Dirty Thoughts (16 page)

His words—oh, his words—were seeping in all her cracks, and they were heating her body from the inside out. She didn’t know whether her patience with Cal was a strength or a weakness, but right now, she didn’t care, not when he was in her foyer, baring his heart the best he could.

She couldn’t take his voice anymore. She dug through the gravel, felt the soft velvet on her fingers, and crashed her lips to Cal’s.

He was mint against her Dr. Pepper, and she gripped his shoulders with both hands, tugging him closer, walking backward until her butt hit the wall behind her. Her head would have cracked into the drywall, but Cal’s hand was there, cushioning the blow. And that simple touch sent her heart into freefall.

She dug her nails into his skin and moaned into his mouth. Cal echoed the sound, and just when she thought she’d die from the kiss, he pulled back and rested his forehead against hers. His breath coasted over her face, and she nudged his nose with hers. “See?” she said. “I can speak in kiss too.”

His eyes fell closed, and then he dropped his head to her shoulder. She threaded her fingers through his hair.

When he straightened, his eyes were a little red, his lips wet, but he looked happy and more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. “I gotta get back out to Asher. I’ll call you, Sunshine.”

And then he was walking out her door.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“D
IE, YOU UGLY
motherfucker!” Brent hollered from the living room where he sat on the couch with Asher, playing some game that had a lot of guns and blood.

Cal sat at the kitchen table, paying bills, which was something he did most Saturday mornings. Best to get it out of the way so he could enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Although usually, he did it in silence. Today, Brent and Asher were hollering at the TV screen, and Jenna stood at the kitchen sink, finishing up the dishes from breakfast.

He licked the envelope for the electric bill and paused to take her in. She’d turned on the small radio he’d mounted under the cabinets and swayed to the beat of a classic-rock song. She wore a pair of short-as-hell jean shorts and a button-down shirt of his over a tank top.

Her hair was down, a mass of brown waves, which he’d run his fingers through last night. And again this morning. And every chance he got in the last two weeks since that night in her foyer when she’d agreed to be patient with him. They’d both been busy, so he hadn’t had much time with her. She hadn’t slept over yet, because although they were in this unspoken, odd trial period, neither was ready for the emotions that arose between them when they slept together. And even though he wanted to—God, he wanted to—he knew they weren’t ready for that again yet.

Kisses, though? They were allowed. And some heavy petting. Along with heavy breathing. He kind of felt like he was in high school again, where a boob-grab was like winning the lottery.

But this was good, kind of like dating, and Cal was finding he liked this Jenna even more than the high-school Jenna. It made him wonder, if they had stayed together all those years ago, if they would still be a couple. The separation might have been what they needed for Cal to get his head on straight and for Jenna to grow into her independence.

As far as life with Asher, things were calm. Asher worked at the shop and hung out with Julian in his spare time. Cal had called Jill one more time last week, but when she started sputtering more excuses for her drunk husband, Cal hung up on her. He didn’t have the time or patience for that shit.

Cal still hadn’t taken Asher out on his bike. It’d been almost a month, but he still needed to get Asher a helmet that fit him. He’d promised him soon. Things had been a little busy lately, since Jenna was getting ready for the big event for the employees of MacMillan Industries. An event Cal was going to attend, as Jenna’s date.

Normally, he’d never be caught dead at Tory Country Club, but he knew how much work Jenna had put into the party, so he agreed to go in support of her. He wasn’t thrilled, but this was where the
trying
thing came in. He was trying. So that meant going to this fancy party.

Jenna wasn’t paying attention to him now, as she danced a little around the kitchen. When she got close, he snaked an arm around her waist and tugged until she fell in his lap.

She made an oomph sound and frowned at him. “Hey.”

He snuck his hand under her shirt and tank top, so his palm rested against bare skin. “Hey, yourself.”

She sagged against him and placed her hand on his arms. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and her thumb rested on the edge of the sun on his shoulder. He leaned in and pressed a kiss under her ear. She shuddered in his arms. “Cal, I gotta leave soon.”

He ignored her. Apparently, Jenna had a meeting at the country club for the party that was next weekend.

When he ran his tongue down her neck, she moaned. “Your brothers are in the other room.”

“They’re busy,” he mumbled against her skin. He couldn’t get enough of her taste, the feel of her in his arms. The way she melted into him with a simple touch. He was gone for her fifty times over, more than he ever had been as an immature teenager. It was weird how love evolved in his head as he got older.
Love?
Was that what this was, all over again?

She pouted. “I’m going to be late.”

With a sigh, he pulled back and slapped her denim-covered ass. “Fine, then get out of here.”

She stuck out her tongue at him and hopped off his lap. He smiled and picked up his pen to do more bills.

J
ENNA HAD BEEN
gone a half hour when his doorbell rang. “Can you get that?” Brent called from the couch. “Shit, fuck, this damn fucker—I’m kinda busy here!”

Cal rose from the table where he was finished with the bills and walked past Asher and Brent in the living room, still playing video games.

When he opened the door, a tiny vision in red with huge black sunglasses shoved her way past him into the house.

Delilah Jenkins pushed her shades onto her head and gave him a once-over with her dark eyes. She wore a bright red dress and strappy shoes with a purse that was bigger than her head. He’d known Delilah as long as he’d known Jenna. She was the tiniest woman he’d ever met, but she was still too much for him. Too much personality, too much color, too much everything. He thought maybe she and Brent would hit it off, but they’d hooked up once years ago and left it as friends.

Delilah was good people, though. She was smart, owned her own business, and most of all, she loved Jenna. So Delilah was aces in his book.

Brent took his eyes off of the screen for one minute to lean back in the couch. “Hey, D!”

She waggled some fingers at him. “Hey, B. Not here for you, so you can go back to killing pixels.”

“ ’Kay!” he answered.

Delilah turned back to Cal. “Well,” she said, her gaze lingering on his bare chest, “as much as I’m enjoying the view, you’re going to have to get dressed, because no shirt, no shoes, no service and all of that.”

He blinked at her. “Come again?”

She waved a hand at his body. “I need to take you shopping for this shindig Jenna is throwing.”

All these words were foreign. “You need to take me
shopping
?”

He didn’t shop. He didn’t know how to shop. Most of his clothes were holiday gifts from Brent, because his brother was vain as hell and
did
shop.

Cal? Not so much.

Delilah wasn’t having his attitude, apparently. Her expression told him he was trying her patience. “Yes, shopping, you big grease monkey. Now get a shirt on and let’s go.”

“And where are we going exactly?”

“The mall.”

He swore his neck started to itch, like hives were forming. “This isn’t funny.”

She placed a hand on her hip in a flourish. “Does it look like I’m laughing? Jenna asked me to do this, so if you wanna keep her sweet ass in this little ol’ house of yours, I suggest you get dressed and then get it my car.”

Okay, he drew the line there. “I am not getting in that fucking car.”

She scowled. “Don’t you dare insult Daisy—”

“Oh, Jesus, you named that damn thing?”

“She’s reliable and cute and—”

“I will go shopping with you on the condition that we take my truck.”

Delilah’s nostrils flared. “Is it clean?”

Cal scrunched his lips to the side before replying. “I’ll put a towel down.”

Delilah shuddered a little. “Fine, now just go get dressed.”

It was a small victory, but he’d take it.

H
E DREW THE
line at a tie. He accepted the navy dress pants, white cotton shirt, and tan sport coat. But no way in hell was he going to be able to deal with all the assholes at this party with a noose around his neck.

Delilah wasn’t thrilled about his refusal but seemed happy with all his other purchases, including a pair of dress shoes that he knew he’d burn in an elaborate funeral pyre when this was all over.

He wasn’t a dick, though, so he offered to buy Delilah lunch. She’d taken time out of her day to argue with his sorry blue-collar ass. The least he could do was buy her a burger.

Of course, Delilah didn’t want a burger.

They found a restaurant near the mall that Delilah liked, and while Cal ate his burger, Delilah dug into her salad. It was huge, the plate taking up nearly a quarter of the table, and she was eating it all.

Cal didn’t know where she put it.

“So,” she said after taking a sip of her water, “you’re probably going to hate this party.”

He swirled a fry in ketchup. “Yep.”

“But you’re doing it for Jenna.”

“Yep.”

Delilah shifted her lips to the side. “You know there are some women in town who are really sad you’re off the market.”

“Was never on it,” he grunted.

“Brent’s on it.”

That made him grin. “He loves it.”

Delilah smiled too. “Lovable asshole.” Delilah stabbed a cherry tomato with her fork. “So Jenna said you want to work on motorcycles at the shop.”

“Trying to convince Dad. But he says we don’t have enough manpower.”

“Are you able to hire someone else?”

“I had Brent crunch the numbers, and we could hire another mechanic if he was willing to take base salary.”

She crunched her tomato and swallowed. “I know someone.”

That brought his head up. “Yeah?”

Delilah studied him carefully. “Yep, a friend of a friend kind of thing. She’s really good and is looking to get her foot in the door.”

“She, huh?” He chuckled. “You trying to slip that past me?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m still working on Dad. Have her send me her résumé, will ya?”

“Sure.”

“And . . . uh . . . thanks for today. I don’t really care what I look like, but I don’t want to make Jenna look bad.”

She touched the back of his hand where it rested on the table. “And you won’t. You could walk in there in sweatpants and a T-shirt, and Jenna wouldn’t give a shit.”

“Ya think?”

“I know. But it’ll make her family happy. And I must say, you look quite handsome in those clothes.”

Cal popped an imaginary collar, and Delilah laughed.

J
ENNA HAD DONE
a lot for MacMillan Investments since she’d been hired. She’d reworked their mission statement and was partnering with a graphic designer to update the company logo. She’d improved communication among staff and management. Hell, she’d even bought a damn Keurig for the break room, which she liked to think might have been the best thing she’d done yet. And she was currently in the midst of planning the biggest event the company had ever sponsored.

But all her brother could do was bitch about how Cal was coming to the country club as her date.

“You’ll be busy coordinating anyway,” he said, glaring at her from behind his desk. “Why do you have to bring a date?”

“Why do you care?” she shot back, drumming her nails on the arm of the chair. He’d called her into his office under the pretense of asking her a question about the party, but it was easy to see that all he wanted to do was be a pain in the ass.

“This is a MacMillan employee party,” he said.

“Each employee is allowed to bring a date. A significant other. And Cal is my significant other.”
Significant other-ish
, she amended in her head. Because it was kind of unspoken, what they had. “He has been for about a month, even though all of you want to act like he’s not.” The division in this town between the haves and have-nots was ridiculous and antiquated.

Plus, she happened to think Cal had a whole lot of haves.

“I don’t see why this whole party is even necessary,” Dylan complained. “The company morale is fine.”

Jenna raised her eyebrows.

Dylan opened his mouth like he was going to speak but then shut it and looked away.

Jenna wished she had the type of brother who would simply support her. Who would clap her on the back and tell her she did a good job. She’d told Dylan plenty of times over the years that she was proud of the work he put into their father’s company. And now, when she came back to help, all he could do was sneer at her ideas and her date.

She twisted her fingers together, gazed at her lap, and thought about Cal, who took in a half-brother he hadn’t known, cared for him, and supported him. And she could barely get the brother she grew up with to acknowledge that she was his coworker.

It’s not that she needed his approval. But she sure as hell would have liked it.

His chair creaked, and she looked up to see him leaned back, an elbow propped on the armrest, his chin in his fingers. His gaze was unfocused over her shoulder, his jaw hard. “If you insist on bringing Cal, then I guess I don’t have any say.”

“You don’t have any say at all, Dylan. I’m almost thirty. Who I date is not your concern, and I don’t need your approval.”

“Guess I thought you got that rebelling thing about of your system when you were a teenager.”

She leaned forward, pinning him with a sharp look. “That’s what you think this is about? Rebelling against . . . what, exactly?”

“Your upbringing . . . your family—”

“My God, Dylan. Initially, sure, Cal was a rebellion. When I was freaking sixteen years old. And then it quickly became about love, and I can tell you right now, today, being with Cal has nothing to do with my family and everything to do with how he makes me feel.”

He tilted his chin up, stubborn to the core. Why were all the men in her life stubborn? “I don’t trust him. He can be violent, you know.”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “He was an eighteen-year-old hothead when he hit you. Get over it already.”

“He broke my nose.”

“I think it was an improvement to your face.”

Dylan’s eyes went wide. Then his lips began to twitch, fending off a smile. “I had a regal nose before, and now it’s a bump.”

Jenna snorted. “Regal, my ass.”

Dylan did smile then, one that she knew was meant to appease her, to end this aggressive conversation. So she smiled back. She hoped this was some sort of truce. Although with Dylan, she could never be sure. They didn’t have enough in common to be friends. Jenna had always wondered if it would improve when they got older. So far, it hadn’t.

She sighed. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you about this. Cal’s in my life, and I’m sorry, but you’ll have to accept it. I don’t want to be at odds all the time.”

Dylan nodded. “All right.”

“All right?”

“Yes, all right.”

She stood up and smoothed her skirt. “I can get back to work now?”