The car was low, the seats deep. “At least I’m wearing pants this time.”
He glanced down at her legs. “I like you in tight jeans. But the skirt was fun last time, too.” He gave her one of his wolfish smiles. “For me, at least.”
Leaning over her, he drew the shoulder harness down on both sides. Where the touches had been light and fast that first day they’d met at the airport—a hint rather than a promise—now he caressed, lingered, made sure every single piece of nylon was in exactly the right place.
She forgot about the spectators. She forgot about Jeremy. Forgot about everything but the gorgeous man beside her as he reached down between her legs with slow, seductive movements. He hooked the strap into the harness, his fingers brushing her inner thigh. Heat, his hands, her body. Quicker breaths, as if she were anticipating the speed, anticipating his strong hands on the wheel. And on her.
“Ready?”
The question was loaded with alternate meanings, especially when accompanied by the look he gave her, the way his gaze dipped down to her mouth, held there, then slid back up to meet her eyes.
She was ready. So ready.
She gave him a standard thumbs-up. The engine roared through her chest when he pumped the gas, then settled into a steady rumble inside her. He started slow, increasing speed gradually. It wasn’t an oval track with only four turns, but a road course with twists and curves. He’d shown her and Jeremy an aerial map.
They went into the first hairpin turn at fifty miles per hour. His speed climbed as they went up the hill by the lake where they’d entered the track. Then they were going faster, faster, faster. Though he braked and downshifted into the turns, he throttled up coming out of them. Despite the harness, her head was jostled and she had to hold onto the door so she wouldn’t be thrown around in the seat. It was like a roller coaster, up, down, around. Adrenaline fueled her blood like gas fueled the car. The corkscrew turn barely slowed him down. Her eyes teared in the wind. Even with the helmet, the noise was deafening, the air whistling past them, the thunder of the engine as he powered up, its whine as he decelerated.
They blew through a short straightaway, then he braked into the next turn. She glanced at the speedometer as he came out of it. Sixty. Then he jammed his foot onto the accelerator on the long straightaway past pit row. She didn’t see Jeremy. She couldn’t make out faces or even bodies, there was just a blur. By the time the speedometer hit one-twenty, she was pressed fully into the seat, one hand on the door, the other wrapped around the harness so her neck wouldn’t snap.
And they were flying.
Flying so free that she closed her eyes, and there was only the sense of speed, the rush of wind, and the shriek of the motor.
She was high. She was wild. She needed Will to touch her, but he couldn’t take his hand off the stick shift. And yet he was so close she could feel his heat beside her as if it were burning right off the engine.
Speed was the drug. Will was her pusher. She’d wanted to control the habit, but she was starving for more as she shouted, “Do it again.”
And he did, taking her around the track over and over, until she was nothing more than hot skin, hard bone, and exhilarating, utterly breathless sensation.
*
Later, Will had taken Jeremy around again while Harper watched. She’d stood on the sidelines, vibrating like voltage through an electrical wire. Will had felt the same, his body charged, his skin sizzling to the touch, his heart hammering in staccato beats.
As for Jeremy, he’d chattered like an excited squirrel. Speed affected them all. And when her brother said he wanted to drive back in Leland’s truck to Will’s house, where Mrs. Taylor was waiting for him, so that they could talk cars the whole way, Harper agreed readily.
Now, Will and Harper were headed up Highway 1 alone, the others out of sight. “Were you scared on the track?”
“Terrified.” But even now, he could hear—could see—the thrill flowing through her.
He’d been euphoric. He never raced other cars on the track. He was always racing himself. But with Harper in the car, he hadn’t felt like he needed to outrun his past anymore. She’d heard it all. And she was still here beside him.
For the first time ever, speed had been just for fun, rather than the need of a junkie desperately taking his hit just to make it through to the next day.
He touched her hand in the close confines of the car and he heard her breath hitch at his touch. Even her skin seemed to be humming with electricity as she suddenly said, “Take this exit.”
With nothing more than three small words, she flipped his switch, turned him on, powered up his engine. Which was exactly what he knew he’d done to her every time he’d pushed his foot to the floor and blown past her speed limits.
He finally saw the same thing she had—a motel, one of the better chains, but nothing like his usual luxury.