Unsteady (The Torqued Trilogy Book 1) (31 page)

Red shrugs and places his hands on the edge of the stool in front of him. The action causes the muscles in his forearms to flex and pop. “Not much to tell. We met at a concert and she took advantage of me in the backseat of my car.” I shake my head when he winks. No way she took advantage of him, more like he probably winked at her and he was able to get her to do anything he wanted. “She got pregnant and it went from there.”

“Were you married when Nova was born?”

“I asked her to marry me when she was seven-months pregnant. We tied the knot in Vegas three weeks later.”

“Do you miss her?”

Seriously, Lenny? Do you miss her?

Red snorts. “That’s a dumb question.”

“Sorry.”

Just when I think he’s not going to answer me, he says, “Yes, I miss her. She was an amazing woman and mother.” And then he opens up with, “I try to take Nova to her grave every Sunday. We take her flowers and Nova likes to leave a drawing for her. I just want to make sure that she remembers her.”

I can’t fathom what it would be like to lose your wife, that unimaginable, unbearable pain that must eat at him when he looks at Nova knowing her mommy is gone. I can see he struggles with it a lot.

Standing, I nod to the truck. “Ready to get the engine out?”

He nods himself, and reaches for the stereo and turns on the radio. He’s probably done with me talking and asking stupid shit. Can’t say I blame him on that one.

It’s freaking midnight when we finish getting the new engine inside the truck and I’m stretching out my arms from trying to hold the engine steady while we were lowering it in. The action causes Red to look right at my chest when he’s putting away tools.

“See something you like?”

Red smirks. “Well, I wouldn’t be much of a man if I didn’t.” His eyes have a frantic hunger in them and I can tell he’s turned-on by watching me. Internally, I’m gleaming because I honestly didn’t think I could turn a guy like Red on. I mean, he’s all hard and rugged. I was beginning to think he can never crack.

Laughing nervously, I shove his shoulder and reach for my bag on the bench. We both walk toward the door after he locks up, me walking in front of him when I stop. I need to thank him for giving me a chance to do this with him. “Red, I wa—”

Red’s staring at his phone in his hand and runs right into the back of me and the two of us knock into the door. He automatically reaches out and grabs my shoulders to steady me from falling.

And then he touches my neck. As he drags each fingertip over my skin, my body ignites at his touch. It’s been so long since I’ve experienced a rush of sensations like I do now, or if I ever have.

He grazes my jaw with the tips of his fingers, stroking my chin to my ear. I instinctively lean into his touch, soaking up the warmth like I’ve been starving for attention of this kind.

In my fucked-up reality, I have been. I’ve been starving for attention, love and sincerity.

I want to believe I can have this, but it would be a total contradiction to what I should be doing. Good thing I hardly listen to my head and my heart rules my actions.

Red’s eyes have a frantic hunger in them and I can tell he wants to kiss me, but he doesn’t just yet. Instead, he bends down and wraps his hands around my ass.

He takes a fist full of my denim shorts. “Do you have any idea what these shorts have been doing to me this last week?” The way he looks at me, the hunger I’ve created in him with his steady stare, well, it does things to me.

“No,” I say, my insides coiling. Closing my eyes as he brings his mouth to mine, it’s only when I part my lips that I remember
this
is how a kiss should feel.

He hoists me up, never breaking the contact of our mouths and sets me on the bench by his toolbox. His left hand goes to my hair, the other, firm and powerful, on my hip to keep me in place. With an anguished moan, I angle my head to deepen the kiss. He catches the moan I let out with a growl, exploring my mouth eagerly with his tongue. My breasts crush against his rock-hard chest and I can tell his excitement matches my own. And if I didn’t, his erection when he slides my hips against his confirms he wants so much more than my mouth on him.

My hands dip underneath his T-shirt, hoping he takes the hint and removes it. He does, and then immediately finds my mouth again. But not before I notice the tattoo on his chest of his heart, the one that makes me think twice about what’s happening here, and what it could mean if I keep kissing him.

My heart does a somersault. Over his heart is a tattoo. The word Heaven in a fancy script with three sparrows flying over it. A strange pressure in my gut gathers, tightening into a massive knot.

In a sense, being with Red, right now, is like heaven. Something I don’t deserve.

Something happens to me when I see that tattoo. I know it’s for
her
.

With my hand on his chest, I know what I have to do. I have to stop this. He was right to be an asshole to me in the beginning. I wish it would have stayed that way.

Our mouths break apart, gasping for a much-needed breath. I stare at her slightly swollen lips and the grease smudges from my thumbs on her neck.

Thinking about what I want becomes more than thinking. It’s lingering on the edges of my conscience, demanding some sort of attention.

I close my eyes, her hands on my chest. “What the fuck are you doing to me?” I don’t expect an answer, but I get one.

“I could ask the same of you.” Slowly, she slides her delicate hands up my shoulders and around my neck.

She looks at me and a sad smile touches her lips. I’m not sure what to say so I look away like a coward.

What the fuck am I going to say?

She flutters those dark lashes and her eyes grow large at what just happened. “I can’t do this,” she whispers, her lips red and swollen.

My answer to that is grinding my rock-hard length into her, wanting to fuck her through her damn jeans that have been haunting me all day.

I
need
her.

I need to hear her moan from my dick buried deep inside her. Pawing at her clothes, wanting them off, I need the gratification of my skin touching hers.

Apparently, I need a lot of fucking things.

I kiss her again trying to make her see there’s nothing wrong with this.

“Wait,” she whispers

I don’t part my mouth from her, not right away. I can’t. She stops, her lips barely moving.

I groan in response, stepping back and looking at her intently. “Are you stopping because you want to, or you think you have to?” I know she can sense the hunger in my words. My need is made even more obvious as the adrenaline coursing through my body causes my hand to shake when I lift it to brush the hair off her shoulder. Yet she says nothing.

Instead, she watches me, sucking her bottom lip in her mouth, coaxing me forward.

My thumb drags over her bottom lip. “That’s kind of your answer, you know,” I say, stepping closer. Close enough for her to feel my erection. I’m certainly not afraid of my body’s reaction to her, but I’m thinking she is.

She inhales before sucking her bottom lip into her mouth seductively. “Because you have to stop. I can’t. You’re my boss.”

All right. I’ve got two options here.

Option one is to stop. Walk away and continue as if this never happened and that I don’t want her.

Second choice is to kiss her into submission so I can fuck her right now in this shop to satisfy my need.

Yeah, right. Like the first option makes any goddamn sense at all. Screw that. Here I go again, complicating this based on my own need, or the tightness in my pants.

But I’m a noble guy and I let her slide off the bench and leave me hanging.

Truth is she scares me a little. There’s undeniable attraction between the two of us and my obsession with her is growing. She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met, including Nevaeh. But there’s something about her, so genuine and unexpected that I have to find out why that is.

Closing my eyes, I blink slowly and exhale my frustration, trying to will my breathing into control. It’s a tall order for someone who hasn’t been with a woman in two years.

Lenny walks away toward her bag and puts her shirt back over the camisole. The flannel was once covering her shoulders, open to the shirt underneath. Frustration clenches my chest. She’s covering herself like a curtain blocking the morning light, afraid to let me see an inch of skin. Disappointment washes over me that she’s covering herself from my view. She’s hiding.

Lenny’s back is to me when she says, “Oh my God,” she whispers. “What did we do?”

We didn’t do anything. That’s the problem but thinking like that is me thinking with my dick, and she needs better than that.

“Lenny…” I step toward her with my hand outstretched, wanting to ease her worries. “It’s okay.”

“No.” She shakes her head adamantly. “I told myself I wasn’t going to do this. You’re my boss, Reddington. I’m not this girl who goes around sleeping with her boss.”

She’s right. She’s not that kind of girl and I never thought she was. Okay, in the beginning, I might have, but then I got to know her and realized that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Nodding, I retract my hand. I certainly never thought she was sleeping around. And I definitely don’t give a fuck if I am her boss. I still want her.

With a quick intake of breath, her trembling hand covers her mouth in horror, an apologetic expression thrown my way.

Then she walks out.

And I don’t follow her. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m confused as to what happened and it takes me a moment to react.

I don’t know where this girl came from, or what she’s running from, but I don’t want her running from me.

By the time I get outside, Lenny’s pulling out of the parking lot.

“Damn it,” I curse, kicking at the gravel.

It’s nearing one in the morning by the time I get to the house and thankfully, my adrenaline and hard-on is gone. Only problem is I’m exhausted. I wish it was Friday already.

As I enter the house, I’m careful to deactivate the alarm so it doesn’t wake Nova or Raven, who’s probably sleeping on the couch. After Nevaeh was murdered, I installed an alarm in the house and motion detectors around the perimeter of house. Most of the time the motion detectors are set off by animals but other than that, I hadn’t had any problems since then.

I’m surprised to see Raven on the couch and Nova on the floor curled up on the rug with my blanket off my bed.

Raven drops her phone in her lap and looks up at me. “Jesus dude, I thought you’d be home a while ago.”

“Sorry, thanks for staying. I thought you’d be asleep.”

“I was… but Rawley was texting me.”

“And where was he today?”

“Drunk… where else.”

Careful not to wake Nova, I sit next to Raven. “Fucker.”

She adjusts her pillow on the couch like she’s getting ready to sleep and stares at the television. I groan quietly when I realize what she’s watching. “Why the hell would anyone willingly want to be on a show where you’re naked and scared?”

Raven gets me and says, “Right? These people are like attention whores. It’s like a bad car accident. I can’t look away from it.” And then she’s reminded of why I was so late. “Did you get the engine in for that lady? I felt so bad for her and her kids to have that happen right after her husband died.”

I run my fingers through my hair. “Yeah, we got it done. I’m not charging her for labor. She’s been through enough.”

Raven fluffs her pillow and pulls her blanket over her shoulders. “Careful there, word on the street is gonna get out that you’re actually a nice guy.”

I snort, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees and stare down at my sleeping daughter. Fuck, she looks so damn innocent with her wild curls everywhere.

“Everything okay?” Raven asks, sensing there’s something wrong.

“Yeah.”

She slaps my shoulder. “Don’t lie to me. I’m not a little girl anymore. I’ll be twenty in eight fucking days. Talk to me.”

I don’t know why, but I do. I fucking spill my guts because who else do I have to talk to right now? Nova’s sleeping and the last thing I want to tell her is that I kissed Lenny. She’d want me to go pick out rings tomorrow if that were the case. “I kissed Lenny.”