She Who Dares (11 page)

He took a step closer, then another, until she had to tip her head to meet his gaze. Her cheeks flushed, and she fiddled with the end of the ribbon.

‘Right,’ Sebastian said. Enough was enough. ‘Talk to me.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘Then what do you want to do?’

‘I want to fix my Dino, and then I want to drive it until the tyres explode.’

‘Sounds like you’ve got a bad case of sexual frustration.’

Her dark eyes burned with hot emotion. ‘What do you want from me, Sebastian?’

He took the ribbon, set it down on the bonnet of the Corvette. ‘I want you to kiss me.’

‘Don’t be stupid!’

‘Kiss me,’ he dared her. ‘One kiss. You in control.’

‘Why?’

‘I want you to convince me you don’t want me. You do that, and I’ll back off.’

‘You have got to be kidding,’ she said, and then she set about tying a big bow around the bonnet of the Corvette. Sebastian watched her for a moment, seeing how her toned legs stretched as she reached across the car, her t-shirt pulling free from her shorts to reveal the pale skin of her lower back. The ribbon slithered free as she jerked back, one hand whipping around to grab the t-shirt and ram it back into her shorts. She stood there, head bowed, just as she had the night before. ‘Don’t do this, Sebastian.’

But he had to. Sebastian moved behind her. He placed the palm of one hand against the bonnet, the other to her hip, and turned her round. She looked at him steadily, though
her breathing was ragged and he could see the pulse flickering at the base of her neck. It was going as fast as his. ‘I don’t want to play anymore,’ she said.

‘Neither do I. You’ve got my attention, Nic. One hundred percent of it.’ He gave her his total focus, everything he had. Touched his fingertips to the curve of her cheek and forced her to take it. ‘Tell me what you want from me.’

Her pupils were huge, dark, her mouth open. His for the taking. Her hair shone red in the sunlight, and he could feel himself starting to get hard. He moved close enough to let her know. ‘I…’ she whispered. ‘I…’

A cough sounded from behind them, shortly followed by a loud ‘excuse me.’

Nic put her hands on his chest and shoved him away. The moment shattered like broken glass. Frustration exploded inside him, fifty percent sexual, fifty percent something which left him confused and reeling. Hands in fists at his sides, not trusting himself to speak, Sebastian headed for the office.

He needed to be alone.

‘It looks amazing.’ Nic walked slowly around the outside of the Dino, unable to breathe, almost unable to speak. ‘It’s gorgeous, Sebastian. I can’t believe it.’

The past week had been an awkward slide of time, the two of them working flat out. The photos of her spraying Sebastian with the hose had been big news on the internet for all of a day, which Nic had survived by going car shopping and avoiding Sebastian completely.

She’d sold another two cars, the Mercedes and the Jag, and the day at auction had brought in three new beauties. Between the work needed to bring them up to scratch, and the general repairs and other day-to-day business of the garage, the two of them had barely had any time to eat, let alone talk. Her hand had healed enough that she could do some of the smaller jobs if she was careful.

But now it was Friday lunchtime, the Misses and Motors contest was only a day and a half away and they’d finished in plenty of time. The Dino had an entirely refitted interior, and the paintwork was factory pristine.

Sebastian caressed the front windscreen with a soft yellow cloth. ‘She certainly is lovely.’ He gave Nic a strange look from beneath long, dark lashes. If she let herself, she could interpret what that look meant. She’d have to be dead not to recognise the sexual heat the two of them generated, even if she couldn’t explain it. Not that it mattered. She didn’t have the confidence to get close to him again.

‘Start her up,’ he said, resting his muscular forearms on the roof, twisting the cloth between his fingers. ‘I want to hear her roar.’

Nic felt an almost overwhelming sense of longing, mixed with the oddest sense of regret as she walked in to the office to collect the keys. It was as if she’d been running for so very long and suddenly the finish line was in sight and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to get there. Once the car started, it would be that particular journey finished, and she’d have to move forward to the next step — her own transformation. She knew she’d been putting it off. Since the disaster at the hairdressers, when she’d turned not into Marilyn Monroe but Morticia Adams, she’d been too scared to try anything else. She might not like how she looked now, but it was already safe and familiar.

Which was absolutely ridiculous. This was her dream. A Ferrari was not made to hide under a blanket, and to keep it there was cruel. The door to the little safe clicked open, and Nic grabbed the keys, strode back into the workshop, opened the driver side door and planted her backside firmly in the seat. Key in the ignition, a quick twist, breath held. The engine whined, coughed, died.

She tried again. This time it didn’t even bother to splutter. Checking the fuel gauge, she pumped the accelerator, crossed her fingers and prayed for third time lucky.

Nothing. Silence filled the workshop, a thick, acrid cloud of shock and disappointment that tasted like dirt. How could it not start? It had been in reasonable condition when she’d bought it, and she’d taken care of it. Kept it tucked away in the workshop, away from the elements. It wasn’t like she’d burned out the engine blasting it round the country lanes or up and down the bypass. She’d protected it.

And now it was nothing more than a pretty shell, and a pretty useless one at that. ‘Why won’t it start?’ she said, forcing the words out through a throat that hurt. Sebastian moved to the front. Through blurry eyes, she saw him gesture to her to open the bonnet.
’We fixed the outside. There was nothing else wrong with it. How can something look so wonderful and be broken?’

‘Appearances can be deceiving,’ he shrugged. He lifted the bonnet, disappearing out of view behind the sheet of glossy lipstick red. ‘Get over here and help me out.’

Side by side, they bent over the engine, and Nic fought to blink away the tears that filled her eyes. What an idiot she was. Just minutes ago, she’d been in the office getting her knickers in a knot about getting the car finished, and now it wasn’t even fixed enough to start. She’d been so focussed on making it look right, knowing that the judges at Misses and Motors would want to see something spectacular.

It was hardly going to impress if she had to take it there on the back of a tow truck. A hot tear trickled down her cheek, but she barely noticed, too busy trying to hold in the sob lingering in the back of her throat.

A strong arm came up around her shoulders and pulled her into a hard, male body. ‘Do not get emo on me,’ Sebastian said roughly. ‘I need your mechanical brain in full working order so we can get this pumpkin fixed.’

‘I’m not sure it can be fixed,’ Nic managed, her senses swimming as the scent of his cleanly washed t-shirt and warm skin enveloped her. It was a simple gesture, nothing more than a show of friendship, yet it was loaded with a sexual undertone that neither of them could deny. She turned into him, angling her hips and thighs level with his, her mouth seeking his mouth.

They got within a whisper of each other, noses touching. Time stopped.

Then they both stepped apart, gazes still locked, but bodies no longer in contact. She watched his chest heave, watched the tiny little flicker of a muscle in his cheek, watched him rake the hair back from his face in a gesture that had become as familiar to her as the husky sound of his voice and his scent, and she couldn’t believe what she’d almost done.

‘Could be a problem with the ignition,’ she said tightly. ‘Sometimes the wiring corrodes.’

‘We should check the battery and the spark plugs too.’

Nic nodded. ‘Good idea.’

‘Jump start?’ he suggested, his voice calm. Too calm. ‘I could bring one of the others round, see if we can get her going.’

‘Let’s check everything first,’ Nic said, hating herself so much it hurt. ‘I want to make sure everything is absolutely perfect. Then we’ll jump her if we need to.’

‘You’re the boss,’ he said. He glanced away, then back at her again. ‘Nic?’

‘What?’

Those green eyes glittered. ‘Do that again, and I won’t step away. You need to remember that.’

There was so much confidence, so much fierce arrogance in his words that her fears imploded in an instant, replaced by a powerful, electric pull low in her belly. She had to focus, had to think about the job in hand, had to remember why she had to resist the temptation no matter what. ‘Sebastian?’

‘What?’

‘Truth or dare.’

‘You seriously need to ask?’

Nic caught his gaze and held it, though it cost her everything. ‘I’m asking you to step away. You need to remember that.’

By six that evening all the relevant engine parts had been inspected and cleaned. Sebastian had talked her down from a total rebuild, though she’d been tempted. She’d finally conceded that a pretty car with no engine was even worse than a pretty car with a dodgy engine, unless she wanted to be the only Miss without a Motor. Her muscles and brain ached, and she’d done a lot less work than Sebastian.

She watched as he eased a curvy little TVR with two tone paint into the workshop and proceeded to attach jump leads between the two batteries. As she’d predicted, she’d found a problem with the wiring for the ignition, and as Sebastian had predicted, the Ferrari hadn’t taken too kindly to being hidden under a sheet for six months and had a flat battery to prove it.

Pressing her fingertips together, then holding her index fingers tightly against her lips, Nic closed her eyes. ‘You do it,’ she said. ‘

‘Oh,’ Sebastian replied. ‘I will.’

She heard the click as he opened the door to the Ferrari, heard the seat sigh as he settled himself in to it. And then she heard nothing. For the longest heartbeat, she heard nothing.

She opened her eyes, her whole body frozen. Sebastian turned his head, his bright green gaze slamming into hers. He winked.

And with a flick of his wrist, the workroom was filled with the most beautiful sound Nic had ever heard. A low, throaty growl that rose to a snarl when he touched the accelerator and all eight valves opened up. ‘Now that,’ he shouted over the sound of the engine, ‘is a roar. Come on. Let’s take this baby out for a test drive.’

Nic dashed forwards, unhooking the leads from the battery and closing the bonnet as if it was made from glass. He looked so damn perfect sat in the driver’s seat of her Ferrari. She glanced back over her shoulder at the TVR, its paintwork a definite raspberry-pink from this angle. She turned back to Sebastian, nerves on fire, heart pounding. ‘Race me,’ she shouted.

‘What?’ He leaned out of the car, but didn’t loosen his possessive grip on the steering wheel. The Ferrari had waited so long to be out there, to be seen, to be loved. It deserved someone like Sebastian at the wheel.

‘I’ll take the TVR,’ Nic yelled back, twisting her fingers into the front of her overalls, knowing the risk she was taking. ‘You take the Ferrari. I want to see what she looks like.’ I want to see what everyone else sees, she thought suddenly, and the thought felt very strange.

‘You’re sure?’

She nodded frantically, wanting to get out there before she changed her mind and shoved him over to the passenger side. ‘Show me what you can do,’ she said, realising all too late quite how sexually suggestive that sounded.

Dark brows flicked up, and green eyes flashed. ‘I’m ready whenever you are.’

Nic stumbled away and lowered herself into the TVR, not quite in control of her limbs. She was used to fast cars, and temperamental fast cars at that. She knew how to coax them into submission. But right now she was as clumsy as a novice. The TVR stalled twice before she got it off the forecourt and onto the road. Sebastian drew up alongside, the window down, his arm hanging loose over the side, apparently unaware that he was blocking the other side of the road. ‘We’ll take Bridger’s Road towards mine, then cut through to the bypass. Then the coast road back here. Winner chooses the forfeit.’

He revved the Ferrari gloriously, and gave the TVR a once over. ‘It’s not too late to swap cars.’

Nic gripped the steering wheel with both hands. She put her foot to the floor. The TVR leapt forwards, leaving the stunning Ferrari and it’s even more stunning driver behind. The TVR was a sexy drive, there was no denying it. The early evening sun was shining, and the paintwork would flash between bright pink and deep petrol blue depending on the angle. It was a car for an attention seeker and didn’t pretend to be anything else.

‘And what about the Ferrari?’ she thought, easing off the accelerator just a little, and feeling the thrill right down in to the pit of her stomach as it drew level. It hugged the curves of the road, every inch the mechanical racehorse that she’d dreamed it could be. People grinned when they saw the TVR. They came to a complete standstill when they saw the Ferrari. For just those few seconds, they were transported somewhere else, to a life of glamour and excitement and danger and excess, and that, more than anything, was what she sold. Never mind the metal and oil and leather.

It was all about the dream.

When she got behind the wheel of that car, she wouldn’t be plain, uninteresting Nic Sinclair. She would be someone else.

She would be the sort of woman who was bold enough to go bed with a man like Sebastian Prince. Someone with attitude. Attitude was sexy. Sebastian had tons of it. Her knuckles whitened on the wheel, and she didn’t even notice that she’d taken her foot off the gas until Sebastian went roaring past her in a flash of red

Jolted back into reality, Nic fought to concentrate on the road and her speed. She could not think things like that. She must not. Sebastian was way out of her league, in every possible way. Only a complete masochist would start to tempt themselves with the idea that going to bed with him was an option.