All I have to do is hold the wheel straight. I know that. The logical part of my brain is right there telling me this is easy-peasy, I’m doing just fine.
But the animal instincts, the deeper, ingrained panic, won’t be ignored. My pulse beats so hard it’s a wonder I’m still upright. Spots dance along the edges of my vision, and I cling to the wheel like I’m about to fall off a cliff and it’s the only thing keeping me safe.
The car starts to roll in earnest. Faster, faster, as Antonio pushes harder, and it bumps over the lip of the garage. There’s a small slope outside the garage which helps the car pick up speed as it travels down, and suddenly I’m moving toward the parking lot at a measurable pace, and I can’t help it.
I scream. And I slam on the brakes.
Behind me, I hear a grunt, as Antonio slams into the trunk of the car. He must have still been pushing, and I feel a little pang of guilt for potentially injuring him. But that pang of guilt is subsumed, swallowed whole, by the much deeper, more intense feeling of panic.
I thrust the car into park and scramble at my seatbelt. It feels like it’s choking me, strangling me. I need out of here, I need air again, I need to go.
I fling open the door just as Antonio comes walking around the back of the car. “Why’d you stop?” he calls. “Everything all right?”
Then he takes one look at my expression and realizes that no, everything is very much not all right. “I’m sorry,” I say. The words jumble together in my mouth, sound like garbled nonsense. I clear my throat hard and force myself to speak the words one at a time. “I’m… sorry. I need to go.”
“Selena.” His expression has shifted from mild concern to full blown worry now. “Wait, what happened?”
I wave him off, wave off his questions. I can’t do this, can’t talk about this. Can’t let him of all people see me melt down over this of all things. I take off running, back into the garage, my heart a wild thing in my chest. I don’t even stop to grab my sweatshirt off the back of the chair where I tossed it when I got here this morning. I just bolt and keep running, until I’m through the garage and out the front door, back onto the main road through town outside of the store. Once there, I tap on my phone screen. Call an Uber to meet me at the next store up the road, about a half mile walk. Because I don’t want to still be standing out here when Antonio comes looking for me. The last thing I want to do is discuss this with anyone, least of all him.
So I run. Like a coward. I run all the way to the corner store up the road, and by the time I get there, the Uber I called is already in the lot, idling as it waits for me.
I practically leap into the backseat, ignoring the hitch of fresh fear in my veins, and slam the door behind myself. I tell the driver my address, and then I hunker down in the seat, one hand pressed over my mouth, the other shielding my eyes so I can’t see the road outside, as we trundle toward home and safety.
7
Antonio
Selena doesn’t show up to work the next morning. Part of me isn’t surprised. After the way she freaked out yesterday, I sort of guessed I might not see her today. But I’m worried, too. I still don’t understand what happened. Things were going along fine, as far as I could tell.
She definitely wasn’t complaining when we were out back of the garage earlier in the afternoon, enjoying both the view and one another. God. I can still feel the soft, hot press of her lips molded around my cock, still hear the soft little moans she was making that nearly made me lose control before we’d barely begun.
I thought the woman had a magic pussy, but it turns out her mouth is just as hot. She is just as hot. Everything about her, from the way she saunters into my shop like she owns the place, to the way she’s not afraid to dig in elbow-deep in grease and get those pretty little manicured hands dirty. She works hard. Hell, if she were a regular apprentice, I’d be tempted to hire her. She still has a lot left to learn about the cars, but she’s more than willing to put in the time, and she picks things up quickly, which is more than I can say about half the apprentices I’ve mentored out of this garage over the years.