had no use for a town where a supposed upstanding citizen, one related to what passed for the law, didn’t know that a married woman’s no meant no. So this year’s race was it. Corley Motors, one of the biggest outfits in top fuel dragster racing, wouldn’t be coming back to the Dahlia Speedway.
And once he’d finished his business here and cut his personal ties with the town, that meant neither would Trey.
Cardin turned the torque wrench over in her hands, a thoughtful crease appearing between her arched brows. “It has to be strange to have grown up here, yet never visit. Except during the Farron Fuels.”
He wanted to tell her it wasn’t strange at all. That these days he didn’t think of Dahlia as anything more than another quarter mile strip of asphalt he needed to get his driver down as fast as he could. But he didn’t say anything, just waited for her to dig deeper for whatever it was she wanted.
She did, switching from a gentle trowel to a more painful pick. “Surely you miss seeing old friends? Spending time at home? Hanging out with Tater, as inseparable as you two were?”
He missed Tater, sure. They’d been best friends before either of them could spell his name. But the only thing that would’ve kept Trey here had never been his to come home to—even though she’d sought him out and was standing in front of him now.
And so he shook his head.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Hmm.” Her tone said she didn’t believe him. “There’s not anything about Dahlia you miss?”
“Nope,” he said, and knew he lied.
“Or anyone?”
“Nope.” Another lie.
“Not even Kim Halton?”
Kim Halton had been the girl on her knees when his pants had been around his ankles. The girl who’d finished what she’d started, then left Trey alone to pull up, zip up and deal with the girl who had watched.
“There is one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I miss seeing you.”
“Pfft.” She fluffed her fingers through her bangs, hiding behind her hair and her hand. “When did you ever see me before?”
He wondered if her refusal to look him in the eye meant her cool was all a ploy. Then he wondered how much of the truth she really wanted.
He went for broke. “You mean besides the time you stood there and watched Kim blow me?”
Color rose to bloom on her cheeks, but it was her only response until she gave a single nod.
That one was easy. “I saw you at school, in the halls, shaking your ass on the football field. I saw you every time I came into your family’s place for a burger or a beer.”
“That was a long time ago, Trey,” she said, her voice broadcasting her bafflement. “At least—”
“Seven years,” he finished for her.
Her frown was baffled, too. “You say that like you’ve kept track.”
“I have.” He knew exactly when he’d moved away from Dahlia. When he’d last seen her except in passing at the annual Farron Fuels.
“I don’t get it. You were two years ahead of me in school. We didn’t exchange more than a couple dozen words.”
Words had nothing to with the heat she’d stirred in him then. That she still stirred now, a stirring he felt as his blood flowed south. “So?”
“So, there’s no reason for you to miss seeing me.”
“None you can think of, you mean.”
“Whip—”
“Hold up.” He lifted a hand. “Forget about me missing you. Let’s talk about the nickname instead.”
That got her to laughing, a throaty, bluesy sound that tightened him up. “Hey, I had no idea it would stick. You can blame that on Tater.”
She returned the wrench to the shelf, her fingers lingering, her lashes as thick and dark as the bristles of an engine brush as she lifted her gaze coyly to his. “At least most people think it’s about you cracking the whip over your team.”
That was because most people hadn’t been there to hear the gossip about him whipping it out for Kim Halton.
He was lucky their secret had stayed close. That no one knew he couldn’t have cared less about Kim. That, instead, he’d wanted the girl watching from the doorway as Kim stroked him. The one too close to his doorway now.
He moved to block it. “I suppose it could’ve been worse.”
“You’re right.” She paused, added, “I could’ve called you…Speedy.”
Ouch. But he grinned. “Maybe I was wrong when I thought I’d missed seeing you.”
“I’d say that’s a distinct possibility.” Coy was gone, a come-on in its place. “Especially since I’m right here, and you’re still missing seeing me.”
He was pretty sure his definition of missing and hers of the same word were two different things. That didn’t mean she wasn’t right. That he wasn’t overlooking something vital.
He crossed his arms and widened his stance, furrowing his brow as he gave her an obvious once-over. “I’m seeing you now.”
Her tongue slicked quickly over her lips. “You’re too far away to see much of anything.”
There were less than three feet between them. He came closer, backing her into a waist-high storage locker. “Is this better?”
“You tell me,” she said.
He leaned in, flattened his palms on the stainless steel surface, one on either side of her hips, and hovered, her body heat rising, his breathing labored and giving him away. “Not as better as it needs to be.”
Her hesitation in replying wasn’t about uncertainty, or impropriety, but about making him sweat, making him wait, making him want and ache. He was doing all of those things, strangling on the tension that was thick in the trailer around them, and robbing him of his air.
Finally, she moved, her hands coming up, her palms pressing to his chest, her fingertips finding his nipples and rubbing circles where they dotted his shirt. He shuddered, and she tipped forward, nuzzling her nose to the hollow of his throat.
He closed his eyes, inhaled, caught the scent of her shampoo, of her sun-heated skin, of her perspiration that was sweet, a damp sheen. Keeping his hands to himself had seemed smart, but she made him too stupid to care about anything but taking up where seven years ago, they’d left off because they were too young to know better.
He
