Page 59 of Desert Rain
I stepped back and yanked at the hem of my Henley. The fabric was already sticking to my shoulders, and the last thing I needed was grease across one of the few shirts I owned that didn’t have holes, oil stains, or blood on it. “Hold this.”
I tossed the rag at her.
She caught it against her chest. “Hold what?”
“My patience.”
Then I pulled the Henley over my head.
The air hit my skin, cooler under the carport than out in the sun. Not by much. I wadded the shirt and threw it through the open window onto the driver’s seat, then reached for the tool tray again.
Sienna stopped talking.
That was new.
I looked at the engine because looking at her right then would be stupid. I knew what she was seeing. Tan skin. Ink over my shoulders and down my arms, across my chest, over the ribs where old scars cut pale through the design. Cut abs, yeah, because club life didn’t make room for soft unless a man worked hard to earn it. A scar low on my side from a knife fight in Tucson. Another white line near my collarbone from a wreck that should’ve killed me.
I had been looked at before. Plenty.
Bar women looked hungry. Rylee used to look proud, then later embarrassed, like the same body she’d once crawled over had become something she didn’t want standing too close to her polished new life.
Sienna looked like she was mad at herself for wanting to keep looking.
That was worse.
Better.
Both.
I grabbed a wrench. “Problem?”
“Nope.”
Her voice had gone too smooth.
I glanced over.
She was staring at the engine with violent focus. Her cheeks had a little color in them now, not much, just enough to make me meaner than I needed to be.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“You got quiet.”
“Scientific observation requires silence.”
“Bullshit.”
Her eyes cut to mine. “Fine. You took your shirt off like a stripper with unresolved anger issues. I noticed. Congratulations.”
A laugh broke out of me before I could stop it.
Small. Rough. Rusted from lack of use.
Her expression shifted. Just for a second. Like she hadn’t expected that sound from me and didn’t know where to put it.
I didn’t either.
