Flat-Out Sexy
Erin McCarthy
For Meaghan and Connor,
who let me live in my cave
to write this book
ACKOWLEDGMETS
I had a lot of help from my friends on the story line for Flat-Out Sexy, and I want to give a shout-out and a huge thank-you to them.
Special thanks to Barbara Satow for conceiving the original story idea with me way back when on one of our conference car trips. What started out as "Could we write a race car book?" became the beginnings of Flat-Out Sexy. Barbara, extra thanks for giving Elec his name.
Many thanks to Kathy Love, Jamie Denton, Rhonda Stapleton, Mary Ann Chulick, Christy Carlson, and Chris Nolfi for listening to me whine and for helping me take a premise and make it a book. I couldn't have done it without all of you!
CHAPTER OnE
I'VE met teenage girls with more testosterone than that man has."
Tamara Briggs didn't even have to look to know that Suzanne was talking about Geoffrey Ayers, because in a roomful of race car drivers, the anthropology professor would be the only one her friend would find lacking in male machismo.
But she pleaded ignorance because she didn't want to acknowledge that Suz might have a point about the man she was trying to convince herself she could actually have sex with on a regular basis. "Who are you talking about?"
"You know I'm talking about Geoffrey. And I'm sorry, I know he's your new boyfriend and all, but honestly, Tammy, the man couldn't grow a chest hair if his life depended on it.
Look at him."
Did she have to? Tamara was feeling like if she did, all her delusions might shatter. She was working really hard to convince herself that she could be in love with Geoffrey, but if she had to look too closely, she suspected she would have to admit that wasn't going to happen. Ever. Gathering all her willpower, she forced herself to eyeball Geoff, and it wasn't pretty. They were at a cocktail party to raise money for a charity that funded research for children's cancer, and he was right smack in the middle of a group of well-dressed drivers, pit crew chiefs, and car owners. Geoffrey was the only one wearing a sweater. A brown sweater at that. It couldn't even aspire to the heights of mocha, espresso, or mahogany. It was just plain old brown.
All the other guys had left their jumpsuits at the track and had polished up in snappy suits, or at least black pants with a classy shirt and tie. Tamara wanted Geoff's boring sweater not to matter, but somehow it did. He had no discernible hairstyle, graying eyebrows that begged for tweezers, and yellow teeth, but Tamara had been telling herself for the month she'd been seeing him not to be shallow. She was no beauty queen herself and Geoffrey was above all things a nice man. Yet all those nitpicky things like his need for a comb and a thorough dental cleaning jumped out at her every time she looked at him, and tonight it was even more obvious that she was not in the slightest bit attracted to the man. He looked dumpy and careless and thin and . . . lacking in testosterone. Suz was right, dang it.
"He just made a bad outfit choice for the night. I should have given him better instructions." Like not to wear those god-awful scuffed brown shoes with the ancient unraveling tassels. Tamara sipped her wine, annoyed that she was being so petty. "Clothes don't make a man."
"That's true. It's what's under the clothes that does." Suz fiddled with her diamond earring, one of a whopper pair that had been given to her by her ex-husband Ryder in better times.
"I mean, I could handle a metrosexual man, I suppose. That's all about good grooming and nice clothes, and there's nothing wrong with that. Hell, waxed balls make my life easier.
Smoother, anyway."
Staring idly at Geoffrey, wondering about the mystery of chemical attraction, or lack thereof, between men and women, it took Tamara a second to process what Suzanne had just said. "Waxed . . ." She spun around to face her friend so quickly, she almost splashed her Merlot out of the glass and onto the carpet. "Suz!" Was she really talking about testicles at this charity fund-raiser?
Suz was. And she continued, "Taking it all off and out of my way is a good thing, but a girl should know that her man can at least grow hair on his balls. That's all I'm saying, Tammy.
Geoffrey isn't metrosexual at all given those saggy clothes, he's more like completely asexual. He just looks like a dud. So you end up with hairy balls and no big bang. What's the point?"
Indeed. Tamara had no legitimate response to that.
Suz didn't need one. She was on a roll. "For me personally, I want to know that if I bend over in front of him, my man is going to pitch his tent. I don't see that happening with old Geoff there."
No, Tamara didn't see that happening either. There was no spontaneous tent pitching from Geoffrey.
"But I'm not the one who has to have sex with him. So if it works for you, if he gets your engine firing, then it's all good."
Right. It would be all good. If he got her engine firing. Which he didn't. He couldn't even get the key in the ignition. They'd only attempted sex once and it had been just shy of appalling. Not that Geoffrey knew that. It had seemed to work for him, because he was the one who'd had an orgasm. Tamara took another sip of wine because she suddenly needed it. God, what was she doing? Was she really this lonely that she was willing to try to force herself to like a man she found dull as dirt?
Apparently she was. It had been two years since her husband Pete had been killed in a wreck at Talladega and yes, damn it, she was lonely. "I just want some company, Suz.
Someone to go to dinner and the movies with. He's good for that."
"So he's your manpanion. A male companion."
Accurate, Tamara supposed, yet that sounded so totally unappealing, she had to wonder if she really had any clue what she actually wanted.
She shifted so that a member of the catering staff could clear the table behind them. They really should be mingling, not standing in the corner talking about her sex life-or lack thereof. But Tamara was feeling downright cranky and fussy as she started to realize that this weekend-which was supposed to be a test-drive of her relationship with Geoffrey and if they could take it to the next level-had her sucking down wine for fortification. And she was stuck with him for another twenty-four more hours. At least the next day Pete's parents were dropping her kids at the track to watch the race, and they would serve as a welcome distraction from Geoffrey's lectures on the negative effect of corporate sponsorship on professional sports. However, that was tomorrow, and tonight there was no denying she was dreading going back to the hotel room with him.
Time to throw the caution flag if anticipating a night in a hotel with a man and no kids to interrupt just made her want to turn tail and run.
She was also thinking that if she needed her kids as a shield between her and her boyfriend just to sit through a four-hour race, there was a big old problem. It really didn't make any sense. Geoff was a nice guy and she liked him. Truly and genuinely liked him as a human being. He was solid and caring and safe. Exactly what she wanted this time around the relationship track. He had been nothing but kind and tender to her, and this was how she reacted? By wincing at the thought of sliding into bed naked with him?
She needed to be kicked in the head.
Or maybe she just needed more wine.
But the truth was, you couldn't force chemistry between two people, and she had been pretending that she could. Since she wrestled everything else in her life into submission, she had figured this would work the same way. Unfortunately, her libido wasn't listening and refused to ignite.
"Manpanion in the goofiest word I've ever heard," Tamara said, turning and exchanging her empty glass for a full one, not even able to bring herself to feel guilty about it. She was starting to feel a little desperate.
"It fits him. Goofy."
"Don't hold back. Tell me how you really feel about him." Bad enough that she knew he was basically a nerd, did Suzanne have to point it out, too?
That brought a contrite expression to Suzanne's face. Her friend, the one who had stood there in the hospital with her and held her hand when the doctors told her that Pete was dead, squeezed her hand now. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I'm being rude, aren't I? I just want you to be happy, and you really don't look happy. He's not your type at all. You're a driver's wife, Tammy."
Tamara felt her chest tighten. "Was. I was a driver's wife. I said I wouldn't go there again, Suz, you know that. I'd rather have boring than live with that fear again. I don't want a life where racing consumes every minute of every day anymore." She had loved the sport, still did, but this time around she needed a man with a regular nine-to-five job, who came home for dinner, and who cut the grass on the weekend. A man who didn't drive around the track at one hundred and eighty-five miles an hour every weekend, tempting fate. She meant that.