Turn & Burn (14 page)

“I did it for you!” The words were out before I could stop them. I hated how much I loved his weight on me. I hated how tiny and feminine he made me feel and how feeling that way aroused me. Hated the way he smelled so damn good and how I couldn’t seem to draw that scent deep enough into my lungs. Hated how his breath caressed the sensitive skin of my ear and sent shivers down my spine that turned to sparks when they sank into my groin.

Most of all, I hated that I wanted to struggle and scratch and kick and bite, so he’d hit that alpha male red zone like an unguided missile and forget everything but showing me he was a man and I was a woman.

But he’d never been my man. I was just the woman he used and sold. I had to live with myself when this was over, so the only muscle I moved was the one I couldn’t stop and still survive—my heart.

“And I fucking love you for it. I will always love you for that.” His harsh whisper seemed to rasp my nipples, turning them into swollen darts that thudded with want and sent echoes to my clit. “But it wasn’t me who wronged you that night, it was Mack Brown. I asked in a panic and I guess I’d had a beer or two. Before I could start thinking straight and back off of it, you just gave something away that Mack should never have taken and I had no right to ask you to give. What the fuck was I supposed to do with the way that made me feel? Don’t you know that no woman in my life ever gave me a fuckin’ thing, other than to give me away?”

No, you can’t do this. How dare you try to make me feel sorry for you?

He gripped my hip and lifted his weight off my back, but his legs still bracketed my thighs. He used his groin to shove my legs against the table edge. The gentle squeeze he gave my butt cheek only made me wetter.

I tried to recall any one of the million hateful sentences I’d rehearsed in case this moment ever came. But with his body pinning mine, all I could think about was the heat penetrating my thin tights, burning the shape of his cock into the cleft of my ass.

The pain in his voice...
can that be real? No. No! He’s the man who can put a condom under my pillow and make me think he bought me a balloon bouquet.

“Now, don’t test me, Shelby. You make me into an animal and I do the same to you. I know if I put my finger in your pussy right now, you’d be wet. You might hate me with your head, but honey, your body can’t hear a damn word your brain says when I’m nearby. I know that because your body does the same thing to mine.”

“You made me a freak.” I couldn’t stop the stinging tears that filled my eyes.

“God made you a freak. I just showed you how damn good that could feel.”

He took a step back. I pushed off the table and turned. I knew I should walk right out the door, but like a damn fool, I stared into his eyes, needing the truth more than my next breath.

His eyes held me. “I knew if I let you hang around long enough to see who I really am, you’d hate me more than you do right now. But, like I said, I’ll tell you the truth after the race.”

He gripped my waist and lowered his head. I hated him with my whole heart, and yet, if I died tonight, I wanted to go with his taste in my mouth.

“What’s going on?”

I whipped my head around to stare in dismay. Mom put her hands on her hips and glowered. “Shelby, for God’s sake, have some pride.” She blinked so fast, I thought she might cry. “I don’t need a reminder of those filthy things you said. He’s your brother.” She cut her eyes toward Colt.

“So what? I said them. Big deal. For God’s sake, he’s not my brother. Just because you signed some piece of paper I didn’t even witness—”

Colt shoved a palm toward Mom. “Stop. Just stop, Macy. You were wrong for goin’ through my cell phone when you found it in the dirty clothes.” He looked down at me. “I didn’t know she had the damn thing until she confronted me. I panicked and I lied.”

He jerked toward Mom again. “It’s mutual. It’s always fucking been mutual. I made her say those things and I taped ‘em, in case I ever got caught with her, because I knew Dad would kick my ass ninety ways to Sunday for touchin’ her. But y’all were wrong for shovin’ this bogus sister-brother bullshit on three damn adults who were attracted to each other.”

Why would he throw Caine under the bus?

For fuck’s sake, why did she glare at me?

“Why would you plant a hideous idea in my head that won’t let me sleep?”

I ached to throw that moment in her face. Colt had already changed his version of the story once. That gave me the advantage. I could open my mouth and tell her that everything I’d said was the truth. It would hurt Colt. I’d still hate her for taking his side that day.

“What would change if I told you something else now? What. Would. Change?”

I took ragged breaths and tried not to roll my eyes when she began to cry.

Colt shook me. I looked up. His mouth rounded and the stunned look in his eyes rapidly changed to—
oh, hell no.
It was way too late for his pity.

Wrenching free, I dashed onto the deck. Relief washed over me when Dale’s truck roared down the driveway. I stared at the shining engine in the bed of the big black Chevrolet and realized two things at once.

One, I was fucking terrified to get behind the wheel of a car with an engine powerful enough to run in a NASCAR race.

Two, I could never tell Mom that I’d told the truth that horrible day when she’d played me that audio clip of me talking dirty at Colt’s command.

Because telling her would mean she’d tell Dale. I could tell him, maybe, but he could never know that she’d known all along.

If I told Dale myself, he’d deal with Colt, but he’d make sure Mom never knew. I knew the way I knew my own name, he’d die to protect her from knowing his sons had turned her child into a whore. Because he loved her too much to put that pain on her.

The man who’d grown up without any love, the orphan who’d made a huge sacrifice for his sons without a minute’s hesitation, would never forgive her for not having the guts to do the same for her child. 

And no matter how much I might hate Colt, I’d grown to love Dale. Too much to put that shit on him. Maybe too much to give him the chance to fail me, in case I’d misjudged him, too.

I had to find another way.

For the moment, there was only one thing left to do.

Drive like the devil was on my ass.

“S
helby!” Caroline threw her car door open. I couldn’t help gaping at the shining, motorized sex machine she was driving. Jonny rolled Caine’s truck to a stop behind me while Caroline jerked the passenger door open and jumped inside the Mustang.

We hugged, but I kept eyeing the car over her shoulder while she giggled in my ear. “What the fuck is
that
?”

She pulled back, grinning broadly. “My Christmas present. Sweet, ain’t it?”

“My nipples are hard. What is it?” The sleek two-seater boasted a rakish profile, similar to Colt’s Corvette, but the lines were curvier.
Jesus, it might be prettier than Kolby’s fancy Audi
. Standing stock still, the car gave me the sense of a predator in a crouch, ready to chew up asphalt and kick ass.

Caroline bounced, her eyes snapping with excitement. “Dodge Viper. Jesse brought it down from Lexington last night.”

“Wow.” My heart kicked a bit. Poor Caroline. Now that Brandon had ditched her, was it Colt who was still feeding her this bullshit that her father bought her these expensive ca—

I jerked my gaze to her face. “Jesse
brought
it? In person?”

She nodded. “Mom got sober after little Shelby was born, so he don’t hate comin’ around now.” Leaning forward, she tugged her cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. Thumbing through a couple of screens, she held out the latest model iPhone.

Robyn got sober? Something I might’ve known, had I not felt so guilty for getting out of this town after Caroline got pregnant and turned down a full scholarship.

How much of the scholarship funds earmarked for her had been diverted to me? The weight of that guilt had grown after her baby was born. I’d started avoiding her calls because all I had to talk about were exams and cute college boys. Meanwhile, she’d been left to raise a child alone because her ex-boyfriend and former stepbrother, Brandon McKenna, was a bigger dick than Colt

I took the device, scrolling through photo after photo of the former racecar driver who’d stepped behind the wheel for Richard Ridenhour after Dale quit driving. Though he’d left the Ridenhour team after only a year, Jesse Hancock was a god around these parts. I’d passed at least three billboards with his picture on them last night, driving to the house. There was no mistaking his face. Especially when standing beside a beaming Caroline, holding her little girl in his arms.

I’d never met the woman, but Robyn Mason had to be the parent who’d given Colt and Caroline their fair coloring. Looking at the photos, I realized Caroline’s eyes were the color and shape of Jesse’s. She had his jaw and nose, too. Colt had Dale’s features.

I handed the phone back to Caroline, but my mind went back in time to the day Colt shattered my world. I could almost hear Colt’s voice in my ear, saying he’d gotten the idea to take money from guys to fuck me after a race from Brandon, who was Caroline’s ex and Colt’s best friend.

Colt swore Brandon used the cash he took from guys wanting to fuck Caroline, and bought her the Dodge Challenger, but he also said Brandon told her the car was a gift from the father who’d abandoned her before she’d been born.

My heartbreak over the fact that my friend’s father wasn’t the source of the Dodge had stopped me from talking to her about the entire mess. I could’ve told her that her boyfriend turned her into a whore. But I absolutely could not tell her that Jesse hadn’t been the person who’d bought her that Dodge.

Except, apparently, he had.

So, was this what Caine had been trying to tell me when he reminded me how good a liar Colt was? I’d heard the rest of the story from someone else, so that part had to be true.

But, why would Colt lie about—

“Hey, where’d you go?” Caroline waved a hand in front of my eyes.

“I was wondering what happened to the Challenger? Since it was the car I learned to drive a stick in, I was kinda partial to it.”

“Oh.” She giggled, still sounding like a little girl. “You and me both. I had to sell it to buy a minivan right before little Shelby was born. I thought I’d told you that.”

“Maybe you did.” Four years had passed since she’d called to tell me about her daughter’s birth, but I still hadn’t quite recovered from my shock that Caroline had named her baby after me.

She laid her head against the headrest and rolled her eyes my way. “Oh, Shelby. I put my head down on that hood and cried like a little bitch when I had to sell that car, but I had to be a responsible parent.”

Picturing Caroline on the car’s hood was easy enough. Filling in her tears wasn’t difficult, either. Knowing how much the pick-up drag races that happened out here meant to her—well, the whole damn story had echoes of Dale.

Jonny yanked my door open. “Ladies, y’all want to chat? Take up knitting. Wanna beat Kolby Barnes? Let’s turn and burn.”

Of all the phrases, he had to pick that one? I’d barely gotten my half-baked revenge plan off the ground before Colt found a way to bring me to heel. Wasn’t I right where I’d sworn to never be again? Under his thumb, trying to find a way to forgive him? I scanned the lonely lane, staring at the leafless trees and soggy pines, still weeping with last night’s rain.

“I can’t believe you’re racing one of the hottest drivers in NASCAR. I told Jesse and he just about died laughing.” Caroline’s comment made me turn to her in dismay.

“Fabulous. Thanks for that.” I faked a scowl. “Get the fuck out.”

She let loose a peal of giggles. “No, dumbass. He said, ‘Who’s makin’ book? I’ll take Shelby and the points if Dale’s her crew chief, and I’ll bet the whole fucking farm.’” She touched my arm. “Listen, ask Dale if he’d mind if Jesse came? He said he’d really love to watch.”

“Like I want an audience for this disaster?” I muttered. Too many emotions hammered me. The respect and admiration I felt for Dale. The hatred burning in my soul for Colt and Caine. The bitterness of realizing I had to become my mother’s accomplice to protect my newfound father-daughter relationship. My paralyzing fear I was in over my head.

The idea that, in order to get even with Colt and Caine, I had to let Dale down.

Caroline’s cheeks glowed and her eyes gleamed with envy. “Shelby, you’re gonna put your car on the line against an honest-to-God NASCAR driver. That’s like, my dream come true.”

I’d already had one of Caroline’s dreams come true for me when she had to give up on it. Two made it seem like God had it in for this sweet young woman. I was glad I hadn’t eaten that damn bacon sandwich, because my stomach knotted.

The happiness in Caroline’s eyes faded. “You know Jesse got a stepdaughter when he married after he dumped Mama? She’s runnin’ in the Xfinity series with Colt. Her name’s—”

“Marley Taggart.” All the old gossip came back to me, stuff I’d gleaned during my few months here, and things people mentioned when they stopped me to talk about the ‘Cuda.