Dirty Delilah (3 page)

“Wild Man” Wilder had done a few years in a juvenile detention center before they’d met. With his love of classic cars and motorcycles—and his penchant for taking them for joyrides without the owner’s permission—he was on his way to becoming a professional convict.

If it hadn’t been for Dallas Dean’s friendship with Officer Mendez, Asa would have been arrested again and tried as an adult. Her father had quickly grown attached to the brilliant eighteen year old. For two years Delilah had seen Asa every day, watching him resist, and then finally revel in, using his talents to help put things back together for other people.

Asa was a natural with a true gift. He could name an engine—any engine—by the sound it made. He was an instinctive genius with machines. And women. Both always came easily to him. For him.

At fifteen she’d idolized him. By seventeen she’d thought she was in love, but he’d fixed that too.

He still had his head under her hood, but she could hear him speaking over her engine’s throaty purr. “I was wondering why you’d drive all the way up here instead of flying, but now I can see how attached you are to this sexy thing.”

She wasn’t attached.  Much. “Maybe it’s a rental.”

His chuckle held that familiar husky rasp. He’d always had it—that sexual scratch in his voice that heated her blood and made her ache. “A ‘66 Mustang with a V8 that purrs like a well-fed kitten? This is no rental. This is a love affair. And the only woman I’ve ever known who could hold her own with a car like this was a seventeen-year-old Dean girl…one with a vicious right hook, if our last meeting was any indication.”

“You deserved it,” she muttered.

With that he straightened and raised his arms to lower the hood until it latched with a solid
thunk
. “I remember.” He smiled down at her through the windshield. “Hey there, Delilah.”

Damn, he was gorgeous. In jeans and a sleeveless blue shirt that matched his eyes, he was sexy as hell. She turned off the car and got out, allowing herself to get a better look at him.

Both his arms were sleeved with tattoos now, colorful Asian designs surrounding the black and grey work he’d had done when he was younger. Inside his left arm, unless he’d had it covered, would be a small quiver filled with arrows. The black heart. His adolescent conquest-count that she’d come to hate—a new arrow for each new notch in his bedpost. But still, at the sight of him, his wicked grin and lean mouthwatering body, something in her melted. A little.

“Hi, Asa,” she finally responded. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “We just missed each other at the garage, and since you’ve had a chance to meet our illustrious new neighbor, I thought I could make up some time with you over dinner.”

She was dubious. “You want to have dinner with me?”

His lips twitched and he held out his arms. “Yes. No hidden agendas, I swear. No shop talk. No business. Just two old friends catching up.” When she hesitated his expression turned cajoling. “Come on. I was never included in the Dean newsletter’s mailing list and I’ve missed a whole decade. Other than what I read in the papers or hear secondhand, I don’t know what you and your sisters have been up to. Or your dad. He stopped answering my emails around four years ago, you know.”

She knew. She’d been the one dealing with Asa’s rent checks and the paperwork since then. At the time, she’d thought her father was moving on with his life. Now she knew better. “That wasn’t about you.”

Asa crossed his arms. “Prove it by letting me take you to dinner.”

“Fine.” Oh God. Dinner alone with Asa. How was that fine? “Should I change?”

He studied her from her calf high boots up her jeans to the turquoise-colored peasant blouse which was partially covered by her jacket and shook his head. “You’ll do. Besides, you already changed once today right? The Del I knew would have called that a week’s wardrobe.”

Jackass. He headed toward the bike he’d parked beside her Mustang and she followed. “She grew up and gave in to female peer pressure. I thought we missed each other at the shop, Asa. That you left for errands. How do you know I changed my clothes?”

His smile was just as wicked as she remembered as he slipped on his leather jacket and straddled a motorcycle that made her mouth water. She knew he’d done the rebuild himself, the same way he knew the Mustang was her project. 

The 1941 Indian 841 Army model had a custom seat big enough for two and faded leather saddlebags on the back. He’d painted it matte black with white and old-style olive-green accents, but it seemed to shimmer in the late afternoon light.

She wanted his bike.

How did he know she’d changed?
“Asa?”

“I said we missed each other, I didn’t say I hadn’t see you. Red slinky number you had on? A blind man would have felt the heat from that getup. You’ve become a fine-looking woman, Dirty Del. But then, I always knew you would.” She opened her mouth and he shook his head. “Get on.”

She slipped her purse over her shoulder and slid onto the leather seat behind him, wrapping her arms automatically around his waist. It wasn’t something she was proud of, the way she barely made an effort to resist him. How easy it was to fall back into their roles, where she’d do anything he said and he’d expect it. Hadn’t she changed? Hadn’t he?

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

She might see, or she might be so drunk on this—touching him, smelling his familiar scent of ocean and engine grease and outdoors. Of sex. Asa smelled like sex. Everything about him reminded her of it, and the rumbling vibration and bounce of the seat between her thighs was only enhancing the effect he was having on her. Making her more desperate.

They’d only been on the highway for five minutes when she made her decision. She was going to seduce Asa Wilder. Properly this time. No childish requests, declarations of love or clumsy kisses. No shocked, shy expressions when he finally gave into her youthful enthusiasm and kissed her with a fire that singed her as he rocked his erection against her sex. No more pulling back her hand in surprise when he urged it inside his unzipped jeans.

Just thinking about his expression at that moment made her cringe. And the way he’d dismissed her afterward, making her so mad she’d had to…well, she’d punched him.

But she was no longer an innocent. No longer easily shocked. She could handle him now.

And she would. Maybe then she’d finally get control of her reaction to him. Her first crush, the heartbreak that began and ended her unattainable-bad-boy-biker phase in one fell swoop.

It was a phase she was more than willing to revisit, as long as it meant finally knowing what he would feel like inside her. Over her. Behind her. Making her come.

She squirmed against the seat and tightened her arms around him, pressing her nose against his jacket and breathing him in. She loved riding with him. Loved the feeling of giving him control. Of flying down the road with the wind whipping at her skin. It was freedom. It was wild.

The sex would be wild too.

Delilah knew it. Craved it. A tiny voice in her head worried about mixing business with pleasure and losing her objectivity...but the rest of her body told that voice to fuck off.

She lifted her head when he started to slow down, and she realized where they were. He’d just turned off Canal Street onto Harbor Street. He was taking her to an out of the way bar and restaurant overlooking a small harbor in a lesser-known part of town. She remembered him talking about it when she lived here. It was where he and his friends used to hang out.

“It looks a little rundown.” She spoke loud enough for him to hear over the engine.

He laughed at that as he parked. “It should. It’s fifty years old. Food’s great though, and the company. Did I make the wrong choice? The neighborhood has changed for the better in the last few years, you know. Did success turn you into one of the Snoots?”

Snoots.
She smiled, remembering his word for the wealthy locals that dotted the landscape of Marin County. It was a running joke that had started with a story about a woman who took him to a wine tasting to thank him for a night of coital bliss.

Delilah stopped smiling, curling her hands over his shoulders for balance as she slid off the bike. “Hardly. Little Darcy might go down that road, but Drew and I still remember the poor old days, thank you.”

He took her hand as if he’d been doing it for years and opened the door for her. It felt good. Better than that. Right.

Trouble.

There weren’t too many people there, though the few at the bar called out a friendly greeting to Asa. He nodded, but didn’t approach them. Instead, he kept walking with her, weaving through the tables in the dimly lit restaurant until they reached the back room that led to an outer deck.

Delilah took in the small boats in the harbor and couldn’t help her smile. She loved West Hollywood. Her life was a good one. But this was so familiar and welcoming. She walked to the wood railing and leaned against it, watching the water gently lull the boats to sleep and listening to Asa give their order to a young waitress.

When he was done he came up behind her and set his hands outside hers on the railing, trapping her between his arms. She shivered at the sensation of his body gently pressed against her back.

“I’m glad you’re back, Del,” he whispered against her temple. “More than you know.”

Del
might have blushed at the brazen way she pushed her hips back to feel his hardening erection through her jeans, but
Delilah
was still drunk on the ride. On memories of him and her new plan. “I can see that. I’m glad you’re glad.”

He huffed out a surprise laugh and she watched his knuckles went a little white on the railing. “If I get any gladder someone might call the cops on us before we get a chance to eat,” he muttered, his rasp harsher. Aroused.

She turned in his embrace and slid her hands up his chest, looking into blue eyes that were darker than she’d ever seen them. “I am hungry, but I’m willing to risk it if you are.”

His brows lowered and he studied her as if she’d surprised him. “Pulling my leg, Delilah?”

She frowned up at him. “Why would you think that?”

He took a step back and shoved his hands in his pockets, an obvious attempt to conceal his reaction to her. “I don’t know. Maybe because you moved away a few days after you slugged me—deservedly—and you haven’t spoken to me since. Maybe because I’ve been memorizing my apology to you for a decade, and I was looking forward to finally getting to say it.”

She leaned back on the railing with a sigh and crossed her arms. “Go ahead then.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” She nodded firmly, too stubborn to be deterred. She’d been planning on seduction, but she could be blunt if that was what it took. “You can apologize for being insensitive to my adolescent crush, then I’ll apologize for throwing myself at you
and
punching you, and we can put it behind us so we can finish what we almost started.” She hesitated when his mouth opened. “That is, if you want to. Or am I missing something?”

He pulled one hand out of his pocket and held it up, as if asking for patience. “Oh, I want to. You’ll just have to give me a minute here. I’m not used to—I mean, I’m used to putting in a few more man hours to get what I want.”

She bit her lip to stop her snicker. “We can do that. I wouldn’t want you to think I was too easy.”

His look seared her skin. “You aren’t easy, Delilah. You were almost impossible to resist at seventeen. After all this time…” He stepped closer again, lifting his hand to trace the ribbon laced collar of her top. “If you knew how often I thought about that night, how many different ways I imagined it ending and how hard it was not to show up at your door in L.A….I don’t think you’re easy.”

The door behind him opened and they both heard the tinkling of glasses and silverware as the waitress brought them his order.

Asa sighed. “I think I’m going to need that drink. And ice. I need ice.”

He reached for his beer and tilted his head back, taking several long swallows. She couldn’t stop staring at his throat. She wanted to lick it. Taste his skin.

Damn, she’d known she still had Asa issues, but she had no idea that her reaction to him would be quite this strong. One minute she felt like she could give up the reins and submit to him, let him take the lead, and the next she was taking the bull by the horns and…apparently nearly shocking the pants off of him.

She couldn’t change who she was. Who she’d had to be since her mother Valerie Dean had abandoned Delilah and her sisters and broke her husband’s heart by sailing off with her plastic surgeon on his yacht.

A week after she’d gone, Delilah’s father, Dallas Dean, had sold the empty building connected to the repair shop—the building he’d always planned on doing something with as soon as he could afford it—as well as the land beside it. He’d rented Dean’s Garage to the young Asa Wilder and moved them to Los Angeles, using the money from the sale, the last of his savings and all of his connections to start DD4. The decision had changed their financial circumstances dramatically—now they could live in one of the beautiful Marin homes her mother used to covet. They could have a yacht of their own. Or two.

Delilah knew that had never mattered to her father. He’d just wanted to make sure his girls were taken care of. And maybe some small part of him wanted to show his ex that he wasn’t the “loser mechanic” she’d left behind.

That last week before the move, Delilah had misconstrued Asa’s comforting embrace and that had been the cherry on top of what became the worst year of her life. She’d spent most of it crying with Drew or taking care of Darcy. But hardest of all was watching her dad, her
hero
, fold into himself with the pain of his loss. He was still the best father he could be, and he created a life for them, a business around them…but he’d never been the same.

Delilah had had to be the muscle. She’d done the hiring and firing. She’d gone to night school, handled the difficult clients and the money. She’d taken care of the little things so her sisters could be creative and carefree. And just when it seemed her father was getting his strength back, he’d been hit with another sucker punch.