The Lumberfox (Geekrotica)

The Lumberfox

Geekrotica Series: Level 1

By Ava Lovelace

Copyright © 2014 D. Dawson

All rights reserved.

THE LUMBERFOX

A Geekrotica Romance

by Ava Lovelace

Just two more exits and Tara would beat the snowstorm home for some private time with
a
six-inch tall scoundrel she'd nicknamed Han Solo. When she'd scurried into the dark-windowed shop downtown, sunglasses firmly covering half her face, the morning had been sunny but cold, the crisp sort of day that makes a sexually frustrated geek girl finally decide to find her g-spot with a little extra, vibrating help. But when she'd stepped back out onto the sidewalk, nondescript paper bag in hand, the clouds were heavy and gray and the first fat snowflakes were swirling around, mocking her. The guy on the radio had urged everyone off the roads, but she was so close to home, and her Jeep had 4WD. Considering she'd gone to college up north
, she was one of ten people in Georgia who actually knew how to drive in winter weather. Even with traffic at a crawl and the Hoth-like air thick with swirling white, she knew she could make it. After all, it was just a little storm, and Atlanta never had any accumulation.

She changed stations and heard a girl laugh like Malibu Barbie on crack.

“Snowpocalypse, Snowjam, or the End of the World: whatever you call it, the governor is urging everyone to seek shelter immediately. The roads will soon be entirely iced over, and there are over three hundred wrecks on the streets right now. If you're in your car and can see a lit building, get there as fast as possible.”

“Lady, you're too damn perky to proclaim doom,” Tara muttered. “Have some gravitas.” Bored out of her mind, she muttered, “Luke, put on a hat,” in her best Darth Vader voice. “There is another thing: wear more socks. You will catch a cold.”

Hoping for music instead of murder by meteorology, Tara flipped through the buttons, rolling her eyes as each voice swore she was about to die. Desperate to feel anything but frustration, she decided it was time to use her last drop of iPod juice for a good cause and scrolled to Black Parade by My Chemical Romance, turning it up loud enough to drown out all the honking. The car in front of her moved a foot, and she moved a foot and pretended not to feel the tires slide, just a little. If she could just get over this bridge, she could probably swerve into the emergency lane and barrel through in the ditch. Not only because being stuck in the closest Home Depot with a bunch of strangers sounded like her version of hell, but also because she had a date, and the unassuming white plastic vibrator in her bag looked like the impatient type. That's why she'd decided to call him Han Solo: he was cocky and looked like he was going to shoot first.

Just out of curiosity, and because sitting in dead still traffic was boring, she pulled Han out of the bag, slid him out of his box, and twisted open the battery compartment. It was kind of crazy how two little AA batteries could make something vibrate in so many ways, and she switched it on and off a few times, getting accustomed to the button controls. Gerard Way didn't mind a bit and kept on singing. She shoved Han back into his box and rolled down the top of the paper bag, still feeling a little shy about the entire business. When the car behind her honked, she barely heard it. Looking up, she saw about twelve feet of space in front of her, a huge coup.

Finally, she was able to inch off the overpass and start to edge into the emergency lane, thankful that her Jeep could probably handle it. Right up until the entire Jeep slammed forward and she narrowly missed bashing her head on the steering wheel. Panic shot through her nerves, her hands going frozen as she put the Jeep in park and took inventory. She wasn't hurt or even sore. Her car hadn't hit anyone else, thankfully. But Han was on the floorboard, along with her laptop bag, phone, and dashboard zombie, and she couldn't see anything but two bright lights in a wall of white outside the back window. What sort of crap-driving Southern douchebag had hit her?

Before getting out of her car to find out, Tara turned off the iPod, grabbed her phone, and checked the mirror. Her dark hair was up in a messy bun stuck through with a pencil, her sparkly gray eyeshadow smudged around her eyes. Did she look like a woman who'd been too busy thinking about a sex toy to notice she was about to get rammed, no pun intended? Probably not. Her last date, a scrawny hipster who cared more about his mustache than his breath, had said she looked like a librarian. But not a sexy librarian. A children's librarian.

Ouch.

And then he'd called Iron Man a dick and asked if she liked Ayn Rand and John Ringo.

They hadn't had a second date.

A shadowy figure appeared outside of her window, hovering as if aware that knocking was fucking annoying, as it was clear they'd just had a traffic accident in a snowstorm. Tara shrugged into her peacoat, wound on her Marauder's Map scarf, and opened the door on a maelstrom of cold-ass insanity. Inside the Jeep, it was muffled, but outside, the wind was vicious, driving the fluffy snow into her eyes. The figure stepped closer as she slammed the door behind her, and she was able to blink the snow out of her lashes and look up. A tall form stepped to block the wind.

“Are you okay?”

Jesus, he was hot, for a shitty driver. Tall, navy peacoat that matched hers, striped scarf tucked in, well-kept beard, kind blue eyes, and a sailor's cap. With his hands in his pockets, he looked like he was standing on a ship, staring out at the placid sea. She glanced down but couldn't see past his knees, thanks to the snow. She had a tendency to judge men by their shoes.

“I'm a little cold, actually,” she said. “Hoth cold.”

If you could hear a man smile in a blizzard, she heard it. “I could chop your car in half and shove you inside, if you think that would help.”

Which reminded her that he had just hit her car. “Oh, yeah. We need to exchange information. Are you by any chance an axe murderer? Or a convict?”

With a laugh, he pulled his hands from his pockets and held up his fists. BREW was written across the knuckles of his right hand, BAKE across the left.

“I'm a dangerous madman,” he said. “If you're really worried about your flour and hops and sugar. Otherwise, you're probably safe.”

With a smirk, Tara hitched her chin at the Jeep and got in on the driver's side. She'd left the heater running, and it was deliciously warm and dry inside. When the guy didn't immediately slide in on the passenger side, she started to worry that he might run—not that it would be easy. But surely a guy who watched Star Wars wouldn't just leave her stranded? She was about to go outside and investigate when he knocked on the window and opened the door on the blizzard. Tara shook wet bangs out of her eyes and remembered the precious cargo that had fallen to the floorboards.

The cargo he was just about to crush with his black boots.

“Hold on--”

But he'd already slid the laptop and paper bag over, climbed up, and slammed the door. It was suddenly sweltering and intimate in the jeep, and when he pulled off his cap and shook out brown hair that was longer and slicked back on top with an undercut, she could smell his shampoo, cypress and juniper like a crisp fall day at the lake. Damn. The guy who'd rear-ended her was freaking hot.

“I'm Ryon.”

“Ryon the highly dangerous baker?”

After poking around in his coat pocket, he handed her a card.

RYON BRUBAKER

EXECUTIVE CHEF AND BREWMASTER.

The card was on heavy paper with the logo of a local restaurant she'd been to before and enjoyed. “Wow. Brubaker. Your mom really married the right guy.”

“Yeah, she almost married a guy named Shithouse. You got a card?”

Tara had to reach down by his feet to grab her laptop bag, and he tried to move his snow-crusted boots out of her way, and that's when he kicked the paper bag.

And it started buzzing.

For a long, silent moment, they didn't move, both staring at the bag.

“Is that...?” he asked, nudging it with one foot.

“Um.”

She looked up, terrified and red with mortification, and his eyes met hers, and she saw something magnificent and burning there that she couldn't quite understand, and then he gave her a devastating and knowing smile and shrugged.

“Electric shaver, right? I'll turn it off.”

And before she could stop him, he bent over, blocking her view. The buzzing stopped almost immediately, and the bag lay on the floor with Han and his extra batteries safely hidden within.

“Did you need this?”

Ryon held up her laptop bag, and she nearly melted into a puddle of embarrassment and gratefulness.

“Yeah. Here's my card.”

After she handed it to him, she flopped the laptop bag over the paper bag and sent silent prayers to every God of every pantheon that Han would shut the hell up until she was somewhere private where she could have a say, too.

“You work for Cartoon Network? That's possibly the coolest job I can think of. Tara.”

“Says the guy who bakes cakes and makes beer for a living. Ryon.” She stuck her hand out, and he took it in a shake that was less business and more personal, and she noticed that his palms were wide and dry, his fingers long with blunt-cut nails. His handshake, if you could call it that, was steady and strong, and yet somehow intimate. Their eyes met again, and he smiled again, and the parts of her that were still cold nearly melted into the heated seats. And still he didn't let go of her hand.

Tara had always been a little awkward around guys, when things went from friendship or first dates to more. She'd been known to blurt ridiculous things during make-out sessions or when sex got weird. And, true to form, she said, “So when I said we should exchange information, I didn't mean DNA. Without police, I guess we just write everything down ourselves and deal with it after Hothlanta unfreezes.”

He grinned, eyes alight. “Unless you just want to wait here until the snow melts.”

The way he was looking at her—he fucking well meant it. And the way his fingers stayed curled around hers, they might just burn a hole in the drifts building up outside.

Spooked, she pulled her hand away and flipped down her visor, where she kept her insurance card, registration, and a tiny notebook and pen for days when her boss got so yappy she had to pull over and start taking notes.

Ryon handed her his cards and said, “I'll be right back.”

It was a shock when he opened his door, as she'd completely forgotten that there was anything in the world besides the hot, mysterious guy and her car. His cologne lingered in the air with the slightest tinge of baking bread, his warmth still caressing her hand. Shaking her attraction for the stranger out of her head, she scribbled down all her information for him, then, when he still hadn't returned, scribbled down all of his information for herself. The car that had hit her was a van that belonged to the restaurant listed on his business card, which at least meant it had good insurance. She sincerely hoped he hadn't messed up her Jeep, as it was practically new, if nearly out of gas. She had plans to take it camping this spring, as soon as it was warm again.

If it was ever warm again.

Judging by the solid white outside and the wind sometimes shaking the car, it might as well be Hoth, and she wasn't dressed nearly as well as Luke and Han. And considering how long she'd been here and how high she had to run the heater to keep warm, her steel tauntaun was about to pass out in the snow.

The door opened, and Ryon slid in with a stuffed backpack.

“What's all that?” Tara asked.

Ryon grinned. “All the clothes I had in the van. How about an adventure?”

* * *

“I like snow, but I'm not big on dying in a blizzard,” she said as he pulled out a thick, cozy-looking sweater and another knit cap, which he shook out and placed over her bun, flipping up the brim.

“My condo's off this exit. You can see the building from here. We can be inside in ten minutes.”

Tara looked where he was pointing, but all she could see was a wall of white.

“Let me get this straight. You want me to put on all your dirty clothes, step out into a snowstorm, and follow a complete stranger to his American Pyscho apartment?”

Pulling out a thick, knitted scarf, he wound it gently around her own smaller, more ornamental scarf. Heat suffused her face at the touch of his fingers, tucking in the end. “Correction. I want you to put on all my clean clothes, step out into a beautiful chaos of snowflakes, get some healthful exercise, and join me for a home cooked gourmet meal in my apartment while the rest of the world crawls into a Chick
-
fil
-
A to die. You're going to run out of gas in a few more hours, and you don't want to be stuck out here all night. Right?”

Tara narrowed her eyes at him. It was insane. But damn, did it sound good. He probably even had a fireplace and cocoa. What had the radio girl said? Look for lights and find shelter? The traffic had completely ceased to move, and she could barely see the lights of the cars in front or behind. Dark shapes passed occasionally, probably people giving up on cars running out of gas after hours of creeping through the storm. Her only other option was to pull the blanket out of the trunk and sleep across the back seat, which was hard as a rock.

“I have wine,” Ryon said, as if sensing her weakening resolve. “And crème brulee. And a fire.”