Page 5 of Castaway Whirlwind
“Oh my freaking god!” she yells, her big doe eyes even bigger. She bends over the table to pluck the buttons that have stuck to my skin from the heat in the diner with her soft fingertips, giving me a view of her tits about to spill out of her lavender-colored bra.
I make some kind of strangled noise, the likes of which I’ve never heard a grown man make.
Layla’s brows crease in the middle with worry when she stands, fidgeting with the buttons she’ll need to sew back onto her uniform. “Are you ok?”
I suck in a harsh breath, trying to find my words as I grip the edges of the table to keep from doing something stupid, like reaching for her and pulling her down on my lap.
“Um, do I need to call someone for you…or an ambulance?” When I tug at the collar of my T-shirt, trying to find some air, her eyes flare at Violet. “What do I do?”
Violet is just as concerned. “I don’t know. Maybe he has some kind of heart problem.” She pulls her phone from her apron and unlocks it.
When Layla shifts from foot to foot, her tits jiggle, and my cock strains against my zipper. “I’m fine,” I say hoarsely,standing before Violet finishes dialing 9-1-1. I throw a stack of dollar bills—I don’t know how many—on the table and swerve around the women, barging out of the diner in my steel-toe boots, gulping fresh air. I spin when the door creaks open and closed behind me.Layla.
“Russell, wait. Here,” she says, jumping down the two short steps and crossing the gravel parking lot, holding up the wad of cash. “Violet said you overpaid for your coffee.” Goosebumps pepper her arms, and I’d bet every last cent I have that her nipples are hard from the cold, too.
“Davis said to tell you that he says ‘hi’,” I blurt for some reason, trying my damnedest to be respectful and not to look at her cleavage like my dick is begging me to.
“Oh.” She taps her chin. “Which one is Davis again?”
Her question is more refreshing than the morning chill on my heated skin.
I nod to the cash with satisfaction. “Keep the change, darlin’.”
“But I didn’t earn it.”
Oh, but you did, I think to myself when I get into my dually instead of arguing further. She earned every penny just by remembering my name and not Davis’s.
Chapter 2
Layla
Russell’s cash is burning a hole in my pocket throughout my drive to Berenson Trucking after finishing my second training shift. There’s so much I could do with this money. Now that I have a job and will be able to sign up for my employer’s health insurance plan, I could put this money toward seeing a new doctor. I know I have endometriosis, but it’s been like pulling teeth to get a doctor to take my pain seriously and give me an official diagnosis.
But it all comes back to my dad, who was devout in his belief that we should workhardfor every cent, or else we’re taking advantage of other good people’s hard work. He equated it to a sin as bad as adultery or murder, which I always thought was taking it a little too far, but the spirit of his lesson stuck. So no matter how badly I could use the one hundred and fifty-two dollars Russell left me, it makes my stomach twist thinking of taking advantage of him instead of giving it back.
I crest a small hill on the two-lane road, sunshine poking through the clouds, then turn into the massive warehouse parking lot. To the right is the loading zone with a handfulof red and white eighteen-wheelers backed up to the docks. Steven’s black sports car is parked farther away in an area with an EMPLOYEE PARKING ONLY sign.
My stomach twists again, knowing he’d think I’m foolish for what I’m about to do, so I hope to get in and out without Steven seeing me. I turn toward the left, with a small area sectioned off for visitor parking in front of what I’m assuming is the business office.
And I was right. Between two wide, tinted windows on the gray exterior is a plain glass door that opens into an overly warm, gray-carpeted lobby. A few empty red-padded chairs line the exterior wall opposite the beige counter that spans three-quarters of the room, with no one behind it. A printed paper taped to the back of the receptionist’s computer says they’re out to lunch and will be back in an hour.
Dangit. I can’t just drop the cash on the counter where anyone can walk in and take it. I turn to leave, figuring I can come back later, when one of the two doors behind the counter opens. Russell stops in the doorway on the right and stares. He’s taken off the flannel jacket he wore this morning at the diner, and his heather-blue T-shirt is molded to his broad chest, his biceps as big around as my thighs. He’s more muscular than I expected a man his age to be.
“Layla,” he breathes out in surprise, breaking my intense, laser-like focus on his T-shirt, wondering if he has abs beneath his extra-thick exterior or if he’s softer around the middle like a teddy bear. “What are you doing here?”
Ashamed of myself for even thinking about Russell’s body, much less staring at it, I hold the cash up in the air once I can bring my eyes up to meet his handsome—dangit—face. “I came to return this.”
He looks at the money with his lips turned down, fine lines at the corners of his narrowed eyes. “No.” And then the man simply turns around, my eyes unintentionally dropping to his butt in his fitted blue jeans—double dang—and he closes the door behind him.
More frustrated with myself than him, I huff and cross behind the counter, pushing open the door without knocking. Russell is seated in a large, swiveling office chair behind a metal desk overflowing with paperwork burying his laptop.
“Take it,” I demand, holding the cash out. I’m aching after my five-hour shift and just want to go home and lay down with my heating pad.
Russell leans back, crossing his arms, and clicks his tongue. “No. Keep it.”
I round the desk, grip his wrist, which I can’t fully wrap my fingers around, and pull it away from his body, pressing the cash into his upturned palm, his skin warm and rough. “Thank you, but no thank you.”
Russell is about to argue again, I can tell, but through the large Plexiglass window that looks out into the cavernous warehouse, I spot Steven approaching, his head down and hands pushed into his front pockets.
