The Perfect Stroke (Lucas Brothers #1)(9)

“Jackson, have you seen my torque wr—What are you doing here?” CC asks when she comes outside. She’s dressed in the coveralls she wore last time I was here and, sadly, her hair is all covered up again, but even so, she looks hot. Hell, she looks sexier like this than Cammie does in those short skirts and clinging blouses she’s been wearing around me. My dick stretches against my jeans, hardening and lengthening at once, wishing it was closer to the woman in front of me—who is currently shooting daggers at me. Damn, even pissed off she looks hot.

“Well hello to you too, beautiful.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Is this dude the reason for that wicked smile you had Monday?” the man asks.

“Piss off, Jackson.”

He laughs in response. “I’ll take that as a yes. Hell, it must have been good for the f*cker to follow you all the way to Crossville.”

“It wasn’t,” CC says at the same time I add my, “It was.” This exchange makes the man laugh even louder. I might grow to like him. He’s starting to remind me of my * brothers. Grow to like him? Nah, I won’t be around that long. But I can appreciate that he won’t be competition to get one more taste of the woman in front of me.

“Maybe you need a reminder,” I tell her with a grin.

“Maybe you need a reality check,” she returns.

“Maybe I do. Actually, I was hoping you would go to lunch with me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“She’d love to,” Jackson says, and yeah, I might like him.

“What? I would not. Jackson, stay out of this.”

“Listen, Claude. It’s lunchtime, and Mary Ann is off today, so it’s your turn. If the dude is desperate enough to track you down, then the least you can do is have lunch with him.”

Okay, maybe I don’t like him. I’m not desperate. My dick could possibly be. Still…

“C’mon, CC. You only live once. I promise not to bite, unless of course you ask me to,” I goad her.

“That won’t happen.”

“It might. Remember Saturday when you wanted me to bite you on the—”

“Stop!” she screams, looking at Jackson.

He laughs, shaking his head and walking back inside the garage. “Bring me a burger box, when you get done playing,” he says before he disappears.

Once he’s gone, CC stands looking at me with her hands on her hips. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

“Asking a beautiful woman to lunch?”

“Gray…”

“CC, we had a great weekend together. I want to spend more time with you. Nothing heavy, and it doesn’t have to go any farther than lunch if you don’t want it to, but besides the sex… which by the way, was off the charts…”

“It was, but—”

“Besides the sex,” I interrupt her, “I just had a good time with you. You’re funny and cute and just fun to be around in general. So will you please go to lunch with me?”

“You said ‘please’.”

“That, I did.”

“I bet that’s something you don’t say to women very often.”

“Only to my sisters or my mother.”

“Oh my God, you have sisters too?”

“Have lunch with me and I’ll tell you all about them.”

“If I agree, it’s only because I’m curious.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

“Okay, fine. Give me a couple minutes to get ready.”

“I’ll be right here waiting,” I tell her, feeling something click into place. Shit, maybe I am desperate.





“You clean up good, Cooper,” he observes as he sits across from me. We’re at the local diner and I have the summer salad special in front of me, but I’m having trouble eating. I find myself staring at Gray instead, wondering exactly how this happened.

“I didn’t clean up. I just took my coveralls off.”

“And let your hair out of its prison.”

“My hair wasn’t in a prison,” I tell him, self-consciously pushing my fingers through it.

“It’s a crime to keep that hair covered up, sweetheart.”

“Listen, Gray…”

“It’s beautiful, like the color of a flame that shines in the moonlight. It reminds me of bonfires we have back home.”

I want to ridicule his words for being way too poetic, but instead they make the butterflies in my stomach jump around. The words should sound totally fake, like a man trying to get in a girl’s pants a little too hard. Instead, he makes them sound sincere, as if he truly believes it. Suddenly, the thick, curly monstrosity of hair on my head and my freckles don’t feel like a sore spot to me anymore, and that’s crazy. I can almost feel myself blush at the way he’s staring at me. Damn. I clear my throat, needing to pull this conversation back to even ground.

“Weren’t you supposed to tell me about your sisters?”

Something moves through his face and he watches me for a minute before leaning back against the cushioned seat in our booth. “What about them?”

“Were they named after colors, too?”