She touched his arm near the last words. “Don’t you need a comma between perfect and fucking? Otherwise people might thinking I’m your perfect fucking-woman, not your perfect, fucking woman.”
“But you’re both, so…” He shrugged and shook his head.
She smiled. “Hurry up and get your dressing on. We need to be alone so I can devour you.” She slid a hand down his hip, and his belly tightened. She was irresistible—he couldn’t deny that—but he hadn’t forgotten their bet. This was one he was determined to win.
Rebekah didn’t seem too upset that they skipped out on taking Butch up on his wedding gift—that private hotel room down the block. She climbed into the passenger seat of the Corvette and leaned against the door, letting the ocean breeze toy with her hair as they drove up the coast. The top was down, since it still hadn’t been replaced and was a tattered mess, and golden rays danced over her skin. Only her left arm, which was covered from wrist to shoulder with plastic wrap, remained untouched by the sun’s warmth. He couldn’t believe his wife had braved an entire sleeve just to solidify the connection between them.
“I guess we’ll go in for more tattoo work after our honeymoon,” Eric said as they left the Pacific and the Los Angeles sprawl behind and neared their country home. He took a different route than usual, wanting to extend the time they spent driving in quiet companionship. Before he’d met Rebekah, he’d taken long, quiet drives alone. But he didn’t have to go it alone anymore. Her comforting presence would always be beside him.
“Stop the car!” Rebekah said unexpectedly, sitting up tall in her seat.
Startled, Eric hit the brakes, expecting to see an escaped zoo elephant blocking the two-lane road. There was nothing in front of them and thankfully, no cars behind them. His heart thundering and his breath coming in rapid gasps, Eric turned to his wife, who was unfastening her seat belt and reaching for the door handle.
“What the fuck? You scared the shit out of me.”
“It’s perfect,” she said breathlessly, her gazed fixed on a heap of metal parked in a grassy field.
Eric followed her lovesick gaze to a beat-up, gaudily painted Volkswagen bus. Rebekah stumbled up the uneven terrain of a bank and raced toward the vehicle, hopping up and down excitedly as she pointed at the For Sale message painted in white letters on the side window.
Eric moved the Corvette to the shoulder of the road before climbing out and joining his exuberant wife in the meadow.
“I didn’t know you had a thing for foreign pieces of junk,” Eric said as he examined the faded hand-painted flower motif and the dust-covered windows.
Rebekah covered his mouth with her hand. “Shush! You’ll hurt her feelings. She’s not junk. She’s a classic.”
Eric understood the allure of a classic car, but this dreadful box on wheels? He wasn’t seeing the appeal. He shielded his eyes with a hand and peered in through the dusty window. This thing had been sitting a while. A long while. The interior was completely rotted away from years of baking in the sun. But that didn’t stop Rebekah from opening the driver-side door, which creaked loudly in protest, and scrambling inside.
“Do you want to come home with me?” she asked the van as she plopped behind the wheel, sending up an impressive plume of dust. “I’ll make you feel all better.”
She stroked the steering wheel and dashboard gauges. It was as if she’d found an injured, and rather ugly, stray dog to love. And when Rebekah responded to things like that, he had to buy them for her. There was no question or doubt.
With a resigned sigh, Eric pulled out his cellphone and dialed the number that had been drawn on the window in white paint.
“Hello?” The grizzled voice of an elderly man answered after several rings.
“Hi, I’m calling about the Volkswagen bus you have for sale. I’d like to buy it.”
Rebekah squealed excitedly and flopped forward over the steering wheel to hug it with glee. Some women were impressed with diamonds. His happened to get a lady boner over vehicles that belonged in a junk yard.
“You’ll have to have it towed,” the man said. “I haven’t been able to get it to run for a couple years.”
“That’s fine. How much?”
“Does it run?” Rebekah asked, to which Eric shook his head.
“Seven thousand,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Nonnegotiable.”
Well, that would explain why it had been sitting on the side of the road for so long. Who in their right mind would pay seven thousand dollars for a Volkswagen bus that wouldn’t even run?
“Dollars? Seven thousand dollars?” Maybe the dude meant pennies. Though seventy bucks seemed overpriced to Eric.
“It’s a steal, baby!” Rebekah insisted. “Is it a sixty-seven or a sixty-eight?”
A steal? Yeah, that price was highway robbery.
“What model year is the vehicle?” Eric asked.
“She’s a sixty-nine. One owner. Low miles. Just temperamental.”
“Sixty-nine,” Eric said to Rebekah.
“What? Now?” She glanced into the gutted back of the van and shrugged. “Well, okay, there’s plenty of room back there.”
Eric laughed and covered his phone with one hand. “I’m not talking about mutual oral pleasure,” he said. “The van was built in 1969.”
Rebekah’s eyes widened with wonder, and her smile brightened. “Even better. I knew she was perfect for our honeymoon!”
“Our honeymoon?”
She planned to take this hunk of junk on a road trip spanning more than three thousand miles? They wouldn’t make it out of the driveway, much less to Maine. He supposed that meant they’d get to Tahiti that much quicker. Assuming he lost that bet that Rebekah didn’t seem too concerned about winning.
“Let’s get her home. We have a lot of work to do to get her ready in time,” Rebekah said. She hugged the steering wheel again and kicked her feet excitedly.
Eric rolled his eyes. Some people’s wives—completely baffling.
“We’ll take it,” he told the seller.
Chapter Four
Rebekah bent over the VW’s engine in the back of the adorable little bus and screwed in a new spark plug. She had grease up to her elbow, her hair was clipped back most unbecomingly, and she was wearing her scruffiest pair of cutoff overalls, but Eric couldn’t keep his hands off her. Which was good, because she planned to win their bet and haul him across the United States in this gem of a find. The only problem was, she couldn’t get the thing to start.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to get so dirty?” Eric said, tracing her thigh beneath the bottom edge of her shorts.
“I thought you liked me dirty.” She shifted her hips sideways so that his exploring finger slipped between her thighs.
“I do,” he said. “In more ways than one. But you need to keep your new ink clean.”
She lifted her left arm over her head and showed him how she’d covered the loose plastic wrap with several clean garbage bags that she’d duct-taped at her wrist and all around her shoulder. “Got it covered,” she said, glad she had free use of her hand, at least.
“You’re not going to get this hunk of junk started before we leave for Tahiti,” he said. His breath was hot against the back of her neck as he leaned over her to look into the engine compartment in the back of the minibus.
“I’m going to get it started a week before we go to Tahiti and then happily drive it over three thousand miles,” she assured him.
“You’re awfully confident that you’re going to win this bet, considering you aren’t even trying to seduce me.”
She hid a grin from him. She never had to try to seduce him. The man was always ready to go. She took a step back and bumped her ass into the fully erect cock that was fighting to be free of his jeans. Yep, always ready to go.
“Oh, pardon me,” she said, grinding her ass into him. “I didn’t mean to rub up against you like that.”
His hands shifted to her hips
to keep her from moving away. “Completely understandable,” he said. “My magic love rocket is a pussy magnet after all.”
She giggled and reached for another spark plug. She was hoping all the engine needed was a tune-up. She’d already drained and replaced the fluids, including the oil and the stagnant, likely water-laden gas. She’d checked all the belts and hoses, replacing any that showed wear or dry rot. The engine was surprisingly clean and sound, with no rust or leaks. There was no reason that she could see for why it wouldn’t run. But no matter how much she’d purred at it and tried to coax it into starting, the engine cranked and cranked, but wouldn’t turn over. She prayed the spark plugs would do the trick so she could get to other tasks; she still had