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wasn’t broken and he hadn’t brought it anyhow. He’d been clear about his motives right up front. Hers—well, he’d have to follow to find out, wouldn’t he? Her invitation, handled right, might lead him closer to winning his frustrating temptress. At least he’d glimpse how she spent her days when she wasn’t ordering him around by the side of the road. “Yes, ma’am.”
    * * * *
    Hot damn, Prince Charming owned a bad-boy streak. Curiosity, at least. Either way, he trotted at her heels into the back. Not the nice-guy decline she’d half-expected. Well hell, if he wanted to play, no point in bluffing when her throbbing clit demanded she up the stakes. A nudge, that’s all he needed.
    He stopped in the thin rectangle illuminated by the light spilling from the shop floor. “Holy shit, it’s hoarder heaven in here.”
    With the overhead lights off, most of the stockroom plunged into comforting darkness. The maze of shelves stuffed with parts donors—toasters, typewriters, remote-control and battery-powered toys of all types—could’ve extended into infinity.
    “You’re racking up points with that attitude, buster.” The electric graveyard stopped at three rows deep, but he wouldn’t know. He hadn’t grown up among the shelves, fetching pieces to bring new life to needy patients. Dr. Frankenstein without the lightning. They made their own.
    “I mean I like it.” He gravitated toward her workbench, breaking the circle cast by her swing-arm lamp over the latest patient. “Kind of like a server room, humming with energy, packed to the rafters. Just yours is—”
    “Dead. Yeah. They come in broken and they go out whole.” Except Grandpa Jake. His worktable on the far side of the room waited like he’d left it, a mess of miniature cars and trains, engines that wouldn’t race again.
    “So you’re a surgeon.” Brilliant Brian, half whited out by the work light, half sunk in deep shadow, rubbed the mixer’s slender neck. “This your patient?”
    A soft touch, and slow. He didn’t go digging his fingers in every open bin or shift work aside. Didn’t presume to take her seat and adjust the height to his liking. He treated her space with respect. He’d tracked her down at the shop, sure, normally a presumption she’d hate in a fuckee—but she hadn’t fucked him yet, and she damn well wanted to.
    “On the operating table. This piece here?” She sidled up easy, crowding him without touching for nothing but the charge. “It sacrificed itself to save the motor. Quick replacement and she’ll be good to go again.”
    Nodding, he traced the decorative grooves around the head. He’d had the power last week to jack up the truck and help her seat the spare, but tonight he exposed his nice-guy gentleness. Definite love-whisperer caresses. Not a first-move maker.
    He dragged a slow circle. “You cut away the wounded bit and restore the beating heart.”
    “The core’s strong. It just needs help finding the right speed.” She finger-walked over a flathead, rocking the hexagonal handle. An illicit shimmy traveled down her spine. Never at the shop, not once, and playing the bad girl to his nice guy heightened the thrill. Risky, with the shop still open, and less than smart, and yet—as her desire spun out of control, no little pieces piped up to sacrifice themselves on the altar of sanity. The screwdriver tumbled from her grip. “What about you, Brian? Are you stuck in low gear?”
    “Maybe we’re both stuck—me in slow, you in fast.” The tool’s thumpy roll ended in his steady grip. He stroked the translucent yellow-orange handle. “We could meet in the middle over dinner.”
    “I told you, I don’t go out with nice guys. I fuck bad boys.” The more she said the words, the more defiant they rang. You chase, I choose. “They are what they say on the label. One night, a good time, no pretending they’re going to hang around.” She shoved down Erin’s too-familiar speeches, the years of