Payce's Passions (9 page)

“Love who, Serge?” Brax approaches us.

Serge’s mouth drops open, and I thought he was going to drop the tray. I give him a wink, letting him know it’s okay.

“Why you of course, boss. I have to say, you have quite the cheerleader here.” I jump in, trying to save him. “Serge was telling me about the community volunteer programs that you and your place here are involved in. Pretty amazing stuff. I saw the framed awards on the wall downstairs so I asked Serge here about it.” That should have him covered now.

“We do what we can to help out. Did you order yet?” He glances at me then to Serge.

“I did. Do you have time to join?” I ask Braxton.

“Not really today, but I’ll sit for a second. Serge, get me a coke please.”

“On it big, bad boss man.” Serge does a little jump, both feet to one side and he clicks them together before spinning off. As he gets out of view from Braxton, he mouths ‘thank you’ to me and I nod.

I shake my head and laugh. “You do drug test him, right?”

“Absolutely, and he’s just a big handful of all natural adrenaline. It’s almost scary, isn’t it?” Brax laughs. “The man can work though, never forgets a thing. I like that.”

“He’s quite a handful of something alright, I assumed he was on a big handful of Bennie pills though.” I start laughing, and Brax just shakes his head. “I like him, I really do, but if I had to work with him every single day, I’d probably spike his drinks with valiums or something.” I laugh, wiping my palms on my jeans.

Brax shakes his head a lets out a laugh too, when Serge brings Braxton’s drink. “How long have you been here?” Brax asks me.

“Not long. I asked for you when I came in, but they said you had car trouble or something.”

“Yes, piece of shit car of mine. I need to replace a few things on it, but don’t have the time to mess with it much. I have a truck as a backup, but it’s a gas guzzler and I hardly drive it. Anyway got it started finally and made it here, not so sure I’ll make it home though.” He looks at his watch.

“I’m pretty handy with a car, so if you’re ever stuck somewhere, give me a ring and I’ll come rescue you.” I bite the inside of my lip.

“As much as this one gives me a hard time, I might have to take you up on that, Payce.”

“I hope you do. I’ll bring the bike.” I wiggle my eyebrows at him and smile.

“Still a tease, huh?” A smirk forms in the corner of his mouth.

I shrug my shoulders. “It’s all in that damn image thing, I haven’t quite figured out how to lose it yet.”

“It’s not always a bad thing.” He turns his head to the side. “Payce, I don’t mean to cut this short, but I’m late as hell and short staffed a manager, so it’s double duty for me. I saw your bike in the lot on the way in, so ran up for a quick hello. I had actually planned to sit down and eat, but duty calls.” He stands and reaches out to shake my hand.

“I completely understand. Go handle your business Brax.” I take his hand to shake, holding a little too long. “We should make plans to get together sometime, I’ll show you the Harley.”

“We’ll see.” He smiles and walks toward the stairway. 

Still fucking ornery. Damn, I love it. Something else I love is the way he wears a pair of jeans.
Shit, now that’s an ass
. He walks out of sight.

Sparky comes back. “I saw you oogling the bosses naughties.”

Chapter Nine

As soon as I get home from lunch, I’m on the computer knocking out the demo business stuff I never finished Friday. I slam through six bids and email them to the customer, then click over to my schedule. Looks like this week is gravy. No complaints here, after these seven day work weeks we’ve been running for over two months, I need a damn break.

Besides pulling a few permits from the City of Houston, I only have a couple of small jobs to do. Four are concrete demo and grades and the other is a dig out. No sweat. The week after next, I’m on nothing but house demos for a while. This means I have three days off, no problem with that.

I’ve been waiting for a break and it’s finally here. Now I can focus on my baby. After changing clothes, I walk out the door straight to her, right where I left her waiting.

As I approach her my heart starts racing, adrenaline pumping hard. I’ve played this scene over and over from start to finish in my mind. There are so many possibilities with her, where do I even begin?

She’s a total mess. I don’t know the extent of the damage yet, but seeing her like this is heartbreaking. She’s definitely been through a lot. I’m not good at having patience, but I better learn it quick if I’m going to pull her through this in once piece. It won’t be easy. Thank fuck I have the self-confidence of a goddamned bull. I’m just cocky enough to believe I can pull this off. I put both hands on her, close my eyes and gently glide up and down her body, familiarizing myself with every curve.

It’s a step-by-step process, but I’ll slowly strip her down, naked and vulnerable. That’s when I’ll play with her, testing her reaction with every twist and turn I make, ensuring she’s nice and tight for me in all the right spots. Little by little she’ll respond, but the test will finally come and that thought gets me harder than morning wood. Knowing what I expect and demand, she’ll finally submit, and I’ll straddle across her and grind myself into her. She might sputter and jump a little, but when she begins to purr, I’ll grin, almost begging, as I cut loose listening to her scream for me as we rip down the road. It’ll be a proud day in my life, a sense of accomplishment, showing everyone that this sexy lady belongs to me. Let them gawk and stare all they want, only I know the real truth. She’s really in disguise, and no one sees that, they don’t need to. She’s my naughty little bitch, that’s why she’s between my legs.

My ’72 Harley Shovelhead. Fuck, she truly is going to be my naughty bitch when I’m done. This is my first rebuild, only worked on a few motorcycles before, but I think I can figure it out. I’ve been grabbing the parts I’ll need for a while now.

I’m starting with the seat, I had the 2-up seat gel-filled and restitched with red flames. It cool as hell, so I slide it on and bolt it tight, just to see what it looks like. A much needed improvement for her. Now the breakdown begins with draining all the fluids. After that, I’ll remove all the lights, signals, and yank the wires. The handles on her now are trashed, so I’ll replace them with ape hangers, and the exhaust pipes are out of here too, I picked up an old set of fishtails, and finally I’ll remove everything necessary so I can pull the motor.

With tunes cranking the whole time, I’m in my own little world. I didn’t even notice sunset. Glancing at the clock, it’s after ten at night, so I climb off the concrete floor of my garage, heading in for a shower and bed to crash. I’m exhausted from lack of sleep, no doubt I’ll get some tonight.

If it hadn’t been for the bike work today, I’d be bat-shit crazy right now from thinking about Brax. He’s the one thing I want out of my mind and the same thing that refuses to leave. As much as I’d like to see him again, I’m not making any moves or going to his place again. I gave Sparks one of my cards and told him to stay in touch. I’m sure he’ll call, who knows when though. I’m going to handle the Aaron situation another way.

After my shower, I click on the stereo and climb in bed. Six or seven songs play, I lose track, but I feel sleep coming on, and turn on my side situating the pillows. My minds starts to drift off almost immediately into one of those sleeps where you hear the things going on around you, but you’re too wiped out to figure out what it is.

I roll to my back and open my eyes, snapping out of the hazy dream. My cell rings. It better not be another situation with Aaron. I grab for it and answer.

“Yeah?” I yawn, stretching my arm out.

“Payce? It’s Brax, hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, not at all. Wait, what’s wrong? You okay?” I blurt out without even thinking, worried.

“Um…does the idea of torching my car in my own parking lot mean I’m okay? Because if it does then I’m fucking wonderful right?”

I start laughing, I know that feeling all too well. “Wouldn’t start?”

“Not even a piss poor click like she was even trying. It’s probably the starter. Been fucking with it for an hour and nothing.” I can hear metal tools clanking around.

“Need that ride now?” I laugh again, but don’t mean too. I know how bad it sucks to be stuck.

“Only if it’s not too much of a problem. If you were in bed or anything, don’t worry about it. I can call a cab if I need to.”

“No trouble at all, give me twenty minutes.”

“I appreciate it, Payce. See you in a few.”

“Yep.” I hang up and spring out of the bed like a professional gymnast. I think Sparky’s moves are growing on me.

I’m dressed and out the door in under two minutes flat. I snatch the other helmet to bring with me and fire up the bike, pulling out.

Zooming across town, I get there quick. As I pull in the parking lot, I kill the motor and coast. Brax is the only one there, just like the first night I saw him. The hood is up on his car. His shirt is untucked and sleeves are rolled up, he’s bent over the side of the car digging around in the motor.
He looks perfect from this angle.

As I coast in closer, I smile because I can already see what’s about to happen. He taps his wrench on the battery post and is so distracted, he doesn’t even know I’m behind him yet. Here it comes.

Brax jerks back from under the hood and arches back, swinging his arm over his shoulder. With all his might, he brings it forward, throwing the socket wrench at the car as hard as he can.

“Stupid piece of shit.” He paces side to side and lets out some more choice words for the car and I’m about to burst. He’s huffing and puffing, damn near out of breath.

Calm down big bad wolf.
I grin and finally decide to say something. “Get it, Brax.” He turns around and looks at me and I almost fall off the bike laughing. “Kick her ass.”

“I hate this hunk of junk car, I swear. If it’s not one thing it’s another and I’m done messing with it. This is just one too many times.” He grabs a rag out of the trunk and wipes off his hands. “Let me get my keys and phone, everything else can stay here and go up in flames with her, I don’t care anymore.” He slams the hood down.

If it wasn’t so funny watching him, I’d feel sorry for him. There’s nothing worse than getting stranded, it sucks balls.

He shoves his phone in one pocket, the keys in another and slams the car door, giving a kick to the tire and a final, “Bitch.”

“All done now?” I cover my mouth trying not to laugh too hard. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

He climbs on behind me and puts the helmet on. I start my bike, and he grabs my waist with one hand. “Try not to kill us, Payce.”

“Ready?” I ignore his comment about killing us.

“Yes. I live off 1960 now. Still remember how to get to that road?” He puts his other hand on my waist.

“Smartass, I think I can remember.” We pull out of the parking lot and head for the freeway.

Before we even get to the first light, he slides up close, the slant in the bike forcing him behind me. His crotch presses into my ass and both arms wrap around my waist. His body warms against me. I like the feel of him holding on tight. Probably a little too much for my own good though.

I get to the red light and stop. “You okay back there, Brax?”

“I think so, it’s been a while is all. Don’t try to scare the shit of me by racing around everything when we get on the freeway.” He adjusts himself on the seat, pulling back a little. 

“I got this, just hang tight.” The light turns green and we’re off.

His body slides back against mine just like I knew it would, he might as well quit pulling away. I’m going the speed limit, but he still wraps his arms around me. We get through two more lights before catching a red one again.

“Still good, Brax?”

“No. You realize we look gay as fuck right now, right?”

I start cracking up again, turning so he can hear me “Well, unless there’s something I don’t know about, we are gay as fuck, Brax.”

He knocks me in the gut with his fist. “You know what I mean.”

“Dammit, no punching the driver. I don’t really care what anyone thinks we look like, to be honest.” I turn back watching for the switch of the light.

“Easy for you to say, you’re not riding bitch.” He laughs.

“You make a pretty little bitch though. Kidding, don’t punch me, man.” I take off again and we stop at the freeway. “Hold on tight and quit stressing. I can’t afford to crash my bike, so I don’t play around.”

He nods his head and reaches around my waist, tightening me in a death grip as I enter the freeway. He’s watching every single move I make, turning to check cars passing by, but not saying a word. He’s a nervous wreck. I wind us around the 610 Loop to I-45, heading Northbound. I’m behaving myself and not racing down the freeway or anything else that would scare him. After a few minutes, I guess he realizes I’m not going to kill him, and he eases up a bit, leaning his head against my back. We cruise nice and calm for fifteen minutes, before I veer off the freeway at the 1960 exit ramp and he leans back. I jump in the left hand turn lane. At the light, he brings his hands down to my hips again, clamping me there, instead of the full body wrap. That kind of sucks.