Dirty For Me (Motor City Royals) (7 page)

And yet . . .

“But . . .” She groped around for words to articulate the doubt. “You don’t love me, right? I mean, we hadn’t even talked about being exclusive or anything.”

Robert gave a laugh that sounded indulgent. “Well, no. I don’t love you any more than you love me. But that’ll come. And as for exclusivity, would you really be surprised if I told you I hadn’t been?” He sounded so casual that she felt no shock at all.

“No, I guess not.” She tried to ease her grip on the phone.

“I mean, did you want to be? Obviously once we’re married, it’ll be a different story, but until then . . .” He stopped. “Seriously, Tamara. You’re in Detroit, I’m in New York. We’re apart for long periods of time. I’m not staying celibate.”

“I’m not arguing.” Because she didn’t care. And now she knew the truth it even felt . . . freeing. “As long as that goes for me, too.” She wasn’t quite sure why she’d said it, maybe to prove a point even if it was only to herself. That she did have some choice in this after all.

Robert was silent.

“Oh,” she said. “And here was I thinking we lived in the twenty-first century. Or are you seriously suggesting you get to screw around while I get to remain pure as the driven snow?”

“Okay,” he said on a long breath. “Fair point. Same goes for you as well. But once we’re married, we’re faithful to each other, right?”

Once we’re married.
The words rang weirdly in her head. “Yes, of course.”

There was another pause.

“So . . . Does this mean you’re going to say yes?” Robert’s voice held a note of humor in it. “Or are you going to keep me in suspense until Cassandra’s party?”

Ah, yes. The engagement party her mother had organized before Tamara had even known an engagement was going to be the next thing that was required of her.

What was the correct response? The Tamara of a week ago would have said, “Of course I’m going to say yes” without a second thought. But for some reason, right now, the words wouldn’t come without her forcing them. “I suppose so,” she said at last, and it sounded wrong, left a bad taste in her mouth.

Another five minutes and she ended the call, a mix of anger and frustration and fear sitting uncomfortably inside her. And this time it had nothing to do with the wine.

She felt suffocated, the walls of her movie-set life closing in on her. The script of the next movie, the next part she had to play already on the table before her. A role she had no choice but to take, to play.

Turning away from her perfectly arranged lounge area, she went into her bedroom and began taking off her work clothes. Kicking off her heels, peeling down her skirt. Unbuttoning the prissy Chanel blouse she had on.

And as each item of clothing dropped away, the suffocation began to ease, something else taking its place. Something stronger and more desperate. The need to not only strip away the costume she wore, but also to step away from the set. To leave behind all the props, all the pretending she had to do. Step outside the role she had to play, before she forgot she was even playing a part.

Just for one night be herself.

And she knew exactly how she wanted to do that.

Zee
.

She turned back to her closet, pulling it wide open and rifling through all the designer clothing on the rack until she came to the red silk cocktail dress she’d bought a couple of years ago and never worn.

It was soft, stretchy, clung to her body, and left nothing to the imagination, which was why she’d never worn it. And that made it perfect. Because if she was going to go through with this, she needed ammunition.

He’d told her they’d never see each other again. She was going to prove him wrong.

Pulling on the dress, she then added a pair of red-soled black patent Louboutins and put her hair up into a loose bun. It was completely the wrong look to be going where she was headed, but she didn’t care. All the more reason for him to take her in.

She called a cab and when it arrived, the driver gave her a dubious look when she told him where she was going, but didn’t protest.

A long, hot twilight had settled over the city by the time the taxi pulled up outside the familiar metal door of Black’s Vintage Repair and Restoration. Tamara threw some money at the driver, then stepped out into the night heat.

All her earlier anger and frustration had drained away, left behind along with her apartment and everything else that made her who she was. Now she was only a woman in a red cocktail dress in a sketchy part of town, and she couldn’t deny the sense of freedom that came along with it.

She paused a moment on the sidewalk, breathing in the thick scent of a summer night in the city. There were people around, though the stores were all closed. A bar down the street was blaring loud music and there were a group of teens hanging around outside. A couple of old guys sitting on boxes in front of a boarded-up building eyed her suspiciously. There was a gritty, raw feeling to the landscape, to the very air around her. Like it was full of soot and heat. Like a volcano had erupted and the ash was already settling.

“Watcha doin’, girl?” One of the old men was staring at her, looking her up and down. “You lost?”

Tamara gave him a smile, anticipation rising inside her along with a hunger she didn’t try to deny this time. “No, I don’t think so.”

Then, before she could second-guess herself, she walked up to the garage door, put a hand to it, and pushed it open. The old guy yelled something at her, but she ignored him, stepping inside, the smell of motor oil and hot machinery thick in the air.

She recognized the massive form of Gideon first. He was leaning against the workbench, a beer bottle held casually in his fingers. Another man sat back in a scuffed plastic chair and, like Gideon, was wearing his overalls with the top rolled down and tied loosely around his waist. But unlike Gideon, who wore his with a T-shirt underneath it, this man wasn’t wearing anything underneath it at all.

Zee.

Tamara’s breath caught. She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from the sheer perfection of his body.

He was beautiful, from the powerful width of his shoulders down to the sharply defined muscles of his chest and abs. Muscles that spoke of the hard-won strength and grace of a serious athlete. And her attention kept catching on the tattoos inked into his skin, now revealed in all their glory.

There were words across his shoulders:
The one who sins is the one who will die. Ezekiel 18:20.

There was an image of a dragon winding around the biceps on his left arm and on his right, the flames she’d glimpsed from underneath the sleeve of his T-shirt a week ago were part of something bigger....

A phoenix rose, wings outspread on a wave of flames, stretching over his biceps and shoulders, the tips of the wings reaching over his right pectoral. More flames curled across his chest, while others disappeared over his shoulder.

She’d never been one for tattoos, but this one . . . It spoke to her. There was a life to it, an energy she could almost feel flowing from it herself. As if the bird were about to lift off his skin and soar into the sky.

“What the actual fuck are you doing here?” The fine grit in his deep voice was a shock of cold water over hot skin. It made goose bumps rise all over her body.

She looked up.

He’d turned toward her, sharp silver eyes meeting hers, and she felt the impact of it like the first blow of an ax against a tree, sending shudders right through her.

“Hi, Zee,” she managed to force out. “Bet you weren’t expecting to see me again, right?”

* * *

That was the understatement of the fucking century. Tamara was the very last person he expected to walk through the garage door just as he was sitting down for an after-work beer with Gideon.

A heavy, uncomfortable silence fell and he was very aware of Gideon standing there, looking from Tamara to him, then back at Tamara again.

Because it was perfectly fucking obvious what she was here for. At least, it was obvious to him.

She stood in the garage in a slinky red dress that licked all over her curves like cherry sauce on ice cream. And Christ, what curves they were. Last time she’d been in jeans and a tee and that had given him a hint as to what lay beneath. But now here they were in all their glory.

The dress had a plunging neckline that showcased the most perfect pair of tits he’d ever seen, before skimming to a narrow waist and the luscious curve of her hips. The hem came to mid-thigh, leaving her long, beautiful legs bare. On her feet were shiny, black stiletto heels that made her legs look even longer.

With her long golden hair piled up on her head, her dark eyes outlined in black, and dark red lipstick outlining her lush mouth, he knew she hadn’t come here to talk. And judging from the immediate and intense reaction from a certain part of his anatomy, his body was quite okay with that idea.

“Hey,” Gideon said slowly, breaking the silence. “It’s Tamara, right?”

Her gaze flicked to Gideon, a polite smile curving her mouth. “Yes, that’s right. Nice to see you again, Gideon.”

Jesus. So fucking polite.

Anger threaded through him, though he couldn’t figure out why. Okay, so he hadn’t been expecting to see her again and sure, her showing up here in her fuck-me dress and killer heels was a shock. But it was no big deal, right? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had women turn up at the garage hoping to find him.

Except all of that didn’t do anything to change the restless, antsy feeling that had been bugging him all week and that seemed to rise up inside him, swamping him, the moment she’d walked through the door.

He’d thought the fights he’d had over the course of the week would have put paid to it, but they hadn’t. It felt like a million ants crawling over his skin and no way to brush them all off.

Putting his beer down on the ground beside his chair, he got to his feet in a sudden, sharp movement, then swung around to look at his friend. “A little privacy here.”

The other man raised an eyebrow, but after a moment, the look on Zee’s face obviously doing its work, he said, “Sure. I’ve got some paperwork to do anyway.” He straightened and gave Tamara a grin. “Catch you later, Tamara.”

Zee waited until his friend had gone up the metal stairs to the office, the door shutting heavily behind him, then swung back to the woman standing in the middle of the garage.

And just like that the tension between them pulled excruciatingly tight.

Something was different about her tonight, at least different from the way she’d been with him before. A week ago she’d seemed nervous, off balance. She’d kept looking away, her lashes veiling her gaze.

But now she stood very still, her gaze meeting his without flinching. And this time he saw the raw need glinting in the darkness of her eyes, like diamonds at the bottom of the ocean. She made no attempt to hide it or look away. She only stared back, letting him see everything.

“What do you want?” he demanded, breaking the silence and trying to lock down the hunger that rose. Like she’d turned a switch on inside him, sending a live current straight through his whole body. “I thought we weren’t going to see each other again.”

“I know.” She was holding a red purse, no monogram anywhere on it this time around. But that didn’t make her any less a lamb in a den of hungry wolves.

No, he wasn’t. He’d left that life far behind him. He was on the straight and narrow because of Madison and that’s how it was going to stay.

“So why the fuck are you here?” He tried to make his voice less rough, but it didn’t seem to work. Already the seductive smell of her was filling the space, a heavy, dense scent that was now inextricably linked in his head with the hot and hard sex they’d had in the back of the Trans Am.

It made his mouth go dry and his cock get hard.

Jesus. He’d been sitting here discussing with Gideon how they were going to approach telling Rachel about Levi’s release and what needed to be done to help him ease back into life in Royal again. And he’d also been going through his own plans for the gym and the preliminary program he’d drawn up.

Basically not thinking about one hot little rich girl he hadn’t been able to get out of his head for a change. And now here she was, stepping back into his life, dressed to kill or at least to seduce. With the kind of look in her eyes that made him want to back her up against the nearest hard surface and give her everything she wanted.

She shifted on her shiny black shoes that made her legs look so long. That had him thinking about them wrapped around his waist or over his shoulder or any one of a number of different positions. “I want to say that I was just in the neighborhood or something. But I guess you won’t believe that.” She took a step toward him, that open, bare look in her eyes. “I came for you, Zee.”

He didn’t move, staring back at her, feeling the hunger coil hard inside him. The hunger that wanted to tear that pretty dress of hers and get it all dirty. Put his oil-stained hands all over her smooth, creamy skin and dirty her up too. Make her scream his name the way she had back in the car a week ago.

Why did he want that? Why was that so important?

He didn’t have any answers. But she’d taken everything he’d given her that night and there was a desperate part of him that wanted to do the same thing again. A part that craved release.

The dark part of himself he never showed to anyone who wasn’t in the ring with him.

“Yeah, well, I’m not in the market.” He didn’t temper the harsh note in his voice. She had to know that he’d meant it when he’d said they weren’t going to see each other again. That had been the only reason he’d caved to the urges of his stupid dick rather than listen to his own better judgment.