Page 41 of Last Love

Ryder

- “With you back in my life, it felt like I could finally breathe again.” -

“Would you stop fucking smiling?” Big Roscoe, my boss complains from the doorway, dark chocolate colored hand scratching his beer gut he refers to as his “love tank” in an actual serious way. “It’s creeping me the hell out.”

I don’t think I would even if I could.

Which I can’t.

The expression seems pretty fucking permanent.

And all it took?

One hit of Pres.

Just like it always has.

Luckily for me, though, I’ve been getting nonstop bumps the past twenty-four hours.

And each dose delivers something so fucking different than the other.

While we were in bed?

Fuck, I felt like the literal king of the jungle.

There was scratching and clawing and spanking and biting – fuck, when she bit my nipple I damn near came right then – and sounds that I wouldn’t have blamed her neighbors for calling Animal Control over. We were loud and rough and raw and at the helm of it all was me. Leading us. Guiding us. I was trusted to take care of her and her needs and having that trust bestowed back upon me is an unmatched high.

An unsurpassable euphoria.

Out of bed – and I don’t mean the shower sesh – I’ve just been in this unbridled state of chill.

Word texts, pic texts, just knowing that I can text her, that being in contact with her is fucking possible, all have this way of mellowing me the fuck out. All day was smooth cruising. It didn’t matter that one of my co-workers was being a dick about us being shorthanded. Didn’t matter that four separate customers were all being belligerent as fuck over their vehicles. Hell, it didn’t even matter that I had Shelly meet me to assist in shopping, which led to me liking a really nice fucking shirt I couldn’t afford and her being excited to buy it for me. Under any other circumstances all that shit would’ve pissed me off, especially the latter, yet with tastes of Pres still lingering on my tongue and visions of her on me, under me, curled up against me, nothing can shake my Zen state.

Like I said, different doses.

Different effects.

One common result.

An incomparable high.

Fuck, I can’t wait to have her in my arms again.

Big Roscoe sucks his teeth on a skeptical stare. “You get laid or somethin’, Collins?”

Instead of answering, I reach for the broom in the corner of the workshop closet.

“You pay for it?”

I shut the door behind me with an effortless back kick and meet his stare.

“Was it cheap?”

The lack of expression changing deepens his glower.

“You boys go out to the strip club again without me?”

I didn’t go the first time.

Or the second.

And there’s no fucking way I’ll be going in the future.

There’s only one chick I wanna see naked, and thanks to her properly being fucked – or perhaps just as fucking horny as I am – I was fortunate enough to receive a topless photo of her that had me almost excusing myself to jerk it in the department store bathroom.

Not a good look for me.

Would’ve been so fucking worth it.

The bell, which rings when a customer enters the front of the shop, suddenly chimes, and I toss my head that direction with an amused grin. “Shouldn’t you get that shit?”

“What do I pay you for?”

“Bitch work.”

“And answering the shop door is…”

“Not bitch work I can do while sweeping up this dirty fucking floor you won’t tell Sevan to stop spitting his goddamn sunflower seed shells all over.”

“Yeah,” Big Roscoe grumbles as he turns around to exit the shop area for the front end, “that shit is fucking gross.”

About ninety four percent of the shit Sevan does is disgusting, but that motherfucker has a gifted ear from the car gods. Nine times out of ten he can tell what’s wrong with someone’s shit from what he hears alone.

I’ve honestly never seen any shit like it.

And it’s why he’s one of Big Roscoe’s favorite mechanics.

My grip on the tool adjusts to start the sweeping – the first step of many for my closing duties – when familiar giggles convince me to lean the broom against the nearest wall and discover if I’m right and my woman is here early or if I’m so strung out for another hit of her that I’m hallucinating the sounds.

Vibrating in my pocket tempts me to stop in my tracks to see who it could be from – Noah had a million fucking questions after Shelly blabbed about me having a date – but the increased sound I felt like I was dying without having it in my life pushes me to ignore it.

To open the employee’s only door and peek my head around the corner to see if I’m right.

And of course, I’m right.

---