Chapter 8

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I ripped off a receipt from the credit card printer for a customer to sign and put it up on the counter for him. The front door of the shop opened and Sookie stepped in. I hadn’t seen her since she left my house Tuesday morning. She had a pretty smile on her face and I wondered if she had the same urge I did to pounce on her.

 

“All right, you’re all set,” I said when the customer finished signing the receipt. I gave him a copy of the invoice for his repairs and saw Sookie go to the time clock located in the oil change bay.

 

The customer turned and left. Moments later my lube tech, Felipe, came bursting through the door from the shop. He was soaking wet and pissed off.

 

“I’m going to fucking kill Andre,” he told me. Andre followed, laughing his fool ass off.

 

Uh oh.

 

“Why? What happened?” I asked.

 

Before Felipe could answer me, Andre answered, “He was taking a shit and I ran the hose through the hole in the wall back there and let ‘er rip.”

 

Oh.

 

I laughed. Hard.

 

“Fuck you guys!” Felipe stormed out, making us laugh harder.

 

“He probably needed the shower,” Sookie snorted when she walked back in.

 

“Oh come on, you know he’s used to taking loads in the face,” Andre reasoned.

 

“Uh huh.” Sookie didn’t get too involved with the shit talking unless it was directed at her.

 

“Nah, he’s seeing some lady with two kids,” I told Andre. “He likes cougars.”

 

“Oh Jesus. The world does not need more of him running around.” Andre shook his head as Des walked in.

 

“Why does Felipe need a towel?” he asked.

 

“I hosed him down,” Andre shrugged.

 

“Cougar in the house?” Des asked seriously.

 

Sookie snorted again and went into the office.

 

“I gotta show you something on that Impala,” Andre told Des. The two of them went out to the shop. Ras was out there too, watching his uncle work on his Jeep. Mustafa was the old shop manager. Des fired him when he caught Mustafa, on camera, fucking one of the former dispatchers. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

 

I also noticed my fists clenched at the idea of Mustafa trying to seduce Sookie. I’d fuck him up.

 

I wanted to go talk to her but I stayed put. It was closing time so I needed to close out the batch. I could hear Sookie singing along quietly with a Chris Young song in the office behind me. I gathered up the receipts and the cash count sheet to put them away in the back, and I found Sookie dancing while she copied and pasted information into a call on the navigation.

 

“Hey,” she smiled at me.

 

“Hi.” I opened the top drawer of the file cabinet. “How are you?”

 

“I’m good. You?”

 

“Good. Happy I’m out of here,” I said honestly. It had been a long day.

 

“Got any plans?” she asked.

 

“ESPN, pizza and maybe a lengthy shower,” I smirked, making her blush a little.

 

“I started my day with a long bath,” she told me.

 

“No visit from Roger?”

 

“Not this morning,” she answered. “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a little manual operation going on though.”

 

I wanted to kiss her but I didn’t. Hell, I wanted to throw her down and finish what we started the other night but I didn’t.

 

“So… next Monday are you free?” We both had Tuesday off so it made sense to do something Monday night.

 

“Free as a bird,” she replied with a small smile.

 

“Have any interest in trying out the date thing?”

 

“I’m very interested in trying out the date thing,” she answered. “I even tried on the red dress to make sure it still fits.”

 

“Does it?”

 

“It’s a little tighter around Thelma and Louise, but otherwise it fits nicely.”

 

“Good,” I smiled. I had no idea what the dress looked like but it didn’t matter. It could be a burlap sack and I’d just want to rip it off her anyway.

 

“My only fear is that my panties may get ruined again. I’m thinking about leaving them at home,” she said casually.

 

“That might be a good idea.” I replied. “You probably won’t need them anyway.”

 

“They’d just get in the way?”

 

“If you’re lucky.” Who was I kidding? If we were alone right then she’d be getting all kinds of lucky.

 

“You mean if you’re lucky,” she giggled.

 

I stepped closer to her and quietly said, “Behave or you’ll get that spanking you mentioned.”

 

“All the more reason to be naughty,” she whispered.

 

Everyone in the shop had their head in the Impala, so I gave Sookie a firm smack on her ass and then walked out of the office. I went through the oil change bay into the other office and then into the office that was supposed to be for the bookkeeper. It had a lock on it if Sookie followed me.

 

She did.

 

“It’s not fair to do something like that to a girl,” she said from behind me.

 

“I told you to behave.” I locked the door and then kissed her. Sookie wrapped her arms and legs around me and I pinned her against the wall. I really, really liked kissing her. We couldn’t keep it up, though. I knew it would be obvious she had been kissing someone.

 

“You know all this does is make me want to drive out to your place when I’m off, right?” she asked quietly.

 

“I’d be okay with that.” I thrust my hips against her.

 

“Mmm, I could sneak in like the spy I am and wake you up with my mouth on your cock again,” she moaned softly.

 

Hell, she wouldn’t have to sneak in. I’d leave the door unlocked and a trail of breadcrumbs on the floor so she wouldn’t get lost.

 

“Anytime you want to come by, you’re welcome,” I told her.

 

“I wouldn’t want to keep you up…”

 

“I’m not worried about it.” I nipped at her lip. “But you don’t have to come over.”

 

“Leave the door unlocked.”

 

I growled quietly and gave her one more deep, demanding kiss before I put her down again. We couldn’t do that at work all the time. We were going to have to get used to behaving ourselves but if I needed any proof that things had changed, I had it.

 

“By the way, you look pretty today,” I told her as she walked out of the little office.

 

“So do you.”

 

I chuckled at the unexpected compliment.

 

“I feel pretty,” I said, resisting the urge to grab her ass. Or slap it. Or bite it…

 

“Hopefully you still feel pretty right around midnight,” she winked.

 

“We’ll see.” I didn’t follow Sookie back to her office. It was better for us both if I just went home.

 

I did stop in the shop to let Des know I was leaving for the night. As I was walking through the bay I noticed a pair of headlights getting closer. At first I thought maybe it was Mel in the service truck, but I groaned when I realized it was Bobby. He worked overnight as a dispatcher and he liked to act like he was a big badass, but a loud fart scared him half to death.

 

Bobby was the kind of guy who liked to talk a lot of shit about how important he was. He wanted everyone to think he was tough but most of his stories ended with twenty of his “friends” kicking someone’s ass in his defense. I wasn’t sure how that made Bobby a badass, but whatever. The stories were either all bullshit or so warped to make them cooler that they became bullshit.

 

No one believed anything Bobby said.

 

But Bobby had something to prove, I supposed. I didn’t feel like I did. If I was in his shoes I may have felt differently. On some level I felt bad for Bobby. Life and genetics had conspired against him and the result was a very insecure liar. He was mostly harmless but he was pretty annoying most of the time.

 

He parked his beat up ’93 Ranger and got out. I had no clue what he was doing at the shop. It was possible that Hot Rain was going to do a side job for him. It wasn’t uncommon for guys to use the shop after hours. Hot Rain would do odd jobs for cash on the side on Sunday all the time.

 

“Eric, I’m gonna wash my car tonight. Can you get the Cobalt out of the bay over there?” Bobby pointed to a black Cobalt in the oil change bay that was up on lifts.

 

Was he serious?

 

“No, Bobby. Dawson’s working on it. Wash your car on your own time,” I told him.

 

He got that tough guy look on his face but I wasn’t intimidated by it. He walked by me into the office Sookie was in, much to her annoyance.

 

He was only five hours early for his shift…

 

“Hey, Bobby,” Sookie said as sweetly as possible. I could hear the undertones of annoyance.

 

“Oh good, it’s you and not Rasul,” he said like he didn’t stare at the schedule, waiting for something magical to happen.

 

I heard the creak when Bobby sat down on the other chair in the room. It probably muffled Sookie’s groan.

 

“My girlfriend and I broke up,” Bobby said and I heard Sookie try to make a laugh sound like a convincing cough.

 

“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said. “Ummm… sorry.”

 

“She called me the other night when she was with some guy friend of hers and said she was feeling sexual,” he told Sookie. I slapped my hand over my mouth. “I guess she slept with him. I was with my buddies from the bar when she told me so they went after the guy and beat him up.”

 

Dead.

 

I was dying.

 

“That’s nice of them.” I could hear her amusement. “Why did they beat up the guy when she was the one that did the wronging?”

 

“Because it’s wrong to hit girls. Plus that a-hole knew she had a boyfriend,” he reasoned. “It’s fine. I’m already moving on. Caitlin from Hooligans said I’m her favorite customer.”

 

Oh fuck me.

 

Being a stripper’s favorite customer didn’t mean he was in the running to be her next girlfriend. He was a fucking idiot.

 

“Huh, I went to high school with Caitlin, you’ll have to tell her I said hi,” Sookie told him.

 

“I will,” he told her.

 

I had to get out of there. I unbuttoned the button down shirt I wore every day and I could see Sookie watching through the tinted window. If Bobby wasn’t in there cockblocking, I’d make sure to flash my abs at her.

 

“Maybe I should just swing by to see her myself,” she said without taking her eyes off of me.

 

“No, don’t. I don’t want her thinking she has competition.”

 

Ha!

 

Arrogant fuckface.

 

The door to the shop opened and Andre said, “Look out everybody, number one dispatcher in the house!”

 

“I got guys beating some other dude’s ass right now,” Bobby laughed like he was twelve.

 

I just shook my head and left before things got ugly. I was looking forward to a visit from Sookie anyway. I couldn’t wait to hear her take on everything.

 

***

 

I was lying in bed watching TV when I heard Sookie pull into the driveway. As requested, I left the front door unlocked. She let herself in, locked up and came upstairs. I didn’t mind that she had a bag over her shoulder. There was no way I would kick her out and make her drive home in the middle of the night.

 

“How was work?” I asked when she walked into my room.

 

“Interesting,” she giggled. She dropped her bag on the floor and immediately started taking off her clothes. “I’m still not sure what to make of Bobby.”

 

“No one is. You know a tornado looked at him funny once and his buddies beat it up,” I told her. True story.

 

“I’m a little bummed I don’t have buddies like that.” She pushed the sweats she’d changed into down her thighs, shimmying a little to get them to fall all the way. Sookie tucked her hands into her shirt so she could work on taking her bra off.

 

“Keep hanging out with Bobby and you might. He might steal you away from me.” Yeah right.

 

“Oh, that’s cute,” she chuckled. Her bra went flying and her arms poked back out before she walked over to climb onto the bed.

 

“Seriously. I hear some girls go for that androgynous, shemale thing.”

 

“I’m not some girls. I’m your girl.” She straddled my waist.

 

“Oh yeah?” I liked the sound of it. “We haven’t even gone on a date yet. What if I chew with my mouth open or sexually harass the waitress?”

 

“I’ve seen you eat and I know you have more respect for women than that,” she told me. Sookie started to draw light patterns on my stomach with her fingertips.

 

Damn. She had me there.

 

“Maybe I wear brown shoes with black pants or incessantly spit out the car window while driving.”

 

“Not attractive, but not immediate deal breakers. If you don’t want to claim me…”

 

“It’s not that,” I said, taking her hands in mine. She felt good on top of me and not just because of the way her hips had been moving. “I’d be crazy not to want you all to myself.”

 

“I don’t have anyone else knocking at my door. I also really like you, but I get where issues might arise,” she sighed.

 

“We work together, yeah, but I’m not your boss and you’re not my boss. I’m not worried too much about conflicts bubbling over into work,” I said.

 

“Then what is it?” Sookie leaned forward, folding her arms on my chest so she could still look at me.

 

“I don’t want you to think it’s just sex,” I told her. I really liked her. Yeah, the chemistry was great and I was definitely enjoying getting to know her. I just wanted it to be clear I wasn’t thinking of her as a booty call.

 

“You know, that was never even a thought,” she said with a pretty smile on her face. “If it was just sex you wouldn’t have asked me on date, and as fun as kissing you is, I know we have just as much fun hanging out.”

 

“I want it on the record. I don’t know what it is yet, but you’re the kind of girl I’d introduce to my mom,” I said. That was usually high praise. Too bad my mom was still being an asshole.

 

“If my parents were still around I’d happily introduce you to them too,” she smiled. “It means a lot that you may get to introduce me to your mom one day.”

 

One day. If we ever started speaking again and that would depend on her calming her tits.

 

I stretched to give Sookie a kiss. As far as I was concerned she could just stay right where she was for the rest of the night. My hands settled on her lower back and massaged her spine as we kissed. It felt good and it felt better every time. If the date was a disaster that was really going to suck.

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