Where We Left Off (Phoenix Falls Series Book 1)

Mitch is keeping me under intense surveillance now. As my punishment for “deliberate incitement” I have to stay back at school each afternoon until Mitch finishes work for the day at my mom’s, and then he picks me up, takes me to his place, and sends me to my room.

What he fails to realise is that this is pretty much what I did every day anyway, so essentially the only change is that he is now giving me a lift home.

The one thing that I am disappointed about is the fact that I am not allowed to attend the Halloween dance anymore. I’m okay to help set it up on the night, but then I’m getting picked up and – surprise, surprise – sent back to my room. I hadn’t really wanted to go in the first place, but now that the option has been taken away – especially after all of my artistic investments – it has given me a good reason to mope about whenever I see Mitch.

My other punishment is that Mitch wants me to help out with his business and “earn my keep”, which is obviously just code for “provide free labour”. It’s not my fault that Tate can’t control his rabid hormones.

Mitch is sat with me at his kitchen table, showing me his very basic website. I tell him that it matches him perfectly and now I’m sentenced to washing his dishes for the rest of the week on top of all of my other punishments too.

I placate him, mainly to try and undo the dishes situation. “Yes, I can fix it,” I say. “It would be handy if you could provide some before and after refurb pics, and maybe some photos of the team so that buyers know what they’re getting.” I don’t tell him that I’m picturing his entire crew standing shirtless around a truck, holding planks of wood over their swollen sweaty shoulders. “If you give me the email login details I can set up a few social pages too, to spread a bit of awareness across the channels.”

Mitch is distractedly thumbing the Halloween dance poster that I designed.

“Is this what you’re gonna do at college?” he asks.

I pull a face and shake my head. “No,” I mumble. I don’t actually see the point of going to college to “study” about a skill that I already have, not to mention all of the limbs that I’ll have to sell to fund it, but I know that in the real world you have to prove yourself with a college name and a grade sheet if you want to get a job. None of this matters anyway because I’ve been prepped to do exactly what my mom wanted of me since before I even started high school.

He nods but doesn’t say anything. Then he puts down the poster and says, “Okay, you’re hired.” The “for free” is unspoken here.

After Mitch and I work out the basics, I trudge up to my bedroom and scrunch myself onto the quilt, pulling off my glasses and smushing my face into the cotton.

“Uggghhhhhh,” I groan and I pull my slippers off with my toes. It’s grizzly outside, not raining but heavily overcast, and my window is open a crack, filling up the room with pinching cold air. I roll over just so that I can pull my school sweater over my head when there’s a knock on my door.

I sit bolt upright. I fumble with my glasses until they’re back on my face and I flatten my sweater back down.

“Yes?” I ask. Why is my heart in my throat?

The door opens a couple of inches and Tate is standing before me. Faded denim jeans and a t-shirt clearly selected to antagonise. The veins in his tan forearms are bulging, meaning that he must have been going pretty hard at the refurb today. We also now have matching wounded hands wrapped up in gauze, due to my incident with Mitch’s truck and Tate’s scene at the motorbike race. Even though I shouldn’t care, I feel a hot flicker in my stomach knowing that I still illicit some primal hold over him. He’s holding a toolbox in one hand, and he’s gripping the top of the doorframe with the other.

He holds up the box. “You want me to fit that lock in your door?”

I’m clutching onto the quilt for dear life. His voice is so deep I can feel it in my bones. Mainly my pelvic bones.

I narrow my eyes on him anyway. “Fine,” I say, and I roll onto my stomach so that I don’t have to look at him.

I hear him suck in a breath behind me and then the floorboards sound as he steps back out of the room. I glance over my shoulder and I see that he has partially closed the door so that he can start unscrewing the pieces on the outside handle. Only the large curve of his right shoulder is currently visible so I do a quick sweep of my room to check for anything incriminating. The little wooden bookcase next to my bed is probably one of those things. I nimbly lean forward and fling my pyjama top over it.

I shuffle back against the pillows and pick up the college brochures that I’ve been collecting from the school library. I wasn’t lying when I told Kit that I would apply for the places with the best scholarships, even if it is unlikely that I get one of them. It’ll be good to leave this town, even if my soul is begging me to stay.

After a few minutes the door is pushed open again and Tate is standing there, hesitant and rigid. “Can I come in?” he asks, his voice stiff.

He hasn’t been in this room since it became my room. I feel like if I invite him in he’ll suddenly reveal that he’s a vampire and suck out all of my blood. I look at the perfect white teeth biting into his bottom lip and I picture them sinking lusciously into my neck.

I throw the brochure down and he looks at it with narrowed eyes. I fold my arms across my chest. “If you must,” I acquiesce, feigning boredom.

He steps inside and the room instantly becomes smaller. Darker. He’s filled it with his size, scent, and pheromones, and now when I take a breath I’m breathing him in. He places down the box and pulls a tube from his pocket. It must be some sort of joiner’s grease because he squeezes the gel onto his fingers and then he starts rubbing it in circles around the screws.

The brochure slips off my lap and onto the floor, causing Tate to glance at me over his shoulder. He takes in my dazed expression and heavy breathing, and a glint flashes in his eyes. He turns back to the door and drops down, picking up his tool as he begins unscrewing the bolts. The muscles in his shoulders are hard under my gaze.

“So,” he begins, voice husky. “Did you enjoy the race?”

I think about the fact that I have the fastest motorbike racer in this town wearing out the knees in his jeans as he screws a lock into my bedroom door, and my stomach slowly pools with heat.

I lean down under the pretence of picking up the college booklet, but really I’m watching his hands force the metal out of my door. “I didn’t not enjoy the race,” I admit.

He’s silent for a moment as he tries to work that one out.

When the handle is released he holds a new one in place and he pushes in the tip of the first screw. Then he asks in a low tone, “What was your favourite part?”

I’m looking at his tousled brown hair, scruffy from where he’s ran his fingers through it, and the smooth skin of his thick tan neck. I picture him towering over Caulder… overpowering him… in my honour.

“There was this really thought-provoking bit near the end,” I say.

Tate fits the last screw on the setting for the inside handle and then he stands up and walks to the end of the bed that I’m resting on. He throws down his manual drill and I can see the outline of his crucifix pendant protruding through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. His eyes are on me, submerged in his sheets, as he takes the rag from his back pocket and wipes the oil from his fingers.

“Oh yeah?” he asks.

I nod slowly.

“And what kind of thoughts did it provoke exactly?” He’s looking down at me with dark unyielding eyes, and his bass tenor reverberates through me.

His eyes flicker down to my hand resting against the quilt and he surreptitiously leans forward and takes my wrist.

My skin is suddenly on fire. His body is ten times warmer than mine and he’s thawing me out, inch by inch. His fingers press firmly between the delicate ligaments and I suck in a breath as I realise what he’s doing. My pulse point throbs under his touch and his eyes burst into flames.

He releases my wrist and picks up the drill, looking down at me on the bed. “Those kinds of thoughts, huh?” he taunts. His denim-clad thighs are pressed against the mattress.

“Are you finished?” I ask bluntly.

His fingers clutch at his belt buckle and he tugs it to the side, as if in discomfort. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asks. I ignore the feel of his eyes roaming up and down my body.

“Leave please so I can lock you out.”

He breathes out a laugh and paces back to the doorway. “Whatever you want,” he mutters, eyes flashing dangerously close to the little camouflaged bookcase.

“Such a gentleman,” I grumble dryly and I sink back against the comforter. I look at my college brochures and I want to hurl them out of the window.

He shakes his head and walks out of the room. “Only with you.”