Bad Boy's Last Race (7 page)

“I’m sorry, Sophie.” I realize I’ve made a fist, and I force myself to relax it. “It wasn’t your fault. It can happen to anyone.”

She curls one hand over my knee. “I know. Hell, I’m a psych grad and I still let it happen to me. Let him control who I was friends with, when and how I saw my family, stripped everything away all so I could try to appease his temper . . . it took me way too long to see it.”

I swear to myself right then if I ever meet this fucker, I’ll punch him in the mouth.

“But, hey. Here I am—free of him, right?” Sophie looks into my eyes. “I’m taking a break from it all, trying to heal up and forget it.”

I shove my plate aside and wipe a bit of syrup from the corner of my mouth, then toss my napkin down. “I know what always helps me forget,” I tell her with a grin.

Sophie laughs. She sounds so brassy, so gutsy, and it turns me on so goddamned much to hear her this fearless, despite everything she’s been through. “I think I’m familiar with it,” she says.

I shake my head. “No, no.” Not that I’d mind bending her over the Firebird’s hood and watching those ripe tits press against the galaxy paint job, but . . . “Actually, I have something else in mind.”

* * *

T
he high desert
sky is painted in cool oranges and pinks shot with purples as day turns to night. There’s a lukewarm breeze rising off the desert, whipping into the Firebird as we drive with the windows rolled down. Sophie’s a little rusty with a stick shift, but she makes the best of it as she angles us toward the straightaway on Highway 12.

Sophie drums her fingers against the steering wheel. “God. This is awesome. It’s like something from one of those sexy old TV shows, you know, with the high-tech cars . . .” She laughs. “Okay, so maybe I have a complex. But seriously—this is so cool.”

“Driving fast is the best way I know to clear my mind. You feel the wind whipping over you and the engine purring beneath you. There’s nothing like it.”

Sophie tightens one hand on the steering wheel. “You’re sure I’m okay to do this?” she asks. Her hand caresses the gear stick and I wince, wanting very badly for her to grab my quickly hardening cock that same way.

“You’ll be fine. Just climb her up the RPMs, nice and steady, and then let her fly.”

Sophie guns the accelerator, her dazzling blue eyes widening in momentary terror. The Firebird rockets forward, all those horses galloping hard. Sophie sucks in a deep breath, then lets out a whoop of delight. Seventy, seventy-five, eighty . . . I look from the odometer to her with a proud grin. The wind tears through the cabin and her golden hair curls around her pale throat, adding to her look of unbridled joy. The engine is purring and Sophie is steering us down the straightaway as fast as she can and it is our night.

It’s the kind of moment where the possibilities feel limitless.

But whether they have the potential for good or bad, it’s hard to say.

I
laugh
and crash into Jagger’s chest. “Whoops. Sorry. Hard to see.”

“No need to be sorry, babe.” He nibbles at my lower lip, sending a fresh shock of ecstasy through me. “Just watch where you step . . .”

I slide my rump onto the hood of the car, the engine’s warmth still radiating through the metal, and pull Jagger’s hips between my legs. “There. No more tripping.”

“Good idea.”

There’s only a sliver of desert moon hanging over us, but there are so many stars it’s like a silver candlelight, gleaming against every hard, hot plane of Jagger’s body. A fire stokes in my belly at the glimpse of him, tugging me like a magnet toward him. After he let me hotrod across the desert a few times, we pulled over to an observation area, and Jagger being Jagger, I couldn’t keep my hands off him for long. He kisses his way down my jawline, my skin tightening up like he’s made of ice at each sensation.

Jagger trails one finger beneath the hemline of my wrap dress and coaxes one breast free from my bra. Warmth radiates from his touch. “You look so fucking incredible,” he murmurs, his mouth pressed up against my skin. He lavishes attention on my nipple with his mouth, sending a fresh frisson of pleasure straight to my core.

I shudder and press him closer to me. His touch, his mouth, is like a warm summer beach, all freedom and gentle waves . . . Being with Jagger is nothing like my life was with Tyler. The cold prison cell that I always felt locked inside whenever Tyler deigned to show me some affection. I just want to bask in Jagger’s glow forever.

Jagger slips one hand between my legs and teases a slow, torturous circle over my silken panties. Delight shivers through me. I suck in my breath, catching my lower lip in my teeth, and stifle a moan. Then wonder what I’m stifling for. I can be free, unbidden, with Jagger. No need to hide who I am.

“Good girl,” Jagger purrs, right in my ear. He catches my earlobe in his teeth and sucks, drawing another deep moan from the fire inside of me. “Look how nice and wet you are. I’m dying to feel that hot pussy around me, dripping on me . . .”

“Good,” I manage to respond. “Because I want that granite cock of yours inside of it.”

Jagger’s gaze turns feral, dark in the starlight, as he seizes me by my shoulders. My entire body is clay in his hands, just waiting to be molded by his touch. He spins me around and forces me over the hood of the car. The warm metal radiates through my torso as I brace my arms against the hood; his hands glide over my ass as he pushes up my dress and shoves my panties to one side. I tense, anxious, eager, unable to contain my lust for him. I need him to fuck me
now.

But he’s taking his sweet-ass time.

“Come the fuck on,” I say, unable to keep from whining. “Just fuck me already.”

“So impatient. I just want to admire the view.” He grazes his fingertips over the curve of my ass once more. Then, finally, he parts my thighs. The cold night air pricks at my skin. I grit my teeth, waiting . . .

And then he thrusts into me like a goddamned battering ram.

“Oh, fuck.” I tense around him, feeling every fucking inch. He eases out and slams back into me, each thrust like an engine working overtime. He works steadily, but his heat radiates through me, each drive full of power . . .

And it’s so easy to get lost. To feel the heat, feel the delirium like I felt his Firebird roaring beneath me as the high desert road roared past.

“That’s a good little slut.” I laugh, a dark joy burning in me. There’s a playfulness in his tone that’s turning me on so bad, that’s nothing like when Tyler would say it and mean it.

Jagger grips my hair in one hand, keeping me pressed against the hood. “Do you like being a slut for me? Like making me so hard?”

“I fucking love it. I like seeing you so filthy . . . so raw . . .”

But then words leave me. My orgasm is like an undertow and it’s dragging me under. As filthy as he talks, as goddamned filthy as he fucks, he is everything I never felt with Tyler. Safe . . . secure . . . loved . . . warm. And sexy. Like the sexiest thing on two legs.

Sure, Jagger has his problems. He comes with his own danger. But isn’t this bliss, this unchained freedom a start?

Jagger shudders as he comes, his hips digging into my ass, the icing on the fucking cake. “Goddamn.” He bends forward to plant a kiss on the nape of my neck, then between my shoulder blades, then on the small of my back. “I could do that all fucking night.”

I draw a deep breath, exhausted, but willing for more. “So could I.”

He eases out of me and slumps next to me on the hood. “We could always go back to my place,” he says. He grins and nestles a kiss on my temple. “It’s a little bit roomier than yours.”

I smile back. “Good. There’s plenty more I’d like to try.”

* * *

I
awake
to harsh sunlight streaming through the blinds in Jagger’s apartment. His warm body is wrapped around me, far outweighing the scratch of his cheap sheets, and all I want is to nestle into it and—

Shit. What time is it? It looks like it must be at least ten o’clock, and I’m supposed to be at the youth center by two to help with the after-school crowd. I was hoping to get some work done on my thesis paper, grab a shower back at my place . . . There’s still time, but if I lie in bed with Jagger any longer, I know I’m going to let myself get dragged into another far too exciting round of—well, the possibilities are limitless.

I slip out from under Jagger’s arm and tug my dress on. The clock on his alarm reads 10:12. Not as terrible as it could be. I take in one last look of his lean, limber form stretched out across the mattress. Man, I hate to interrupt that view . . .

Jagger groans, pulls his empty arm toward his rippling chest, and rolls toward the door. “Hey. That’s no fun.”

“What isn’t?”

“You. Wearing clothes.”

I grin. “For some reason, people generally expect me to be wearing them. Damn social contracts.”

He laughs, tired, into his pillow. “What you said.” His biceps bunch as he lifts his arms overhead with a yawn, and I find myself staring just a little too long at the pattern of tattoos along his arms and torso. I’m starting to memorize them. As well as the contours of muscle beneath them. “You’re not rushing off again, are you?”

“Not like before,” I say. “Just need to get some work done before I head to the center.”

“Good. Maybe we can grab dinner after.”

I hesitate, but then nod. No need to be afraid. Just having some fun. It feels good to have fun—to act for myself again. “I’d like that.”

He looks about to fall asleep again, so I kiss his forehead, excuse myself, and slip toward the front door and down the stairs that lead to Drazic Muscleworks below. The stairs let out inside the garage bay, but thankfully, it’s still dark. I walk on the balls of my feet, none too eager to run into any of Jagger’s fellow crewmates just yet—

But then the fluorescent lights overhead buzz to life and I’m pinned in place. Busted. A tan, dark-haired woman, maybe a few years younger than me, stands in the doorway that must lead to the main shop, a pair of goggles perched on top of her head. Her hands prop on her hips and a huge grin spreads across her face. She watches me like the cat who cornered the mouse.

“Well, well, well.” She strides down the concrete steps toward me, still grinning. “About time we met.”

I blink a few times, flustered. “I—I’m sorry, I don’t—”

She picks up a wrench from one of the nearby open toolboxes and pats the wrench’s head into her palm. “Sorry doesn’t cut it, hon.”

I swallow and step back. What have I done to piss her off? She looks familiar . . . Then I realize. She was the sole female driver in the race I saw. I tuck a loose curl behind my ear, nervous. “Um. Hi. I’m Sophie.”

I start to stick out my hand, but she wraps me in a fierce hug instead. “Elena Drazic. My uncle runs the crew.” She steps back and holds me at arm’s length by my shoulders. “Damn. I always wondered who’d be the lucky girl to tame our swaggerin’ Jagger.”

My face is burning up, but I smile through it. “You assume I’m not the one in need of taming.”

Elena laughs, a bright, brassy sound. “Touché.”

“You were driving in the race last weekend, weren’t you?” I ask. “You qualified, too.”

She beams and gestures toward her Camaro, up on the lifters. “That’s me. And there’s my baby right there. Rebuilt her myself.” She heads toward her toolkit and trades the wrench out for some other tool I don’t recognize. “Actually, I build pretty much all of the crew’s cars.”

“Amazing work. Not only with the cars and driving, I mean—with putting up with all of the goddamned testosterone around here, too.”

Elena laughs again. “Yeah, well, I’m used to it. The guys are my family.”

She says it breezily enough, but I get the underlying message. I better not fuck with her family. As she starts picking through her toolbox and all the scary-looking wrenches and pneumatic drills there, it’s hard not to feel like I’m in the middle of some interrogation.
So tell me, Miss Gallagher . . . Vat are your intentions vith our Jagger?

“Are you from Ridgecrest?” Elena asks, circling around to what must be the control panel for the lifters. The Camaro she’d been working on starts to descend with a whine of the gears. “Went to Ridgecrest High School, maybe? You do look familiar.”

“I used to be from around here. Eagle’s View, actually. I’m going to college downstate, but I’m back up here for a little while. Until I finish my master’s thesis.”

I wait for Elena to raise her eyebrows or press her lips together at the mention of Eagle’s View. Something to show her disdain for Ridgecrest’s wealthier counterpart to the northeast; something to indicate she knows I don’t belong around here. But she does nothing of the sort. Just smiles, finds the tool she wants, and drags a stepstool toward herself with her foot. “What’s your thesis about?”

I relax my stance. “Um, let’s see if I can nail it in one sentence. ‘Survey of alternative strategies in counseling at-risk juveniles.’”

Elena laughs. “Plenty of those around here. In fact, I’ve got a whole shop full of at-risk manbabies you can use for your study, if you need.”

We share a quick laugh. This almost feels comfortable, shooting the shit with one of Jagger’s closest friends. Not at all like the walk of shame I feared. I can almost forget about Tyler . . .

“Do you drive?” Elena asks as she slides underneath the car.

I blush. “Nah. Not like you. Jagger showed me how to gun it on a straightaway down on Highway 12, but . . .”

“You should join us sometime,” Elena says. “I’ll teach you to hold your own with these boys.”

“I’d like that.”

Jagger bursts out of the same stairwell I came from, his short hair rumpled, but still incredibly sexy. He looks from me to Elena with narrowed eyes. “What’s all this laughing I hear?” he asks in a playful tone.

“Elena’s going to teach me how to kick your ass on the circuit,” I reply.

Jagger laughs and pulls me into an embrace, then presses a kiss to my temple. “Good luck with that. I thought you had to be on your way.”

“I had to check her out first. Make sure she has only the most of dishonorable intentions for you,” Elena says.

Jagger tightens his grip on my hips. “Don’t worry. I’ve got dishonorable covered.”

My whole body must be blushing now as I arch my back against him. Shit. “I—I really do have to go, though.” I pull away from him with a sigh. “It was great to meet you, Elena.”

“You’re coming to the semifinals, right?” Elena asks. “Down in Rose Grove Saturday night?”

I look back at Jagger. “I didn’t know . . .”

Jagger grabs my hand and clutches it tight. “Fuck, yeah. She’s joining us.”

I grin. “And be your track bunny? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”