By the time they reached the shop, he was rock hard and his body thrummed with need. Shooter pulled up beside them and Zane prayed for Evie to dismount quickly so he would have time to get himself together and calm the fuck down so she wouldn’t see the evidence of his desire.
He wanted her. She’d hurt him and he wanted her. She was with another man and he wanted her. She’d slapped him and damned if seeing Evie come into her own hadn’t made him want her more. And back there on the porch, when she’d brushed her breasts against his chest, the way she’d brushed up against him when they were young, telling him with her body what she couldn’t say out loud, he’d almost taken her.
“Gotta talk to Shooter,” he said after she slid neatly off his bike. “I’ll meet you inside.”
“I’ll go check out the damage.” She gave him a wink and then walked to the door, making his groin tighten all over again at the sight of her beautiful ass perfectly outlined in dark denim.
After the door closed behind her, he briefed Shooter on surveillance techniques, which basically meant find somewhere to stand where you weren’t visible and don’t fall asleep. He sent Shooter to the picnic table across the street, then walked around his bike as he tried to get his libido in check, considering the various bike parts, how they fit together and how easily they came apart, and how hard it had been to replace his stock exhaust with a longer, harder, thicker pipe, and how he had to fight with Sparky to get an upswept ball-end megaphone muffler.
When he realized the direction his thoughts were leading, he gave up the fight, made a careful self-adjustment, and headed into the store.
Rows of motorcycles gleamed under the overhead lights. Bill had a lot of stock for a small store, mostly new models, but a few bobsters, and some custom pieces. The walls held parts and supplies, racks of leathers, helmets and boots.
He found Evie in her shop spraying primer on a gas tank perched on an A-frame stand. She had stripped down to a skin tight tank top and tied her hair back in a messy pony tail with loose strands framing her beautiful face. Damn she was hot, standing in that gritty shop, surrounded by motorcycle parts, and with a spray gun in her hand …
Christ. Was everything going to make him think about sex?
“Thought I’d get a head start on my work for tomorrow while I was waiting. My portfolio is over there if you need to look at it under more legitimate circumstances, or if you’ve brought a design, just leave it on the bench and I’ll take a look.”
Zane walked along the wall beside the benches filled with paint supplies, and air brush guns. He had already checked the place out, trying to find clues about her life from the personal items in her workspace: a handbook from Conundrum College, a parenting magazine, a coffee cup from a restaurant in Stanton, a motorcycle magazine, and the charcoal drawing of him, Jagger and Evie on the wall—a rendition of the picture he had given her. Even now, seeing it again, a lump welled up in his throat—not just because of the memory, but because she’d kept it, and made it larger than life.
“Find anything in the portfolio?” She came up beside him, and he couldn’t stop himself from brushing one of the loose strands of hair back from her face. The sharp scent of primer took the edge off his desire, and he was finally able to untangle his tongue.
“No. But you’re work is exceptional.” She’d always been artistic, which was why he was so unsure of the gift he’d made for her the night of Jagger’s going-away party. Although he knew her as well as one person could know another, he still worried it wasn’t good enough … that he wasn’t worthy.
“You’re nothing and you come from nothing,” her father had shouted as he beat Zane in the forest. “You’ve got nothing to offer my daughter. No future. No skills. Hell you couldn’t even finish school. All you got is a trailer full of drugs, an addict for a father, and your shit for brains.”
Perversely, he’d been happy for Evie, thinking at least her father cared. It was only later, when Sheriff Monroe showed up at the trailer with a gun, that he realized her father was protecting himself. Until that night, he hadn’t known Zane was Doug Colton’s son. And he couldn’t take the risk that Zane would tell Evie or the police that he was on the take, running drugs for Zane’s father across the state line, accepting bribes, and doing everything a sheriff shouldn’t do.
“Thanks.” She put down the spray gun. “I never made it to that fine arts program at college, and I sort of fell into custom painting when one of my friends asked if I could paint something on her husband’s motorcycle as a surprise. He recommended me to his friends and it sort of spiraled from there. I never thought about it as a career until I went to a motorcycle show in Helena with a couple of my pieces and met Big Bill. He convinced me to leave Stanton and work for him.”