Page 18 of Breaking All The Rules
There was just something about her all covered up that made him want to unwrap her. Made him wonder if she’d taken his underwear advice and was wearing her Friday panties. And that plaid shirt…fuck yeah. It was a make and a style he’d always considered overwhelmingly masculine—he had about a zillion of them at home—but the way the V-neck sat in her cleavage and formed the most intriguing little shadow made it sexy and seductive and utterly female.
“Hey,” he said, pushing out of his lean, hoping he sounded cool and laid-back, when in actuality, his tongue felt like it was glued to the roof of his mouth.
“Hi, Bea,” Jenny said.
Bea… Austin rolled that around in his head. He liked Bea. It suited her.
She looked past him to Jenny behind the counter. “Hey.”
“I see you’re finally getting out and about?” she said.
“It’s time.”
Jenny laughed. “You’re in safe hands there.”
Austin wasn’t sure he could guarantee that—at the moment his hands were up for a whole lotta unsafe behavior. Unfortunately, Beatrice had made it very clear she wanted to keep a boundary between them. Which was fine. Particularly when she was vague about how long she was sticking around.
“Shall we go?” he asked, gesturing to his truck, which was angle-parked at the curb.
Bea frowned at the vehicle. “That’s your car?”
“Yup.” Austin had to admit his silver two-door Ford pickup wasn’t the most elegant automobile specimen in the world. It was a work vehicle and had been ten years old when he’d bought it last year, because he knew he was returning to Credence. There was a ding in the tail gate and the odd pockmark in the panels, and he hadn’t washed it in a while. “It’s perfect for what we’re about to do.”
It was big and sturdy. Heavy. Not made to be light and responsive and fancy. Something that’d grip the road and keep them steady and stable.
“You wanna take the Beamer for a spin instead?”
Austin blinked. Ah…hell yes. He might be a pickup kinda guy, but he’d be more likely to see aliens in his lifetime than ever sit in, never mind own, a BMW.
It was like asking him if he wanted a hand job or a blow job. They had the same end result, and really any touching of the penis was pretty damn fine, but one was a more superior experience.
Jesus, dude, do not think about BJs right now. “Hell yes.”
She grinned. “Come on, then. It’s parked around back.”
“Just gotta grab something. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay.”
Austin watched her go. That shirt… He was seriously hot for how well she wore that shirt.
“You playing statues out there, Austin?”
He glanced over to find Jenny beaming at him from inside the café. He smiled sheepishly, touching the brim of his hat as he said, “No, ma’am,” then quickly covered the distance to his pickup, grabbed the brown paper bag from the seat, clicked the locks—a habit he hadn’t kicked from Denver—and followed after Beatrice.
She was sitting in the passenger seat, waiting for him as he crossed the parking lot, which did funny things to Austin’s gut. But that was temporarily forgotten as the sleek quality of her vehicle took precedence. When he’d first seen the M3, he’d thought it was black, but with the afternoon sun bathing it in gentle light, he could see it was a deep midnight blue with the magnificent attention to design and detail for which the German car maker was known.
Austin didn’t hesitate to open the driver’s door and slide into the softness and comfort of the leather seats. Achtung, baby.
“Electronic seat adjust at the side,” Beatrice said.
Of course there was. Austin fiddled with it to accommodate the length of his legs, then he tossed his hat and the packet containing Annie’s pie on the back seat and buckled up. Before starting the engine, he took a second to just absorb the moment, one hand resting on the wheel, the other on the rounded knob of the stick shift. Rolling his head along the padded headrest, he faced Bea with a smile and said, “Nice.”
And he wasn’t just talking about the car.
She started to smile but then faltered. “Do I smell pie?”
Austin laughed. The woman was some kind of bloodhound when it came to pie. All he could smell was leather and that unique blend of plastics and chemicals that made up the quintessential aroma known universally as new car smell.
