Sins of the Past (11 page)

“Come on, man.” Cole slapped him on the back. “Let’s make those plans and then you can tell me all about your sexy little neighbor.”

Jacob growled as he led Cole out of the kitchen, but even he knew there was no anger behind the sound.

Lorna gyrated her hips to the loud music as she leaned over her toolbox looking for a particular size wrench. It was scorching outside and even with the two large fans she had blowing, she was dripping with sweat. She thought about calling it a day, but her stubbornness wouldn’t let her quit until she finished what she was working on.

She had gotten the rebuilt original transmission in for the VW that morning. So Lorna had put on a pair of cut-off jeans and a tank along with her steel-toe boots and turned on the two large fans. She had to crank the music up so that she could hear it over the fans and got to work. She was almost done and knew there was no way her mind would rest if she went home in the middle of the job.

Now, if she could just find the wrench hiding in her toolbox, she could tighten the last few bolts and get out of the sweltering heat. “Stop hiding from me damn it. I know you’re in here, you bastard.”

Lorna finally saw the wrench she was looking for. “Of course it would be the last one I picked up.” Happy that she finally found the tool she needed and could finish the job, Lorna stood and started shimmying her hips, doing a happy dance as she sang along with the music. When she spun around, she ran face first into a hard chest. Large hands caught her arms in a strong grip keeping her from falling when she bounced off. “What the hell, Cole?” she shouted over the music when she looked up into his baby blue eyes that were twinkling in amusement.

The man had scared her to death and her heard pounded to prove it. When he let her go, she went over to the radio and turned it off. “You scared me to death, jackass.”

Cole threw his head back and laughed and Lorna joined in. She’d gotten to know Jacob’s friend over dinner the past two nights and really liked the man. His sense of humor matched hers and he had her laughing constantly. He made her feel other things as well, but Lorna chose to ignore those feelings. At least she was trying to. It was hard with the man standing in front of her looking like walking sex.

Cole was about six feet tall. He was thinner than Jacob but had muscles covering his wiry frame. Add in his wavy blond hair and baby blue eyes, and Cole was beautiful. He may have been smaller than Jacob, but both men gave off an aura of danger and that was something that seemed to attract Lorna to both men like a moth to a flame.

“What are you doing here, Cole?”

“When you told me last night that you were a mechanic, I decided to come down here and see for myself.”

Lorna didn’t take any offense to the man’s statement. There was a joking gleam in his eyes when he said it, and she knew he wasn’t trying to be mean. She looked around the shop and wondered what he was seeing. It was her pride and joy aside from her baby parked outside.

When Cole had asked the night before where she had gotten the Camaro, Jacob had answered before she could. Beaming with pride, he told Cole she had built it herself. Cole hadn’t believed it at first until she took him outside and pointed out everything she had done to the car. Her knowledge of car parts must have convinced him because he seemed impressed with her after that.

While he looked around the shop, she went over to the VW and got to work tightening the bolts on the transmission. It wasn’t until she had to bend way over to get to the last bolt that she was aware of Cole standing directly behind her. His nearness caused the hair on the back of her neck and arms to stand on end. Lorna shivered even though it had to be at least ninety degrees in the shop.

“How long until you’re done here?” Cole asked as he molded himself to her back and peered over her shoulder.

Lorna bit her tongue to hold back a moan as the sexual tension that had been building between the two of the since she first met him, shot through the roof.
What the hell is wrong with you?
She admonished herself. The problem wasn’t that she wasn’t attracted to Jacob or that she was attracted to Cole more, no, the problem was that she wanted them both. When she was with Jacob, it took all of her strength to keep from jumping the man at first sight. With Cole, no matter how much she told herself she was with Jacob and that she was developing strong feelings for the man, her panties still dampened when Cole walked into the room.
You’re with Jacob so get over it. You aren’t like your mom.
She had been telling herself that over and over but it didn’t seem to be sinking in. Maybe the town had been right about her all along. Maybe she was just a late bloomer and she really was going to turn out just like her mother.

“Where’s Jacob? How come you aren’t with him?” Lorna looked over her shoulder and quickly looked away when she saw how close the move put her mouth to his. Her mouth watered at the thought of tasting his lips.

Cole chuckled as if he knew what his nearness was doing to her before moving away. “He had a doctor’s appointment today. I got bored so I figured I would come down and see your shop, then take you to lunch.”

“I’m actually done here for the day.” She looked down at the sweaty clothes that clung to her. “I need to go shower and change first though.”

“Do you want me to follow you home, or should I just meet you somewhere?”

“I actually have a change of clothes here. Uncle John had a small shower installed in the back a few years before he died, so if you don’t mind waiting in the heat for a few minutes, I can run and get changed and we can walk from here.”

Cole nodded and after Lorna replaced her tools, she headed to the back. As she peeled her sticky clothes off, she was aware that there was only a thin door separating her naked body from Cole’s view. She was turned on and conflicted at the same time by the thought. Jacob was someone that for the first time, she saw herself spending the rest of her life with. Then Cole came along and not only did she find herself attracted to the man, she couldn’t picture her life without him or Jacob in it. She wanted them both.

Lorna growled and turned the shower on. Even though it was hot outside, she set the temperature of the water as hot as she could stand it, needing the heat to soothe her tense muscles and take away a little of her stress. She knew where the tension came from. Deep down, she was scared she was turning into her mother. The bad thing about the situation was that she thought she was worse than her mother. As much as her mom had cheated and slept around, Lorna didn’t think the woman had ever been with two guys at the same time. At least not that she knew of.

That’s what Lorna wanted, though. She couldn’t stop picturing her, Jacob, and Cole. The three of them writhing in bed naked together. Despite the heat, a shiver went up her spine at the thought playing over and over in her head. “Snap out of it,” she told herself. “The difference between you and mom is that you can control yourself. You can resist.”

Giving herself a mental pep talk, she repeated the words to herself over and over again as she finished her shower. Once dressed, she marched out of the small shower area with new determination. She would only think of Cole as a friend and nothing more. She had Jacob, and that was more than enough for her.

“You ready to go?” she asked Cole. The man nodded and grinned at her before throwing his arm over her shoulder and leading her out the door. The short walk to the diner was spent with her playing tour guide. Lorna pointed out the various stores and explained who several people were that they spotted out on the streets.

By the time they got to the diner Lorna’s spirits had lifted. She congratulated herself on placing Cole firmly in the friend category, but her good mood vanished at the sudden silence when they entered.

Cole leaned over and whispered out of the side of his mouth. “You certainly know how to get attention when you walk into a room.”

Lorna snorted. “This is nothing. You should have seen what happened that last time I stepped inside the church.” When he arched an eyebrow and stared at her, she continued. “Let’s just say that I’m no longer allowed to set foot on any holy ground in this town.”

Cole threw his head back and laughed. “This is a story that I definitely have to hear.”

Knowing that no one was in any rush to seat her although the diner was only half full, Lorna reached over the hostess stand and picked up two menus. “Follow me and I’ll tell you all about it.” She led them to a rounded booth in the back for a little more privacy. Once they were seated, conversations resumed around them and Lorna sighed in relief. She really hated the attention, but she refused to let the imbeciles in town know that.

Once they ordered, she told Cole the story of her one and only time going to church. During a moment of weakness, when she was around sixteen, she had decided she was going to do everything possible to make the people in town like her and see that she was nothing like her mother. That included going to church since at least seventy percent of the people in town attended. Lorna had woken up early that Sunday morning to give herself plenty of time to get dressed. She wanted to look perfect.

When she walked through the door, she heard several hisses as the whispers began. She had sat on the back row and tried her best to ignore the stares, but halfway through the sermon, Lorna realized everyone was paying more attention to her than the man speaking. She felt like she was on exhibit at the zoo. It was at that point she had realized nothing she did would ever raise the town’s opinion of her. Her mother had tarnished not only her own reputation, but Lorna’s and there was nothing she could do to change that.

“I decided that if they wanted a show, then I would give them one,” she told Cole.

“I’m almost afraid to ask what you did.”

Lorna winked at him. “Let’s just say, it involved some screaming, then pretending to speak in tongue while I rolled around on the floor. I may have put a hex on a few people before an entire tub of holy water was dumped on me. By the time I stopped laughing, I was told to never grace them with my presence again.”

Lorna thumped Cole on the back several times as he laughed, then sputtered and coughed up his lemonade all at the same time. She giggled thinking of the way people had crossed to the other side of the street to avoid her after that, but she hadn’t cared. For the first time in her life, she had no longer cared what the town had thought of her.

“You’re trouble, you know that. I could instantly tell that about you the moment you opened Jacob’s front door.”

Before Lorna could respond to Jacob’s comment, a shadow fell over their table. She looked up and groaned at the sight of Ashley leaning over Cole, looking at him as if she were about to order him as her meal. She never even acknowledged Lorna’s presence.

“Oh, my.” She fluttered her hand over her chest. “I don’t think we’ve ever met. I’m Ashley Johansen.”

The woman held out her hand to Cole palm down as if she expected him to kiss it and Lorna saw red. She had no claim over Cole, but there was no way she was letting the man eater sink her claws into him.

Before Cole could move, Lorna slid closer to him until she was molded to his side. “He’s mine.”

Ashley sputtered and stared at her. “But—”

“No buts. He’s mine and so is Jacob. You can’t have either one.” To prove her point, Lorna placed her hand on either side of Cole’s shocked face and pulled him to her until she could seal her lips over his. She had only meant to make the kiss quick, but when their lips touched, Lorna moaned at the sparks she felt between them. She opened her mouth on a sigh and Cole took advantage by thrusting his tongue into her mouth. All thoughts of Ashley and the fact that they were in public, flew out the window. Lorna clamped down on his tongue and sucked. He tasted of the tart lemonade he had been drinking, and she decided that was her new favorite drink.

By the time they broke the kiss, both she and Cole were panting for breath. At some point, the man had tangled his fingers in her hair and he pulled her forward until their foreheads rested together. She stared into his baby blue eyes, shocked at what she had just done, but Lorna didn’t feel guilty about it.

Kissing Cole was completely different from kissing Jacob. She couldn’t say if one was better than the other, because she knew if Jacob were there at that moment, and she kissed him, she would have been just as turned on as she was with Cole. They both felt right to her.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before you let everyone see you’re just like your mother.”

Ashley stomped off before Lorna could even acknowledge what she said. She sighed and stared at Cole’s kiss-swollen lips, knowing she had a lot to think about.
So much for the friend category.

* * * *

Cole drove back to Jacob’s house in utter shock. When Lorna had kissed him, he hadn’t known whether to push her away or swipe everything off the table with his arm so he could lie her down and fuck her until they both collapsed. His body, specifically his cock, voted for the latter. His head was a different story.

Lorna was Jacob’s woman. It was something he’d had to keep telling himself over and over for the past couple days. As he had gotten to know her, he learned that not only was she one sexy woman, but Lorna was smart, funny, and feisty. All the qualities he would have chosen if he had to create the perfect woman. He could definitely see what Jacob liked so much about her. The problem was, Cole was starting to fall for her as well.