Last Virgin In California (Mills & Boon Desire) (13 page)

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” he said and lowered his mouth onto hers.

A moment later, a car horn honked and Lilah pulled away. “The cabbie.”

Guiding her mouth back to his, Kevin muttered, “Let him get his own girl.”

Two months later
…

T
he scent of sandalwood hung in the still air and Kevin smiled to himself. Candlelight flickered from nearly every corner of the room. And outside the bedroom window, delicate music lifted from the wind chimes dancing in the breeze.

Everything in his world has changed since meeting Lilah. And every night, he thanked God for it. He couldn’t even remember anymore what it had been like to live here alone. He didn’t
want
to remember.

The bathroom door opened suddenly and a pie wedge slice of light fell across the bed. Going up on one elbow, he stared at Lilah silhouetted in the
doorway and wished he could read her expression. But with the light dazzling all around her, that was just impossible.

“Well?” he asked when she didn’t speak. “What’s the verdict?”

Instead of answering, she flipped the light off, bolted across the room and jumped onto the bed. She straddled his hips and Kevin’s body leapt into action, just as it always did when she was anywhere close. But there was something he had to know.

“Come on, Lilah,” he said, voice tight, “out with it.”

She laughed and the sound of it lifted up and settled down on him again like a gift. What had he ever done in his life to deserve such a woman?

Laying her palms against his chest, she leaned down, letting her hair fall like a dark blond curtain on either side of his face. She kissed him then. Tiny kisses scattered in between her words. Kiss. “The—” kiss “—verdict—” kiss “—is—” kiss “—
yes
.” Big kiss.

“Yes?” he repeated, when she lifted her head to grin down at him. “You’re sure?”

“Way sure,” Lilah said. “Very sure. Totally sure.”

His heart kicked into high gear and his hands at her waist tightened before easing up again just as quickly. “Sorry,” he said, wincing and held her more carefully.

Lilah shook her head and felt her love for him rise up inside her like a tide. “I’m pregnant, Kevin,” she said softly, “not made of glass.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, “it’s just—”

“New?” she asked, still relishing the results of her pregnancy test.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You’re happy though?” She had to know he was as happy as she.

“Definitely.”

She squirmed on his lap and felt his body tighten beneath her. A slow smile curved her lips as a deep, delicious tingle began to build and grow within her. “Well,” she said, wriggling again, harder this time, pressing her warmth against his strength, “you
feel
happy.”

“Baby,” he said on a groan, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Going up on her knees, Lilah slowly, seductively, pulled her night shirt up and over her head, then tossed it aside. In the flicker of candlelight, she watched his eyes darken as he reached to cup her breasts in his palms. His thumbs and fingers tweaked at her nipples and she threw her head back even as she arched into him. Every night it was the same and yet always different. Each time he touched her, it was like the first time. Fires quickened within. Her body raced—hot and wet and eager for him.

And she hoped it was always this magical between them.

“I’ve got to have you,” he murmured.

“You
do
have me, Marine,” she whispered and slowly lowered herself down onto his body. Inch by glorious inch, she took him inside her. Tantalizing them both with her restraint, she watched his features tighten as he fought for control.

He dropped one hand to her center and while she eased down onto his arousal, he rubbed her damp, wet heat until she was swiveling her hips back and forth into his touch and moaning his name like a chant.

And then he was fully craddled within her. His body locked with hers. His soul entwined with hers. He touched her again, rubbing that one tight, sensitive spot, and Lilah exploded. Shivers wracked her body, and she called out his name and swayed with the convulsions ripping through her.

Kevin gripped her hips, arched up, pushing himself deeper into her warmth, then gave her everything he was.

As the last of the tremors eased away, Lilah slumped down across his chest and his arms came around her, holding her to him. Her breath dusted across his flesh and he counted it as yet another blessing.

“You know,” she said softly, her voice muffled
with exhaustion, “I think I should warn you, I always wanted a big family.”

He smiled to himself and planted a kiss on top of her head. “How big?”

“Oh,” she said around a yawn as she snuggled even closer to him, “seven’s a nice number, don’t you think?”

Seven kids?

With Lilah?

His heart filled to bursting, he reached down for the blanket and drew it up to cover them both. “Seven would be perfect,” he murmured and held her while she slept.

S
he recognized his attitude.

Marie Santini stared out through the front windows of her auto repair shop at the man standing in her driveway. It wasn’t easy to get a good look at him, what with the holly and snowmen painted on the window glass, but she gave it a try. Tall, she thought, dark hair, cut short, aviator-style sunglasses even though the day was too cloudy to make them necessary, and a hard, strong jaw with a stubborn chin.

Perfect.

Just what she needed. Another male with a protective streak toward his car. Honestly. A woman’s car broke down, she brought it into the shop and
picked it up when it was ready. A
man
hovered over the blasted thing like it was a woman in labor, questioning everything Marie did to his baby and winced with sympathy pains.

Now, Marie Santini liked cars as much as anybody else, but she knew for a fact that they didn’t bleed when operated on. Still, she told herself, business had been slow in the last week. Maybe she’d better just step outside and coax Mr. Nervous into the shop. She grabbed her navy blue sweatshirt, tugged it on and left it unzipped to display the slogan on her red T-shirt that read Marie Santini, Car Surgeon. Then she headed for the door.

“
This
is a
garage?
”

Davis Garvey stared at the small but tidy auto repair shop. Wide plank walls were painted a brilliant white, the window trim and the cozy-looking shutters were an electric blue and some kind of purple and white flowers blossomed enthusiastically in terra-cotta planters on either side of the front door. Off to the side, a garage bay stood, its double doors open to reveal what looked like a mile of Peg-Board on which hundreds of obviously well-cared-for tools hung from hooks and glittered in the overhead lights.

Except for the garage bay, the place looked more like a trendy little tea shop than anything else.

He’d expected something bigger. Showier, somehow. The way the marines at Camp Pendleton talked about this shop, he had thought the place
would reek of money and experience. Yet the proof that he was in the right place was emblazoned across the front of the little building. A boldly painted sign in red, white and blue proclaimed Santini’s.

He frowned, remembering the guys who had told him about this place. Their voices hushed almost reverently, they’d told him, “If Marie Santini can’t fix your car, nobody can.”

Still, Davis thought, the idea of a woman working on his car was a hard one to swallow. But with things at Camp Pendleton as busy as they were, he had no time to do the job himself.

A cold winter wind whistled off the nearby ocean, and he jammed his hands into the pockets of his faded, worn Levi’s. Tipping his head back, he watched gray clouds bunching and gathering above and wondered what had happened to the sunny California he’d always heard about. Heck, he’d been at Pendleton a week and it had either rained or threatened to rain some more.

Then a door opened and Davis snapped his attention to the front of the shop and the woman just stepping outside. He watched her as she walked toward him. She had black, shoulder-length hair, tucked behind her ears to show off small silver hoops in her lobes, and she wore a red T-shirt tucked into worn jeans, tennis shoes and a dark blue zippered sweatshirt that flapped like wings in the wind. Taller than she looked at a distance, the top of her head hit
him about at chin level when she stopped directly in front of him.

“Hi,” she said, and gave him a warm smile that took away some of the afternoon chill.

“Hi,” he said, and looked down into the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. Okay, he didn’t know if Marie Santini knew anything about cars. But hiring this woman to welcome customers was definitely a good business move. Not pretty exactly, but she had the kind of face that made a person look twice. It was more than appearance. It was something shining in her eyes, something…
alive
.

A second or two passed before she asked, “Can I help you?”

Davis blinked and reminded himself why he was there. To find out if the “Miracle Worker” the guys had told him about was worthy to work on his car. And he couldn’t do that until he actually met Marie Santini. He could always get to know the welcoming committee later.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’d like to see Marie Santini.”

She blew out a breath that ruffled a few stray wisps of black hair, then said, “You’re looking at her.”

No way. “You?” he asked, letting his gaze rake her up and down, noting her slender build. “You’re a mechanic?”

She shook her hair back from her face when the wind tossed it across her eyes. “Around here,” she told him, “I’m
the
mechanic.”

“You’re Marie Santini?” When the guys had told him about a female mechanic, somehow he’d imagined a woman more along the lines of a German opera singer. Brunhilde.

She glanced down, unzipped her sweatshirt a bit wider, then looked up at him again. “That’s what my shirt says.”

“You don’t look the part,” he said, and wondered just how good she could be if she didn’t even have grease under her fingernails. What did she do? Wear elbow-length white gloves for oil changes?

“You were expecting maybe Two-Ton Tessie covered in axle grease?” She folded her arms across her chest, and Davis told himself not to notice the curve of her breasts. For Pete’s sake, he was interviewing a mechanic. Breasts shouldn’t come into this at all!

“Sorry to shatter your expectations,” she said, “but I’m a darn good mechanic.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

“I ought to be,” she muttered. “I spend half my time proving myself to men just like you.”

“What do you mean, men like me?”

“Men who assume a woman can’t know more about cars than a man.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” he said, folding his arms over his chest and glaring down at her. Nobody called him a chauvinist and got away with it. Hell, he worked with women every day on base. Darn good marines, too, all of them. He didn’t necessarily have
a problem with a woman mechanic. He had a problem with
any
mechanic working on his cars. Hell, if he wasn’t so busy at the base right now, he’d have fixed the car himself and never have met Marie.

“No,” she interrupted, “
you
wait a minute.” She shook her head and threw her hands high. “You came to me. I didn’t hunt you down and demand to work on your car.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“So have you changed your mind?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well,” she said, “why don’t we find out?” She started past him toward the Mustang he’d left parked at the curb.

He was only a step or two behind her. “Are you this charming to all of your customers?”

“Only the stubborn ones,” she told him over her shoulder.

“I’m surprised you’re still in business,” he muttered, deliberately keeping his gaze from locking on to the sway of her behind.

“You won’t be once I’ve fixed your car.”

If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she was a marine.

Marie didn’t even want to think about how many times she’d been through this conversation. Since taking over her father’s auto shop two years ago, every new customer who’d entered the place had given her the same look of disbelief.

It had stopped being amusing a long time ago.

So why, she wondered, was she enjoying herself now?

She stopped alongside his Mustang and glanced up into his big blue eyes. An utterly feminine reaction swelled in the pit of her stomach and she tamped it down fast. Honestly, she’d seen broad shoulders and strong jaws before. Silently she reminded herself that he was here to see her as a mechanic—not a woman. Hardly a rarity. “Let me guess. You’ve never seen a woman mechanic before.”

“Not lately,” he admitted.

She had to give him credit. He was recovering from his surprise a lot more quickly than most of her customers. But then, she thought,
he
was a lot more…
everything
than most men. Broader shoulders, more muscular build, longer legs, a square, firm jaw, and those sharp blue eyes of his looked as though he could see right through her.

Which, she told herself with an inward sigh, most men did.

She’d learned years ago that men didn’t see their mechanic as possible date material. Poker buddy, sure. A Dear Abby to the lovelorn, great. But a
real
woman? Prospective wife and mother-type female? No way.

“A first time for everything, Sergeant,” she said.

His eyebrows shot up and Marie just managed to swallow a smile at his surprise.

“How’d you know I’m a sergeant?” he asked.

Not a difficult call for someone who’d grown up in Bayside. With Camp Pendleton less than a mile or so up the road, the little town was usually crawling with marines. They were easy enough to spot, even in civilian clothes.

“It’s not hard,” she said, enjoying his surprise. “Regulation haircut—” she paused and indicated his stance pointedly “plus you’re standing like someone just shouted, ‘At ease.’”

He frowned to himself, noting his feet braced wide apart and his hands locked behind his back. Deliberately he shifted position.

“Then,” she went on, smiling, “as to your rank…You’re too old to be a private, too ambitious or proud looking to still be a corporal and you don’t appear nearly arrogant enough to be an officer. Therefore,” she finished with a half bow, “sergeant.”

Impressed and amused in spite of himself, Davis nodded. “First sergeant, actually.”

“I stand corrected.” Marie looked into those blue eyes of his and saw what she briefly thought might be interest. No. Probably just instinctive, she told herself. A man like him was no doubt accustomed to flirting with women.
All
women. “So,” she said, getting a mental grip of her hormones, “what’s the problem?”

“You’re the mechanic,” he challenged. “You tell me.”

A spurt of irritation rushed through her. She should be used to this. He wasn’t the first, nor would he be
the last man to test her knowledge of cars before entrusting his “baby” to her care. Although, she admitted with pride, once she’d fixed a car, it stayed fixed. And her customer base was a loyal one.

“Why is it, do you think,” she asked him, “that men can design dresses for a living and be respected while a woman mechanic has to do tricks to prove herself?” He opened his mouth to speak, but she went on instead. “Do you think anybody makes Calvin Klein thread a needle himself before hiring him?”

He shook his head. “No. But then if ol’ Calvin sews a crooked hem, the dress doesn’t blow up, does it?”

Okay, maybe he had a point.

“All right,” she said, surrendering to the inevitable, “let’s take it for a test drive, shall we? Keys?” She held out her hand and Davis looked at it for a long moment before lifting his gaze to hers.

“How about I drive?” he asked.

“Not a chance.” She shook her head and gave him a sympathetic glance, but didn’t budge otherwise. “I have to drive it to get the feel of it,” she said. Then she pointed out, “besides, you’ll have to trust me with it eventually.”

That smile on her face was confident and entirely too attractive. To stifle that thought and any that might follow. Davis dropped his keys into her outstretched palm. Sliding into the passenger seat, he watched her buckle up, then turn the key in the ignition. The Mustang rumbled into life.

He glanced over his shoulder at the still-open auto shop. “Aren’t you going to—?”

“Shh,” she told him with a frown.

He was so surprised, he did. It had been a long time since anyone had told him to shut up.

Cocking her head toward the engine, she closed her eyes and listened with all of the concentrated effort of a doctor holding a stethoscope over her patient’s chest.

A moment later, she opened her eyes, sat back and shoved the car into gear. “What were you saying?”

“Don’t you want to lock your shop?”

“Won’t be gone that long,” she told him with a grin. Then she glanced over her left shoulder, stepped on the gas and pulled away from the curb with enough speed to launch them into space.

Davis fell back in his seat as Marie drove like she was in the lead car at the Indianapolis 500.

The beach town’s narrow streets were crowded with shoppers and bedecked with holiday garlands and plastic candy canes. He winced as she threaded her way expertly in and out of traffic. She squeezed past a city bus with less than a single coat of paint to spare, then turned down an even narrower, one-way street.

A couple of people waved to her as she passed and she smiled a greeting, never really taking her eyes off the road. She worked the clutch, brake and gas pedals like a concert pianist, and Davis found himself
staring at her long legs as her feet moved and danced across the car’s floor.

With the convertible top down, ocean air whipped around them, sending Marie’s hair into a wild, shining black tangle. It was the first time he’d ridden in a convertible with a woman who wasn’t moaning about the state of her hairdo and pleading with him to raise the top.

She took the next corner practically on two wheels and darted between a surfboard-laden station wagon and an ancient Lincoln. Ahead, the signal turned from green to red without benefit of yellow and she slammed on the brakes. He jerked forward in his seat, thanked the Fates for seat belts and ground his teeth together.

Glancing at him, she said, “It’s got a flat spot.”

“What?” he asked, trying to unlock his jaw.

“The engine,” she told him. “A flat spot when you step on the gas. It pauses, then catches.”

“You’re right,” he acknowledged, and rubbed the whiplash feeling out of the back of his neck. “But how you even noticed a pause while driving at light speed is beyond me.”

She laughed, and damned if he didn’t enjoy the sound of it.

Before he could say so, though, the light turned green and she was off again.

People, cars and scenery became a colorful blur. Davis’s grip on the armrest tightened until he thought he’d snap the vinyl-covered shelf clean off.

A few seconds later, she was parking the car in her driveway, shutting off the engine and giving the dashboard a loving pat. “Nice car,” she said.