Dirty Little Midlife Disaster by Lilian Monroe
Trina
“We meet again.”Mac flashes me a million-dollar smile as he shuts the door with his hip, his eyes on me as he heads for the truck bed.
“Hi, Mac.” I mentally high-five myself for managing to speak. That’s how low the bar is right now.
My mouth waters as I watch him move. His dark-chocolate hair is still mussed with sleep, but in a sexy, grown-man sort of way. He still has that two-day stubble lining his jaw, dark brown interspersed with silver.
His eyes are pale brown, almost gold, and they sparkle at my words. “And you remembered my name too.” The corner of his lush lips tips up. “Here I was thinking you’d forgotten all about me.”
“You’ve met Trina?” Hamish asks.
“Briefly.” Mac’s eyes crinkle at the corners, his eyes alight with a brighter smile than the tilt of his lips…and I start blushing. Hard. Oh no.
“She never told me her name, though.” He angles his head as the sun catches on the masculine planes of his face. “Trina.” His lips shape my name, tasting it, and something warm glides down my center, settling low between my thighs.
This is bad. Very, very bad.
I glance away, gluing my eyes to the flat tire on my car. “Thanks for coming to my rescue. You really didn’t have to.”
“He most certainly did have to,” Hamish cuts in, grabbing a jack from the truck bed as Mac hauls a spare tire out.
Mac grins at his father. “Dad says jump; I say how high.”
I give them a faltering smile, hoping I don’t look as out of sorts as I feel.
Then begins a show that I didn’t think I’d get to see at eight o’clock on a Thursday morning. The two men set up the jack and start lifting the car, and my eyes seem to want to linger on the way Mac moves. His tee clings to his broad shoulders as he cranks the jack. A little strip of skin along his lower back is exposed when he leans over. His hair, dark brown and tousled, glints red and gold in the morning sun.
And his hands—oh, his hands. I have to look away after a while because watching those hands work feels positively indecent. The long, dexterous fingers. The hard, masculine tendons. The deft movements. The muscles along his forearms clenching and releasing as he works. With one last look at his bulging biceps, I tear my gaze away and study a crack in the pavement.
It takes a few long moments for my pulse to slow.
They’re just hands, for crying out loud. Why does my body feel hot and flushed at the sight of them?
I should buy a new vibrator. Sort myself out before this gets out of hand—Gah! Stop thinking about hands!
When a machine starts whirring and the men remove the lug nuts from my tire, I work up the courage to look again. My heart stutters at the sight of Mac’s strong thighs spread wide, the spare tire held in front of him as he fits it into the wheel well with a grunt.
I’m not a pervert. I swear, I’m not. There’s just something about the way this man moves that makes my blood turn to honey.
Pulling a rag out of the back of his truck, Mac wipes his hands and lifts those amber eyes to mine. “All done. Should get you to the mechanic in one piece.” His eyes crinkle at the corners as his lips tip up again, a deep crease bracketing one side of his mouth. I want to trace that crease with my tongue.
Blinking, I try to clear the image from my mind. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Thank you,” I manage to respond. “I’ll look up the nearest mechanic.” I reach into my purse for my phone, but Mac makes a noise to get my attention.
“It’s Remy’s place. I’ll go with you. My bike is there.” Mac chucks the rag into the cab of the truck and nods to his father. “See you tonight?”
Hamish waves a hand as he turns and walks toward the Grove.
“Thank you!” I call out after him.
Hamish pauses and turns, then points a finger at me. “I was serious about those pool lessons, girl. You were a disgrace.” Then he turns back around and marches toward the bar.
I grin, turn, then trip over my own feet, because Mac isn’t in his truck—he’s standing with one foot against the passenger side door of my own car. When I swallow, my throat is thick. “You… You’re riding with me?”
Is it just me, or did Mac’s eyes heat when I said that? He arches a brow and leans a hand against the roof of the car, stretching his long body to its full height. “That okay?”
“I— Yeah, of course. You… I don’t— Yeah. Uh-huh.”
Ohmigod. Stop. Talking.
Mac’s eyes glimmer. “You sure?”
This time, I just clamp my mouth shut and nod. Then I make my way to the driver’s side and get in.
Mac folds his long body and slides in next to me, and the air in the car turns stifling. He’s just so…big. The top of his messy hair brushes the roof of the car. His thick, tree-trunk legs are spread wide, knees touching the edge of the glove box before he pushes the seat back and gives himself a couple inches of room. I watch those hands work to pull the seatbelt across his body, and I have to close my eyes for a moment just to compose myself.
There’s something wrong with me.
There has to be.
Why else would the sight of someone’s hands send me off the deep end?
Mac gives me directions after I turn the key in the ignition, and I do my best to keep my eyes on the road. My attention is on him, though. On the way he leans an elbow against the door, cupping his face between his thumb and forefinger. How he slouches down just a bit and his shirt rides up at the side. How the fingers of his other hand drum over his thigh to a rhythm only he can hear.
All this I see with my peripheral vision and a few brief, stolen glances. If I look directly at him, I might spontaneously combust.
Maybe if I turn the radio on, it’ll give me something else to listen to. “You can choose the station,” I tell Mac after I turn the volume knob to an appropriate level. “I usually just leave it on classic rock.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Mac says in that deep, sensual voice of his, and my panties grow damp.
Not knowing what else to do, I start chanting a mantra in my head: Get a grip, Trina. Get a grip, Trina. Get a grip, Trina.
I squeeze the steering wheel tighter. This is getting out of control.
He’s just a man in black jeans and a tight tee. He’s got a deep, smooth voice and a body I’d like to lick, and so what? I just separated from my husband six months ago! I am officially divorced as of this morning. I have children. I have responsibilities which now include a cat. The last thing I need is some romance with a badass motorcycle man who looks good when he’s changing a tire.
“Pull in here. I can see Remy through the garage doors.” Mac points to the mechanic in front of us and directs me to a parking space off to the side.
Is it wrong that I’m enjoying him telling me what to do?
My brain seems to have remained in the box with our new kitten this morning, and everything between my ears is scrambled mush. I park the car, thankfully without crashing and embarrassing myself, then let out a long breath.
“You okay?” Mac has one hand on the door, but his eyes are on me. “It’s just a flat tire, Trina. Remy is a good friend of mine. He’ll give you a discount.” He tilts his head, gaze intent. “I’ll ask him to service the car and make sure there’s nothing else the matter with it. Everything will be okay.”
Gah. He’s being sweet. I don’t know if I can handle Sweet Mac. Sexy Mac is nearly too much for me, but I can put him in a box reserved for sex and lock him away, because I do not have sex with strange men.
Repeat after me: Katrina Viceroy does not have sex with strange men.
Period.
End of story.
For him to look at me with soft eyes and tell me he’ll take care of me? Nope. Too much.
I’m supposed to be focused on my children, my mother, and myself (and the cat). I’m supposed to be calling my lawyer and making sure everything is squared away. I’m supposed to be preparing for Kevin’s visit in two weeks. I’m supposed to be doing anything but sitting in a car with a man who makes me want to strip naked and get in the back seat of this old beater.
Not to mention the reason I look so frazzled isn’t the damn flat tire, it’s the mountain of muscle and male sex sitting to my right. But can I tell him that?
Ha. Exactly.
I try to give him a reassuring smile, but my lips freeze when Mac moves his hand toward me. His touch is feather-light, barely brushing my skin as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. His finger runs along my temple, smoothing down the shell of my ear in a slow, deliberate movement.
I feel that touch somewhere much, much lower.
When I swallow, Mac’s gaze brushes my throat, my collarbone, before sliding toward the garage, where Remy is angling toward us.
“I’m fine,” I hear myself say, then I scramble out of the car.
Mac’s handsare near me again. He’s currently clicking the clasp on a helmet under my chin, his eyes intent on his work. He’s still dressed in his badass black outfit, except now he has an equally badass leather jacket and a helmet of his own.
I’m not into bad boys. Never have been. Kevin was soft, and sweet, and artistic. He took me on a picnic to the park for our first date. He spent his days painting and talking about textures and movement and shape. Our house wasn’t a house, it was a “sculptural piece.” If someone told him to ride a motorcycle, he’d probably just ask to paint it instead.
I liked that about my ex-husband. I liked that he wasn’t macho, that he didn’t need to prove his masculinity to feel like a man. I liked that he was talented and brilliant and unapologetically creative. I liked, most of all, that he was a caring father and a loving husband.
Then I found out he was cheating on me, and I wondered if I was blind, or just stupid.
But there’s something about the confidence of Mac’s movements that reaches deep into my gut and pushes my past aside. He changed my tire like he could do it in his sleep. He sat in my car like he owned it. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear like touching me meant the world.
Now I’m standing next to a big, gleaming motorcycle with a helmet on my head, wondering how the hell this happened.
All I know is Remy and Mac greeted each other like old friends. They talked shop, took a look at my car, and Remy promised to take care of it. He gave me a quote that was basically just the cost of a new tire, then Mac put his hand on my elbow and asked me where I needed to go.
In a daze, I said home to Heart’s Cove, and he told me he’d take me there.
“All set.” Mac’s lips do that hot, tilty, half-smile thing, his eyes full of humor. His fingers linger at my chin before dropping down to his sides.
I knock the side of my helmet with my knuckles. “Feels solid.”
His grin widens, then he jerks a stubble-lined jaw to his machine. “Let’s go.” He swings a leg over the bike and lifts it off its kickstand, then turns to wink at me. “Get on. You’ll love it, I promise.”
Why is my heart thundering? All I can hear is the whining of a machine in the mechanic’s shop and the insistent thumping of my pulse in my ears. With a deep breath, I walk my heeled boots to the bike and swing a leg over. There’s not much space between Mac and me. Not much space at all.
He turns his head to the side. “Hold my waist tight. We’re going to go fast. Don’t want you to fall off.” When I hesitate, I catch that crease in his cheek appearing then disappearing. “You can grab onto my jacket. If you don’t want to wrap yourself around me yet.”
Um, yet? Excuse me? What does that mean?
But Mac revs the bike and I do as he says, shimmying closer as my hands find their way to his waist. My fingers curl into the soft, black leather of his jacket as my chest presses close enough to feel the breadth and solidness of his body. I close my eyes as the bike roars to life, and I realize that maybe I do like bad boys. Maybe I like motorcycles. Maybe I like feeling the vibrations of a powerful machine beneath me while my hands wrap around the sexiest man I’ve ever met.
“Hold on tight. You won’t hurt me if you squeeze hard.” He leans back a bit, as if he’s looking for more contact between us. I curl my fingers into his jacket and hear him let out a low, masculine noise at the back of his throat.
For some reason, that noise nearly undoes me. I close my eyes and keep my grip tight, breathing in the scent of leather and Mac.
Then we take off, and my breath takes off with us. My grip on Mac’s waist tightens as he accelerates, and I think I hear him groan. It’s not until we’re on the freeway on the way back to Heart’s Cove that I realize how hard my arms are squeezing him and how tight my thighs are plastered to the outside of his.
Every inch of me is pressed tight to every inch of him. From neck to navel, all I feel is Mac. His strong, muscular back encased in leather. His ass against the insides of my thighs. His ribs under my arms. It feels…good. Great. Amazing.
Too good. My breasts are pressed up against a strange man’s back and all I can think about is how much I want more.
I haven’t been this close to a man besides Kevin in over thirteen years. I haven’t been this close to Kevin in years, either.
But when I try to loosen my grip, he speeds up and I have no choice but to hold on.
And it’s magic.
The wind, the freedom, the feeling of flying. It takes my breath away. It makes my heart soar. I stop thinking about how hot the feel of his body next to mine makes me and about how wrong it is for me to enjoy it.
The heat of Mac’s body is a blaze at my front, protecting me from the chill of the wind whipping past us. For a few glorious minutes I don’t even mind that I’m plastered to his back, because it feels too good not to be. I rest my chin on his shoulder and watch the world rush past us.
Mac moves the bike like it’s an extension of his body. He’s totally in control. Totally confident. Totally freaking hot.
It’s not until we cross the Heart’s Cove town limits and slow down that I realize just how tight I’m holding him. I unclasp my hands from his jacket and Mac lets out a low chuckle.
“How was that?”
“Incredible,” I breathe.
There’s a smile in his voice when he responds, as if he’s pleased with me. “Where to, gorgeous?”
Those three words should not make my insides clench the way they just did.
“Um…” Do I really want to drive up to my house on the back of Mac’s motorcycle? I can just imagine the inquisition my mother would launch. “The Four Cups Café is fine. My sister owns it. She’ll get me the rest of the way.”
My sister, Candice, owns the café along with three of her friends. It’s become crazy-popular in town, and I’m not surprised that Mac knows exactly how to get there.
But when we pull up outside, I am surprised to see him turn off the bike and set it on its kickstand. I attempt a graceful dismount and mostly succeed, even if I do have to lean heavily on his broad shoulders and teeter a little bit on the curb. Mac follows with a much more practiced movement, his hands immediately reaching to steady my hips.
How is he so warm? His hands feel so damn good against my jeans, fingers holding me tight as I try to catch my balance. Then his hands leave my hips and reach for the clasp at my chin, but my body hasn’t caught up. I can still feel the imprint of his fingers on my hips, the heat of his body against mine.
I’m dizzy. Overwhelmed. Totally loving every minute of this and knowing I’m not supposed to.
When the helmet comes off, I run my fingers through my hair and bite my lip at the messy, flattened rat’s nest I feel. I must look like a mess.
Another low noise escapes the back of Mac’s throat. I feel it in my bones. When he speaks, his voice is deep and dark and sinful. “You keep biting your lip like that and I’m going to have to tug it free myself. And I might use my own teeth to do it.”
I freeze, my bottom lip releasing. Then my eyes climb up to Mac’s and I see a look that is so far from sweet it’s not even funny. I didn’t know eyes could hold so much heat. My mouth goes dry and my lips part, and Mac lets out a short huff as he shakes his head.
“Next time you have a date playing pool with my dad, you call me first, all right?” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, then slides a hand into his jacket’s breast pocket for a pen. I watch those wicked, beautiful hands write a phone number on the back of a receipt with neat, tight handwriting. Then he hands it to me, his eyes lingering on mine while I take the paper.
“Trina?” Mac says, arching his brows.
“Yeah?”
“You’ll call me?”
“Um, yeah,” I answer, because what else am I going to say?
Mac rewards me with a curl of his lips. “Good girl.”
Heat gushes through me at those two little, not-so-innocent words.
Now, I’m not a girl. I’m very much a woman. And I’ve never had a man say good girl to me in a way that makes everything inside me clench…until today. When Mac says it, it feels like a reward. Like he’s been waiting for me to agree to call him his whole life, and I just made his day. Like he’d like to say good girl to me again…and again…and again.
He sticks the spare helmet in one of the cases attached to his bike, gives me a little salute and a wink, then gets on the motorcycle and drives away.
I just stand there, hearing the words “good girl” playing in my head on repeat, feeling the imprint of his back against my chest and the brush of his fingers against my skin, wishing he’d made good on his promise to bite my lower lip himself.
Then the café door bangs open and my mother stands in the doorway. “Trina. Who in the world was that?” Her eyes are wide as she glances at Mac’s disappearing shape, then swings her gaze to me.
Her eyes are full of mischief, and all I can do is groan.
Looks like I’m not escaping a Lottie Inquisition after all.
