The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,95
shrugging off his jacket.
I shrugged mine off too.
“Hey! Cool you’re here,” the same male voice said as Toby took my jacket.
Toby introduced me. Then said he had to get rid of our jackets.
Someone else came to us and took them away.
Toby introduced me to that somebody else too.
And it was then Toby stood by the drinks and held court, maybe not getting he was doing that, standing there in all his handsomeness, coolness and mystique, a treasured son of Matlock, town royalty, and simply just the guy, maybe one of all of two in the whole county who could show at a Christmas party and make a fun ’do the place to be.
And while he unknowingly did this, I stood in the curve of his arm, sipping beer, chatting, and wondering if I should tell him.
I decided to find the right time to tease him about it.
And I sipped beer in the curve of the arm of town royalty, enjoying a Christmas party.
The place to be.
The party had been fun.
And I was glad we stayed.
Even as long as we stayed.
Because it was, as I mentioned, fun.
Also because we stayed long enough to decimate Lora’s peanut butter and Kisses cookies.
Now I was glad to get home.
Have caveman sex with Toby.
Sleep by his side.
Get up, sort the apps for Christmas Eve, do my shift, and then start Brooks and my first Christmas in Matlock.
With Toby.
Okay, so I had a few presents to wrap still.
But what mom worth her salt didn’t stay up late Christmas Eve wrapping presents?
And anyway, Tobe and I had already had a present-wrapping night.
He was hopeless.
But he was good at putting his finger on the ribbon and handing me tape.
Though we wrapped presents like we did everything.
Addie and Toby style.
This meaning not to the strains of Bing.
But to Rammstein.
I’d done it.
What Izzy had done.
I’d worked hard.
And built the life I wanted for me.
So, it was a work in progress.
But so far, it was working for me.
Seriously.
“Jesus, shit.”
The words were said and then I felt the mood in the cab turn oppressive right before Toby braked to a halt almost at the end of his drive.
“Jesus, shit,” he repeated.
I stopped gazing out the side window, ensconced in my happy thoughts on my way to imminent orgasms, and looked to him.
He was staring out the windshield.
I turned that way.
There was a car in his drive. A sedan. I couldn’t tell the color, but it was dark.
A woman was standing outside it.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Jesus, fucking shit,” Toby rumbled.
“Baby, who . . . is . . . that?”
“I’m not sure. Haven’t seen her since I was three. But I think that’s my mother.”
My head snapped around to look out the windshield.
Jesus.
Fucking.
Shit.
Moonlight and Motor Oil
Addie
THE WOMAN HAD parked in front of Toby’s side of the garage, which meant he couldn’t roll in and shut her out.
I didn’t get the chance to advise him to slam it in reverse and peel away.
He drove forward and parked on my side of the garage.
His seatbelt was off and he was knifing out before I could blink.
Which meant I scrambled to get my seatbelt off and jump out so I could get to him.
Shit.
I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t have the time to make up my mind. She’d walked to the trunk of her car and Toby was already squared off against her.
Thus I had no choice.
I did the only thing I could do.
I rushed to him, burrowed under his arm until he was forced to put it around me, plastered my front to his side, wrapped my arms around his middle.
And I stuck.
“Tobias—” she started.
“This is not happening,” he rumbled so low, it wasn’t a growl, it was a roll of muted thunder.
“Tobias, please,” she begged, leaning slightly toward him.
I looked at her.
And I saw it.
I got it.
Or some of it.
A thick head of what I suspected, as we only had the moonlight, white-gray hair that was long and falling down in soft waves that hung past her shoulders. Tall and slender, even willowy, and I could see that regardless of the fact she was wearing a female version of a bulky peacoat.
Both fabulous.
Same with her face.
Perfectly proportioned feminine features that would not only turn a man’s eye but capture his mind and his heart and not let go.
She looked like a mature model. Like she could walk right into a Viagra ad and have half the male membership of AARP reaching for their phones to make a doctor’s appointment.