Offside (The Barker Triplets 1)

“Hey,” she said as she walked into his shop, voice overly bright, overly fake.

All the techs had left for the day, though Shane was somewhere around. He watched her expressive blue eyes widen as she turned in a full circle. “Wow, Logan. This is really impressive.”

When she caught sight of her car she paused and glanced back at him. “What the…“

She shot a surprised look his way and crossed over to the Honda. Logan couldn’t help it, his gaze rested on the gorgeous curve of her ass and the long waves she’d left to hang down her back.

There was something about hair you could sink your hands into and…

“This can’t be mine. The car looks brand new!”

Logan joined her and nodded. “Shane did most of it, so you can thank him when you see him.”

Her fingers ran along the top of the hood, pausing where the word [i]‘pussy’[i] had been scratched into the paint. Shane had ground it out—luckily the scratches had only been surface damage, and the paint job looked mint.

Billie’s cheeks were red and she tucked a long piece of hair behind her ears—obviously nervous. When she turned to him, her bottom lip was tucked between her teeth in a way that would make a porn star proud.

For a moment, he saw her plump lips sliding across his skin, skimming over his belly, down to his—

“I don’t’ know…this is a lot more than the estimate. Shane said it would be around five hundred bucks, but those tires look new and they’ve got to be double that alone.”

Her soft white sweater hugged curves that no female athlete should have. Not one who played hockey better than most men. And yet, as she tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans he took a moment to appreciate said curves, his gaze lingering on the swell of her breasts. When he finally met her gaze again, the blush that stained her cheeks intensified.

Billie-Jo Barker was hot as hell.

He cleared his throat and grabbed her keys from his front pocket. “It’s all good, Billie. There’s no charge.”

Her brow furrowed. “What? That doesn’t make sense.” She gazed at him directly, her eyes wide, sparkling with something…he wasn’t sure what, but he felt it all the way down to his toes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Logan knew this woman was going to prove dangerous to him in more ways than one. “I can pay my own bill, thanks. I don’t need your charity.”

“This isn’t charity. A hell of a lot of people feel bad about what happened.” His voice lowered, as a wave of anger rolled through him. He’d been right pissed when he’d seen the extent of the damage, and when he found out who was responsible there would be hell to pay.

In that moment Logan made a conscious decision to ignore the little voice inside him, the one that said back off. The one that said getting involved with Billie-Jo Barker wasn’t a great idea. The one that said Betty had been bad enough, but this one…she was going to be all kinds of trouble.

It left him strangely exhilarated.

“It’s not right,” she said carefully. “I’ve got enough on me to pay the estimate in cash and I’ll put the rest on my card.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew a credit card, chin thrust out, mouth set into a determined line.

“It’s kind of hard to pay a bill when there isn’t one.”

Her eyes flashed again and her cheeks filled with color. “Look, Logan, I just feel weird about this.” She licked her lips and his damn gut tightened along with everything else south of his waist.

She really was fucking adorable. He could string this along and make her twitch a hell of a lot more, but watching her bite her bottom lip in agitation had all sorts of inappropriate thoughts running through his mind. Jesus, there were several places he’d love to see her lips…and that tongue…

She must have read his mind because he saw her stiffen. He took a step back and nodded toward the car. “Billie, this isn’t charity. It’s made a lot of people feel good to help you out. The tires just kind of showed up Monday. If you want to thank someone for that, give Jackie Everett a call. She rallied the local girl’s hockey league and they got involved too. Cash donations came in and they pretty much covered all the other expenses. Hell, even Duke brought over beers and wings for the techs.” He nodded to the car. “We installed an alarm system so the next time someone decides to mess with your car they’ll be in for one hell of a surprise.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Her eyes shimmered and the two of them stared at each other for several long moments. They stared at each other for so long in fact, that when Shane shouted a ‘hello’ from across the shop they both jumped.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he answered finally. Logan held out the keys and nodded toward the now open bay door. “I’ll see you Friday night.”

Her fingers grazed his as she stepped forward to grab the keys from him.

“Thank you, Logan.” She paused. “About the other day and what happened…”

Logan’s gut tightened at the thought. “Yeah,” he said carefully, watching the play of emotion on her face.

“I’m sorry. I was upset and I…it won’t happen again.”