Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Trix grumbled to herself as she walked up the sidewalk to the Wynns’ house.
She’d been here numerous times in her youth, but rarely since they’d converted it into a halfway house.
The Wynns were as protective of her as her papá, abuelo, and hermanos.
As if being the only girl wasn’t bad enough, she was also the baby.
The only time she had ever been treated as an equal or respected for her own thoughts was when she’d been working on a car.
That was her domain. That was where she was Queen B.
Even her hermanos had brought her their cars to work on long before she’d inherited the shop.
Being at the Wynns’ house again reminded Trixie of all the family meals and get-togethers she’d been accustomed to as a child.
The Wynns’ house had been her second home.
Everyone knew that if she wasn’t at the shop with her head under the hood of a car, she was at Tìa Peggy’s getting something to eat.
After the Wynns had renovated and turned their three-story house into a halfway house, Trixie had been warned that she was not allowed to stop by randomly anymore.
If Tìo Greg or her papá or abuelo weren’t with her, she was not allowed inside.
At the time of this announcement, Trixie had been angry.
She’d loved coming here to see Tìa Peg. But later in her teens, she’d put aside that anger.
Without her time split between the Wynns’ and the shop, her full attention had been put into her cars.
She’d finished her first restoration at sixteen.
Boys were second to her love of mechanics.
After graduating high school, her papá and abuelo had pushed her to attend college.
But Trixie had dropped out before her first semester was even over.
She’d never excelled at school. She needed to be where she felt valued and powerful, and there was no place she’d rather be than that shop.
Trixie righted her skirt, kicking herself for wearing the stupid thing. She knew she didn’t have to dress up for a Sunday dinner with the Wynns, but she’d told herself she needed to put more effort into her appearance for Peggy.
Not for some rugged, cocky biker she had yet to get out of her brain.
Ugh, she hated that. She was not some lovesick girl who dreamed of her knight in shining armor.
She was a grown woman with her own successful business.
Her trust issues aside, she had no desire to fall head over heels into a man’s arms…
No matter how muscular those arms were or how good he’d smelled or how that cocky smile had made her loins clench or how lickable those beautiful tattoos wer—
Stop! Trixie flinched, closing her eyes as she ordered her brain not to follow through with that very dangerous line of thought.
Damn, she needed to get her head on straight before she walked into that house.
She didn’t even know if Mr. Cocky Biker was in there.
Boosting cars was not a point in the plus column on his resume.
And he couldn’t even be that good at it if he’d been caught.
That thought snapped her out of her dreamy state. Good, she’d concentrate on that. With renewed determination, Trixie walked the rest of the way up the sidewalk and into the house. She’d never had to knock when entering the Wynn house, and that hadn’t changed with its new inhabitants.
Peggy was cooking something with garlic.
Having been raised never to attend a gathering empty handed but also knowing alcohol was not allowed in the house, she’d brought Peggy a store-bought cheesecake.
Trixie loved cheesecake. Store-bought wasn’t as good as Peggy could have made, but it was a hell of a lot better than anything Trixie could have made.
Trixie paused in the kitchen doorway.
He was there, standing over a steaming pot of something. Her heart started racing again. Well, that was just great. Apparently, he didn’t even have to look at her for him to have an effect on her. This was going to be an extremely long evening.
Cayden turned his head over his left shoulder, opposite from where Trix was standing. “How long do I have to stir this for?”
“Until it’s ready, dear.” Peggy walked up to him, placing a hand on his back. “It needs to simmer for some time.”
“This is a bit more complicated than I had meant when I said I’d help you cook.”
Peggy, who noticed Trix in the doorway just then, gave a knowing smile. “The things a man will do for a pretty girl.”
Trixie’s cheeks burned. She couldn’t walk worth a damn in heels, but now she wished she’d worn something a bit louder than her flats. Maybe then she wouldn’t have had to hear Cayden’s reply of, “Prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Just hope she likes burnt pasta sauce.”
Peggy’s smile widened.
His reply confused Trixie for just a second. When they’d met, she hadn’t been pretty. Her hair had been a mess, she’d been in work clothes, and her hands had been greasy. Why would he lie and call her pretty? Not just pretty, but the prettiest.
Trixie was not in the mood and stomped into the room before either Peggy or Cayden said more. “I brought cheesecake.”
She plopped the box on the kitchen table harder than she’d meant to. Damn it, she’d probably just smushed the cheesecake. Rather than be embarrassed as she’d expected him to be, as he now knew that his words had been overheard, Cayden turned and smiled.
Her heart skipped. Fuck, how did he do that? Maybe she needed to take the time to see a doctor this week. Was she too young for a heart attack? Could one pay to have a lobotomy done?
“Trixie.” He said her name like an endearment, like how a lover should whisper “good girl” into her ear.
Her cheeks blazed. His mismatched eyes traveled ever so slowly down her, taking in her combed hair, her modest cleavage, her slim hips, her legs exposed by that skirt, and her flats.
Her heart pounded like a base drum, waiting impatiently for his assessment.
Why did she want him to tell her she was pretty again?
Why did it feel like she would die unless she heard those words?
Pasta sauce on the stove forgotten, Cayden approached her.
Neither even noticed that Peggy had silently taken up stirring the sauce without a word.
When Cayden was just inside her personal bubble, he stopped.
Trixie could feel the heat radiating off of him.
He wore snug jeans and a baby blue button-up that seemed to accentuate the colors in his tattoo sleeves.
His feet were bare, which she had no idea why she liked so much.
Carefully, he reached forward and tucked her long black curls behind her right ear. Then, to her utter horror and embarrassment, he shook his head disapprovingly. “No,” he said softly. “I don’t like you like this.”
Her heart froze, dropping like a boulder in a Warner Brothers’ cartoon.
Her face heated, and fuck her, because she felt her eyes start to moisten too.
When she went to turn away from him, he grabbed her chin between his thumb and pointer finger.
She wanted to break away. She couldn’t risk him feeling her chin trembling, but he held her tight.
Ducking in low, just as he had at the shop, his lips nearly touched her ear. “I like you better when you’re covered in grease and motor oil. That’s the real you, not this dolled up woman before me.”
Trixie’s breath hitched in her throat. He liked her in her work clothes, sweaty and covered in grease?
She’d showered for him! Well, she’d showered for Peggy and the fact that she’d smelled rank.
But it had been this arrogant bastard who’d been on her mind when she’d stripped out of her coveralls to jump under the warm water.
That’s the real you…
He’d met her once. Well, twice including now, but only once where it really counted.
How could he possibly know that that was the real her, versus how she was dressed now?
There was no way. Men don’t assume women are gearheads.
Men don’t like women who are gearheads. She’d chosen a profession ruled stereotypically by men.
The stupid typecast that women couldn’t change a tire had irked her since before she’d gotten her first period.
She could take apart an engine faster than any of the other mechanics at her shop, and she only hired the best. A penis didn’t make for a better mechanic. It just made for a bigger ego.
He tipped her face up with a crooked finger under her chin.
There was about five inches between their height differences.
In her limited experience, men didn’t like that she was so tall either.
Yet Mr. Cocky Biker obviously didn’t seem to mind.
“You look beautiful, Trix.” Her heart thudded at her nickname.
Only family called her Trix. She was Trixie, Boss, or Romero at the shop.
“Even if you do smell like lavender instead of Mobil-1.”
Her cheeks heated. Damn, how did he do that?
Needing to get a grip on herself, as well as put distance between them, Trixie ripped her chin out of his hold and crossed her arms over her chest. “Mr. Russo, I don’t believe I gave you permission to touch me.”
And there was that smug smile again. She expected him to say something about her eyes giving him permission, which she honestly didn’t doubt. Instead, he backed away with his hands raised. “My apologies, Ms. Romero.”
“Pasta’s ready!”
Trixie jumped at Peggy’s shout. It was followed immediately by the pounding of several footsteps.
Men rushed into the kitchen, each trying to beat the other to the stove where a large pot of pasta and the sauce Cayden had been stirring waited for them.
There was a basket of bread on the counter and a bowl of parmesan cheese with a spoon next to it.