Well.
Challenge bloody accepted.
“We’ll see,” I murmur, unraveling his first hand.
Adan has significant burns to both his hands and forearms. He tried to stop the fire from spreading to the customers’ cars when the garage he works at went up in flames. He attempted to smother it, but whatever he used only accelerated it more and he ended up with some nasty results.
It’ll be a solid six weeks more before he can even go without the bandages. Not to mention he has a few surgeries up his sleeve. He’ll recover, but his hands will never be fully the same again.
He makes a hissing sound as I pull the bandage off. It sticks slightly, and I know it must hurt when I carefully pull that away from the raw skin. Burns are said to be some of the most painful things a human can experience, so I know he’s hurting. I clean it up and redress it, and then do the other one. I have to do this twice a day, but I also have to help him with basically everything.
“Need a ride to the club. Got business. You go see Eve.”
“Yes. Master,” I say in a robot voice and stand straight. “I will go prepare the car, Master.”
I do a robot walk out the door.
He’ll learn to like me.
He really will.
1
“How’s things with Papi?” Eve asks, wiggling her brows as she swoops past me with two coffees in her hands.
I swivel around on my chair so she can hear me when I speak. “He’s a pain in the ass. I went in there to find him with three women today. Three. What the hell? Who has time to please three women?”
“Bikers, man,” Eve scrunches up her nose.
Eve is my best friend and the owner of a café called Wildflowers that is right next door to Adan’s garage and biker club, which is run by Eve’s now boyfriend, Riggs, and his club, the Soul Dividers MC.
Lame.
When they first moved in over there, Eve made it her life’s mission to get Riggs and the club out, no matter what, and this brought a hell of a game as pranks and battles begun.
Then they fell in love and, well, the rest is history.
“They’re something else,” I agree. “He told me this morning, as I washing his damned dick, that he isn’t attracted to me at all.”
“What a liar, he wanted to ride you only a few weeks ago.”
I snort. “Well, his dick says otherwise now. It doesn’t even twitch when I wash him.”
“Not even a little one?” Eve stops and her eyes get wide.
“Not a single movement.”
“Oh, honey, you need to change that.”
I laugh. “He told me it was impossible.”
“I hope you’re going to prove him wrong?”
I grin. “Oh, I am.”
“Good, that’ll teach him for being so dicky.”
“Back in my day, men would get hard just walking down the street.”
I grin. Eve grins. And at the same time we both say, “Hi, Doris.”
Doris, Eve’s longtime customer, is walking up behind me. She’s here for her daily coffee and cake, but mostly, I think she comes to listen to our gossip. She’s an old devil and she loves it. Doesn’t matter how raunchy it gets, she’s in on it and always offering advice.
“Good morning, ladies, I couldn’t help but hear you were having penis issues.”
I snort out my coffee, and Eve bursts out laughing.
“It’s not an issue, Doris,” I say between laughter. “It’s mostly ... well ... a challenge.”
“Men aren’t difficult, dear. It’s all about liking what they see. You need to dress nicer.”
“I’m his nurse, Doris, not his eye candy.”
“Why can’t you be both?”
I smile and shake my head. “Because that would be slutty and bad for my reputation.”
Doris shrugs. “I know what I’d be doing if I were in your shoes.”
“I’m terrified to ask,” Eve says, holding a tray in her hands. “But what?”
“I’d drive him crazy. I’d be doing everything I could to make sure I was in his mind constantly. Once you have a man like that, he’s yours for life. The power of our feminine cues are far stronger than you might think, my dear.”
I laugh. “You terrify me, Doris.”
“We didn’t have social media and nudes in my day, dear. We just had to use what we carried around with us every day. There were no filters and none of that lip business, you know, where they look like bubbles...”
“Fillers?” I smirk.
“Yes, those. Why can’t people be happy with what the good lord gave them? I could get them with just a look.”
I grin. “Well, I’m sure you made them all weak at the knees.”
“I still do,” she nods proudly.
I have absolutely no doubt about that.
“Well, I’d love to sit here and chat all day but I have a biker who will no doubt try to do things he can’t if I’m not constantly watching him. So, I better go.”
I take the last, long, delicious sip of my coffee and then I spin on my heel and leave the café, waving behind me as I go. I saunter over to the garage with a big smile on my face. After all, what’s there not to smile about? The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and I’m employed.
My phone rings in my pocket with a familiar ringtone.
You know the ones you put on you so know when a person is calling.
It might be because you really want to take that call.
Or it might be that you do not want to take that call.
My smile wavers a little as the tune to “Happy” echoes through the parking lot. I didn’t pick that song because the person on the other line makes me happy. I picked it so my heart wouldn’t sink so much when it rang, so my hands wouldn’t tremble and my knees wouldn’t feel wobbly. It takes the edge off the reaction I get when I see that name, and somehow keeps me sane.
I put one foot in front of the other as I move toward the garage, waiting for the sound to stop. Eventually it does, only for it to fire back up again seconds later. Once again, I ignore it. This happens all the way until I’m inside the garage and looking around for Adan. Finally, it stops, and I can breathe a sigh of relief.
They say you can’t just ignore your problems, but I’m kind of hoping that maybe I can.
Maybe this problem will go away on its own.
I’m starting to think I might be wrong.
“Where’s the injured one?” I ask Riggs, walking up to him.
He’s mid-way through doing something on a car when he looks over at me, sweat on his handsome face, spanner in his hand. He’s gorgeous, and god knows Evelina wasn’t going to be able to stay away from him forever.
“Inside. Before you go, can we chat?”
I cross my arms. “That depends. Is it a deep and meaningful, because I’m not prepared for one of those. We need a lot more alcohol...”
“No, it’s about Adan.”
“That was the other thing I was going to need alcohol for,” I exhale. “What is it? What does the king need now? Is he complaining about me? Because I can tell you he is a pain in the ass to live with. The man is rude and thinks he’s running some sort of brothel ...”