Seduce Me Tonight (6 page)

Bang. Bang. Bang.

It had been going on all morning. Banging, often followed by cursing. I glared at the door to the garage. What the
hell
was he doing out there? Better question: why wasn’t he in here doing
me
?

Bang! Bang!
‘Stupid fucking car!’
Bang!

I couldn’t take it any more. My head was starting to throb in time to the banging he was doing – which was a far cry from the banging I wanted to be doing. I opened the door and tried to keep my voice even and serene. ‘You OK out here, sweetheart?’

Mark glanced around the hood of his jet-black ’69 Mustang. Actually,
glowered
was a better word to describe what he was doing. ‘Does it
sound
like I’m doing OK? This piece of shit engine is giving me fits. It used to purr like a kitten and now it rattles like an old man on a respirator. I’m a shit mechanic if I can’t make this baby run.’

I bit my tongue to keep from stating the obvious solution. It was a familiar argument. Every time I suggested buying a new car – even a new Mustang – Mark went postal. He was a mechanic by trade and would not hear of parting with his ‘baby’ no matter how many dollars – or hours – he ended up dedicating to the cause of keeping her running. Or how many hours it cost us in matrimonial togetherness, apparently.

Not that I hadn’t known what I was getting into when I married him. Mark had been recommended to me by my friend Hannah when my Mini Cooper had needed some serious work. He’d been so sweet and charming, I hadn’t minded the grease under his nails or the fact that he always smelled faintly of gas, oil and that harsh cleaner all men keep in the garage. I had even enjoyed hanging out and watching him work – watching the easy way he moved around a car, admiring his ass when he had his head under a hood. Mark was a manly-man and that had an appeal a girly-girl like myself couldn’t resist, even if he did take his work home with him. Or, in this case,
drive
his work home. I was trying to be patient, I swear I was, but a girl can only take so much.

The Mustang had belonged to his father and I knew there was no way he would part with it. And I wouldn’t ask him to. But we could afford another car so that the Mustang wasn’t his primary means of transportation. Mark wouldn’t hear of it. ‘A car is meant to be driven, not kept in a garage,’ he would say, repeating something his father had said back in the day when money was tight and there were five kids to feed. I tried to remind Mark that our financial situation was far better than his dad’s had been – and we didn’t even have kids yet to worry about – but my argument was as ridiculous to him as an automatic transmission in a sports car. It was enough to have me banging my head against a wall in frustration.

‘Well, why don’t you take a break and have lunch with me?’

Mark’s head had disappeared under the hood again. ‘Maybe in a few minutes,’ he mumbled. ‘Thanks, babe.’

Bang! Bang!
‘You stupid fucking –’

‘Right,’ I said, slamming the door on the cacophony of noise.

An hour later, when Mark was still a no-show for lunch, I gave up and ate my soup and sandwich alone at the kitchen table. Every weekend, Mark promised he’d give the car repairs a rest and every weekend, there he was, greasy and sweaty and cursing until all hours while I waited for him to return to the land of the living. It hadn’t always been like this. He used to put in a couple of hours on the car on Saturday morning and be done with it so that the weekends were our own. But since his father died a couple of years ago Mark seemed to spend more and more time on the car. At first I thought it was just his way of staying close to his dad, some sort of testosterone-fuelled grief process, but it was starting to feel like he was avoiding me.

Enough was enough. Either I needed an all-consuming hobby of my own or I needed to remind Mark that there was another kitten in his life in need of some attention. I didn’t want a hobby, though. I wanted my husband back. I decided it was time to bring out the big guns and stop waiting around for what I wanted.

Twenty minutes later, after some primping and a wardrobe change, I carried a sandwich and glass of iced tea out to the garage. Mark didn’t notice, of course, because his head was where it always was – buried under the car hood. I smiled, watching his bent head, blond hair tousled and a streak of grease along the back of his neck. His head would be buried some place else momentarily if I had anything to say about it. My confidence wavered for a moment. It’s not as if we’d just met and I could lure him with my pussy. Marriage had the effect of softening the edges of our lust. On the other hand, it had been a long time since I’d put this kind of effort into enticing him.

‘I brought lunch to you,’ I said sweetly. ‘Since you’re so busy.’

Bang! Bang! Bang!
‘Fuck!’

‘Honey?’

‘Thanks, babe,’ he said, not even looking up.

Not easily deterred, I put the sandwich plate and glass on his workbench and leaned against the car. ‘You really should eat something. It’s after three and I’m not making dinner.’

I didn’t know if it was the tone in my voice or the fact that I was in the garage for more than thirty seconds, but Mark finally looked up. Looked up and did a long, slow double take. Then he straightened to his full six-foot-two height and gave me a long, slow smile that made my toes curl in my four-inch shiny patent-leather fuck-me pumps. Even with the shoes, I was still several inches shorter than him. I felt a shiver of desire looking up at Mark, his broad shoulders straining the seams of his old white T-shirt. We’d been together since high school, but he still took my breath away.

I returned his smile and crossed my arms under my breasts, accentuating the low, low cut of my wispy white blouse and the fact that I was not wearing a bra. While his gaze hovered at my cleavage, I spread my legs slightly and watched the marionette-like shift of his eyes downward, to the denim skirt cut so short I was practically flashing him and the red heels that were a remnant from an ill-fated pole-dancing class I’d taken three years ago.

‘Going somewhere?’ Mark asked, though it took him three tries to get the words out.

‘Coming, not going.’ I licked my bottom lip, glistening with a lipstick appropriately called
Sexy Harlot
, and smiled. ‘I hope.’

I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have heard a 747 landing in the backyard at that moment. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘What’s the matter, sweetheart?’

He was trying hard to focus on my face and failing miserably. ‘Did I miss a holiday or something?’

I walked around him – enjoying the way he pivoted to watch me – and slammed the hood of the Mustang. I slid up on the car, feeling the cold metal against the back of my bare thighs. ‘Nope. No holiday that I know of.’

To his credit, he didn’t comment on how hard I closed the hood or on the fact that I was sitting on his ‘baby’. Maybe there was hope for him after all. The good thing about being together so long was that I knew exactly which buttons to push – and how far to push them – to get what I wanted. I might have gotten a little complacent with familiarity and my skills might have been a little rusty, but it was all coming back to me now. And I intended to make the most of every trick I had up my sleeve – or up my skirt, as the case may be.

Mark visibly swallowed when I braced my heels on the bumper of the Mustang. I wiggled on the hood, making a show of tugging at the frayed hem of my impossibly short skirt that I wouldn’t wear outside this garage. Normally, Mark would have gone nuts at the possibility of me scratching his precious paint job, but he didn’t so much as grunt a protest. I actually believe he might have forgotten about the car altogether. I bit my lip seductively and smiled. Chalk one up for feminine wiles and a neglected libido.

‘Do you think this skirt is too short?’

Mark’s gaze was riveted between my legs. He stared as if all the answers of the universe were contained in that shadowy space. ‘Too short? Um, I guess it depends on what you’re looking for.’

‘I’m looking for a little attention,’ I said, running a finger along my bare thigh.

At that, Mark puffed out his chest like a rooster, all gruff, masculine possessiveness. ‘From
who
?’

I lowered my eyelashes. ‘Hmm. Well, not you. You’re too
busy
for me lately.’

‘I see,’ Mark said. ‘This is a ploy to get me away from the car.’

‘Do you think that’s even possible?’ I crossed my legs, rotated my ankle and swung my red pump back and forth in front of him. ‘Can I distract you from your precious Mustang for a little while?’

‘I think I can spare a few minutes.’

Mark started toward me, his gaze fixed on the hem of my skirt and the sweetness it hid, but I wagged a discouraging finger at him. ‘Hold it one minute there, big boy. I don’t want a few
minutes
of your time.’

‘Huh?’

I tried not to roll my eyes. ‘Focus, baby.’

He finally glanced up at my face. ‘What’s up, Cat?’

‘You’ve been distant,’ I said, trying to keep the levity in my voice and still convey how concerned I was. ‘I miss you.’

Despite my tone, his expression closed down. ‘Sorry, I just need to get this car running –’

‘It’s not going to bring him back,’ I said gently.

He jerked like I’d slapped him. ‘That’s not why –’

‘Yeah, it is, honey. You miss him, I know you do. And you love this car almost as much as you loved him.’ I stretched out my hand to rub my thumb across the grease spot on his bicep. ‘I know that.’

He sighed, covering my hand with his own. ‘I can’t get rid of the car, Cat.’

‘I never want you to. But maybe it’s time to consider getting another car, huh?’ I shifted on the hood, the skirt sliding up another inch. ‘Take a break from the constant maintenance so we can enjoy the weekends together?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, maybe it’s time.’

‘I miss you, baby,’ I said, putting all my longing and lust into the words. I was already wet, creaming at just the thought of him being inside me.

‘Your legs look a mile long in that skirt.’

And just like that, we shifted from serious conversation to full-on seduction. I was more than ready for it, and for him. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t planning on making him work for it.

I lay back on the hood of the car, braced myself on my elbows and placed my foot in the centre of his chest. ‘You’re not getting anywhere near me until you promise me some time.’

‘How much time do you want?’

Tugging at my skirt – up rather than down – I revealed a tiny, lacy navy-blue thong. ‘How much time have you got?’

I didn’t give him a chance to respond. He opened his mouth to say something and I hooked two fingers in my thong and pulled it aside. I watched his expression turn from amusement to lust.
Bam
. Just like that. Amazing what a glimpse of pussy will do to a man.

‘Damn. When did you do that?’ he asked, referring to my fresh Brazilian wax.

I teased him by running my fingers over my bare skin. ‘Two days ago. You might have noticed if you’d come to bed last night instead of staying out here with your car until I was asleep.’

I might as well have been speaking Latin. He could not take his eyes off my hand playing between my legs. Slowly, so he wouldn’t miss a thing, I slid one finger between the lips of my bare pussy. The purpose of this little exhibitionistic show was to get Mark hot and bothered, but I was so hot and wet I forgot about him for a moment and focused on pleasuring myself.

Dragging some of my moisture up over my clit, I gasped. ‘I’ve been doing this three or four times every weekend because you’re too busy lately. See what you miss when you’re working on your car?’

‘I’m seeing that.’ Mark wrapped his hand around my ankle and moved my foot from his chest. ‘But I’m not working on my car now.’

I kicked off my pumps and braced my heels against the hood of the car. ‘No, you’re not.

It’s nice to have your undivided attention for a change.’

‘You definitely have my attention,’ he said roughly. ‘I just wish you’d said something a hell of a lot sooner if this was the end result.’

‘Me, too.’

‘Damn, Catherine, I’m about to burst through my pants, you’ve got me so worked up.’

I smiled, noting his sizeable erection in his grease-stained jeans. ‘I see that. It’s about damn time.’

‘Yeah, it is, isn’t it?’

Mark moved closer, running his hands up my shins to my knees as I masturbated. He gently pressed my legs apart, until I was splayed across the hood of the car. Fully exposed to his view, I paused in stroking my clit to hold my labia open with two fingers.

‘Like what you see?’

Mark nodded, gaze riveted.

‘Want a lick?’

Again, he nodded.

‘Lick it,’ I demanded in a voice that didn’t sound at all like me but was, suddenly and passionately,
all
me. ‘Now.’

Mark wasted no time in leaning between my spread thighs and running his tongue slowly up the length of my pussy. He held my legs apart, pushing them up and back until my knees nearly touched the hood of the car. I was fully exposed to his gaze – and his questing mouth – but I needed more. I felt open, empty … and I wanted to be filled.

‘Push your tongue inside me,’ I whispered.

I was never this demanding. I was the quiet type in bed, moving him where I wanted with a sigh or a moan or my hands. But we weren’t in bed – and the combination of my slutty outfit and being spread out on Mark’s car like some kind of porn star was making me bold. I felt as if I was waking up from a very long sleep, all these months of waiting for Mark to snap out of his grief, trying to be patient but just becoming more and more resentful.

I knew we still had some work to do and that it wasn’t all better just because I’d concocted a silly plan to seduce him. But maybe this wake up call of what we had – what we’d always had in good times and bad – was a much-needed reminder for both of us. I hoped so. And, judging by the way Mark was staring at me, teasing me by making me wait, I think he was hoping for the same thing.

I sighed as he finally fulfilled my command. His tongue was velvety soft between my juicy slit as he nudged the opening of my pussy before circling around my clit. He made figure eights along the thick lips of my labia, tormenting me mercilessly before dipping back into my wetness. I squirmed against his tongue, but had nowhere to go as he held me pinned to the hood. Not that I wanted to go anywhere. I was exactly where I wanted to be, even if it wasn’t the most comfortable place to be.