The Boy Next Door (74 page)

“Ah, I see.  And why tonight?”

“My little brother wanted me to watch him race.”  She gestured casually to the bouncy young man.

He sidled up to her and tried to be casual about draping his arm behind her on the roof of the young man’s car.  She smoothly side-stepped away from him and turned to face him with her arms crossed on her chest.

She was driving him insane with her disregard.  And he was becoming more and more curious about what lay hidden underneath those oversized clothes.

“Look, I was just coming over to say hello.  I didn’t think I recognized either of you, or his car, so I thought I would say hi.”

He offered his hand genteelly.  “So hello.”

She shook his hand politely, and her soft skin felt like cream in his hand.

He turned and disappeared back into the crowd, moving too quickly to notice her long and pronounced exhalation of breath.  Greyson was beyond distracted just from one look into her green eyes and knew that it was going to affect his racing that night.

He completed two rounds of racing and won by his slimmest margin ever, but it still counted.  He was not going to lose his reputation based off one cold encounter with one hot woman.

He approached the pair one more time before the night was over.

“Can I give you a ride?  You might like a little rumble,” he grinned down at the petite woman.

She narrowed her gaze at him and tried to ignore her brother’s fist popping against her arm.

“C’mon, go ahead,” he whispered loudly.  “You gotta try out that car.”

She sighed dramatically and gave in.  “Fine, one little spin.”

Greyson walked her over to the Charger and closed the passenger door behind her.  He took a deep breath as he walked around the back and tried to get a grip on his raging hormones.

“How fast did you have in mind?” he whispered as he shut the car door, quirking one eyebrow up in a question mark.

She looked up at him through thick dark lashes.  “You tell me.”

He felt his cock twitch underneath the fly of his jeans and he dug his nails into his palm to stop his hand from adjusting himself.  He started it up and watched as her hands gripped the sides of the seat when she felt the rumble under her.  He revved the engine and smirked to himself as he heard a faint gasp from her side of the car.

He eased out of the crowd and as soon as they were clear, he looked over at her sideways out of the corner of his eye, and slammed the gas down.

“Fuck,” she whispered, pressing her head backwards into the headrest.

He laughed at the expletive that fell from her soft pink lips.

“You okay over there?”

“Y-Y-Yeah,” she stuttered as she tried to regain her composure.  “R-R-Racing’s my brother’s thing, not mine.”

“You’re more of a slow lane driver?”

“More like a driver who wants to stay alive,” she retorted.

Dammit
, he thought,
and she’s quick with the comebacks.

“I seem to be perfectly alive,” he bantered.

“For how long?  Until you plow this thing into a wall some night?”

“Nope, no wall plowing here.”

He whipped the car in a tight U-turn and she pitched sideways, knocking her head against his shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked, trying not to chuckle.

“Sure, great, love a good concussion.”

“I’m not that much of a hard body,” he taunted.

She righted herself and stared straightforward through the windshield. 
The best part of being a woman
, she thought to herself,
was no one can see what your body is thinking
.

He pulled back to the crowd and threw it into park.  His hand drifted to her knee and she stiffened noticeably.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he offered as an apology.

“It’s okay, I’m just not used to it.”

His hand moved an inch up her thigh.  “You sure you’re good?”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and looked up at him.

“Very good,” she whispered.

He groaned softly and leaned towards her.  The seat belt tightened against his chest as he neared her parted lips.  He could feel her warm breath against his cheek; it smelled like peppermint candies.  He ran his tongue lightly over her bottom lip and felt his cock stir again when she sighed quietly.

“Want to get out of here?” he asked faintly.

She opened her eyes and looked into his.  “I can’t, I’m sorry.”

He wrinkled his dark eyebrows together and pulled back from her.  “Why can’t you?”

“I have to get home,” she answered vaguely.

Greyson huffed out his disappointment and sat back in his seat.  He was not sure what to do with rejection.  She popped open the door and disappeared to the other side of the tinting.  As the car door shut, he slammed his fist into the steering wheel and swore loudly inside his own head.

Who the fuck does she think she is?

Chapter Five

Greyson flung himself out of the Charger once he saw that she had left with her brother.  He headed to the first bleach-headed, mini-skirted idiot that he saw and within minutes, was headed to the apartment with her.  His frustration was beyond sexual but this would at least take care of the most urgent difficulty.

He was in no mood for fun or playtime.  Once they got to the apartment, he urged the girl down to her knees and held the sides of her face roughly as he plundered her bewildered mouth.  She giggled when the evidence of his orgasm dripped from the corner of her mouth, and he shooed her out the front door hurriedly with cab fare and a dismissive wave.

He flopped down on the bed and groaned loudly.  Even with his cock satiated, he wanted the brunette from the race.  He could still taste the peppermint on her lips and could smell the fruity floral fragrance of her skin.  He would find her again.

The next morning, Greyson dragged himself from the apartment back to the estate.  Mister Anders gave him a grim nod but handed him the steaming coffee mug regardless.

Greyson grinned and headed up to his master suite for a shower and some clean clothes.  The hot water quickly steamed up the bathroom and he tossed his tee shirt, jeans, and boxer briefs onto the closet floor.  The multiple jets of water shot out of the granite tiled wall and coursed over his tired body.  He rested his forehead against one wall and let the pressure of the jets tattoo his lower back.  Soaping himself up, his fingers lingered along his cock, still remembering her soft lips and haunting eyes.  He stroked as he imagined those lips sucking him and her warm pink tongue tickling him.  He grunted deep in his chest as he came, the spurts of his fluid splashing against the tile.

After he finished his shower with a sigh, he stepped out and wrapped up in his thick cobalt bathrobe.  He punched several buttons on the internal intercom system, and requested breakfast in his room.  He was not ready to play nice with anyone he might encounter downstairs.

One of the staff knocked softly on the suite door, and he opened it with a flat smile and took the tray.  It was another lox platter and he silently thanked the cook for one of his favorites.

As he piled on the cream cheese, the smoked salmon, the chopped eggs, and the tomatoes, he clicked on the television and flopped onto his own bed.  There was nothing good on television on Saturday mornings apparently, so he left it on some random movie and ate his brunch while staring out the window.

Part of him was considering trying the race spot that night, just in the off-chance he would find her again.  He had never been on a Saturday night so he was not sure what the crowd was like.

Instead, he pulled over his laptop and punched through an email to his personal lawyer.  With the retainer that Greyson paid him monthly, the man was willing to do almost anything that his staff could legally manage.  Usually it involved some sort of due diligence project on a company he was acquiring or an executive he was trying to pin down.  This time, Greyson launched an investigation into the brunette whose name he did not even know.

The lawyer was on top of it for a Saturday afternoon and agreed to find out what he could.  He knew better than to ask too much about the assignments he was given, and would only question them if it ran into a legal speed bump.  He promised to deliver what he could as soon as he could.

Greyson leaned back against the mound of pillows on his bed, and stared out the window into the backyard.  He hoped for information about her, but knew in the back of his head he was crazy for even asking.  But he could not walk away from the one that said no.

He had never had a difficult life.  There had been challenges -- growing up without a mother figure, being raised by servants and personal staff while his father made the family fortune larger, taking over the family empire before he was thirty, and personally speaking, being completely on his own.  He had extended family somewhere, but he was not interested in relations that came crawling around with their hands out for money.  But it was a “challenged” life most mortals only dream of.

Chapter Six

By Monday, the lawyer and his staff had not produced any details about the brunette woman.  They had so little information to start with that finding something would have been damn near miraculous.  Regardless, Greyson was furious that his highly paid, highly educated lawyer had found nothing on the girl.

By Friday, Greyson was beside himself.  He stalked around the office, glaring at random employees who went scurrying for cover.  He stormed around the house, sending his staff fleeing for the safety of their quarters.  He slammed his fists into the punching bag over and over in the gym room but nothing relieved his frustration.  One night that week, he had even taken the Charger over to a bar off the racing street, and convinced two of the vacuous bubbly bartenders to accompany him to the apartment, but fucking both of them in the same night only left him more frustrated than when he began.

As the last meeting of the week wound down, Greyson gritted his teeth and bid everyone a good weekend.  He punched the button on his private elevator and told his driver to speed home.  Within minutes of pulling into the garage, he was into his tee shirt and jeans and back out the door into the Charger.  The tires left black marks on the driveway as he roared off in a cloud of smoke.

He parked at the burger joint and smacked the steering wheel with his hands until his palm stung.  He was frustrated that the lawyer had gathered no intel, but he was even more angry at himself.  He was angry with her that she had gotten so far under his skin that he could not focus on anything else.  He was furious with himself that he had let her affect him.  He had not been this emotional or unpredictable when his father died.  But he was about to street race at close to 100 miles an hour in a souped-up vintage Charger and he could not even see straight.

Opting not to eat in the car again, he strode into the restaurant and ordered the double bacon cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate milkshake.  He liked to enjoy the simple things in life, in a place where he might look familiar but the teenage cashier behind the counter would chalk it up to him being a repeat customer versus having been on the cover of Maxim and People magazines.

He ate about half of the meal and tossed the rest in the garbage can.  It was a little too early for the crowd to be gathering, so against his best judgment, Greyson drove over to a nearby bar for a couple of beers.

By the time he had finished the second one, the sunlight was starting to fade and it was time for the crowd to start gathering.  He headed over with his fists beating a fast rhythm on the steering wheel, matching the pounding of his heart.

He could feel the grin on his face when he saw the overeager boy prancing around his car and trying to explain something to the uninterested brunette.  He screeched to a halt near them, slammed the car into park.  He took a long deep breath and collected his wits before getting out of his vehicle.

“Evening,” he offered along with his best smile.

He thought he saw her breasts swell at the sight of him, and it bolstered his courage.

“Glad to find you all again,” he hoped he sounded smoother than his pounding heart would indicate.

The boy was babbling something about cars and engines, but his tunnel vision saw only her.  She was still dressed in oversized clothes with her hair tied back in a bun.  He could not wait for the chance to pull her hair down and explore her every curve.

“Hey there,” she said with a slight shudder in her voice.

“I know I’m supposed to race tonight, it’s what I always do, but is there any way I could convince you to get a cup of coffee with me?  I’m not sure I should be racing tonight.”

“Why’s that?”  He could tell she was trying to remain aloof but failing.

“I’m afraid I had a couple of beers on the way over.  I’m fine to drive normally, but racing is a bad idea.”

She looked at her brother and then back at Greyson.  “You staying?”

“Yeah, I think I might win something if he’s not around.”  The young man hooked his thumb at Greyson with a grin.