Touch Me (26 page)

“You could never find one as fucked-up as us. We could win prizes.”

He huffed out a big sigh. “Isn’t that true.” There was a pause. “Do I have to say I love you back?”

“It’s a given.”

“Yeah, twerp.”

Rose couldn’t help but smile at their interaction. Then it died when Cami switched conversational directions. “You’ve had your fun with it,” she said.

Payne didn’t question what “it” was, but Rose thought she knew. The racing.

“Your nine lives are used up,” the other woman added.

That chilled. Had there been eight other incidents besides the one that had occurred a few months before?

“What if it’s my passion?” Payne asked, his voice low, but clear. “Like your music.”

Cami let a moment of quiet pass. Then she said, “Or what if it’s a habit?”

“Cam—”

“Like those words you’ve got running through your head.”

Payne made a frustrated noise. “Why is everyone—”

“Walsh told me what you said to those kids last night. You should listen to yourself, Payne.”

He groaned. “Come on.”

“Something about not letting what your parents say about you define you. Think on that, Payne. And I’ll add this next part myself.
Who
your parents are don’t define you either. The only thing I’m conceding that Bean passed on to me is my kick-ass musical talent.”

“Not to mention his well-developed sense of modesty,” Payne replied, but there was a smile in his voice. Then he gusted out a sigh. “Cam, please. Let it go.”

“All right, all right,” she answered in a grumble. “But thanks a lot, now I’ll have that song from
Frozen
in my head for the rest of the night.”

He laughed, said, “Serves you right,” then the door clicked shut as Cami departed.

With that snick of sound, Rose realized it was the end of the party…and the end of this time with Payne.

As she heard his footsteps approach the kitchen, her nerves tightened and she grabbed a dishtowel to dry her hands. “I’ll be out of your hair in just a sec.” She’d explain her role in the graffiti event another day.

He leaned against the kitchen island, his gaze on her. “I understand I have you to thank for the party.”

She made a face. “The one where you almost traded punches with your brother.”

His shoulders lifted, fell as he continued to study her. “You getting back with the weas—ex?”

“What?” Did he know about Blake’s visit?

“He came begging, didn’t he?”

Payne knew about Blake’s visit. Huh. “There was no begging involved. But I did make it clear I wasn’t returning to Seattle…or to him.”

“Is that so?” He straightened, and paced toward her.

Rose pressed back against the countertop. “Yeah.”

When he stopped a foot away from her, she searched her brain for the right thing to say. The perfect cap of a statement to end whatever it was they’d had.

“You tell him you have this new idiot boss you can’t leave?”

Her mouth twitched. Okay, he wanted to play it funny. “Maybe something like that.” It hadn’t been like that at all. But it was true she didn’t want to leave Payne.

And she wasn’t. They’d be working together and she’d find a way to work through the heartbreak, too. It was an imperative. Rose 2.0 had the strength to do that.

So she dredged up a smile. “Guess I’ll see you Monday? I’ll be at the yard if you happen to drop in.”

“Doesn’t have to be Monday,” Payne said. “Take a few days off if you want.” Then he tilted his head. “It is going to be weird around here, not having you here making me eat my veggies, Mom.”

Her short laugh did
not
sound like a sob. “Yeah. Weird.”

Then Payne glanced away, glanced back. “Fuck it,” he muttered. His hand ran through his hair, then he touched Rose’s, sliding his fingers gently through the strands. “Maybe I don’t want you to go just yet.” His thumb brushed her mouth.

Rose trembled, tingles rushing over her skin. His blue eyes were heated and they transferred that heat to her skin as he continued to look at her. “What do you want?” she whispered.

His thumb caressed her bottom lip. “I checked the employee handbook. No rule.”

“No rule?”

“Not one.” Then he lifted her into his arms.

“I’m too heavy!” she gasped. “You’ll hurt—”

“Cleared to drive, baby,” Payne said, his mouth against her temple. “And I’m going to drive you mad.”

This time it was in his room, lowly lit by a single lamp, and on his bed. But of course, Payne made it anything but boring.

He had her out of her clothes in no time, and he stood over her, staring at her nakedness on his sheets while he rubbed his big palm over the thick rod behind his pants. She stared at his moving hand, mesmerized by the confident sexuality of the movement.

“Let me see how wet you are, Rose,” he said. “Open your legs.”

Her body burned.

“Rose.” He cupped his balls. “I want to see.”

“Then I want to see too.”

His brows rose. He smiled, then he yanked off his shirt. The rest of his clothes went next, and then he was naked, his hands playing with himself again. Rose watched, recalling the satiny strength of his erection and the way it felt sliding inside her. More wet arousal gushed between her legs.

Payne nodded at her like he knew. “I want to see, Rose.”

Rose placed the soles of her feet on the mattress, then slowly, slowly widened her legs, watching as Payne’s chest expanded on a harsh breath.

“God, you’re so pretty.”

Then Rose 2.0 slid one hand down her torso. The other came up to her breast. Her gaze on him, she toyed with her nipple.

“Yeah,” Payne said, his palm moving more quickly. “Play with your pussy, Rose.”

At her first soft touch, her eyes closed.

“On me,” Payne ordered. “Look at me.”

Everything in her wanted to resist. It would be better to close her eyes and close herself off to him. Take the orgasm by her own hand. End it all as an independent woman who would be soloing in this, after all, for a long time to come.

“
Rose.
”

When she still didn’t obey, the mattress shifted and suddenly she had a big male body ranging over hers. He pulled her hands away, pressing the one that had been on her breast to the bed, bringing the other to his mouth to suck her juices free from her fingers.

Her body jolted at the rough-wet caress of his tongue, but she couldn’t get far with Payne’s weight between her legs. Her lashes lifted and she twitched again as she watched him, because while her fingers were between his lips, those magnificent eyes were trained on her face.

Taking in every nuance of her expression.

He would know she hadn’t really taken it back. He would be able to tell that she was still in love with him.

So she did it. Before, it had happened on its own. This time, she had to concentrate, walling away the sensation of Payne over her, his heavy cock pressed to her belly, the suction of his hot mouth. In her mind, she constructed the big whiteboard. In its tray sat erasable markers of every color. And on its surface, an invisible hand wrote in green, 16 x 1 = 16.

When he set her other hand on the mattress, pinning it there too with one hand circling both her wrists, only a tiny part of her registered his lips on her neck. The rest was focused on the next equation. 16 x 2 = 32.

She kept it up as he fondled her nipples and ran his tongue along her collarbones.

When he half-rolled from her and pressed her knee flat to the mattress, she felt him explore her folds and bit her lip while concentrating. 16 x 6 = 96.

One long finger slid inside her and her back arched, but she still saw the writing on the whiteboard. 16 x 9 = 144.

Then Payne stilled. “What the fuck?” he muttered. His finger slid out of her and he drew the hand up her body, leaving behind a damp trail, until he cupped her face. She smelled herself, and even though the scent aroused her, she managed another calculation. 16 x 10 = 160.

Of course, that was an easy one.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Payne demanded, his eyes narrowing.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered.

“You the hell know what I mean,” he said. “Fucking times tables.” His hand shot to the bedside table where he pulled a condom from the drawer.

Her heart started racing as he kneeled up to roll it over himself. His belly hollowed at his own touch and the dragon head of his tattoo moved, as if truly breathing fire.

It would burn down her defenses, Rose thought in a panic. Her heels scrambled on the sheets, her only thought to get away. Safe.

“Stay,” Payne growled. He placed a hot, hard palm on her belly. More wetness gushed below his touch.

Oh, God, she thought, furiously returning her thoughts to the whiteboard. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, she pictured the invisible hand. 16 x 11 = 176.

Then Payne cursed, his weight dropped down on her, and his mouth crushed hers.

Rose’s eyes flew open, hot chills overtook her skin, and her lips opened for the immediate thrust of Payne’s tongue.
Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.

Payne Colson was kissing her on the mouth.

And sliding into her wetness below.

His lips were hard, his tongue aggressive, his taste wonderful. She reveled in the kiss, and her inner muscles tightened on his cock. He continued to hold her wrists above her head and her lower body writhed while her mouth accepted the complete plunder of that kiss.

It continued as his hips drove forward, eradicating every single thing from her mind but the taste of Payne, the way he filled her, the climax that was building, and…

The understanding that she was never, ever going to get over him.

Payne waited for Rose to show up at the yard all Monday.

When hour after hour passed without her arrival, he paced the back office. He walked through the rows of cars and kicked tires as if that was a thing an intelligent person would really do. When the afternoon rolled around and his after-school part-timers arrived, he supervised Jeb cleaning the spray paint off the CCS #2 sign.

Without asking, Lucy took it upon herself to tackle the scrubbing of the small second bathroom that everyone had been avoiding. Payne lavished praise on her for that, trying to ease the guilt the kid had written all over her face.

He hoped she remembered what he’d said.
Don’t allow yourself to be defined by your mistakes or what your parents say.

Than he remembered what his sister said.
Who your parents are don’t define you.

That caused him to kick a few tires again.

What Payne didn’t do was text or call Rose.

When he’d dozed off after sex Friday evening, she’d left him.

He should have been grateful. Instead he was perversely resentful.

Christ.

Once the yard closed, he didn’t care to go straight home. Though his refrigerator was full of frozen casseroles made of brown rice and free range chicken breasts, there was also spinach lasagna and cheese enchiladas. All made by Rose’s hands.

He didn’t want to think about Rose.

So he returned to his favorite place in the world. The parking lot and raceway were lit and a smattering of cars sat in the lot, so curiosity took him through the open ticket gates. Once he caught sight of the track, he realized it was a Boogie Night.

That’s what he and his racing buddies called it, anyway. A local company, Hustle Racing, offered to civilians the opportunity, after instruction and liability waivers, to drive luxury sports cars or actual racing vehicles around the track.

Payne stopped at the rail to watch the drivers-to-be gather around the autos, excitedly taking selfies or trading phones with others to get photo memories of themselves ensconced in the driver’s seat or posed with a proprietary hand on gleaming paint.

He and his buddies called the experience a Boogie Night in a nod to the movie, because the cars were an auto aficionado’s version of pornography.

“You’re here on a Boogie Night?”

Glancing over, Payne saw Jer coming his way. The guy wore a collared speedway shirt and carried a paper cup full of unshelled sunflower seeds, the older man’s only vice.

Payne grabbed a handful. “Hey, I like porn as much as the next guy.”

“These guys are amateurs, Colson. You’re a star.”

That stopped Payne short. Star. A
porn
star?

Because, suddenly it felt like maybe he was just that. An aging porn star.

Yeah, just thirty years old, but like a veteran actor of XXX-rated movies certainly had to find fucking routine, the racing might have become like that for him too.

For sure, the day of the accident he hadn’t been 100 percent focused on his performance on the track. His mind had been on the new yard and whether he’d made the right decision. He’d been thinking of the numbers, just like he was sure Rose had been doing—damn her—Friday evening in his bed.

Maybe it
was
time to quit racing.

And find his rush…where?

Abruptly, he spun about, not wanting to consider any of it.

“Where you going, Payne?” Jer asked.

His head didn’t know. His mouth said, “To see a woman about a job.”

Behind the wheel of his car again, he reconsidered. She’d said she’d see him Monday, but she hadn’t come. He’d suggested himself that she take a couple of days off. Maybe that was it.

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the weasel had come back for a second round and convinced her this time.

That got him starting the car and getting the hell out of the speedway parking lot. He just wanted to know where he stood—uh, in terms of her employment. No way would he call her over the phone about it. When he asked the question he wanted to see her face to know whether she was with him or in some mental classroom doing the fucking times tables as a way to keep her distance from him.

He was going to spank her for that.

Of course he wasn’t going to spank her for that.

She was his employee, not his lover.

But there wasn’t a spanking rule in the employee handbook either.

Groaning, he did his best to put that from his mind and battled the usual traffic to her sister Lily’s. Rose’s car wasn’t in the drive or on the street, but that didn’t deter him. He…he just had to see her.