Make Me Yours(81)

I shake my head and go into the tiny room off the side of the garage. It’s all windows, so I have a clear view of the 1961 cherry red gunmetal Aston-hero Classic Jaguar rolling into the shop.

Damn. The sight of it gives me a semi. “Holy shit.”

The words are a sacred whisper from my lips. I know who it is. I’ve been admiring this piece of machinery since I was a little kid. I can’t believe it’s right here in Mack’s garage.

“Grayson?” Mack’s voice snaps me out of my daze.

I snatch up the clipboard holding the workorder for the Chevy and head out to where my uncle stands beside the sexiest of all sportscars.

“What you need, Carl?” Mack steps back as the elegantly dressed man emerges from the low ride.

He gives my uncle a cold nod. Asshole. “Just a tune-up. I’m planning to drive out to the lake this weekend, and I don’t want to end up on the side of the road.”

Mack chuckles, but I stay back until I’m called.

Carl Harris is a strange and hateful man. The old ladies say he spends his days drinking whiskey and staring at the photograph of his dead wife. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been invited inside his house, even though he’s my best friend Danny’s dad.

Speak of the devil.

“Hey, grease monkey. Got any bananas for me?” Danny charges out of the passenger seat and runs around to grab me in a headlock. “Who won the Kentucky Derby?”

I’m taller than him and stronger, but it still takes a minute for me to escape his grip.

“Charley Horse!” he cries.

I narrowly escape his elbow to my ribs. “Get off me, asshole.”

Mr. Harris’s voice is loud and sharp. “Daniel!”

My throat tightens. I didn’t think he’d hear me swear. Shit.

“You’re such an animal, Danny.” That sweet voice gives me my second hard-on of the day.

Andrea “Drew” Harris walks around the back of the Jaguar dressed in tight white pants that show off her cute little ass and a top that stops right under her breasts, those small, luscious handfuls that seemed to grow overnight.

It also shows off the lines in her stomach, and I wonder what happened to the skinny little girl with stick-straight pigtails running around drinking Mountain Dew and bothering us.

It’s like a sexy version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The aliens took little-kid Drew and replaced her with this grown-up bombshell, who now invades my dreams at night and leaves me with a tent in my sheets every morning.

I stand like an idiot beside Danny with my tongue figuratively hanging out as she walks up to us smiling.

“Shut up, Drew Poo,” Danny yells before breaking into laughter.

Those four words flip the whole scene.

“You are such an asshole!” Drew yells, losing her cool.

I start to laugh. Even pissed, she’s adorable.

“Andrea Rebecca Harris.” Her dad’s voice is another sharp command, but it doesn’t deter Drew.

Her eyes are flaming fire. “I was three years old!”

“Didn’t stop you from shitting on my carpet.”

“I was potty training!”

“Drew Poo,” he sing-songs.

My sex-kitten teenage-dream turns wildcat. She snatches up the socket wrench and starts chasing her older brother around the plastic-covered cars.

“Stop this NOW!” Mr. Harris’s face is beet red. He looks like he might have a heart attack. “Stop it!”

Danny dashes behind me, and I do the only thing I can. I grab Drew around the upper arms, holding her against my body as she struggles to get free. Damn, she feels so good.

She’s soft in all the right places, and she smells like the beach and flowers and everything good. She does not smell like gasoline and oil and dirty rags.

I have to focus so my body doesn’t betray how much I’m into her.

“Let me go, Grayson!”

“You can’t swing tools around in the garage,” I groan, giving her a shake. “Now drop it.”

She struggles a moment longer before giving up the fight. The oversized wrench hits the concrete floor with a clatter. She twists in my arms and looks up at me, and for a minute, I’m lost in her blue eyes. I remember when she was four and a snake scared her in the brush behind her house.

She was crying, and I carried her in my arms to her mamma.

Fast forward eight years, and I remember comforting her after that pretty lady died. My mother died when I was even younger than her. It’s what brought me to this town to live with my uncle in a garage.

This town where people treat us like dirt.

Holding her now, looking into her eyes, the way she’s looking back at me, I’m struck by how much between us has changed.

“Boy!” Mr. Harris strides to where I stand with his daughter in my arms. “Let her go.”

His tone breaks the spell. It banishes me all the way back to where I belong, outside his pristine world, hands off his princess daughter.

My arms relax, and Drew steps away from me. She’s still looking at me that way, but I have to ignore it.

“They were fighting…” My voice dies in the face of her father’s cold disdain.

“How old are you?” His words drip with malice.

“Seventeen. Going on eighteen.”