Chapter 6
GAUGE
Riley’s background check came back clean, leaving me with no clues about what had brought her to Crossbend or what she was afraid of.
But over the next several days, Riley settled into The Pit with a speed that surprised everybody except me.
The mechanics figured her out fast because they were practical.
They didn’t care how old somebody was, where they came from, or what they looked like.
Only whether you knew what the fuck you were doing. And Riley sure as fuck did.
She caught problems others missed, diagnosed issues before they became expensive disasters, and somehow managed to do so without making anyone feel stupid in the process.
By the end of the third day, men who’d been turning wrenches longer than she’d been alive had stopped watching her work with skepticism.
They were asking questions, seeking second opinions, and trusting her judgment.
Respect came hard in a garage full of racers and mechanics.
Riley earned it the old-fashioned way—with skill, consistency, and a work ethic that made it damn near impossible not to admire her.
Watching it happen did something strange to me. Every time one of the guys came away from a conversation with her looking impressed, I felt a surge of satisfaction. When she solved a problem that had somebody scratching their head, I found myself fighting a grin.
The woman had already become part of the place.
She fit into the rhythm of The Pit so naturally that it felt like she’d always been there.
The fact that she belonged there in grease-stained jeans, with a wrench in one hand and a sarcastic comment on the tip of her tongue, only made the situation worse for me because every day she seemed to find a new way to get under my skin.
I couldn’t stop looking for her. I’d walk into the garage first thing in the morning, and my eyes would immediately search the bays until I found her.
If I came out of my office after dealing with one of the hundred headaches involved in running the place, I’d instinctively check where she was before doing anything else.
Sometimes I’d catch myself standing in the middle of the shop watching her work without realizing how long I’d been there. The sight of her bent over an engine with her sleeves pushed up, grease smudged across her forearm, and complete focus written across her face was becoming a serious problem.
Riley approached machines the same way I did. She listened to them. Paid attention. Respected them.
Most people saw a motorcycle or a race car. Riley saw a system of moving parts that needed to work together properly. Every time I watched her diagnose a problem, my attraction dug a little deeper.
It didn’t help that she seemed completely unaware of how much damage she was capable of doing just by existing in my line of sight.
The fitted tank tops she wore because of the Florida heat should’ve been illegal.
The jeans she worked in hugged every curve I spent entirely too much time thinking about.
My imagination often got away from me, turning simple glimpses of Riley into vivid, explicit fantasies I had no business indulging.
She’d bend over the hood of a car, and suddenly, I’d be picturing her bent over my workbench instead, those tight jeans around her ankles, her ass bare under my hands while I fucked her deep enough to make her scream my name.
Or I’d catch her licking her lower lip in concentration, and I’d imagine that same tongue sliding slowly along the length of my cock, her dark eyes locked on mine as she took every inch of me down her throat.
Each fantasy made me wonder what she’d taste like, how tight her pussy would feel wrapped around me, and how fast I could make her come undone beneath my mouth and hands.
My body responded to her with an enthusiasm that was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
It didn’t matter how many times I reminded myself that she worked for me, lived upstairs, and clearly had enough problems already.
The attraction kept building anyway, fed by every smile, sarcastic remark, and glimpse of the woman she let people see when she forgot to be guarded.
Because that part never changed.
Riley talked about plenty of things when we worked together.
The problem was that the stories were always surface-level and never got close to the present.
The moment a conversation drifted anywhere near why she’d ended up stranded in Crossbend or what she’d been doing before she arrived, she redirected so smoothly that most people never would’ve noticed it. But I did.
I also caught that she still tensed around strangers, scanned a room when somebody new walked in, and carried herself like somebody expecting trouble.
It bothered me more than I wanted to admit because every time I caught a flash of wariness, I was reminded that there was something out there she wasn’t telling me about.
At least she wasn’t looking like she wanted to run anymore.
For the first couple of days, she’d seemed ready to bolt every time a door opened unexpectedly. That edge had softened. She laughed more now. Smiled more. She’d started teasing the mechanics, arguing about setups, and making herself at home in ways she probably didn’t even realize.
Seeing that happen gave me a level of satisfaction that would’ve been embarrassing if I’d had any intention of changing my behavior. I wanted her to be comfortable here. Safe. Looking at The Pit the way everybody else did—as a place where nobody could touch her.
Maybe that was possessive and overprotective. Probably completely irrational, considering how little I actually knew about her. Didn’t matter, though. The instinct was there anyway, and I wasn’t interested in fighting it.
And it wasn’t lost on anyone…except maybe Riley. I wasn’t sure. She certainly hadn’t called me out on it.
A few mornings into her first week, I walked out of my office and spotted two mechanics pushing equipment toward bay three.
Riley was already there working on a motorcycle, her dark hair pulled back and a pencil tucked behind one ear while she studied a service manual spread open across a workbench. I changed direction immediately.
“Don’t use bay three.”
Both men stopped.
One looked at me, then at bay three, and back at me. “Why?”
I jerked my chin toward the far side of the garage.
“Riley’s working there.”
The silence that followed told me exactly what they were thinking.
The older mechanic looked over at her again before turning back to me with an expression that suggested he was debating whether this conversation was worth having.
“You’re shutting down an entire bay for one employee?”
I held his gaze. “Did I stutter?”
He stared at me for another second before common sense finally won the fight. “No.”
“Good.”
Without another word, both men turned around and started pushing the equipment somewhere else.
I watched them go before looking back toward bay three again.
Riley hadn’t heard a damn thing. She was still focused on the motorcycle in front of her, unaware that I’d just rearranged part of the shop because I didn’t want people crowding her workspace.
I knew exactly how ridiculous that sounded. I also didn’t care.
My single brothers would call me a possessive idiot or make some smart-ass comment about me needing professional help. And the married ones would laugh their asses off that I was finally experiencing what they’d all fallen victim to at one point or another.
None of that made a difference, for good or bad.
Riley was settling into life at The Pit, earning respect, making friends, and slowly starting to look like she belonged. Every instinct I had wanted to protect that. More importantly, every instinct I had wanted to protect her.
Edge showed up at The Pit late one Friday afternoon, pulling Reaper’s Edge into bay four without asking permission or bothering to announce himself.
That car was one of the most carefully built and aggressively tuned vehicles in our entire fleet, a black monster with enough horsepower to scare seasoned racers.
Edge had built it himself and rarely let anyone near it. But he had a race that night and hadn’t had time to work out a kink he’d noticed during practice runs since his fourteen-month-old son was teething and not sleeping much.
Normally, I’d have immediately stepped in because I was one of the few allowed to touch Reaper’s Edge. Instead, I wiped my hands on a shop towel, leaned back against my workbench, and nodded in Riley’s direction.
“Riley, take a look at Reaper’s Edge and tell him if the suspension feels right. He said he was having some feedback in the corners, and if I have to hear him bitch about losing a tenth of a second one more time, I might just burn the car to the ground.”
Edge rolled his eyes at my comment but stayed silent as Riley walked over to the car.
I was surprised when he went along with it, considering how touchy he was about his ride, but I also knew he trusted my judgment.
If I let Riley near Reaper’s Edge, then as far as he was concerned, she belonged there.
Watching her approach the car was its own form of entertainment, because the second she got close enough, her entire face lit up. She circled slowly, her gaze trailing over every curve, line, and component like she’d just been handed the keys to something she’d dreamed of touching.
Her expression did things to my chest—and lower—that made it impossible to look away. The thought of getting her to look at me like that was quickly becoming a recurring fantasy. Hell, I’d spend a fortune building her any car she wanted if it made her smile like that.
She knelt near the front tire, her fingers tracing over the wheel well and suspension components as she asked Edge a series of rapid-fire questions about handling, responsiveness, and exactly what he'd been feeling. Edge answered quickly, clearly surprised but pleased by how specific she was.
“You’re feeling that pull because your camber’s slightly off, and the front coilover is rebounding a fraction too slow.
” Riley finally stood back up and wiped her hands on her jeans.
“It’s probably less than a tenth of a second’s difference, but on tight corners, it’ll feel like the front end wants to fight you, especially when you push it hard. ”
Edge’s expression shifted to pure respect, and I felt a ridiculous surge of satisfaction watching the exchange. He glanced back at me again, a slow smile spreading across his face as Riley walked away to grab some tools. “Damn.”
I nodded, folding my arms over my chest to keep from looking too smug.
“That’s how she is. You should’ve seen her diagnose the suspension issue on Mick’s bike earlier this week.
Five minutes flat, and she nailed it. She spotted a fuel map problem we’ve been chasing for months, too.
Nobody here even came close, and she figured it out like it was nothing.
The woman’s instincts with setups are fucking incredible. ”
Edge’s smirk widened, his eyes glinting with open amusement. “Kane wasn’t bullshitting me when he said you were already gone over this girl.”
I narrowed my eyes slightly even though he wasn’t wrong. “What makes you say that?”
He let out a laugh, not even a little apologetic.
“Brother, I’ve been standing here hearing you list all the reasons she’s basically the best thing to walk into The Pit since we built it, and it’s been a long fucking time since I’ve heard you talk about anything besides horsepower for more than five minutes. ”
I shrugged, completely unconcerned with the observation. “She’s good at her job.”
“Yeah, sure. That’s definitely the reason.” Edge shook his head with a knowing smile. “Face it, man, you’re just as fucked as the rest of us.”
I didn’t bother arguing because the bastard was right.
I’d known Riley for a little over a week, and already I couldn’t imagine letting her walk back out of my garage or my life.
The fact that Edge could see it so clearly made the possessive streak in me settle a little deeper.
Maybe I was fucked, and the guys would have plenty to say about it later, but I wasn’t particularly interested in changing my situation.
Riley Mercer had walked into my shop temporarily, but as far as I was concerned, she wasn’t leaving.