyond the silver metal walls because I was too focused on him.

The seam on the corner of his back pocket was loose. It caused the material to pull away from the pants a little. Every time he swung his leg forward, I’d get a tiny glimpse of the boxers he wore beneath.

“Here,” he said, stopping in front of a full-size fridge and freezer. He produced an ice pack, which he deftly wrapped in a towel and applied to the back of my hand.

“I got grease on you,” he murmured, noticing the smudge.

I shrugged. “Hazard of the job.”

“It’s sexy.”

I tugged the ice over it, hiding it. As if in retaliation, he swiped two fingers across my cheek. It must have left behind a streak, because his eyes became smug. “I’d like to see you covered in streaks, every last one of them made by my hands.”

Sex was something I enjoyed, but the way he stared at me made me feel like I’d never experienced it before. At least not in any way, shape, or form the way it would be with him.

“They look good on you, too,” I said, gesturing to his shirt.

Just because my insides felt like a bubbling volcano didn’t mean I had to show it.

His body shifted just a bit closer. “What’s your real name?”

I lifted a brow. “How do you know it isn’t Joey?”

“There’s no way in hell someone who looks like you only has a boy name.”

“It’s Josephine,” I answered, taking some pleasure in the fact he liked the way I looked. “Everyone calls me Joey.”

“I’m not calling you that.” It wasn’t a question, a suggestion, or a statement.

It was what would be.

“No?” God, just the way he looked at me. I actually tore my eyes off him to make sure the ice on my hand wasn’t completely melted.

With a low sound, he moved past me, going back over to my engine.

I followed along, once again staring at the rip in his jeans.

Once there, he turned, grabbed a fistful of the stained white shirt, and pulled it over his head.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him sans shirt. Hell, I’d felt his skin against mine in an intimate way.

But the setting had been anything but.

Now we were alone.

I didn’t have to pretend, and I didn’t have to play a game.

He knew I was attracted to him, just as I knew he was to me. The energy was undeniable. The tremor in my hands dared me to deny it, and the slow thud of my heart was impossible to ignore.

I stopped in front of him, facing each other in front of my car in the shadows cast by the open hood.

Jace took the ice I was holding and threw it over his shoulder. I barely heard the smacking sound it made against the concrete floor. Beneath the hem of my crop top, his still filthy hands wrapped around my waist, his thumbs pressing into the flesh and swiping.

I looked down. Two black marks marred my waist.