Chapter Ten
Lai
“I beg your finest pardon?” I stared at the steam hissing from under the hood, then at the shimmering shadow in the driver’s seat. Ghost sat there with one hand draped over the wheel, his icy blue eyes fixed on me.
“Ghost,” I said, very slowly. “Explain yourself.”
He met my demand with a silent smirk.
I grabbed my phone, already prepared to call Al and make this humiliating mechanical tantrum someone else’s problem.
“There is no signal,” Ghost warned smugly.
My eyes dropped to the illuminated screen, the signal icon confirming Ghost’s words. No bars. I stared at it, then at him. “What is the meaning of this?”
He didn’t answer; instead, the passenger door swung open. The message was clear.
Out.
I knew I was in no position to negotiate.
Carefully stripping off my coat first, I glanced at the grass below and stepped out, wondering what my next move could possibly be.
Sure, I could start running, get down to the highway, hitchhike back to town, but that would cost me something I wasn’t willing to give up; that would cost my dignity.
A 1970s Dodge would defeat me, and my ego would never recover.
“So,” I scoffed, shutting the door behind me. “This is a kidnapping?”
Ghost’s form appeared beside the hood as he popped it open, his form shimmering against the pale sky, barely visible in the daylight except for those burning blue eyes. He looked pleased with the accusation.
“No. This is an intervention.”
I choked on my words, meeting him by the open hood. “Is that so? And what could possibly require something so extreme?” I asked, baring my teeth.
He leaned down. Lips inches away from mine.
“You rely too much on others.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I do not rely. I delegate. It’s different.”
“Delegating would mean you could do it if you wanted to. You can’t.”
My scowl sharpened. “Can’t do what?”
“You can’t do anything.”
The words struck hard; Ghost had managed to run me down without even having to move, and he wasn’t done.
“You can’t drive me properly. You can’t fix your car. You can’t even change a fuse.” Ghost stepped closer, his voice dropping into something rougher. “You sit in me like a king in a carriage and let another man put his hands where yours should be.”
Ah. There it was. Jealousy. Wounded pride.
I scoffed and leaned back, but his hand landed on the scruff of my neck before I could retreat.
I was strong, stronger than most humans, stronger than almost anything that had the poor judgment to put their hands on me, but Ghost held me in place effortlessly. His grip was like steel as his fingers tightened around the back of my neck.
“I’m going to teach you,” Ghost growled softly against my ear. His shadow pressed against my back, hard, solid, huge. Heat rolled off him like a cooling engine after a hard drive. Gasoline and smoke clung to him. Old leather. Burnt dust.
Two seconds ago, I was going to resist. Now, with his heat against me, I was willing to learn anything.
“You think you can teach me?” I asked.
“I know I can.”
“How ambitious.” My eyes narrowed, but Ghost ignored my churlish answer. His fingers slid up the back of my neck and into my hair, tangling there, gripping just tightly enough to pull my head toward the open hood.
“Look.”
I looked.
The engine bay yawned before me, hot and dark, a tangle of metal, wires, pipes, belts, and hoses I had previously considered Al’s domain. Steam thinned into the air. Heat curled off the engine and struck my chest through my shirt.
I could smell oil.
Gasoline.
Burned rubber.
Him.
“You see this?” Ghost’s fingers traveled up my scalp and tightened, forcing my attention lower. “This is where the magic happens.”
“Cars are not magic,” I said, though my voice had lost some of its bite.
His mouth brushed my ear. “Darlin’, I am standing behind you in broad daylight with my hand in your hair while my engine smokes on a hill. You want to try that again?”
I closed my mouth. He gave a low, satisfied laugh.
“This,” he said, pointing toward a large, flat dish with a filter around the outside edge, “is the air filter. This is where I breathe. Air scrubs through here before it mixes with fuel, before the spark wakes it up, before anything inside me burns hot enough to move.”
“I know what an air filter is.”
“No,” he murmured. “You know the words. I want you to learn me.” His hips pressed against mine, and my attention scattered immediately. My hand tightened against the edge of the car.
Ghost pushed my head lower, closer to the dish. “I will test you,” he said, voice low against my ear, “on every single part of me.”
His grip on my hair tightened, and I stared at the filter. There was a small, dark hole in the top, where the pan was fastened down with a wingnut.
“I want your tongue on my air filter.”
I went still.
Absolutely still.
For one terrible second, I wondered whether he had actually said it, or whether my mind had finally given up beneath the combined pressure of smoke, fumes, and the most deranged automotive lesson in history.
Then his other hand slid beneath my shirt. His palm spread over my stomach, warm and possessive.
I braced one hand against the hood, my fingers slipping slightly over a smear of oil. I could feel the heat rising off the engine and his cock pressed against my back; a reward, no doubt. If I cooperated.
I should have laughed.
I should have stepped back.
I should have reminded him, sharply, that I did not kneel for vehicles and absolutely did not put my mouth on engine parts like some lovesick mechanic in a fever dream.
Instead, I heard myself say, “You cannot be serious.”
“I am dead serious.”
“It is filthy.”
“Yes.”
“It’s an air filter.”
“It’s my air filter.”
Gods help me.
He pushed me forward; the boiling steam had slowed down, but still hissed against me, warming my flesh through my shirt. The heat didn’t seem to bother Ghost, either.
My pulse beat hard beneath his hand.
I tried one last time to salvage a shred of dignity. “I do not get my hands d—”
“I didn’t ask you to use your hands.”
Ghost’s grip in my hair tightened, and my body betrayed me. Was that a moan?
This was absurd, obscene, and humiliating.
And I was painfully, catastrophically hard.
Then his hand in my hair urged me down.
I gave the last of my control away one breath at a time, leaning closer until my mouth hovered over scorching metal. I hesitated there, lips parted, dignity trembling, and Ghost waited.
Not forcing, no. Worse.
Expecting.
I pressed my tongue against the metal.
The first touch shocked me. Heat stung the tender tip of my tongue, sharp without causing true pain.
Heat didn’t hurt me, not like it did for normal humans, but beneath the heat was grit.
Fine dust clung to my mouth, mixed with a bitter film of oil and the unmistakable taste of old metal, smoke, road dust, and traces of fuel.
Ghost’s fingers flexed in my hair, and the Challenger beneath my hands gave a low, pleased shiver, the vibration traveling through the frame and into my arms. It rolled beneath my chest like the purr of some enormous animal.
“Again,” Ghost said. His breath brushed the back of my neck.
I should have refused. I should have lifted my head, wiped my mouth, and informed him that his lesson had concluded with my dignity only partially damaged.
Instead, I opened my mouth wider.
This time, I dragged my tongue slowly around the rim of the filter. The metal had cooled slightly where I touched it before, but the inner edge remained hot. My tongue caught on a rough patch of soot. Bitterness flooded my mouth, so strong I could taste it at the back of my throat.
Any other day, I would consider it revolting, but today it belonged to him.
I belonged to him.
Ghost exhaled behind me, the sound rough and deeply satisfied. His body pressed closer, his hips settling against mine with enough force that I could feel exactly what my obedience was doing to him. My own cock throbbed in immediate response.
“More,” he murmured.
I leaned further over the engine. My tongue slid around the hole at the top of the filter, heat spreading through it until it tingled.
I sucked the rim once, deliberately, letting Ghost hear the wet pull of my mouth against his machinery.
Dust scraped against my tongue. Oil coated my lower lip.
The taste was so harsh that my eyes watered, but I did it again.
The engine beneath me rumbled.
A deep mechanical tremor rolled up through the front of the car, vibrating against my ribs and making the muscles in my stomach clench beneath Ghost’s palm. The sound was unmistakably pleased.
“There,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “Now you’re starting to understand.”
His hand moved beneath my shirt, spreading over my stomach. Each finger pressed firmly into me, holding me against him while his palm slipped below the waistband of my trousers.
I barely registered him tearing off my shirt. One moment, the fabric clung damply to my back. The next, Ghost tore it open, buttons pinging against his engine block and scattering into the grass below. The ruined garment landed beneath his front tire, already filthy with dust.
I would have objected if his mouth had not closed over the back of my neck, his tongue hotter than his engine as he dragged it slowly over my exposed skin. His teeth followed, catching lightly against each slight bump of my spine. The contrast between hard and so, so soft made me shudder.
I gripped the edge of his frame, grease smearing beneath my fingers and gathering under my nails. My knees weakened. Ghost’s arm tightened around my waist before I could fall.
“There,” he murmured again. “Now you’re getting your hands dirty.”
His teeth pressed into my shoulder. I gasped, my body arching involuntarily. The movement pushed my hips backward toward him and my chest more firmly against the heated metal.
Ghost ground against me once, slowly. The thick pressure of him dragged between my thighs through my clothes, making my breath catch.
“Next.”