Flat-Out Sexy (7 page)

She was barely easing back down when he followed her, exploding in an orgasm that had him forgetting his own name. He could honestly say that nothing—no woman, no win on the track—had ever been as good as that moment when he pulsed inside her, his whole body tense, his brain empty of anything but the way it felt to be buried deep inside Tamara, her swollen lips parted on a sigh, her eyes filled with sensual triumph and satisfaction.

When he pulled out of her, sweat rolling down his back, his muscles replete, whole body damn happy, he rolled onto his side and took Tamara with him. She reached down and dragged the sheet up and over them, then gave him a small smile.

“Definitely worth the wait,” she said.

Oh, yeah. Elec felt a ridiculous level of pride, vowing to make the next time even better. After he caught a quick little nap. He brushed her lovely hair off her face and ran a finger down her smooth cheek. “Glad to hear it, sugar.”

Then he promptly fell asleep like the guy that he was.

TAMARA woke up with a start, a knock on the door jerking her out of deep sleep. She had a hazy half second of trying to figure out why her door would be closed at all, when she realized she wasn’t at home. She was in Ryder’s coach. She glanced to her left.

And Elec was in bed with her.

Oh, Lord. She’d had sex with him, a total stranger that she’d convinced herself didn’t qualify as a stranger since Ryder knew him. And she’d loved every dang second of it. But now it was the morning after and she had zero experience with that concept, and there was clearly someone standing on the other side of the door.

Mere feet away from where she knew she was still naked lying in bed with most likely an equally naked Elec. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she did recall him pulling her against his body, still naked as a jaybird. She eyeballed him now as he slept. He definitely looked naked, even though the sheet was covering him from the waist down. His chest was bare and he looked big and strong and satisfied. Naked. All sorts of naked.

Tamara swallowed hard, her mouth dry as she gripped the sheet tighter over her, wondering exactly how she should handle getting her clothes back on and getting both her and Elec the hell out of Ryder’s coach before the person knocking or anyone else caught them. The pounding came again, louder and persistent. Shoot. She really did not want to get caught in bed, rumpled and bare-butt naked. Maybe if she kept very, very quiet, they would go away and let her get dressed and sneak out before any other human being had to be a party to the fact that she’d had a one-night stand with a pit crew member in her best friend’s ex-husband’s coach.

“Tammy?”

Shit. It was Ryder. Her best friend’s ex-husband and owner of the coach she had been so tacky as to have sex in. In Ryder’s very own bed. Lord. Her cheeks burned. She didn’t answer, heart pounding, the sheet clenched tightly up to her neck. She was all kinds of mortified.

“Tammy, I hate to bother you, but it’s late, sweetie, and I need to come into my room and get my bag.”

Elec’s eyes had opened and he rolled over toward her groggily, his big hand landing on her stomach. “Morning.”

He kissed her shoulder, in a gesture she would have appreciated if she hadn’t been on the verge of hysterical. And did he have to touch her stomach, of all things? It was the bane of her existence between the stretch marks and the unexplainable fact that it stored all her fat deposits in it, and she really didn’t want him hanging around there exploring it. Tamara shifted so his hand would be on her hip instead. Much better, now she only needed to panic about Ryder on the other side of the door.

“Is that Ryder? Aren’t you going to answer him?” Elec asked.

“No.” If she just ignored Ryder, maybe he, it, and everything would all just go away.

“Did you say something?” Ryder called through the door. “Tammy, I’m serious, I have to get my uniform. Are you okay? Pull the sheet up, I’m coming in.”

Ohmigod. “No, Ryder,
don’t
!” Tamara half sat up and held out her hand, which was stupid, since he couldn’t see her, but she needed to stop him before …

Too late. Ryder had the door open and was strolling in. Tamara dove back down, like that was going to hide anything, clutching the sheet with an iron grip as she waited for the fallout.

“It’s not like you to sleep so late—”

Ryder glanced up, and immediately stopped talking, his mouth falling open in a nearly comical expression of surprise. His lips moved, but nothing came out, and for the first time in the decade she had known him, Ryder Jefferson was well and truly speechless. It might have been funny, and under different circumstances, she would have ribbed him for it, but the truth was she was absolutely and utterly without words herself. She was frozen in mortification.

“Morning, Ryder,” Elec said, breaking the awkward silence in the bedroom. “How are you doing today?”

Tamara realized that Elec was snuggled up against her, his arm over her hip, his face still right next to her shoulder, his leg nestled with hers.

She flushed, feeling the heat rise up her neck and into her cheeks. “It’s not what it looks like,” she said to Ryder, which was perhaps the stupidest thing she had ever said in her entire life.

That ridiculous lie in the face of the obvious seemed to break through Ryder’s shock. He burst out with a laugh. “Oh, I think it’s exactly what it looks like.” He grinned. “Guess Elec saw you home safely. Knew I could count on him.”

Ryder moved through the room to his closet, still grinning. “I hate to be the voice of reason—I mean, when does that ever happen? But it’s damn near noon. I have to grab my uniform and head to the pre-race meetings with my team. I would imagine you have to do the same, rookie.”

Elec sat up next to her. “Jesus, it’s almost noon? I had no idea it was that late.”

Tamara looked from Ryder to Elec. Between the wine and the lack of sleep, her brain was fuzzy. She also desperately needed a drink of water to get rid of a major case of cotton mouth and she was painfully aware that she was both naked and that her body was aching in places she hadn’t even been aware she had muscles. Which reminded her of why she was sore and the different ways she had been touched and licked and entered and she was really, really not at the top of her game.

But she could have sworn Ryder had just called Elec a rookie.

“Rookie?” she said. “What kind of rookie?”

Ryder had pulled his bag out of the closet and was moving back toward the door. “Tammy, geez, girl, get some sleep. If Elec keeps driving the way he has been, he’s well on his way to being rookie of the year.”

Then Ryder was gone with a wave and another big old grin. “See you all at the track.”

And Tamara was left staring at Elec as he turned to her. “You’re a driver?” she asked stupidly.

Now it was his turn to look confused. “Of course. You didn’t know that?”

She shook her head and swallowed, wondering why it felt like she’d stuffed marshmallows into her mouth. It was hot and sticky and she was having trouble getting her spit down her throat. “I thought you were on Ryder’s pit crew.”

Those soulful brown eyes—the ones that were completely responsible for her current state of nakedness—penetrated her.

Then his mouth turned up in a smile. “No kidding? Well, hell, at least I know you wanted me for me, not because I was a driver.”

Hah. If she had known he was a driver, she would have run.

Then she remembered the way his tongue had felt on her, and she knew she was lying. She totally would have stayed anyway; she just would have felt more guilt in doing it.

“What’s your last name?” she asked, thinking maybe she should have asked that a tiny bit sooner. Though she hadn’t followed racing all that closely in the last two years, so even if he had told her his name, it was possible she wouldn’t have recognized it as belonging to a rookie driver.

“Monroe.”

Oh, no. “Monroe …” That was a name she knew. Tamara sincerely hoped that he wasn’t …

“Elliot Monroe’s son.”

Yep. That’s exactly who she was hoping he wasn’t. He was just the son of one of racing’s legend drivers. His entire family was involved in the sport and the older brother Evan had been driving in the cup series when Pete had. The Monroes and the Briggses had socialized together for years before a legendary fallout the year Pete had died. Tamara remembered a particular barbeque at her in-laws’ house probably a decade ago where all the Monroes had attended, including Evan, who was her age, and their younger son, who had been a quiet, dark-eyed teenager named …

Oh my God.

It was Elec. “I know you,” she said, struck dumb. “You were at a barbeque at the Briggses a long time ago. You got drunk on pilfered beer and took your daddy’s car and did doughnuts on the front lawn.”

Elec rubbed his chin and gave a sheepish smile. “Guilty as charged. But they shouldn’t have left the beer keg unattended. It was too much a temptation for a teenage boy.”

Tamara started to think she just might faint. Dear God in heaven, she had slept with a teenager. She was a molester. She scooted back on the mattress, trying to get off the same pillow as him, put some space, any space, between them. “You were like twelve then! How old are you now? My Lord, Elec, I’m old enough to be your mother!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, not looking at all concerned that she had just done a Mrs. Robinson on him. He reached for her, touching her hip, hauling her back a little toward him. “That was more than ten years ago, I imagine. And if you’re old enough to have a twenty-six-year-old child, I’ll eat my car, part by part.”

“You’re twenty-six?” Tamara’s heart rate slowed a little. That didn’t sound quite as bad. She’d been thinking early twenties, but at least he was heading toward thirty.

“Well, almost. In a couple of months.”

“Oh my God!” She panicked and ducked under the sheet. She could not even look at him in all his sexy cuteness. It was too tempting and just so
wrong
. Unfortunately, diving under the sheet only forced her to confront her own nakedness as well as his. And his nakedness was a beautiful thing, all muscular and hard and hairy in the right places, with a big old morning erection. Nope, going under hadn’t been one of her better ideas.

Nor did he leave her alone under there. He actually came under, too, tenting the sheet with his left hand and turning to her. “Tamara, calm down. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal. I’m the mother of small children! Yet I slept with a man half my age without even knowing his last name. God, I’m a … I’m a … a
cougar
.”

Elec burst out laughing. “You are not a cougar. That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not!” Didn’t he get it? She had lost her mind. Give her three lousy glasses of wine and she was knocking boots with a baby driver, who she had let do all kinds of …
things
to her and who even at that very moment was seeing her naked.

Ack. Tamara covered her breasts with her arm and clamped the sheet between her legs. That brought the sheet straight down over his face, which was fine by her.

He punched it back up with his fist. “What exactly is the problem here? Are you regretting that we made love last night? Are you telling me I was a drunken accident?”

Tamara bit her lip. That wasn’t what she meant. Just thinking about how it had felt to have Elec filling her up, moving over her, kissing her so eagerly, had her pausing. She didn’t regret a damn thing. Not really. But she felt guilty. Embarrassed. Like she should regret it. Like she had betrayed her husband, her children, her image, all of her responsibilities by having sex with Elec. Young, buff, rookie driver Elec.

“No, it wasn’t a drunk accident. I knew what I was doing.” She would be a total bitch if she let him think otherwise, and she had to own up to her actions. The wine had just made her bolder in taking what she had wanted to. She’d have done it with or without the liquid courage.

“Same holds true for me.”

He was looking at her that way again. All intense and serious and sexy. It was warm under the sheet, and she was very aware of his nakedness. The scent of their bodies, warm, and still tinged with the sweet aftermath of sex, filled the small space. Tamara wanted to touch his chest again at the very same time she wanted to bolt and get the hell out of there. Neither seemed like a great idea so she just lay there waiting for guidance from a higher power. Which could take a while. If she were lucky, Elec would get bored and leave in the meantime.

He had a race to run, after all.

A driver. She had slept with a driver. Whose life revolved around sponsors and crazy hours and poles and winning purses. After swearing she would never get involved with anyone in racing ever again, she had nailed—literally and figuratively—the granddaddy of all in the sport. The man who climbed behind the wheel. Yikes.

“What night do you want to go to dinner?” he asked. “Tomorrow works really well for me. What’s your schedule like?”

What the hell was he talking about? She blinked at him, still clutching the sheet, vowing that she would not, would not, would not—maybe if she chanted it enough she’d actually believe it—touch any part of him with any part of her. “Dinner?”