Full Throttle(5)

“Oh, yeah.” The women in the restaurant. “Some fans are more enthusiastic than others. You should be used to that by now.”

Eyeing him over the rim of her glass, she sipped her wine. “Funny, I’m not.”

Her easy mood from dinner seemed to have vanished. Her smile was tense. Her eyes glittered with…something the opposite of cheerfulness. Anger? Annoyance?

“It’s weird, seeing you with other women,” she added.

She’d always been amazingly direct—one of the reasons he’d first been attracted to her so many years ago. Was she annoyed the fans had interrupted dinner? Was she simply frustrated by racing stuff? Or was it possible his jealousy wasn’t so one-sided?

Still not sure of her mood, he kept his tone casual. “After all this time?”

“Yeah. Though I’ll be damned if I know why.”

“Simple. You still want me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

So much for mutual jealousy. “Why not?”

“We work together, and the team needs us to be professional. You need to focus on driving. I have to keep everybody mindful of our goals. We have too many important races in front of us. We have a championship to win. We—”

He held up his hand to stop her. “I know.”

There was so much at stake—millions of dollars, the respect of the team, not to mention their careers. If they got involved again, and it ended badly, they could jeopardize so many people’s lives.

Her gaze connected with his, her green eyes shadowed. “So why does none of that matter?” she asked, her voice smoky and low. “Why, after Sunday, can’t I stop thinking about you?”





CHAPTER THREE




HER CONFESSION still hanging in the air, Lexie watched Kane’s eyes widen. He reached for her, then drew back, dropping his hand to his thigh. “I can’t stop thinking about you, either.”

More than anything, she wanted to lay her head against his shoulder, for him to stroke her hair and gather her close. She actually felt tears stinging her eyes for all the regrets she had when it came to Kane Jackson. “We can’t do this. Not now.”

“No, we can’t.” For a second, longing lit his eyes, then he looked down. “And I’m sorry about yesterday. When we…”

“Kissed.”

“Right. That. I shouldn’t have grabbed you.”

“That’s the most hot-blooded I’ve seen you in months.” His gaze flew back to hers, and she smiled. “It was welcome in the professional sense.”

“But not personally.”

“We can’t.”

“You said that already.”

She sighed. So much of her past was tied up in Kane. Those memories—of herself and Kane at seventeen, the realization that twelve years had passed, and she hadn’t had a serious relationship since—made her much more emotional than normal.

After her mother’s death when she was twelve, she and her father had moved to Mooresville from California. They’d clung to each other, learned from each other and become friends far earlier than most young women did with their fathers.

Through grief, loneliness and adolescent confusion, they’d used racing to connect and fill the void in their lives.

She’d been comforted and exhilarated by the competition, by the sheer power and speed of those 700-plus horsepower engines, by the sounds of the screaming fans, by the new family she’d built.

But by the time she was a senior in high school, as she came to better understand her parents’ great love for each other, and her relationship with Kane deepened, she realized she’d always be second in his life.

She’d dreamed of dating someone who didn’t care about racing, or at least wasn’t intimately involved with the sport. She wanted to talk about movies and music. She wanted to leave racing stats and strategy at the shop.

And that just wasn’t possible with Kane.

He was a rising star. He came to life behind the wheel. In racing, he’d finally found a passion where he couldn’t be compared to his father. And no one, not even her, could compete with that.

She covered Kane’s hand with hers. He clutched her fingers. Her stomach tightened.

Longing, sharp and sweet, spread through her veins. So much time had passed since she’d felt such a sensation, she might not have recognized it with another man. But with Kane, the feeling was familiar, even if it had been years since they’d shared it.

“So much of what we want is hovering just beyond us,” she said finally. “You want this championship. You need it.”

“You want it, too.”

“Yeah. I’d like to be the one to help you achieve your dreams. I want to see this team claim that trophy in New York in December.”

“And we can’t let anything personal get in the way.”

She squeezed his hand again, then let go. Rising, she wandered to the windows and looked out at the downtown lights. “No, we can’t.”

“Why not?”

She’d asked herself the same question a million times over the last few days. She still didn’t have a logical answer. Every time she put one and one in her calculator she came up with eighty-four. That seemed the number of people who would be directly affected by an unprofessional attraction to her driver. The indirect number was too scary to even contemplate. “Damned if I know.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Though you were always a great kisser.”

He set his beer bottle aside and stood. As he approached her, his blue eyes dark with intent, she tried to pretend she didn’t want him to kiss her again.

Wrong man. Wrong time. Wrong place.

Still, her heartbeat tripled. Her mouth went dry. Even clad simply in jeans and a dark-blue polo, he managed to look sensational. His body was strong and lean from years of running and weight training. And though it had been years since she’d seen him without his clothes, her memory was really happy to fill in the details.

She fought a moan as he lifted his hand to stroke her cheek. His pine and spice-infused scent washed over her just as his body heat warmed her. “I don’t want to let this go,” he said.

“Kane, please…”

He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. “Please what?”

“We shouldn’t—”

“Ah, we’re making progress. Earlier, it was we can’t.”

She closed her eyes and indulged in a moment of stark hunger she had no business feeling. When had she become so perverse that she wanted the only man she couldn’t have? What was wrong with a steady accountant? A charming stockbroker?

“You’re so beautiful.” He brushed his lips across her temple. “I haven’t been able to stop staring at you all night.”

Her pulse jumped. She wasn’t beautiful. But somehow Kane made her believe it. No other man had ever made her melt so completely. By his touch. By the simple sound of his voice.

Why him? Why did it have to be him?

She glanced up at the hunger in his eyes. She knew what that look meant, what it could lead to. And it was a chance she simply couldn’t take. One of them had to be strong, and clearly it was going to have to be her.

She forced herself to step out of his arms, then turned and ran from the room.



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, wandering through the race shop, Lexie checked the computer printouts from their earlier engine test on the transponder and was pleased with the numbers. This was definitely their number-one engine for the weekend.

That decision made, she needed to get moving to the airport for the team’s flight to Bristol. She tried to tell herself she was just making sure every detail about the race car was checked, but deep down she knew she was just delaying the inevitable moment when she faced Kane again.

Early this morning she’d literally woken up in a breath-heaving sweat because of a dream about her driver. Added to that was yesterday’s humiliating memory in Cincinnati when she’d run from Kane like a startled rabbit. Further breakdowns had to be mere moments away.

And she had a car and a team to get ready for one of the biggest races of the year—Saturday night in Bristol.

The half-mile track with thirty-six degrees of banking in the turns was the wildest, rowdiest race on the circuit. Tickets were nearly impossible to get for the fans—who numbered more than 160,000. TV commentators hyped rivalries. The drivers’ tempers flared quickly and often. And the cars wound up bumping and banging their way to the finish.

Even with the pressure and craziness of her job, Lexie still looked forward to every race. She never lost her appreciation for the excitement or the drama. Something she and Kane shared. Something that bonded them.

She recalled the first NASCAR race Kane had ever seen. In high school, she and James had taken him to the track in Concord. Their seats were just at the exit of the pits, and she’d known the moment those engines roared that football’s loss would be the stock car world’s gain. Kane’s eyes had lit like a Christmas tree as he watched those brightly colored cars with their intense, powerful engines roar through that first turn.

With pit passes her dad had given her, she’d taken Kane and James through the garage area. They met rookies and champions. They were embraced by the crews. No one asked about Kane’s dad or James’s college football recruiting status. No one knew who they were, and they loved it.