Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1) (14 page)

Not that Lacey probably noticed in her haste to get to the door. It would have been funny if it had been happening to someone else.

As soon as the door clicked shut two sets of eyes swivelled to him. He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m kinda helping Lacey out with something.”

“As well as being a fill-in mechanic?” his father frowned.

“Yes.”

His parents exchanged looks. “That worked out well then?” his mother said.

Coop wanted to try and keep the lying to a minimum. After all, the best way to pull off a convincing lie was to keep it as close to the truth as possible, right? “The Lacey thing came first.”

Two sets of eyes gazed back at him in that patient, unblinking, expectant way he knew so well. “It’s … complicated.” No way was he telling them the real situation.

His father put his mug on the table. “I like Lacey. I think you like Lacey, too. Maybe a little more than is wise?”

Coop blinked at his father’s observation. What the hell did he mean by that? He liked her just fine. Except when she was driving him nuts. Which was often. But not since they’d arrived in Jumbuck Springs. In just a few days he could see the change in her. She was less …

Less frenetic, less needy, less self-destructive.

More centred, more relaxed, more mellow. Like she didn’t have any kind of a point to prove anymore.

Like she was home.

Nowhere had that been more evident than Connie’s mermaid costume. It had been an absolute hit with everyone and to say Lacey had been thrilled was a massive understatement. She’d been ecstatic and agreed to do the costumes for the local high school play.

Of course, there was more than one way to drive an adult male nuts. Flashes of long, silky smooth thigh. Bright pink toenails peeking out from under the covers. That tape measure slung around her neck had been strangely erotic. Shaking her booty to whatever song was piping into her ear buds. Sexy bras on the bathroom doorknob.

“You need to be careful there, son,” his father continued, dragging Coop’s head out of Lacey’s bra. “She’s young and you don’t want to mess up your friendship with Ethan.”

Oh it was
way
too late for that. Hopefully he’d be able to repair it again when the truth came out. “I know,” he nodded. “It’s okay. It’s not what it seems. Really.”

“Okay then,” his father nodded and picked up his mug.

His mother didn’t look so convinced. “You know you can talk to us, right?”

Coop smiled and reached across and squeezed his mother’s hand. “I know.” But this was not something she’d understand. “It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

He squeezed again and withdrew his hand. Now if only he could convince himself …

‡

L
acey texted Coop
when he still wasn’t home by five that afternoon, to discover he was at the auto shop making a start on her car. She’d been nervous ever since accidentally bumping into his parents this morning in nothing but a towel.

What must they think?

It wasn’t like she could have even pretended she was just dropping something off or doing his cleaning or some other such excuse when she’d obviously been fresh from the shower. She supposed another woman may have been able to come up with a plausible excuse but, frankly, her brain had gone completely blank at being sprung practically naked in Coop’s room by his parents.

Coop had said they wouldn’t be here until lunch time, so still being in the room at ten was hardly unreasonable. If only he’d texted her to let her know they were on their way. But then he’d thought she was going to be gone by nine so … a comedy of errors.

Resulting in egg on her face.

She’d been stuck out the back helping in the kitchen when they’d all arrived for lunch and hadn’t been able to gauge the situation between Coop and his parents. So she was dying to talk to Coop about what had transpired after she’d left.

Another hour passed without Coop returning and Lacey couldn’t wait any longer to find out what had gone down. She grabbed a hoodie, shoved her feet into some shoes and headed to the auto shop.

It was dark outside and already chilly as Lacey stepped out of the pub. Ignoring the light spilling out onto the pavement, the murmur of voices and the clink of glasses, she walked briskly in the other direction towards the auto shop.

The two extra-wide roller doors that made up most of the façade of Alec Campbell’s business were down. She tried the front door, which led into the shop area but it was shut. She knew he was in there though because she could hear some music and see a light on in the work area through the shop window, so she made her way around to the back door.

It opened when Lacey turned the knob, and she entered. The air inside was warm and stuffy, surprising given the large concrete space. It was obviously holding the heat of the day well. Diesel fumes, oil and the faint smell of old rubber tickled her nose and contributed to the airless state. Low music, all scratchy like a radio not properly tuned in, sounded weak and tinny amidst the sturdy mechanical surroundings.

It seemed like a workplace where heavy metal or hard core rock should be thumping.

A car up on a hoist directly ahead of her blocked her view and she didn’t see Coop until she walked around it and located him crouched down
sans shirt
, one knee on the ground, next to what appeared to be a car engine.
Her
car engine, judging by the gaping hole in the front of her Mini where the hood usually sat. Except there was no hood either. In fact the entire car was one big hole—no engine, no doors, no wheels, no seats or internal fittings whatsoever—just an empty shell on blocks, all its parts stripped out and placed in a pile on the floor.

It would have been a very sad sight indeed had Lacey been properly able to comprehend it. The fact that Coop was shirtless, however, made any kind of comprehension impossible. All Lacey was capable of was staring at the broad acres of his back and praying she didn’t do something stupid like try and lick him.

A light sheen of sweat at his hairline and in the small of his back caught the light belting down from the overhead lamps, as did the play of muscles beneath his skin as he fiddled with some whoosie-what. Her gaze drifted to the streak of grease on his left flank and her belly looped the loop.

There was just something so damn male about a man doing something with his hands. Something mechanical. Something sweaty. And dirty.

Watching Coop in his natural environment was seriously turning her on.

Coop looked up from his handiwork abruptly and startled her. “Oh hey,” he said.

Lacey wondered if he’d been able to sense the sudden heavy fog of pheromones clogging the air, or the thick ooze of lust emanating from her every pore. Or maybe she’d let out some kind of primal whimper without even knowing it. Either way he was standing, wiping his hands on a clean-looking rag and bringing all his lovely muscles up to her eye level.

Otherwise known as
licking
level.

She frowned and ground the balls of her feet into the concrete not trusting her impulsive nature one iota. He looked at her warily as he shoved the rag into his pocket, half of it hanging out. “Are you okay?”

She nodded vigorously. Maybe a little too vigorously, but it was something to do other than ogle the very distracting sheen of sweat on his pecs and the hollow of his throat or the smudge of grease streaking his flat, smooth belly.

She liked that he didn’t have any hair marring her view. That she could easily see the definition of his muscles beneath the taut stretch of his skin. But that streak of grease was just way too tempting.

“You’ve been busy I see,” she said forcing herself to make casual conversation when all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around his waist, bury her nose in his chest and
sniff
him. She headed in the opposite direction instead, making a show of walking around her stripped car.

“I figured I might as well get a head start.”

She poked her head into the empty shell. “Poor baby,” she murmured.

He chuckled and a wave of goosebumps prickled over Lacey’s skin. “Sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind. Just think what she’ll look like after I’m done coaxing her back to full bloom. I’ll be gentle with her I promise.”

Lacey gripped the metal tight as she thought about how Coop could coax her to full bloom. Right here, right now. On the concrete floor with the grease and the diesel fumes, or in the grimy shell of her car.

It sure as hell wouldn’t take weeks and there would be no need to be gentle.

God knew she could do with hard and fast right now. Something wild and furious to burn off the edge of desperation building inside her with every second she spent in his company, their unorthodox past lying large and mostly suppressed between.

“I’m going to get Gav to source me some wicked mags. Have you thought about what colour you’d like her to be?”

Lacey straightened and looked at him over the roof of the car. Man, he was really into this. She was practically melting from the inside out and he was thinking about wheels and duco. It was enough to make a woman feel about as attractive as tyre rubber. Enough to make a woman want to do something about that.

Like stripping herself naked and draping herself on the hood.

Oh, that’s right, there was no hood.

“Pink?”

He shot her a horrified look, as she knew he would. “What? Don’t want a pretty pink thing amongst all those muscle cars on your website?”

His eyebrows drew together. “You seriously want pink?”

Lacey laughed at the distaste on his face. “No, just trying to get a rise.” Because clearly nothing else on him was rising. “Maybe something yellow.” He frowned some more. “Ish?”

“How do you feel about an electric red?”

“How about electric purple?”

“Shall I get you some fluffy dice to go with it?” he said with a grimace.

“What about a rainbow down the side?”

He winced this time and Lacey smiled at his barely contained horror. “What about British racing car green? That’s very classy.”

“I don’t know,” she sighed, as she wandered around the other side, deciding to put him out of his masculine misery. “Do I have to decide this right now? Isn’t there some kind of a paint guide I could look at?” She squeezed past the innards of her car that were taking up a large patch of concrete to one side.

“Yeah, there’s some stuff online.” He moved away as she neared, standing at the front of the car near the headlight. Or where it would have been had it not also been on the ground. “I’ve also got this design program where you can look at different colours on your car on the computer first. I can log on remotely and we can look at it.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lacey said, drawing to a halt just outside where she could feasibly reach him with her hands. She congratulated herself on her control. “What did your parents say after I left?”

He held her gaze for a beat or two then glanced down at his hands. He pulled the rag out of his pocket and rubbed absently at some grease he missed. “They said they hoped I knew what I was doing.”

“And you said?”

He looked at her. “I said it was complicated.”

“I’m sorry if it caused a problem for you. I really am.”

He shrugged. “It’ll be fine. Which is exactly what I told them.”

Fine?

Complicated she got, but nothing about sharing a hotel room with Coop felt fine. Being back in Jumbuck Springs felt fine. Going to Mrs Hoff’s and to school with Connie and running into Caroline all felt fine. More than fine.

But being behind closed doors with Coop? Nope.

That felt … loaded. Combustible. Like the tinder dry landscape surrounding Jumbuck Springs—just one spark and
poof
!

Lacey’s gaze drifted to his hands and their continual motion with the grease rag, clearly habitual, rubbing at nothing now. His belly on the other hand …

Her eyes lifted a little to take in the tautness of the sling of muscle she could see above the waistband of his low-riding Levis. Smooth and flat, the tempting streak of black grease slashed across from the slope at his hip to just above the button of his fly.

She let her gaze wander higher over the more defined muscles of his upper abdomen to the scar that ran down the centre of his chest. It was white and faded now, innocuous looking if a person didn’t know the story behind it.

Her eyes lifted again. Over the other faded scar from his tracheostomy—
so many scars
—up the ridged strength of his throat, over his square jaw and sensual mouth, all the way to lock with the blue of his eyes, their gazes meshing.

He was watching her, the rag still absently working at his hands. She was aware of the thick bound of his carotid in his neck and the expansion of his chest as he breathed, his pecs expanding and his ribs flaring, then everything deflating again.

Slow and steady. In and out.

While her heart raced like a train, her breath more like that of a frightened animal.

“You always work with your shirt off?” Her voice was husky in a silence barely punctuated by the scratchy music playing from a battered-looking radio on the nearby workbench.