Chapter Eight
Tor
I opened the door and held it for her. Mia smiled and preceded me into the oversized below-ground garage. My stare was drawn from the subtle sway of her hips—likely unintentional yet arousing all the same—to her head as she began scanning the rows of vehicles with machine-like intensity.
“It’s not here yet.”
“Excuse me?” she glanced briefly at me as I spoke, but her eyes were immediately drawn back to the garage.
“The ‘71 Chevelle,” I clarified. “It’ll be here later this afternoon. Only the first batch has arrived so far.”
“How many did you buy? And why? What need do you have for all these cars?”
“Why do you have so many pairs of shoes?” I countered.
She stuttered at the reply. “How did you … ? Because you never know what ones you’re going to need to go with an outfit.”
“Precisely,” I said.
“Shoes are a lot less expensive,” she pointed out, stopping in front of one of my favorites, a 2018 Koenigsegg Agera RS. I’d found it nearby on an online sale and had nearly passed on it. Now I was glad I hadn’t.
“Maybe,” I said, watching how she eyed the four-million-dollar Swedish hypercar and its sharp, swooping lines. “But shoes don’t always catch your attention like that.”
“Perhaps not yours,” she murmured, running her hand along its exterior with a gentle touch. “Pretty color.”
“Pretty a lot of things,” I said, stepping past her. “But not our ride for today.”
“Oh.” The disappointment in her voice was obvious as we headed toward a large, boxy, black SUV, so very different from the speed-inducing hypercar and its bright blue coloring.
“Maybe another time,” I said. “But we’re going to need more room than that thing has.”
“We will? Do we need that much in the way of cleaning supplies?”
“No, but even just a little bit would be hard to fit in there. The storage space is, well, minimal. But we have more to do today,” I said.
“We do? What about the cleaning? I need to get to work on that,” she protested. “The car …”
“Is not even here yet, for one,” I said. “Besides, I’m not driving the hour-plus into town just for some cleaning supplies. If we’re going, we’re making a trip out of it.”
“So, now I’m helping you with other chores?” she said, reluctantly climbing into the passenger seat. “I’m here to clean, Tor. I’m not your hired help.”
“You kind of are until you’ve done enough for the car,” I pointed out gently, then continued before she could get worked up. “Besides, I think you’ll enjoy this particular chore. And not to mention, I could actually use your help with it.”
Although I was swiftly bringing myself up to speed on new technology, spending hours each night reading on the advances in the nearly two decades since I’d last spent time on Earth, I knew I needed help to make sure I wasn’t swindled.
Ty was just as out of touch as I was, which meant it was up to Mia.
Not that I had any intention of telling her that.
Although, as we settled into the seats, I all but frowned at the natural feeling of it all.
The casual conversation, the metaphorical “weight” of her presence next to me in the front seat.
It was … nice. There was no better way to describe it besides “nice.”
Of course, that was before she put the seatbelt on, and the strap slid between her breasts, pulling the shirt tight and emphasizing their swell.
I swallowed against a sudden raging storm in my pants, reminding myself I couldn’t just lean over and rip her shirt open to expose them to my hungry mouth and greedy hands.
“You okay over there?”
I blinked my eyes back into focus. Mia was looking across the gap between us, her brown eyes open and wide, though there was a tiny crease on her forehead.
“Yeah, just fine,” I said, hitting the ignition and putting the SUV into gear.
Maybe I should revisit my plan. I had decided not to seduce Mia and calm myself with her deliciously curvaceous body.
She wasn’t my mate, and I intended to save myself.
I wouldn’t go all wild and debaucherous as a single dragon until I finally looked in the mirror and saw whoever I was supposed to be with. That just felt … wrong.
After all, I knew how to find my mate. I was just biding my time until the house was ready.
The idea of sleeping with another woman felt like cheating since I could return through the Rift to the dragon realm, fly home to Storm Keep, and look in the Watching Mirror to see who my Eternal Mate truly was.
So even though I hadn’t done that yet, the fact that I could made me reluctant to sleep with another woman, even though Mia’s curves tempted me to bend her over and fill her with my hard cock.
It was a bit of torment I’d inflicted on myself.
Now it was almost a challenge for me not to do anything with her.
However, like my cock, that challenge was proving to be harder than I liked.
Even as I guided us up the ramp and along the driveway, noting the fallen tree that Ty had moved out of the way, the only thing I could think about was how it would feel if Mia were to lean over the console and wrap her thick, pouty lips around my hard … drive shaft.
“Tor?”
“Hmm, yes?” I asked, glancing over at her, admiring the soft, delicate flesh that all but demanded my touch. My eyes slowly slid up her neck to her face, catching her eyes as she looked over at me.
“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging, the movement doing interesting things to the curves of her breasts. “You just hadn’t said anything in like twenty minutes.”
Had I been daydreaming about her for that long? It didn’t seem like it had been twenty minutes. Five minutes, maybe? Even then, I felt myself drawn into her gaze, her big brown circles swirling, luring me ever closer. I could stare at them forever.
She didn’t look away either. Her pulse quickened, thudding harder in her neck, while her mouth parted ever so slightly.
I watched the bottom lip quiver before curling inward.
With a typical woman, the lip bite was a seductive move that made my cock surge with blood, regardless of how much control I had.
With her, all it took was the idea, and my cock twitched and began to harden as I watched her mouth, neither of us speaking, too caught in the moment.
I was mesmerized. The gentle sway of her hair from the slight motion of the SUV. The fullness of her mouth and the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed in and out. The cant of her eyes. The blare of noise coming from her mouth.
“Tor!” she shrieked.
I ripped my gaze away from her and back to the road, just in time to see us barreling straight toward a semi-truck.
There was no time to get back in our lane, so I wrenched the wheel even farther to the side.
The roar of the truck’s engine and the thunderous cacophony of its horn slid by us with inches in between.
But that was only the start of it. The SUV slid down a small embankment and up the other side.
There was a tremendous bang, and the front end leaped into the air, careening back toward the road.
We landed with a slam, the entire vehicle coming back down on its suspension before screeching to a halt.
Mia and I were thrown forward, our seatbelts catching us. I doubted it was hard enough to leave bruises, even on her. Not that I wasn’t concerned anyway.
“Mia!” I shouted, looking over at her as the engine settled and the impact of what had happened sank in. “Mia, are you okay?”
I unbuckled my seatbelt and cupped her face, turning it to look at me. She was staring ahead blankly, her eyes open, breathing but unresponsive. She was in shock.
“Mia, come on. We’re okay. Look at me, Mia. Right here. Focus on my eyes,” I barked.
Behind us, I heard the sound of the semi-truck coming to a full halt, but I didn’t pay it any more heed.
All my attention was on Mia. She was blinking, and her hand came up, wrapping tentatively around my wrist. Then her other hand came up, and she abruptly clenched tight, her breathing intensifying.
“Mia, it’s over. We’re okay,” I said, brushing her cheek. “Come on.”
Everything came flooding back to her in a rush then. She clutched me even tighter, her eyes blinking and a tremor flowing through her body. The whites of her eyes disappeared some, and she turned to me.
“Are we alive?” she whispered.
“Alive and well,” I promised. “How are you?”
“I’m … fine,” she said, bits of her body moving as she tested everything out. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah, you are,” I said, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Mia. That was all my fault. I—”
The knock of someone rapping on the window distracted me. I lowered it while the trucker peered worriedly inside.
“Everyone okay?” the old man asked, stroking his long beard nervously.
“Yep, we’re just fine,” I said. “No thanks to me. Sorry about that. Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just a bit shook up, imagining what might have happened, you know. I’m fine, though. No problems here. Glad you’re all okay. Do you need me to call you a tow?”
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re fine, don’t worry about it. Not a ton of damage.”
The old trucker shrugged and nodded. “If you say so.”
“Yep,” I said, still holding Mia tight with my right arm, my fingers around her thigh.
He nodded again and headed off, leaving us.
“You ready to keep going?” I said as she finally sagged back against the seat.
“Yeah.”
I punched the button, and the engine came back to life easily. Then we set off. Or tried to. The car immediately started to bounce and lean to one side.
“Crap,” I grumbled, pulling off to the side of the road and getting out.
“What is it?” she called through the open door.
“Flat tire,” I muttered, crouching low. “The impact must have punctured it. The axle seems not to be bent though, which is good.”
It wasn’t that bad of a situation. Ty could pick us up easily enough, but I didn’t want to end my time with Mia. I felt guilty for getting so distracted, and I wanted to make it up to her. Alone.
“What do we do, then?” she asked as I went and opened the trunk, flipping up the mat and hauling on a loop to open the compartment below.
“I change it, and then we go on our merry way,” I said, grabbing the jack, then casually gripping the bolt securing the spare and undoing it by hand.
Mia couldn’t see, so I didn’t need to waste time using the tools. It came out easily, and I set myself to cracking each of the lug nuts on the deflated tire. Once that was done, I inserted the jack on the running board, locating the metal plate where it should rest and beginning to expand it.
As the car started to lift, I cranked harder on the metal bar that spun the jack, putting some muscle into it. That proved to be a mistake. The bar bent abruptly, sending me staggering as the resistance disappeared.
“Everything okay?” Mia asked, coming around the car from where she’d been standing on the far side.
“Sort of,” I grunted, looking at the bent piece-of-shit steel. “But I’m going to need your help now.”
I tried to contain my anger. The day was not going how I imagined it. It was supposed to be fun. Not fearful and frustrating, dammit! Her life should never have been in danger, but I hadn’t been able to keep myself collected. I’d let her distract me. And now I was getting angry at myself over it.
“What can I do?” she asked.
I moved to the SUV and gripped the running board myself. “I’m going to lift the car. Then you take the busted tire off and put the spare on. Got it?”
I didn’t wait for a confirmation. Instead, I grunted and lifted until the tire was off the ground.
“Oh, god, what?” Mia lunged for the tire.
“Just pull it toward you,” I said as she hesitated. “Grip both sides and pull. It’s already undone. It’ll be heavy, but it’ll come off just fine.”
She was staring at me with her mouth opened in shock. “How are you …”
“The tire, please,” I said, feigning being strained by the car's weight.
“Right!” she gripped the wheel and started to haul back on it. The process was a struggle, but in the end, she got it off and then, after a few tries, got the spare into place.
“Now what?” she asked.
I lowered the vehicle and put the lug nuts back on. “Now, I do it back up, and we continue on our merry way.”
“Yeah. Okay. Um, you just lifted a car,” she pointed out.
“Not literally,” I said. “I just lifted some of it so that this tire was off the ground. All the others were still very much on the ground.”
“I guess,” she said, staring at my arms. “Maybe, yeah.”
I finished tightening the lug nuts up, then stood up to admire the work. “Not bad. Now, come on, let’s go. We’ve got lots to do today.”
“Like cleaning?”
Chuckling, I stowed the flat tire where the spare had been and closed the trunk.
“No, not quite. I have something more fun in mind.”
“Like what?”
I grinned. “Helping me pick out an amazing home theater setup. I need it all. And you’re going to help. Trust me. It’s going to be fun!”
She looked at the spare tire, then back up the road at our skid marks. Shaking her head, she went around to her door.
“You know, Tor,” she called over the hood. “I’m not sure you and I have the same definitions of the word ‘fun’.”