Blindsided (6 page)

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I must be out of my freaking mind, Nate thought as he held Chelsea’s shivering body close to him. He wanted her to stop crying, wanted her to stop reliving whatever pain she had felt with those other guys. Guys who had apparently ruined it for him. He easily transferred his anger to them. He could see her point. He’d probably broken his share of hearts when he was younger, sorry as he might be about it now. Maybe she was right to be careful with her heart, but damn it, he wanted a chance with her. His eyes fell on Bunny and he leapt at the opportunity to take her mind off her tears.

“Why don’t we go out and see if we can get your car running, sweetheart,” he said gently.

She went still in his arms, and he thought she leaned against him a touch more heavily. He tightened his hold reflexively. God, he loved holding her, smelling the soft scent that rose up from her hair.

He let himself hold her a moment longer, then pulled away. He had to get down to business, or he was going to have her in his bed, despite their differences of opinion on one night stands.

A few minutes later, tools in hand and Chelsea in his wake, Nate walked out to Bunny. He had no idea what he was going to find under the hood, but it couldn’t be good. The parts that weren’t primer gray were rust and the tires were nearly bald. He shuddered thinking about her driving blithely along the road in that thing. The brakes were probably crap and there was no ABS, no airbags… he had to stop thinking about it.

Pushing aside thoughts of this woman traveling alone in this tuna can, he popped the hood and peered at the engine. He had to hold back a laugh when he caught his first glimpse. It had been so long since he looked at anything besides big pony car engines, he had forgotten that old VW engines had more in common with go-karts than American muscle. Only Chelsea’s hopeful face peering over his shoulder kept his smart ass mouth in check. She looked so hopeful, so worried. For some reason, she truly loved this little shit box.

Usually, the rest of the world disappeared when he got his head under a hood, but Chelsea was much too close for that to happen. He was horribly aware of every little move she made, the way her hips moved when she shifted her weight, the way her thin arms swam around in his shirt. She was a damn distraction.

Sighing, he started poking around. A blown head gasket was her main problem. Hell, the thing hadn’t been blown so much as disintegrated. It looked like had been torched, then blown up by a small grenade. That explained her current dilemma, but it wasn’t the car’s only problem. Her hoses and belts were falling apart, the rubber melting under the strain. He grimaced when he saw that several of them were held together with electrical tape.

“Did you put electrical tape on your radiator hose?” he asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

“Yeah, it was leaking,” she said.

Nate squeezed his eyes shut and swore under his breath. It was a wonder she hadn’t been broken down before this. Who put electrical tape on a leaking hose?

“What happened right before you stopped?” he asked, biting back an order that she take better care of her car, of herself.

Chancing a look at her, Nate immediately wished he hadn’t. She was biting on the side of her fingernail, and the sight of her sucking on something got him all stirred up again. He stifled a groan.

“You shouldn’t bite your fingernails.” His voice was gruff, and he could only hope it came across as stern, rather than wanting.

Looking like a chastised child, she immediately took her finger away from her mouth. He grinned at the cute look on her face.

She took one last look at her nail, then tucked her hands into her back pockets to keep them out of sight. Which shoved her beautiful breasts up and towards him. Nate muttered under his breath and looked back at the engine. Focus on the engine.

“It was making some sort of knocking noise,” Chelsea said, and Nate was confused for a second before he remembered his question. Focus, right.

“Was it smoking, or just making the noise?” Nate asked.

Smoke, knocking, that should take his mind off the erection growing in his pants. It didn’t work, and Nate tried to angle his body away from her. She’d made it clear she didn’t want to sleep with him, and he didn’t want her to see his biological reaction to being near her soft, warm body. He’d keep from backing her up against the car and molding her to him if it killed him. But he had the taste of her in his mouth, and he couldn’t get his mind off it.

###

Chelsea relayed the information about Bunny without looking at Nate, avoiding that dangerous eye contact they’d made earlier. Better to stare at the confusing array of tubes and metal that made up Bunny’s engine. Nate looked dutifully, poking at things, lifting up hoses to see under them. Chelsea had no idea what he was doing.

After a thorough inspection of the topside, Nate ran into the house and returned a moment later with an old, dirty towel. He spread it out on the ground, then lay down on his back and slid under the car. Chelsea’s heart seized for a moment. Maybe he was right. Maybe he wasn’t like all those other boys with their bikes and their egos. He was doing something for her, not the other way around. He was flat on his back, messing around with something under Bunny and they hadn’t even slept together.

In fact, she had insulted him, had got crazy and emotional and yet, here he was. Fixing her car. Her preconceptions faltered, but only for a moment. Better to not think about it, she told herself. It always starts like this, remember? They’re nice, sweet, then they pull a switcheroo and their horns come out. Better to walk away now.

Still, as she looked at his jean-covered thighs, she couldn’t help but wish that they agreed on one night stands. It would be so nice to let him ease those slim hips between her thighs and let that hardness she had felt earlier slide inside… Okay, enough, Chelsea thought. She could feel her cheeks turning rosy as she her fantasy encounter with Nate continued unbidden in her mind’s eye. Shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath, Chelsea tried to maintain control.

When she opened her eyes, she jumped to find Nate on his feet, his blue eyes staring down at her. Her heart did a little flip and she swallowed hard. Here it was, that awful connection she felt with him, zapping back and forth between their eyes, making her insides feel warm.

“Do you know what’s wrong with it?” she asked, not wanting to let the moment go on any longer than it already had.

“Almost everything,” he said. She started to jump to Bunny’s defense when he continued, “But the reason you broke down is a blown head gasket. I can fix it, but you need a new one. I have a buddy with a part store. I’ll call and find out if he has one.”

“Okay,” she said, too tired and fascinated by Nate to argue.

He stared at her for another moment, that terrible flash happening again before his eyes slid away and his expression turned unreadable.

###

He would be at the point of no return once he talked to Chelsea and he’d have to deal with the consequences. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he was willing to compromise for this woman he’d just met, but there it was. His dick seemed to be hell bent on reasserting some of the control it had known at an earlier time in his life. What a great time for it to spring back to life.

While underneath the rat trap named Bunny, looking at all her other problems, Nate had formed a plan. It wasn’t a good plan. It was ridiculous. He didn’t care. He was desperate to feel Chelsea’s skin, to run his hands over her body. Skin on skin, hers creamy white, his colorful. If the thought of touching her was so enthralling, what would the real thing be like?

Matt had the replacement gasket Bunny needed, but Nate wasn’t going to tell Chelsea that. He was willing to tell a little white lie. If that was enough to consign him into the bad boy pile, so be it. She already had him stashed in that group anyway.

Nate found Chelsea in his living room, sitting on his couch, smoking one of his cigarettes and reading the book he had been slogging through earlier that morning. Her long legs were tucked up under her and she played with her long hair, winding one red lock around her little finger. While he watched, she yawned like a cat, her mouth opening wide, back arching. She saw him and smiled.

“I love this book,” she said holding up
Anna Karenina
.

He felt drawn to her, as if an invisible filament ran between them and she was constantly tightening it, pulling him to her side. He kept closing the distance between them until he was nearly touching her knee with his thigh.

“There are gaps in my education,” he said with a grin he knew had the effect of making women forget what they were thinking. It was great camouflage.

The grin had the desired effect and Nate felt smug as Chelsea’s cheeks turned pink and she looked down at the book. She ran her fingers over the cover and cleared her throat, her desire for him rolling off of her. Which was great, except that her obvious arousal had the effect of heightening his own already powerful lust.

“You’re reading the unabridged edition,” she said finally.

She had pulled herself together somewhat and was staunchly refusing to look at him. She appeared to be looking at him, but she was actually looking at the wall behind him. It wasn’t every day that a woman was so attracted to him that she couldn’t look directly at him. It was like being the sun.

“Yeah, is that bad?” Nate asked. He thought that was the point. To read this stuff in their original form. Dickens he had liked. He could relate to kids growing up poor and on the street regardless of the era. Shakespeare was okay once he had gotten the hang of it. If he had known how raunchy some of the stuff was, he may have been more interested when he was in school. No, probably not.

“Well, it’s got all the stuff about farming and social structure in it,” she said. She finally looked up at him, and her green eyes sparkled with humor. “Whenever Levin starts rambling about things, that’s Tolstoy spouting off. Writing a novel was less controversial than writing any sort of political manifesto, so he weaves social commentary into the plot. The abridged version cuts that out, and you’re just left with the two love stories.”

Shit, Nate thought, he was so screwed. He had no idea how many women he’d dated, but none of them had known the secret of making Russian literature tolerable. Getting inside her would get rid of his physical needs, but he didn’t know how to get rid of his desire to know her. How could he ease that need? Tie her up and make her tell him her life story? Not a good idea.

“How do you know all this?” he asked.

“I was a Lit major before I dropped out of college,” she said.

That surprised him. Women like Chelsea didn’t drop out of school. They got advanced degrees and sneered at the undereducated masses. He was about to ask why she had dropped out when he looked at her face. All the openness he so enjoyed watching was gone. Her face was shuttered, closed. He shut his mouth. If he didn’t want to talk about his past, he couldn’t force her to.

“My buddy won’t be able to get the part until tomorrow afternoon,” Nate said, hoping his face wasn’t as open as hers.

Chelsea’s face fell, but at least it had opened up again, “Oh. Um, okay.”

She was floundering and he could see she had no idea what to do with this information. He knew what they could do to pass the time though, was looking forward to it more than he wanted to admit. What a plan this was. If it worked, it could result in two happy, satisfied people and a VW Rabbit that could limp along until he could rip out the engine and start from scratch. Nate quickly forced his mind away from that subject. It was just a bit too, well, forward thinking. Better to think about the sex instead.

“I had an idea,” Nate said finally. He picked up her hand and stroked the back of it with his thumb. Her hand was so little in his and he felt a rush of ferocious protectiveness for her. Surprise registered on her face, and she looked down at their touching hands. Nate made a deal with himself: if she pulled away, he wouldn’t mention his cockamamie plan. If she didn’t, he would.

“Okay,” she said as she turned to face him. Her hand stayed his.

Chapter 4

“You couldn’t have just changed your mind like that. What are you getting out of it?” Chelsea asked.

Her voice rose to a pitch so high it could only mean panic. She couldn’t help it. After Nate’s announcement that they would not be getting down and dirty, she had tried valiantly to put it out of her mind. Not only that, but after some effort she had convinced herself that it was really for the best. No sex, a fixed car and she would be off and forgetting about him. Once out of the range of his testosterone and scent, she should be fine. Now he’d blown her carefully constructed rationalizations all to hell. Reopening that door was a form of torture and she was sure there was a catch.

Nate shot her another one of those soul-searing grins and squeezed her hand. His hand was hot and strong, sinewy and masculine. He held hers gently and heaven help her, she loved it. She should just pull her hand away, but no part of her body was listening to her commands anymore.