Flat-Out Sexy (3 page)

“You came here tonight, didn’t you, and it reminded you of how you miss all of this—the champagne, the parties, the track, the money.”

Um … no. What she had realized during the course of the night was that Geoffrey wasn’t a man she felt one ounce of sexual attraction to. And now she was doubting that she even liked him at all, period, given he seemed to think she was a gold-digging high roller.

“No. I realized that our relationship isn’t going to work,” she said firmly, no longer feeling an ounce of guilt that she was having this conversation with him by the empty coat check at the cocktail party. He was deliberately being obtuse.

“I don’t think it is either,” he said with disdain. “You’re not the person I thought you were. I think it would be better if you stayed somewhere else tonight.”

You bet she was staying in a different hotel room than him, the pompous ass. “If that’s what you prefer.”

“Unless you want one last night together,” he said, looking suddenly hopeful.

Tamara felt her mouth drop open. He had to be joking. He thought she was a greedy name-dropper, yet he was willing to overlook that for a little nookie?

Like there was anything even
remotely
tempting about that for her, even if she ignored the fact that it was totally insulting.

Calculating that she’d left nothing in his hotel room except for an overnight bag with toiletries and a pair of jeans and a cotton shirt to wear to the race, she threw her shoulders back and glared at him. She could sacrifice her facial cleanser and a T-shirt to be done with him even sooner.

“I’d rather get my own room and spend the night alone,” she said. “At least that way I might have a crack at having an orgasm. See you at the next department meeting, Geoffrey.” She turned and stomped off, ignoring his spluttering protest.

She’d find Suzanne and beg her for a ride home, since Geoffrey had driven Tamara the forty-five minutes from her house to Charlotte. Or maybe she’d just get a room in the hotel the cocktail party was in and deal with a ride to the track in the morning, which sounded easier than going home. And she was definitely in no shape to drive as a result of the wine, though she supposed she could grab a cab to take her all the way home even if it would be pricey.

Tamara stopped midstride. Where the hell was her purse? She could have sworn she’d been carrying it all night, but now she had no idea what she’d done with it, and she was starting to think she should have eased up on the wine. Not having any cash or credit cards might be a serious problem.

“You alright, Tammy?”

She turned and saw Ryder Jefferson, Suzanne’s ex-husband and one of Pete’s best friends, standing next to her, looking handsome and full of testosterone. Tamara could see Suzanne’s issues after spending nearly a decade with manly-man Ryder. “Hey, Ryder. I just broke up with that idiot I brought here and now I don’t have a hotel room to stay in and I can’t find my purse.”

Still too annoyed to be concerned yet, she glanced around for her purse. It was hot pink, to offset her black dress and give her outfit a more summery look since it was May. How hard could it be to find a pink purse?

“I’m sorry,” he said. Then Ryder gave her a grin. “Okay, not that you ditched the professor. He’s dead boring, Tammy, and he doesn’t know a damn thing about racing, or any sports for that matter. When he brought up his collection of antique thimbles, I thought about asking him to turn in his man card, but didn’t out of respect for you.”

A pang of embarrassment further flushed her cheeks. She probably looked downright feverish at this point, and she just wanted to get the hell out of there. Her day was officially and monumentally in the toilet. “Thanks, but you’re free to say whatever you want from here on out since he just called me a gold digger.”

Ryder raised an eyebrow. “What? You? That’s ridiculous. You can squeeze a dime like nobody’s business.”

That was probably meant to be a compliment so she would just take it as such. “Anyway, I need to find my purse so I can get a hotel room.”

“No need for you to get a room. Stay in my coach at the track.” He winked. “I won’t be needing it tonight. I have plans at my condo.”

“With who?” Even as the words left her mouth, Tamara threw her hand up, realizing she really didn’t want to hear his answer. “No, never mind. I don’t want to know because if I know, then I have to tell Suzanne, and I don’t want to go there.”

He frowned. “Why would Suzanne care? She divorced me, remember? I doubt she’s sleeping alone tonight either.”

Tamara wasn’t touching that one, since she knew Suzanne was in fact not sleeping with anyone, but who knew? Maybe Suz wanted her ex to think she had a string of able-bodied men in her bed. Better to keep her lips zipped and stay out of it. “You sure you don’t care if I crash at your place? I don’t want to start rumors.”

“If I’m not there, how can there possibly be rumors? Come on, let’s look for your purse, then we’ll grab you a cab.”

Biting her lip, she followed Ryder around the room. There was no sign of her purse, and she started to wonder if she’d even brought it in with her. She’d been so stressed out all night, she was no longer clear on if she’d even had it when she’d arrived. After ten minutes of searching, she was panicking, but Ryder took her by the arm and led her out of the room.

“Tammy, relax. It’s no big deal. I’ll let the hotel know it’s missing, and tomorrow if we still can’t find it, you can cancel all your cards.” He was talking and walking, leading her straight to the front door. “Now I think you need to just go back to my place and crash out. You’ve had a long night and breaking things off with someone is never easy.”

Feeling sympathy for toddlers who were dragged through the mall by their mothers, Tamara started to wonder if she was keeping Ryder from his overnight date since he seemed so determined to get rid of her. As he hustled her out the front door, she said, “I can’t pay for the cab without my purse.”

He pulled out three twenties and handed them to her before stepping out into the circular drive in front of the hotel. She didn’t even have time to protest that was more money than she needed when he pointed. “Oh, hey, look, there’s a buddy of mine. Bet he’s going back to the compound. You can rideshare with him and then I’ll know for sure you’re safe.”

Tamara only saw legs getting into the cab to the right of them and she hesitated. Great. Nothing like getting fobbed off on some poor unsuspecting guy who was probably done up and looking to just go home. “I don’t want to impose on anyone.”

“Nah, it’s cool. We go way back and he joined my team this season.” Ryder took her hand and pulled her over to the cab. He stuck his head inside and chatted for a minute, then turned back to her and smiled. “You’re all set. Elec will get you to my coach.”

Oh, no. He did not just say …

“Elec?” Tamara blurted as she took a step back and almost fell over the curb. There couldn’t possibly be two Elecs at the party, which meant that …

Elec, just as gorgeous as she remembered, leaned out of the cab. “Hop on in, Tamara. I’ll make sure you get home safely.”

Said the spider to the fly.

But she climbed in beside him anyways, watching him watching her, because she had no other choice, and because if she were totally honest, she wanted to. Not Tamara, the sociology professor, or Tamara, the mother. But Tamara, the woman, felt a little hitch of excitement at the thought of sitting in the backseat with Elec, her leg brushing against his, those dark brown eyes focused on her.

There was nothing wrong with a little flirting, after all, and she could sorely use some.

“Thanks,” she told Elec a little breathlessly as she settled in next to him on the vinyl seat and adjusted her dress so it wasn’t riding up her thighs. “I appreciate it.”

He smiled at her, not a grin, not a smirk, but a serious, he meant business kind of smile, and said in a low, sexy drawl, “Best thing to happen to me all day.”

Tamara suddenly knew there was nothing harmless about this flirtation at all.

She was in all kinds of trouble, and she seriously liked it.

CHAPTER TWO

ELEC Monroe watched Tamara’s eyes widen as she looked at him from under those luscious eyelashes. She was a drop-dead-gorgeous woman, with pin-straight rich brown hair, long bangs that she swept to the side, and full, pouty lips. Elec hadn’t recognized her as the late Pete Briggs’s wife until Ryder had mentioned it when he’d quickly explained her predicament and asked Elec to see her back to the compound. Elec hadn’t yet been driving in the cup series when Pete had, and so his path hadn’t crossed Tamara’s much. But what he remembered from seeing her in Victory Lane with Pete on TV, and from early days hanging out by the haulers when Elec had been a teenager and she’d been a young bride, was that she had been a shy, fresh-faced little thing, her hair always scraped back in a ponytail, her favorite outfit jeans and a polo shirt.

There were shades of that young girl in the Tamara Briggs sitting next to him, but she had obviously grown into a sophisticated, confident woman. One that made him hard as concrete and wonder if he had any chance of getting anywhere with her. He doubted it, and that was probably for the best. She was not the type he usually dated, because a woman like Tamara wanted commitment and he couldn’t offer much in that way, but there was nothing wrong with a little flirting. Nothing wrong with seeing how far it could go, because he was seriously attracted to her, the edgy desire he felt when looking at her surprising him. He wasn’t usually one to tumble for a woman, but there was something about her that had him leaning closer and hoping it was his lucky night.

“You’re just trying to make me feel better,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear in a gesture Elec found sexy as hell.

It wasn’t meant to be—he didn’t think anyway—but it was. She wasn’t an obvious or aggressive flirt. She was just looking at him sideways, moist lips slightly open, her long legs crossed in that elegant little black dress, yet it was doing a serious number on him. There was something so intelligent and classy, yet open and vulnerable, about her, and he found that incredibly appealing.

“I’m not just saying that,” he told her. “Like I said, I hate those parties. I’m not much for small talk with strangers, and I’m lousy at it, frankly. I’m much better one-on-one.” He hoped she’d pick up on the innuendo. Not subtle, and edging into corny territory, but the cab ride wasn’t that long. Elec needed to get his intentions across loud and clear so that when he asked her out, she wasn’t caught off guard.

He shouldn’t go out with her, but damn, did he want to go out with her. He just wanted her, flat out. Since the second she had turned and collided with him, he had been intrigued and had spent the last half hour watching her wandering around the party, talking to some guy in a sweater and then to Ryder. Seeing Ryder with his hand on the small of her back was what had sent Elec out the door. He knew Ryder was a ladies’ man, and it had looked like Tamara was with him, Ryder’s latest conquest. Elec had felt a burst of annoyance that had surprised him so he’d decided it was time to pack up and go home.

Which had somehow landed him with Tamara figuratively in his lap.

Couldn’t get much better than that.

“Me, too,” she said. “You’d think since I’m a teacher that I would be used to hordes of people, but mingling is different. It’s hard work trying to remember names and who is married to who, and I’m always a little bit terrified I’ll totally screw up and offend someone.”

“I feel the same way,” he said. Exactly the same way. He was no schmoozer, and he dreaded media interviews like some folks did the dentist. Put him behind the wheel, and he was aggressive and confident. Stick a mic in his face, and his tongue mysteriously stuck to the roof of his mouth and his brain moved like molasses uphill in winter. “I can’t ever remember anyone’s name.” He smiled at her so she’d know he was joking as he said, “I’ve probably already forgotten yours.”

She laughed. “Really? That’s okay, I answer to just about anything, even ‘hey, you.’ ”

“A woman with a classy name like Tamara shouldn’t answer to ‘hey, you.’ You should hold out, in my opinion.”

“So you do remember my name.”

Her tongue slid across her plump bottom lip in a way that had Elec mentally groaning and questioning how he could be so damn turned on. His body was acting like he hadn’t had sex in a good five years, yet he didn’t even think it had been a month since he’d last done a little sheet diving with a willing woman.

Getting women was never a problem when you were a driver, and he’d done his fair share of sucking up the attention. But Elec had never been one for a string of meaningless hookups with women he had nothing in common with, even when he’d tried to convince himself he was.

It had occurred to Elec not too far into his career that he was plain old over busty bleach blondes with half a brain throwing themselves at him on a regular basis. They made him uncomfortable, feeling like a notch in their proverbial bedpost. Item ten on their life list: Nail a race car driver.

That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a woman he could talk to.

A woman like Tamara Briggs.

Yet he had spent years actually avoiding dating anyone like her because the bottom line was that women like Tamara wanted children, and he couldn’t have any. He was shooting blanks, and nothing short of a miracle was going to change that. Aside from his own personal disappointment that he’d never be a daddy, he had steered clear of maternal types. Why fall in love with someone only to tell her the truth and have her dump his ass in pursuit of a man who could give her babies? It didn’t sound like a good time to Elec. So he’d dated women like Crystal, his latest failed attempt at companionship, who was more interested in the limelight than him, and he’d been left feeling like there wasn’t ever going to be the right relationship for him.