her chest, I think there were even glimpses of the darker brown of her areola.
Shit, shit. She was just too damned perfect. She made my head feel tight and woozy, my chest thump, and my cock go ramrod stiff behind my coveralls. Thankfully, I had the upper part of the coveralls tied around my waist so the sleeves hung over my groin, hiding the evidence of my monster hard-on.
From one look at this girl, fully clothed, I had an erection so painful I had to hold back a wince.
Shit. This had been a mistake for sure. I was behind schedule on the Nova—I’d promised the owner I’d be done today, and I still had several hours of work left. I had salvage work to do, plus several hours of finishing work at the build site for Jeremy. Not to mention the online realtor class I was taking. Point being, I did not have time to waste on a random girl needing to get to Alaska.
Random hot girl. With amazing tits, sexy hips, and a bangin’ ass.
Not to mention the vivid, light brown, almost khaki-colored eyes that drew me in like flies to honey.
Thick black hair, straight and glossy as a raven’s wing, hanging well past mid-back, nearly to her butt. Loose, brushed, a wild jet fall of glory I wanted to sink my fingers into.
I reminded myself I didn’t even know her last name and she was a damsel in distress. Not a hookup from the local bar.
She looked young—younger than me. Over eighteen, I fucking hoped. But probably not old enough to even go to a bar.
God, I’m an idiot.
“You just gonna stare at me, or do you have something to say?” she asked, her voice wry and amused.
I blinked, shook my head, turned away, tossing the wrench onto a nearby tool chest. “Sorry.” I wanted to provide some kind of explanation for my asinine behavior, but I had none.
She was leaning against the bare steel column holding up the loft area. “Just wondering, if you have a lift, why you’re not using it.” She pointed at the hydraulic lift, capable of lifting several tons well overhead.
I kicked the whitewall tire of the truck. “This is a personal project, so I don’t wanna tie up the lift in case I need it for a client.”
“Oh. Makes sense.” She walked around the truck, glanced into the open engine bay, into the cab. “What’s your plan with this?”
“A full restoration, eventually. It’s got a nice straight body, no rot, and just a little corrosion here and there, a few edges and corners to fix up. The engine is seized and the tranny is fucked, though, so I’m replacing both.”
“What are you putting into it?”
I gestured at a motor sitting in a wooden crate. “A three-fifty-one V-8 from a seventy-seven Bronco I salvaged, with a rebuilt three-on-the-tree from another old Ford.”
“You do a lot of salvaging?”
I swept a hand at the parts I had piled all over the garage. “It’s the other half of my business, and salvaging is actually where I really started in the automotive business. Soon as I could drive, I bought a beat-to-shit old wrecker, got it running, and started salvaging. I’d drive hours to get old wrecks off of lawns, out of backyards, from impound lots, wherever I could find ’em. Dad got his boss to let me use their shop after-hours, so I could strip the wrecks of usable parts, which I’d sell piecemeal to local garages, auto body shops, and dudes looking for parts for their pet projects.” I tapped the motor on the truck in front of me. “I think I learned more about engines from taking them apart as I did from helping Dad fix them.” I pointed at the back wall of the shop. “Out back is my salvage yard—I’ve got about fifty different vehicles out there that I need to strip, and I’m actually still running that old wrecker I got in high school. It’s more replaced parts than original at this point, but she still runs.”
She inhaled deeply. “The smell of this place brings back a lot of memories.”
I grinned. “Best smell on earth, you ask me.” I thought about the scent of freshly showered woman, which was higher on the totem pole than even an auto garage, but I wasn’t about to say that to this chick. “Grease and metal and oil and…I don’t even know what else, but it’s the smell of home, to me.”