Hard and Fast (4 page)

“This conversation isn’t about sex.”

“It isn’t? Well, that sucks the fun right out of my night.”

Hers had been sucked out the minute she had realized that she was nothing more than a game for him—a time filler while he avoided his girlfriend at a dinner party. She was probably quite simply the challenge of a different type of woman than Ty was used to dating.

“So leave, then. That’s what I’m trying to do.” She looked pointedly at him and then the passenger door.

“It’s early still. You don’t want to leave. And I have a few questions for you.”

“I don’t have any answers for you.” That she could say with total honesty.

He continued like he hadn’t heard her. “Do all women want to get married? Do
you
want to get married?” His expression was curious and maybe mildly puzzled.

Imogen was confident he was actually asking a genuine question, because he had asked her that once before, at Tamara and Elec’s wedding. Clearly the issue of marriage and why women wanted it was weighing on him. Maybe it was the age. Men and women reached thirty and everyone around them seemed to think they either should be married or should be trying to get married. Imogen wasn’t opposed to marriage, per se, but she definitely wanted to hold out for her version of Mr. Right, so Ty’s question immediately brought to mind Beatrice in Shakespeare’s
Much Ado About Nothing
.

“‘Not till God make men of some other metal than earth,’ ” she quoted to Ty.

Ty looked at her blankly. “What?”

Imogen had always loved Beatrice’s witty replies to prying and often insulting questions, so she continued to use her words, getting into the monologue, despite the clear incomprehension on Ty’s face. “‘Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? To make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll none.’ ”

“It sounds pretty when you say it, but I have no clue what the hell you’re talking about.”

“It’s Shakespeare,” she said.

“Well, I was pretty sure it wasn’t Kenny Chesney. Still doesn’t tell me what it means, though.”

Imogen shifted in her seat, her damp sweater and hair uncomfortable, her attraction to Ty McCordle even more so. He didn’t look annoyed with her, just bewildered and, maybe, a little amused. She really didn’t understand what he was doing sitting in her car, but since he was there, she figured she might as well enjoy the picture of manly perfection he presented, even if he had put his shirt back on.

“Beatrice is telling her uncle she will get married only when God makes men out of something other than dirt.” A little harsh perhaps, but having briefly tried online dating, Imogen could see where she was coming from.

“Ah. A man hater.”

That took Imogen aback. “Man hater? I don’t think that’s entirely true.”

“Of course it is. She is lumping all men together, calling them all dirt, not giving any guy a chance. And probably walking around with a sour look on her face all the time and a big old chip on her shoulder, so she gets negative attention from men, which in turn pisses her off more and convinces her that her theory is right.” Ty nodded. “Man hater.”

Imogen was speechless for a second, horrified at the realization that while Ty’s explanation was simplifying the situation, he might actually have a point. Beatrice had a wicked tongue and was almost always on the attack.

“I think you’ve just shattered my entire perception of
Much Ado About Nothing
.”

“I wasn’t trying to shatter anything. But it’s pretty obvious the chick is bitter because guys aren’t knocking down her door.”

“How do you know they aren’t knocking down her door?”

Ty gave her a long look of disbelief. “Come on. If they were, she wouldn’t be so bitchy. Am I right? She’s spending Saturday night with her BFF instead of getting some action, right?”

“Well, it’s usually her cousin, actually. And you have to consider the context. A woman at the time couldn’t just sleep around without serious consequences.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, like that ever stopped anybody. Just ask any senator.”

Imogen laughed. “True.” Then since she was curious and he didn’t appear to be leaving her car at any time, she asked, “But why are you asking about marriage in the first place? Are you thinking of proposing to Nikki?”

His reaction was so extreme it was comical. His face went into a series of contortions and his hand came out. “No. No, no, no. She brought it up, which means she is way more into this relationship than I thought, which means I have to break up with her, which I hate to do, because I don’t like hurting anyone’s feelings. But the truth is, Nikki and I have nothing in common. Except for one thing, really.”

“Sex?”

Ty grinned. “Yeah. I love that you just threw it straight out there.”

Well, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, and Imogen, while considering herself shy, had always been curious enough to be direct with people. She got more information that way and, most of the time, was unable to resist the urge to pry a little in her quest to understand the people around her.

“It seemed logical to me that sexual attraction was what drew you to each other.”

He shot her a funny look, like he was trying to read her expression and couldn’t. “Yeah, that always seemed to work out pretty well for us. As for conversation or hanging out together, well, we were always stumbling a bit there, you know? So why the hell she thinks she wants to be stuck with me day in, day out in a marriage is beyond me.”

Imogen thought it was damn obvious. Nikki wanted the prestige and money of being a race car driver’s wife. But it seemed incredibly rude to point that out to Ty, especially if he hadn’t figured it out on his own already. “Maybe she’s in love with you.”

Ty gave a laugh and stuck his index finger out at her. “Now that’s funny. That girl has more genuine affection for her shoes than for me.”

She couldn’t tell if he was just stating a fact, or if it bothered him that Nikki wasn’t emotionally invested in him. So she made light of it. “Good shoes are really hard to find.”

“Look at you, calling up your inner smart-ass.” Ty grinned at her. “I like that from you.”

“Well, it’s true.” Imogen smiled back at him. “When you’re shoe shopping, there are all these choices but it’s so hard to find the perfect pair. They don’t match your outfit right, or they’re too casual or too dressy, or they’re out of your price range. The store is out of your size, or they pinch your toes or rub your heels or give you blisters or make your feet sweat. The heel is too high or too low, or they make your ankles look fat.”

“You’re scaring me,” he said. “This only goes to show that women spend far too much time worrying about a whole lot of nothing.”

She wanted to laugh, but she wasn’t finished making her point, so she added, “It’s important because shoes affect the way a woman feels when she steps out of her house. No single pair of shoes covers the gamut of outfits in your closet. Not even close. So you need at least a half-dozen pairs to cover most of what you wear on a daily basis. Which makes me wonder if women should do the same with men. Have a different one for each of her moods.”

The laugh that Ty gave was full and genuine and made Imogen smile back at him.

“Now there’s an idea,” he said. “So what mood would I be? Casual Friday?”

No, he would be for the days when she wanted to play porn star, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud. “I imagine it depends on the woman who might want to wear you.”

She didn’t mean that to be suggestive, but the moment the words left her lips, she knew it would sound that way, and it did. Ty’s eyes darkened and his eyebrow went up.

Imogen spoke again before he could because she wasn’t sure she was prepared to hear what might come out of his mouth. “I think that for Nikki, you would be her high heels. What she wants to wear when she wants attention and to feel good about herself.”

Maybe that wasn’t true. After all, what did she really know about Nikki and her true emotions and motivations? But given what Imogen had seen and heard from the girl, she thought she was fairly accurate in her assessment. Nikki was using Ty for fame and fortune. Imogen wanted him to recognize that at the same time she didn’t want him to suffer hurt feelings.

“I can see that,” he said slowly. “I know exactly why Nikki is involved with me. It’s for my money and her share of the racing spotlight. It doesn’t exactly bother me because I know it is what it is, and I am not in any danger of falling in love with her.” His knee bumped Imogen’s when he shifted in his seat. “But the truth is, I want to be some woman’s work boots, not her high heels.”

“Work boots?” What was sexy about that? And did women have work boots?

“Yeah. You know, the boots she pulls out when she wants to get down and dirty, hiking or gardening or boating or painting the kitchen. The ones she relies on and trusts and lives her life hard and good and on her terms in. Her favorites.”

Oh, my God. Imogen was having a little trouble swallowing. That was the weirdest and sexiest description of a man’s role in a relationship that she had ever heard, and it suited Ty. He was weird in that she didn’t really understand him and he was damn sexy, and she was mentally reminding herself that he was in fact still involved with Nikki and she absolutely could not molest him in her car in Tamara’s driveway.

“But a woman doesn’t feel sexy in work boots. Don’t you want to make her feel sexy?”

“Of course she does. In her favorite shoes, playing or working hard, she feels strong. And feeling strong makes a woman feel sexy.”

Ty touched Imogen’s knee and pulled her legs slightly apart, sending a hot rush of warmth to her inner thighs.

“What shoes do you have on, Emma Jean?” He leaned over and checked out her footwear.

“Black ballet flats,” she said, her voice a little raspy.

“Do you feel sexy in them?”

His hand was still on her knee, his thumb making little circles on her jeans, and it was driving her to distraction. “I feel reasonably cute when I wear them,” she admitted.

Ty gave a soft laugh. “You look more than reasonably cute in them.”

She knew she should tell him to leave. That they were weaving into dangerous territory when he was still technically with Nikki. It was totally inappropriate and she was going to tell him that. Immediately.

No words left her mouth and they sat in her warm car, the heater cranked, the windows fogged, and the wipers rushing back and forth combating the driving rain.

“Thanks,” she said, then jumped when something slammed into the hood of her car, causing the whole vehicle to rock slightly. “What the hell was that?”

Ty could honestly say he didn’t give a rat’s ass if a meteor had dropped onto Imogen’s car, but he looked anyway. Maybe the distraction was a good thing, because he was damn close to kissing the woman sitting next to him and he knew she didn’t want him to. Well, she
wanted
him to. That wasn’t arrogance on his part, just the truth. He could read the desire in her eyes. But she didn’t think he should because of Nikki. Big difference. And she was right. Just because he had made the decision to break things off with Nikki didn’t mean Nikki knew that.

So he looked out the windshield and commanded his erection to disappear.

It did when he realized that the thump on the hood of Imogen’s car had been made by Nikki.

As her skinny ass had been slammed onto the car by a man whose face wasn’t visible because it was buried in Nikki’s ample chest.

“What . . .” Imogen’s sentence died out as they both stared in shock.

At least Ty was shocked. Maybe Imogen wasn’t, but hell, he was. Nikki had just dropped the M word on him an hour earlier, had pursued him relentlessly the entire four months they’d been dating, and now here she was, making out in a goddamn downpour with some random guy?

Nikki didn’t like the rain. She hated the rain because it messed up her hair. Yet she was perched on the car hood, thighs spread, arms around the dude’s back as he nuzzled her breasts, her head thrown back in ecstasy, normally meticulous hair sopping wet. Didn’t seem to be a major concern for her at the moment.

Ty tilted his head, still not sure who the guy was. Nikki was blocking most of him from view. Not that it mattered, really, unless it was one of his good friends, which would piss him off on principle.

Whoever he was, he was into it. The guy pushed Nikki back in a fit of passion, their hands and lips everywhere on each other, her moans of excitement so loud they could hear them in the car over the rain. Wow. Here he’d been thinking the sex with Nikki had been alright, but he could honestly say she’d never shown that much enthusiasm with him. Her back and head rested on the hood, and rain pummeled her as her friend pulled down the neck of her shirt and suckled the tops of her breasts.

“Why . . .” Imogen started to say, then stopped.

“Why are they doing this in a fucking downpour? Yeah, I was wondering the same thing.” God, he was as horny as the next guy, but when it was raining so hard it hurt your skin and you couldn’t even see what you were kissing and where, it was time to get a room.

“I’m so sorry,” Imogen said, glancing at him in sympathy.

Was he sorry? A little disturbed, but not really sorry. Especially when the guy raised his head to wipe his face off and Ty saw it was Jonas Strickland, a rookie driver in his first cup series season. Ty didn’t know Jonas all that well, and he would throw down a hundred-buck wager that the kid had no idea Nikki was dating anyone. He was a good kid—God, when had Ty started thinking of rookies as a lifetime younger than him?—and a methodical driver, but he didn’t strike Ty as all that socially savvy off the track.

’Course, he seemed to be doing alright for himself at the moment.

Nikki was going to drown if she didn’t close her mouth. In that position, with her head tipped back and repeated exclamations of “Yes!” coming out of her open mouth, he figured it was only a matter of time before the rain had her full-out choking. Unnerved by the fact that Nikki and Jonas were actually only a few feet away from them and he and Imogen could get a bigger eyeful than either of them cared for if Jonas’s pants came off, Ty wondered how he should go about alerting the little love bugs to his presence.