It's About Time (Blossom Peak #4)(57)

One of her brows lift. “It’s crazy. There are these things called voicemails and text messages. I would have responded eventually.”

Sig hing, I say, “Look, I guess I just wanted to check on you. Is that a crime?”

Her scowl softens. “Okay…”

“And Fletcher said that I should take this more seriously, so…”

“Oh, so you’re here because Fletcher told you to be. Got it.” She moves to walk away from me, but I reach out and gently grab her arm, spinning her into my chest. “What the…”

I place a finger to her lips, silencing her. “Can you just shut up long enough for me to finish a goddamn sentence, woman?” Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t say anything. “Thank you. Now, as I was saying, Fletcher reminded me that I need to take this more seriously, and part of doing that is checking on you, communicating with you, and sharing shit with you so that we’re on the same page. Got it?” Her eyes widen, but she nods. Having her this close, I can feel her bare breasts pressed against my chest, separated by nothing but her thin tank top and my dress shirt. With her overalls hanging loose at her waist, it’s not nearly enough to keep me from wondering what she might feel like without those layers between us.

“Good girl.” I drag my finger down her mouth slowly, drawing the tip of it across her bottom lip as her mouth parts slightly. My eyes can’t focus on anything else but the sight of her red lips under my touch, which only make my dick throb in my pants even harder.

Fuck. What is this woman doing to me?

“Elliot?”

“Yes, Dilynne?” I ask, my gaze still fixed on her mouth.

“You can let me go now.” Her words wash over me like a cold shower, snapping me back to reality as I release my grip on her upper arm and take a step back, giving her my back as I reach down and adjust my cock in my slacks.

Fuck.

“ So, about dinner…”

I clear my throat, trying to remember what the fuck I came here for in the first place as I turn back to face her. “Yes?”

“What time on Friday?”

“Uh, six.”

She nods. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“Why can’t I just meet you at your parents’ house?”

“It would look odd if we showed up separately, don’t you think?”

She hums. “Right. Sorry, it’s just…”

“Hard to remember what it’s like being in a relationship?” I finish for her.

She huffs out a laugh before heading over to the bucket seats resting on the ground beside the car. “Uh, yeah. You could say that. Although seeing Vinnie at the press junket brought back a bunch of shit from our relationship I’d rather forget.”

A twinge of jealousy squeezes the center of my chest. “You saw him?”

Her eyes meet mine again. “Well, yeah. He was there for press stuff too. I was hoping to avoid him, but…” She inhales deeply and then mutters, “No such luck.”

“What happened?”

She shakes her head before bending down to lift the seat and carry it over to the car. I race over to help her, but she laughs. “What are you doing?”

I attempt to take the seat from her, but she pulls it away from me.

“I was trying to help you.”

Her eyebrow arches. “You think I haven’t done this a thousand times on my own?”

Twi sting back to the car, I consider her words before turning back to face her. “Okay, fair point.”

“Besides, no one is touching the Porsche except me.” When I move out of her way, she slides the seat into the body of the car and then stands upright again.

“Why?”

“Why what?” she asks, clearly confused by my question.

“Why aren’t you going to let anyone help you?”

“Because I’ll be damned if anyone else tries to take credit for it.” There’s a bite to her words that makes me want to know exactly what she means.

“Has that happened before?” She darts her eyes from mine and moves over to the other seat, ignoring me. “It has, hasn’t it?”

“Don’t worry about it, Elliot,” she says, moving around me and back to the car, this time placing the seat in the driver’s side.

“Don’t you think this is something that I should know, Dilynne? Especially if you’re my fiancée?”

Sighing, she relents and looks me straight in the eye when she says, “Yes, it’s happened before.”

“When?”

“The last time I was at Motorlux.”

“You’ve entered this show before?”

She shakes her head. “No, but my boyfriend did, and I’m the one who helped him win.”

And everything finally clicks into place. “Vinnie?”

“Yup,” she nods. “So now you understand why this event is so important to me.”

I watch her move around the shop, gathering tools so naturally like she could do it in her sleep. This is her domain, her home away from home.

And that’s when it hits me: I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen Dilynne at work.

I scour the garage, feeling like I just entered an alternate universe, and on some level I have. I have no clue what any of this shit is. Dilynne has done all of the maintenance on my truck over the years, and I’ve never thought twice about it. But that’s because I knew she was the expert.