Page 9

CHAPTER NINE

Dasha

Okay.

It defied logic, but Santo looked almost intolerably sexy coming away from his trunk with a set of bolt cutters.

Did I momentarily wonder if maybe he used those bolt cutters to, I don’t know, cut someone’s fingers off or something? Yes.

But he walked into the building with swagger, with purpose, then snapped that padlock like it was nothing.

I wanted to climb him like a damn tree.

Then he was pulling up the door, reminding me that he’d needed to cut that lock because someone had taken mine off and replaced it with their own.

I wasn’t surprised to find that when the door opened, all of those garage totes were missing.

“I’m guessing there was more in here than that,” Santo said, flicking on the light, then waving toward the couple of boxes in the back corner where I’d placed the boxes of junk from my car.

“There were several garage totes. Maybe three or four of them.”

“And you have no idea what was in them?” he asked.

“Not a clue,” I admitted. “I should have come back sooner,” I grumbled, sighing hard.

“Don’t blame yourself,” he said, dropping the bolt cutters onto one of the shelves. “You weren’t being paranoid. You were attacked.”

The bruise on my butt had been a daily reminder, all purple and blue. Then green and yellow. Until, finally, it faded away.

“I could have had an employee go with me, though,” I said, glancing out into the hallway, but it was just darkness.

“Hey,” Santo said. He was in front of me, his hand gently lifting my chin, forcing me to face him. “It’s not your fault that someone took advantage of the weak security around here.”

“I know,” I agreed, wondering if Santo heard just how breathless my voice sounded then.

He was so close, overwhelming my senses with his scent, his heat, his touch, and that gooey look in his eyes.

His thumb shifted, tracing my lower lip.

There was no stopping the shiver that worked its way up my spine and through me.

Feeling it, Santo’s eyes went molten, the intention in them clear just a second before his head dipped and his lips claimed mine.

A throaty sound escaped me as my hands reached out, sliding up his arms. His hands moved to frame my face as he pressed deeper, as his kiss demanded more.

I was all too happy to give, my lips responding in kind, taking, giving, asking for more.

Santo’s tongue traced the seam of my lips, waiting for mine to fall open on a soft sigh before moving inside, teasing over my tongue, making another full-body shiver rack my system.

A rumbling sound moved through Santo’s chest and vibrated into my own.

My arms went around his neck, pulling him closer, our bodies pressing close as his teeth nipped my lower lip, dragging a moan out of me.

His hands slid from my face then, slipping down the sides of my neck, my arms, my ribs, then slipping around to sink into my butt, dragging me more firmly against him.

There was no mistaking his desire then, his hard length straining against his pants, pressing into my belly.

I was helpless to stop the little whimper that escaped me at feeling it, my mind already imagining him slipping inside me, filling me fully.

Santo’s fingers sank in hard, squeezing, slipping under my skirt to touch me some more.

Suddenly, his hand left me, reaching out to the side and dragging the garage door partially down, the sound making me wince in the quiet space.

Before I could know his intention, though, he was pressing me back against the wall, then lowering down to his knees.

Need coiled in my core, making my breathing trip faster, making my heart cartwheel in my chest.

Santo looked up at me, hunger in his eyes, a devilish little smirk toying with his lips for just a second before he disappeared under my skirt.

Somehow, not being able to see him only made it hotter when I felt his teeth sink into my upper thigh, then trace the bite with his tongue, kiss away the sting with his lips.

I was dripping, aching, shaky with my need by the time his hand yanked my panties to the side, exposing me to his greedy mouth as he sucked my clit into his mouth.

The pleasure was so acute, it was almost pain as he just kept sucking in little strobes, making my hips rock against him, my little whimpers getting louder and more needy with each passing second.

Then his tongue was working me in relentless circles, making my thighs feel shaky.

Santo reached for my knee, lifting it, and coaxing my leg over his shoulder, opening me to him more.

Those same fingers teased under my thigh, then two of them slipped inside of me.

A long, choked moan escaped me at the welcome fullness.

Reaching down, I yanked my skirt out of the way, wanting to watch him as he feasted on me, as he worked me, his hair teasing my thighs in the way I’d already fantasized about a dozen times.

My hips rocked, silently demanding more as he drove me up, up, up, as the need coiled tighter and tighter inside.

Santo’s fingers worked me faster, long, quick thrusts that had me whimpering and gasping for breath.

But then they were changing, twisting, creating an entirely new sensation that had my whole body tensing, sensing the release just in my sights.

“Santo,” I cried, fingers fisting his hair as my hips rocked restlessly.

He made that rumbling sound again, but this time I got to feel it vibrate around my clit.

And that was it.

The orgasm crashed through me. My cries filled the empty unit—loud and shameless, too overcome with pleasure to care who might hear.

Santo worked me through it until I was breathless and slumped back against the wall, my body shaky. His head shifted, pressing a kiss to my thigh. Then another, an inch lower.

But then he was out from under my skirt, taking his feet, leaning over me, his breath warm on my ear.

“Been thinking about tasting you from the first fucking moment I laid eyes on you,” he said, making my belly go liquid again.

But before I could even think about lowering to my knees, to taking him deep in my mouth, about tasting him, about working him to and through completion, he was reaching out and pulling the door back up.

Lights flicked on in the hall, erasing the illusion of privacy.

“Let’s get that shit out of your car, yeah?” he asked, shooting me a smile that said he knew exactly what he’d done to me, how he’d overwhelmed my body and scrambled my brain.

But he reached for my hand, pulling me along on numb legs and an even more useless head.

I didn’t even grab a box when we made it back to the car; I just leaned against it, giving my weak legs a little break.

Santo smiled over at me, reading me too well. With boxes in his arm, he leaned down, kissing me hard and deep, but way too short.

“How about you hang here?” he suggested, as if moving was even possible right then.

I just stayed there, leaning against my car, watching Santo make trip after trip to my unit, not even breaking a sweat. But, yeah, I was imagining him all sweaty, his glorious body stripped bare, his muscles contracting as he thrust into me over and over again…

“Keep looking at me like that and we’re gonna be giving that lovely old couple a show,” Santo said, his smile wicked as he nodded, making me suddenly aware that we weren’t alone. “That was the last of it,” he added, slamming my trunk.

“Oh, wait… I don’t have a lock.”

“Luckily, there’s a little hardware store just down the road. Are you worried about all that crap? You want me to stay here while you run? Or vice versa?”

“I’m not worried about it.” The storage unit was serving as temporary trash storage anyway. “We can go together.”

So what if I was sounding needy?

The fact of the matter was I was.

In more ways than he could know.

Needy for protection, for connection, for friendship, for—well—something a lot less PG than all of that.

As he drove, Santo’s hand went to my thigh, grabbing it and staying put until we had to climb out to grab the lock.

When we got back to the unit and locked my door, slipping my new key onto my ring with dozens of others, I was suddenly disappointed that we’d taken both our cars.

There was no reason for us not to go our separate ways from there. There were no other excuses to keep me away from work, from the realities of my life.

“Thanks for this,” I said lamely as he held my car door open for me. “For, you know, this, but also just… lunch and conversation. I needed that more than you know.”

“I’m always down for lunch, conversation, or… this,” he said, waving back toward the building, the insinuation nearly making my knees weak. So it was lucky I was sliding into my seat.

It wasn’t until I was pulling out of the lot that I realized… there was no way I could call him up for lunch, conversation, or sweaty fun times.

I still didn’t have his damn phone number.

When we turned in opposite directions, I had myself convinced that it was deliberate on his part, that he had just been casually blowing me off.

The anxiety spiral after that went off in a million—increasingly ridiculous—directions until I found myself in the shower crying over made-up scenarios in my head.

It wasn’t until I was all cried out, sitting in bed with a cup of tea because the pink couch made me think too much of Santo, that I was finally able to think of other things.

Like the new lock on my unit.

I’d had too strong a case of orgasm-brain earlier to go to the office and report it, to demand to see the footage.

But that had to move pretty high up on my list of things for the following day.

Because, really, what the hell?

What was in those totes?

Why was it worth breaking laws and pushing a woman onto her ass to get them?

Was it linked to the weird charges at the garage somehow? If so, did that mean that the person who’d stolen from me and had knocked me over was one of the mechanics?

I mulled that over for hours before I finally fell asleep, racking my brain to try to remember any detail about my attacker that I could use to disqualify the men at work.

In the end, though, it had all happened too quickly.

I felt reasonably comfortable saying it wasn’t the two older guys. But there was no way to rule out anyone else.

Which meant that my stomach was in knots and my heart was firmly lodged in the back of my throat at the idea of going into work, of being alone with those men.

I’d dragged my feet all morning, spending too much time on my hair and makeup, packing my lunch, lingering over my morning coffee—anything I could do to excuse not arriving before the men, before the inevitable customers.

When the trip to the storage unit to check out the footage showed me nothing but a man in a black hoodie and jeans who was clever enough to keep his head ducked to avoid being directly seen by the cameras, I was even more anxious as I strolled into the garage.

I beelined for my office, closing and locking the door before sinking into my chair, feeling like I’d worked a full day just from the stress alone.

And as I sat, poring over the various graphs and notes I’d drawn up about the weird charges for basic servicing, something occurred to me.

While I hadn’t seen the face of the thief, I had noticed something.

He’d been a reasonably average-sized man.

But he’d struggled to not only lift the totes off of the shelves, but he’d needed to drag them out of the door.

The cameras had caught his vehicle.

Which meant nothing.

Because he’d brought a damn rental truck to clear out my storage unit.

My storage unit with several very heavy totes.

What could have been in them?

I’d assumed it was just all junk, given my uncle’s house and office.

But what if it wasn’t junk?

What if it was something valuable?

Something worth stealing.

My gaze slid to the key ring on my desk, seeing it with new eyes.

Half of those keys? They weren’t for buildings or cars.

Those were padlock keys.

My hand shot out, dragging the ring closer, flicking through the keys, counting.

Twelve.

There were twelve padlock keys on the ring.

Sure, it was entirely possible that he’d just had twelve different padlocks for his one storage unit over the years.

But…

But what if they were all for different units?

What if he had more units full of heavy garage totes?

The only reason I knew about the one was because a bill for it had arrived when I’d first moved to Navesink Bank.

Could there be others? Ones I didn’t have the bills for yet? Ones that were maybe paid for through autopay or paid up front for the year?

If so, where could I find the information for them?

Before I even finished thinking the thought, though, I knew my answer.

The mess of the house, that’s where.

The basement wasn’t only full of busted furniture and old junk he hadn’t gotten around to throwing out; there were boxes upon boxes of paperwork. It seemed as though Uncle Phil had never heard of a shredder or recycling bin.

Which sucked for me as the one to deal with it all.

But it also worked in my favor if my suspicions were right and there were other units to track down.

Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get the workday done.

Not because I was afraid of the mechanics—though, yeah, that was a factor—but because I had a mystery to solve.

It was the first time in days that I wasn’t obsessively thinking about Santo.

Until, as I went through the mindless task of sorting through endless piles of paperwork, the thoughts came back.

Namely of him coming to the units with me.

Each and every one of those thoughts ended with him or me on my knees. Sometimes, both of us, him behind me, hands on my breasts, hard length settled deep inside me.

I was heavily into one of those fantasies when I finally found one.

A contract for a damn storage unit.

Two towns away.

“Gotcha.”