LITMIR.BIZ

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in preparation for the regular weekend races.

      In other words, Alex was bored. And when she was bored, her mind wandered. Wandering into something as pleasant as her fabricated forbidden affair with the big-city cop with the wide shoulders and hushed, seductive words was a welcome respite from the grief and anger over her brother Nick’s recent death that normally filled her head these days.

      Outside the open doors of Morgan & Son’s Garage, the afternoon air was heavy with the promise of a spring rain. Maybe the green scents of budding trees and flower blossoms hanging in the mist and dappling her bare arms with moisture had reminded her subconscious mind of those bubble baths where a cop with stormy gray eyes had had his way with her time and again in an assortment of imaginary story lines.

      Her imagination took her to places far removed from tense, worrisome reality.

       “You like that, milady?” her knight in shining armor drawled, sliding his hand between her legs and cupping her warmth.

       “Yes,” she moaned, closing her eyes against the pleasure of his strong hand reaching into the water and rubbing against her clit. “Please don’t stop.”

       “Ah, my damsel is in distress, is she?” Broad shoulders filled her vision as he bent over her to gentle her soft cries with a kiss. “You don’t have to beg with me.”

       Her diaphanous bathing gown floated in the water, its sheer material hiding nothing from his eyes. The smoky gray orbs lazily looked their fill, each visual caress like the stroke of his hand on her body.

       He was unlike the other men in her kingdom. This one came from a far-off country. He served her willingly, while the treacherous knights of her own kingdom were not allowed to touch her. Her mystery knight, the Silver Fox, spoke in hushed, seductive tones. He ruled his own lands with an iron fist but always treated her as nothing less than a lady.

       “Will you join me, good sir?”

       “You only had to ask.” His tunic and breeches became a taut black T-shirt and jeans as he peeled off his clothes and slipped into the tub with her. Water sloshed over the sides and she laughed as his big frame displaced all the bubbles. Alex’s thighs clenched together when he wrapped his viselike arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. A well-honed warrior, he’d fought many battles. But each evening he returned to her chamber to take her in any number of ways. Tonight’s seduction was to be slow and sensuous. And merciless, she thought with a gasp of pleasure, as the bulging evidence of his arousal poked against her bottom. “Milady should never have to beg for pleasure.”

       He kissed the back of her neck as he palmed her breasts. His big hands lifted them and kneaded them with a gently urgent reverence—like the patient, mature man he was, not some grabby, greedy teen who could earn ten bucks on a bet if he touched them.

      Teen? Eeuw. Reality tried to nudge its way in and mess with her fantasy.

      Alex squeezed the humiliating memory from her mind and tried to feel the hardness of the grown man pressed against her.

       “You don’t think I’m common, do you?”

      “You talk too much, milady. Let me show you my appreciation.” No. She smiled wickedly. This time she’d show him. She spread her thighs slightly, boldly catching his arousal and squeezing it. “Alexandra…”

       How did he know her name? That was one of the rules between them. No names. Ever. She squeezed him again, gently punishing him for forgetting.

       Alex squirmed in his lap, guiding him closer and closer to where she wanted him to be. Inside her.

      “Alexandra…” No names. She adjusted herself over him. He moved beneath her. This time they’d come together. He wanted it, too. She was a lady. His lady. The kingdom need never doubt her fine qualities again.

       The pressure was building. The water on their skin—lapping between them, surrounding them—simmered with heat. Their heat.

       “Alexandra…”

      Someone was shouting her name.

      But not in passion.

      “Alexandra Morgan!”

      Alex jerked at the drill-sergeant shout, bumping her head on the open hood of the Buick. “Ow. Damn.” She slid off her perch on the fender and tugged her tool belt back into place, embarrassed to think that an errant monkey wrench and a tan sedan had triggered one of her stupid fantasies.

      “Daddy?” Alex rubbed at the sore spot beneath the yellow bandanna wrapped on top of her head, clearing her brain of naughty thoughts and ignoring the male laughter coming from underneath the car in the next bay. She quickly scanned the length of the garage, from the lube pit to the office hallway door, trying to account for each of the employees who hadn’t gone on lunch break yet. No one had seen her squirming on top of the car, had they?

      But she had bigger problems.

      “Alexandra!” Her father’s deep, booming voice—as crisp and quick as his military stride—announced she was in trouble. Again.

      The door to his office slammed, jolting through Alex’s body with dread. “Oh, no. He found it.”

      “Found what?” Winston “Tater” Rawls, a longtime employee of the garage and the closest thing to a big brother she had now that Nick was gone, rolled out from under a Ford hybrid in the next bay. “What’d you do this time, Alex?”

      She grabbed a rag off her tool chest and wiped her hands, mentally shaking her head at the lanky blond goofball’s question. “I was thinking for myself again.”

      He made a tsk-tsk sound behind his teeth. “That’ll teach you. I think I’ll just listen to the fireworks from here, if you don’t mind.”

      “Thanks for having my back, Tater.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice.

      “Anytime.” He rolled back beneath the Ford, his laugh echoing from under the chassis. “Anytime.”

      Alex dashed toward the exit leading to the business offices. She made it all the way around the sedan before the stale smells of body odor and cigarette smoke stopped her in her tracks. Not now.

      She tipped her chin to the black-haired mechanic who blocked her path. Artie Buell was nothing if not persistent. Of course, she wished he’d also learn how to wash his stained coveralls, use a little less gel in his hair, and take no for an answer.

      Using his tongue, he rolled a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with a suggestive swipe. “I’ll watch your back, Alex,” he drawled. “You need me to smooth over anything between you and your daddy, I’m your man.”

      Right. Ever since their sophomore year of high school, when dating his older brother hadn’t worked out so well for her, he’d tried to be her man. She’d grown up, moved away and learned to dream of bigger things than small-town stereotypes. She’d come home again because her father and brother had needed someone to manage their home and feed them. She couldn’t cook as well as she could fix a car. She couldn’t sew or garden as well as she could grow a business. But she loved the men who’d been her only family from the time she was a toddler, and for right now—especially now that Nick was gone—she’d be whatever her father needed her to be.

      Artie Buell, however, hadn’t changed a bit in nine years. If he wasn’t such a good mechanic—and the sheriff’s son—she’d have raised a stink about him working here. But she had her own reasons for wanting to stay on the Buell family’s good side now. The truth might depend upon their cooperation. And for that reason alone, she summoned a smile. “I can handle my dad just fine. Thanks.”

      “I think I impressed him when I won the Moonshine Run last month.” Damn. The polite chit-chat wasn’t over. Alex froze her smile

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