Hard and Fast (Fast Track #2)(23)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Well, my car isn’t exactly the latest model to roll off the assembly line, but I see what you mean. There are no other seats and I don’t recognize any of these gauges.”

“No seats other than the driver’s, no key ignition, no windows, no speedometer, no locks, no horn, and quite a few other things. Though I wouldn’t mind a horn. Sometimes I feel like hitting one to tell another car to get the hell out of my way.”

“Somehow I don’t think that would have them moving gracefully out of your way.”

“Probably not. So a car is built for speed and safety. It’s aerodynamic, with a powerful engine with 750 horsepower. There are gauges for oil and water temperature, oil and fuel pressure, and a few other things. A brake, an accelerator, and a clutch. A cooling system to keep my ass from burning to the seat or me passing out, and a roll cage in case my car flips.”

“This looks like a regular gearshift.” Imogen put her hand on it.

“Don’t touch that!” Ty said, then laughed when Imogen snatched her hand away. “Just kidding.”

She shot him a look of annoyance. “That was not funny.”

“Yes, it was.”

Her lips formed a little moue of disgust. “This isn’t a very comfortable seat.”

“Well, it’s custom fit for my body so I don’t move around too much, and it’s made of aluminum for safety. Head and neck restraints are mandatory, and no, it isn’t very comfortable. But this isn’t a lazy drive in the country. I’m going over a hundred and eighty miles per hour.” Ty couldn’t quite keep the pride out of his voice. He loved his job, loved the thrill of racing, the satisfaction of making a car that his crew had worked so hard on perform well for them.

“In golf course green.”

He grinned. “Yes, smart-ass.”

“How do you control the car?” She was leaning over and peering at the gauges, the floor, the pedals.

“Skill, honey. That’s all.”

“I can’t imagine going that fast.”

“I bet you would like it.” Ty couldn’t resist the urge to reach out and stroke her silky dark hair as it trailed over her shoulder. “Bet you like it hard and fast.”

Her head snapped up. “That was an innuendo.”

“Sort of.” He shrugged. “Okay, hell, yeah, it was. I admit it.” He was a guy, he couldn’t help himself. Almost everything reminded him of sex and how much he wanted to get her naked. “But I do think you’d like riding along on the track with me. We should do that sometime, they have special events for that. You can have the thrill of the speed without having to be the driver.”

“I would like that.” Imogen stared up at him, and the tip of her tongue came out and slid across her bottom lip. “I would like that a lot.”

Since she had stripped off her conservative yet very hip blazer, Imogen was wearing only a long-sleeved button-up shirt that was currently gaping at her cle**age. She didn’t have large br**sts at all, but what Ty could see—and okay, what he had liberally felt up the night before—was that they were firm and pert. He could see her ni**les through the fabric, and it was so obvious to him that she wanted him. Why the hell had he sent her home the night before? It had made sense at the time in that he had wanted to do the right thing, but who was he to tell her they should wait if she didn’t want to?

Seriously, what guy was stupid enough to do that?

Apparently him.

But that was last night. Today he was going to take what her eyes and her lips were offering.

Ty leaned into the window and kissed her quickly, rougher than he intended, but he was on the edge. She didn’t seem to mind, given that she stared up at him and gave a soft moan of pleasure. Damn, he loved the way she gave in to him, the way she let him lead.

He could see the question in her eyes, knew she wasn’t going to ask it. Not that he could blame her. She felt like he had turned her offer down the night before, and she wasn’t going to put herself out there a second time and risk rejection. But that had never been his intention, not at all. He wanted her in the way he hadn’t wanted a woman in so long, maybe ever. This was urgent, a burning, biting need to take Imogen and make her his.

Brushing his finger across her bottom lip, he said, “Come home with me. Spend the night with me. Please.”

Ty leaned against the side of his car, muscles tense, mouth hot, waiting for her answer. He wouldn’t blame her if she said no, but he would probably cry.

But Imogen just looked up at him and said, “Get me out of this car and take me to bed.”

That was not going to be a problem.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IMOGEN figured she was the one who should be embarrassed given the way she had just blurted out that Ty should take her to bed, but as they drove back to his place, he was the one who was rambling, indicating that he was nervous and felt the need to fill the silent void with inane conversation. She had never been one to babble when she was nervous, leaning more toward retreating into that silence, but a lot of people had their anxious energy burst forth in rapid speech, and clearly Ty was one of them.

“Do you like football?” he asked her, then shook his head. “Of course you don’t like football. What the hell am I talking about? Nothing about you says pigskin. And I mean that in the best way. Though it would be very cool if you were smart, beautiful, and liked sports. But somehow I can’t ever see you throwing on a jersey and cursing at the referee. What about camping?”

It intrigued her to think that he might be invested enough in the outcome of what they were about to do to actually be nervous, and she tried to follow his rapid conversation.

“Camping? What about it?”

“Do you like it?”

“I’ve never been camping.”

“You’ve never been camping?” Ty sounded shocked, like she had confessed to being a twenty-eight-year-old virgin. “Not even as a kid?”

That amused Imogen. “No. I grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. My mother runs an art gallery and my father is an investment banker. When they wanted to escape the city, we went to the Hamptons and stayed in my grandparents’ beach house. Aside from those trips to the beach, the closest I ever got to nature was watering the potted plants on the terrace of our apartment.”

“Wow, I never thought about it, but yeah, I guess why would you go camping? I should take you, you’ll love it.”

Imogen felt a fair amount of alarm. “No, no, you don’t need to do that. I suspect I actually won’t like it at all. I don’t feel like my life is lacking because I haven’t been camping. I mean, I’ve walked in Central Park hundreds of times and that’s very bucolic.”