Touched By The Devil (Boys of Preston Prep 3)

“Yeah, I actually left my license in the car.” She tucks it in her back pocket. “Would’ve been a shit show the other night if the cops picked me up and I didn’t have it.”

“Nah,” I say, “you were with me. I wasn’t going to let you get arrested.”

She rolls her eyes and walks around to the front of the car. She bends and peers inside. “Any idea what he’s doing in there?”

“Hmmm,” I say, pretending like I’m not completely aware of every single thing going down under that hood. I keep my distance as I approach, staying on the other side as I prop my elbows on the body and study the interior. “The carburetor is shot. The engine needs a lot of work. Spark plugs, timing chain, hole in the oil pan…” I glance over and see her paled face staring back at me. I assure, “It sounds like a lot but it’s really not a big deal. Basic stuff.”

“That’s way too much. That’s not all vital, right?” She wraps a hand around her slender neck, giving it a kneading squeeze. “What’s the bare minimum he can do to make it drivable?”

“Eh, let the old man have his fun,” I say, pushing off the car to take a better peek inside. “A car like this isn’t a job, it’s a privilege.”

I don’t miss the way her eyes track my cigarette as I bring it to my lips. “Getting people to do free work for me isn’t okay, Sebastian. I’m not a charity case.”

“Of course, you’re not. But seriously, a car like this doesn’t fall into a mechanic’s lap that often. Believe it or not, this is Merle’s idea of fun. Gives him an excuse to go to the scrap yard to bicker and trade with the old guy who runs the place.” I lean back on my heels, and this time, I don’t miss the way her eyes follow my cigarette when I gesture to the office. “Really, you’re doing him a favor.”

She still looks unsure, and I’m not sure if I’m reading her right—fuck, as if I ever have—but I take my pack of cigarettes and broadcast my throw with a couple bobs. She catches it aggressively, hard like a punch, and raises an eyebrow.

I nod at the pack. “Go ahead.”

Mistake.

Holy shit, what a mistake.

She plucks one from the pack and puts it between her plush lips, igniting it with the lighter I’d had tucked in the cellophane. Then she sucks a long, dragging inhale from it, eyes sliding closed for a suspended moment. She lets out a slow, “Fuck,” when she exhales, lips pursing. Transfixed, I watch as she leans back against a cluttered workbench, dark eyes inspecting the cigarette’s ember. “I haven’t had one of these in months.” She says it softly, like she’s talking more to herself than me.

Even still, when she goes to toss the pack back, I shake my head. “Keep it. Only place to do it on campus is out by the dumpsters, though. Out back, where the cats are.” Instantly, I’m reminded of the photo I saw a few days ago hanging in the lobby of the arts building. I’d notice Abbadon anywhere, so I’d stopped and inspected the name of the student who’d taken it. Sugar Voss. Fuck, the picture was good, too. It was moody and sharp-edged, just like the subject.

Just like the girl who’d captured it, too.

She doesn’t pocket the cigarettes, however. She just holds my gaze and places them neatly on the bench behind her.

Well, now that my dick is hard from watching her suck on that cigarette, I should be expecting some sort of harm on my person. I take the strategy of distraction, running my hand over the Mustang’s back panel. I touch the spot where a decal used to be. “I don’t know what you or your dad did to this car, but it sure looks like it lived a full life.”

The cigarette must have leeched more tension from her than I realized, because that comment actually brings out the hint of a smile as her eyes rove over the chipped paint. “My dad loved this car. My grandfather brought it home when he was fifteen—not even old enough to get a license. It was in rough shape back then, and they spent the whole year getting it road ready. He took it to college where he joined ROTC. That’s when it began its life journey all over the world.”

I rest a hip on the car and ask, “Where all was he stationed?”

Her eyes shift heavenward, face pensive. “Germany, California, a two-year stint in Australia, then Hawaii.”

“That doesn’t sound too rough. A government-paid trip to a tropical island? Sign me up.”

“Yo

u’d probably make a good soldier,” she says without a trace of irony. “You’re definitely not afraid of anything.”

I assess the tiny girl in front of me. She’s small enough for me to pick up and toss over my shoulder, which I would have already done with any other girl. But not Sugar. We’ve already had two altercations. One more and we may both end up in trouble. But not being able to just go for it—to just have her? It’s driving me fucking crazy. My chest has been constricted since she walked in the room, my mind consumed with the thought of her. My dick’s on high alert every time I see her, the way her eyes laser-focus that ‘fuck you’ energy everywhere they look. But after last night, I keep my distance. She’s wrong about that.

I’m scared shitless of her.

“All that change in climate must have been rough on this girl,” I say, touching a rusted spot near the wheel well. “That’s a lot of humidity.”

“Yeah,” she says, staring at either my hand or the rust. I don’t know which. “He wasn’t around a lot to take care of it and then…” Her voice gets small for a second, but she recovers, looking right at me, voice and stature both defiantly firm. “And then it became mine.”

There’s definitely something missing from the story, but it’s obvious she’s not ready to tell it—at the very least, not ready to tell me. I hold her eyes anyway, wanting her to know that I hear her. See her. And holy fuck do I want to touch her.

But most of all, I realize, I just want to know her.

“Look,” she says, watching the ember of her cigarette as she flicks some ashes away, “about last night… I shouldn’t have done that.”