Full Throttle (Fast Track)

PRAISE FOR THE FAST TRACK NOVELS

JACKED UP

“A fun tale . . . Fans will enjoy this trek around the Fast Track.”

—
Midwest Book Review

“Sweet and sexy.”

—
Yummy Men & Kick Ass Chicks

“There is a lot to like in this book . . . erotic love scenes that are spicy and inventive.”

—
Dear Author

“A fun, thrilling read.”

—
Romance Reviews Today

SLOW RIDE

“The dialogue sparkles while the chemistry titillates, making
Slow Ride
a long-lasting gem.”

—
Fresh Fiction

“Classic Erin McCarthy—full of steamy scenes and intense dialogue, making you read well into the night.”

—
TwoLips Reviews

“I enjoyed the realistic qualities of this story just as much as I enjoyed how down-and-dirty Erin McCarthy writes her love scenes.
Slow Ride
is romance gold!”

—
A Romance Review

“Exciting.”

—
Romance Reviews Today

THE CHASE

“Fun and sexy . . . Pick up
The Chase
.”

—
Romance Reviews Today

“A definite scorcher.”

—
A Romance Review

HOT FINISH

“Sizzling hot, jam-packed with snappy dialogue, emotional intensity, and racing fun.”

—Carly Phillips,
New York Times
bestselling author

“Hot and steamy.”

—
Smexy Books

HARD AND FAST

“Hit me like a ton of bricks and didn’t let up until I finished the last word.”

—
Romance Junkies

“This book had my heart racing.”

—
A Romance Review

FLAT-OUT SEXY

“Readers won’t be able to resist McCarthy’s sweetly sexy and sentimental tale of true love at the track.”

—
Booklist

“A steamy romance . . . Fast-paced and red-hot.”

—
Publishers Weekly

PRAISE FOR ERIN MCCARTHY’S OTHER NOVELS

HEIRESS FOR HIRE

“
Heiress for Hire
is a must-read.”

—
Romance Junkies

“Characters you will care about, a story that will make you laugh and cry, and a book you won’t soon forget.”

—
The Romance Reader
(5 hearts)

“An alluring tale.”

—
A Romance Review
(5 roses)

“An enjoyable story about finding love in unexpected places, don’t miss
Heiress for Hire
.”

—
Romance Reviews Today

“Priceless!”

—
RT Book Reviews
(4½ stars, Top Pick)

A DATE WITH THE OTHER SIDE

“Do yourself a favor and make a date with the other side.”

—Rachel Gibson,
New York Times
bestselling author

“One of the romance-writing industry’s brightest stars . . . Ms. McCarthy spins a fascinating tale that deftly blends a paranormal story with a blistering romance . . . Funny, charming, and very entertaining.”

—
Romance Reviews Today

“If you’re looking for a steamy read that will keep you laughing while you turn the pages as quickly as you can,
A Date with the Other Side
is for you.”

—
Romance Junkies

“Just the right amount of humor interspersed with romance.”

—
Love Romances

“Quite a few chuckles, some face-fanning moments, and one heck of a love story.”

—
A Romance Review

Titles by Erin McCarthy

A DATE WITH THE OTHER SIDE

HEIRESS FOR HIRE

SEEING IS BELIEVING

The Fast Track Series

FLAT-OUT SEXY

HARD AND FAST

HOT FINISH

THE CHASE

SLOW RIDE

JACKED UP

FULL THROTTLE

The Vegas Vampires Series

HIGH STAKES

BIT THE JACKPOT

BLED DRY

SUCKER BET

The De
adly Sins Series

MY IMMORTAL

FALLEN

THE TAKING

Anthologies

THE NAKED TRUTH

(with Donna Kauffman, Beverly Brandt, and Alesia Holliday)

AN ENCHANTED SEASON

(with Maggie Shayne, Nalini Singh, and Jean Johnson)

THE POWER OF LOVE

(with Lori Foster, Toni Blake, Dianne Castell, Karen Kelley, Rosemary Laurey, Janice Maynard, LuAnn McLane, Lucy Monroe, Patricia Sargeant, Kay Stockham, and J. C. Wilder)

THE MAGICAL CHRISTMAS CAT

(with Lora Leigh, Nalini Singh, and Linda Winstead Jones)

FIRST BLOOD

(with Susan Sizemore, Chris Marie Green, and Meljean Brook)

OUT OF THE LIGHT, INTO THE SHADOWS

(with Lori Foster and L. L. Foster)

THE PROMISE OF LOVE

(with Lori Foster, Sylvia Day, Jamie Denton, Kate Douglas, and Kathy Love)

THE FANGOVER

(with Kathy Love)

HOT SUMMER NIGHTS

(with Jaci Burton, Jessica Clare, and Carly Phillips)

FANGS FOR NOTHING

(with Kathy Love)

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

FULL THROTTLE

A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2013 by Erin McCarthy.
Excerpt from
True
by Erin McCarthy copyright © 2013 by Erin McCarthy.
Excerpt from
Sweet
by Erin McCarthy copyright © 2013 by Erin McCarthy.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.
BERKLEY SENSATION
®
is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA)
LLC.

The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA)
LLC.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA)
LLC,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-0-425-26174-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-58978-6

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / December 2013

Cover photo of “Young attractive couple leaning on their car” © Kristian Sekulic/Getty Images.

Cover design by Rita Frangie.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

“I
double-dog dare you.”

Shawn Hamby stared at Eve Monroe-Ford and remembered exactly why they had gotten in so much trouble together back in the day as the only two girls on the tween racing circuit. Eve had grown up with brothers and was a master at taunting manipulation. Shawn had grown up with an indifferent sibling and was eager for camaraderie, with an inability to keep a straight face. The combination had resulted in broken bones and many a grounding from their honked-off parents.

“I’m not falling for that,” Shawn told her now with a laugh. “I’m not going to talk to a random guy in a fetish club because you dared me to.” She wasn’t twelve anymore, and she didn’t need to prove anything to anyone.

Which didn’t explain why she was here in the first place.

Damn. Maybe she hadn’t changed all that much.

“Oh, come on,” Charity McLain said, lifting her cocktail to her mouth as she leaned against the bar. “We’re here because of you, so you might as well have the full experience.”

They
were
here because of her, in a roundabout sort of way, and as Shawn looked around at the dimly lit club, she fought the urge to giggle, which was her usual reaction to situations that made her uncomfortable. How a book club meeting had resulted in her and three friends being at a place called The Wet Spot—and no, they weren’t talking about spilled beverages—she couldn’t imagine.

“All I said was that people don’t really do what the chick in that book was doing. I didn’t say let’s go to a fetish club and see if it’s true or not.” It had just been a little hard for Shawn to believe that their fiction selection for the month had any basis in reality whatsoever, regardless of how enjoyable a read it had been. Average suburban women didn’t just up and go to a sex club after years of lame sex and let a total stranger blindfold them. She was sure of it. Not in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not in a day and age when true-crime shows about serial killers and date rape drugs were on TV every day, all day.

Not only did it seem dangerous but it also seemed kind of silly. She wasn’t so sure what would be hot about having a man boss her around. Hell, she had that every day at the track, and it just frustrated her. There was nothing sexy about it in the least. Not to her anyway. Hence, the curiosity.

Harley, Charity’s twin, tucked her blond hair behind her ear, glancing around nervously. “Let’s just leave then.”

“No!” Charity rebuked her. “Shawn needs to admit that this is real, that people go to clubs like this.”

“I admit it,” Shawn said easily. She wasn’t exactly sure what people were doing here, or what drew them to the club, whether it was curiosity like the four of them, or a genuine interest in BDSM or other fetishes, but she’d seen enough.

There were only so many adult men and women being pulled on dog leashes she could look at before she lost it and started laughing. It wasn’t like she found other people’s choices amusing. It was that it just looked . . . fake. Like a movie being filmed. Like a giant skit being played out for her benefit. None of it seemed real, from the girl on the red velvet sofa allowing two different men to swat at her backside with a paddle to the extremely thin man who was shirtless and wearing nipple clamps,
SLAVE
tattooed across his chest, a lollipop in his mouth.

“This isn’t really what I pictured,” Eve said, scrutinizing the room. “I guess I thought it was going to be more tawdry. Nobody is having sex or anything.”

“Do you want to see people having sex?” Shawn asked, because she didn’t. She didn’t even really get the appeal of mirrors in a bedroom. Sex was not a spectator sport. Not that she remembered what sex was like, given how long it had been since she’d had it. Eve, on the other hand, was married to a sexy jackman, so she had no business being curious in Shawn’s opinion.

“No, I do not. I don’t even want to be here. My husband’s going to start to think our book club is a front for checking off items on my Bad Girl Bucket List. Last month we got drunk on margaritas and took a pole-dancing class, which was a huge leap from reading Margaret Thatcher’s biography. The month before, you goaded me into waxing my cooter, though Nolan wanted to write you a thank-you note for that one.”

Eve had a point. Shawn wasn’t sure how this kept happening. She thought it had something to do with the prevalence of wine at their book club gatherings and the fact that she and Eve felt every one of the five years they had on the twins. Or maybe they were just repeating their childhood of stumbling into Bad Ideas together, though she had to primarily blame Charity for this particular outing. She was the one who had asked Siri on her iPhone where to find a fetish club in Charlotte, and suddenly here they were.

“We can go at any time,” Shawn said. “And I get to pick next month’s book selection. Plus it’s my birthday month, so you’d better have cake for me.” She was turning thirty-three, which, while not noteworthy, was fairly appalling. “Red velvet.”

“Fine. I’m going to the restroom first,” Eve said, setting down her beer and heading off.

Shawn wasn’t sure going alone was totally wise, but Eve could take care of herself. She was known around stock car racing as having a razor-sharp tongue and no hesitation whatsoever in using it to slice offenders to ribbons. It was a talent Shawn did not possess. She was the goofy girl, the one who cracked a joke at the wrong time, the one who nobody took seriously.

“I’m kind of disappointed,” Charity admitted. She and Harley were identical twins, but only in appearance. While Charity was outspoken and wore significant makeup and teased and highlighted her hair, Harley was quiet and completely natural-looking. When they stood next to each other, it was like seeing a before-and-after pageant shot of the little girls on
Toddlers and Tiaras
. “I was hoping for something more glamorous.”

“I think if you join one of those members-only clubs, you get glam. Otherwise you just get skimmers,” Harley said. “People dabbling in the scene. Not that I know anything about it, really. I’m just speculating.”

“None of these guys are even cute,” Charity complained.

Shawn would have to agree, except right at that moment, a guy came around the corner from the other room, and he wasn’t just cute. He was beyond cute. He was smoking hot. He was wet-panty-producing sexy.

“Hubba hubba,” she said, before she could stop herself. “Now there’s a fine male specimen.”

He was ripped, but not bulky, filling his button-up shirt and jeans to perfection. Just a perfectly hard, muscular lean man with a confident step and an intense stare that swept the room and landed on her.

“Oh, damn, he is hot,” Charity said.

“And he’s looking at us,” Harley breathed, sounding panicked.

He was.

And then he strode right over to them, his eyes locked on Shawn. On her. Yikes. She swallowed and tried not to fidget. She didn’t really want to do this. She wasn’t prepared to talk to a guy here. It was all just a dumb idea to even set foot in this place, and she certainly didn’t want to encourage any attention from a guy who would clearly be interested in areas outside her expertise and comfort level.

She would have to politely dissuade him.

Before he even spoke, his hand slid out and took hers, his thumb stroking across her palm, causing a shiver of arousal to take her totally by surprise.

“You should dance with me,” he said, already pulling her toward him.

“Okay.”

So much for turning him down flat. Why the hell had she just agreed to dance? Because he was hot. And there was something commanding about him that appealed to her. Which was annoying.

“I’m Rhett,” he told her.

Of course he was. Shawn squeezed her mouth shut so he wouldn’t see her desperately trying not to laugh. She imagined using a fake name was what you did in a place like this, but seriously? Rhett?

“Well, then I guess that makes me Scarlett,” she told him.

 • • • 

RHETT
Ford saw the dark blonde the minute he came around the corner. She was smiling at her friends, and she looked relaxed, casual, dressed simply in jeans and a purple sweater that had fallen off one shoulder. Her friends were dressed similarly, and given that he’d never seen her at The Wet Spot before, he suspected she was someone just like him—curious and turned on by kink, but not sure where to start.

Aside from the fact that he was immediately attracted to her, she also didn’t appear to be the type that he’d always gone for, and which had always resulted in total disaster. He had a firm habit of choosing the shy, unassuming girls, like the blond twin currently standing next to the woman who had caught his eye, and invariably he scared the shit out of every single one of them. They all ran, terrified. Like his latest mess of a relationship with Lexi.

So this was a conscious choice, to be approaching a woman who looked confident and amused by her surroundings. He didn’t even mind that she thought he was giving her a fake name. Though God knew, if he had a choice of names, he never would have picked Rhett. It had been the bane of his existence almost since birth. If he went for an assumed identity, he probably would pick Bill or Dave. No one could poke fun at a Dave.

Leading the woman by the hand to the back bar where there was a dance floor, Rhett glanced back at her. She was checking out his ass. Now that was promising. He had never actually hooked up with anyone he had met here, since for the most part, he had just been observing and working out his own personal sexual interests, but he was definitely intrigued by this so-called Scarlett. When they got to the small dark room, where only half a dozen people were moving to the baby-making music, he pulled her into his arms and studied her face.

She met his gaze steadily, her hands snaking up to wrap around his neck. He was tall, but so was she, and while he had to bend down to make eye contact, it wasn’t significant. Her eyes were an amber color, and they were shining with amusement and, if he wasn’t mistaken, attraction. As they swayed, his hands lightly on her trim waist, he gave her a slow smile.

“So what brings you here?” he asked her.

Her response wasn’t flirtatious, nor was it cryptic. It was just matter-of-fact. “Information.”

“Are you a reporter? A blogger?”

“No. We’re four women who like to be right. This is my friends’ attempt to prove me wrong.”

Interesting. Bored housewives? He couldn’t check her ring finger to see if she was married, but then again, if she was looking for a good time, she would take her ring off anyway. If she was, he would be disappointed. Married women weren’t his thing. He was loyal and committed to a single woman at a time, and he had no desire to serve as an itch scratcher for a restless spouse.

“How so?”

“I didn’t think people came to places like this. Apparently they do.” She gave him a wry smile. “So why are you here?”

He had no problem being honest. Another lesson hard learned. He needed to be up-front about his desires. “I’m looking for the right woman for me. One who likes to be led in bed.”

She gave a little laugh. “Oh, really?”

“Really.”

“Uh-huh.”

Rhett wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not. He did know he was turned on. There was something very compelling about the way she never broke eye contact. What could be hotter than a woman submitting to his desires but doing so out of titillation, boldly? Nothing, as far as he was concerned. But he was getting ahead of himself. Which was evidenced by her dropping her arms to halt his creeping progress lower and lower on her back. He was at the curve of her ass when she reprimanded him, gripping his hand to stop it.

“Hey now, sport, watch the sticky fingers.”

Rhett grinned. “Don’t you mean wandering hands? I’m not trying to steal your wallet.”

“Whatever,” she said dismissively. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” He kept his hands far above the erogenous zone, wanting to respect her limits. “So give me your number.” The song was almost over, and who knew what would be played next. She might use a booty-grinding song as an opportunity to leave the floor and return to her girlfriends. He didn’t want to waste time.

Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s a little presumptuous, don’t you think?”

“You never get what you want if you don’t ask.”

“How old are you?” she asked suddenly, putting more space between them as they swayed to the bass pumping R&B.

So that was it. She was older than him. “Old enough to know what I want.”

“You’re younger than me.” It wasn’t a question. She seemed certain of it.

“Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.” Might as well make his stupid name work for him.

She gave a short laugh, smiling at him. “Nice. Corny, but effective. What’s your real name, by the way? I only give my number to Clark Kent, not Superman.”

He liked the sound of that. She was going to cough up her phone number, and he was suddenly glad she’d shifted away slightly because he was getting hard. There was something about her that he found seriously arousing, and she didn’t seem intimidated by what he’d told her, which further turned him on. “It really is Rhett.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed her face.

But before he could pull out his driver’s license and prove it, her friend approached them. “Shawn!” she said, urgently.

So her name was Shawn. It suited her. Unusual, unique. The tomboy who grew up to be a sexy woman. Or so he would guess, given the muscle tone of her waist and arms, and the perky lift of her backside. This girl liked sports, or at least the gym.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we need to leave. Emergency. Let’s go, now.”

Shawn stopped moving to the music entirely and dropped her hands to her sides. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. We just have to go. Come on.” The blonde wouldn’t look at him at all, and when there was a hesitation on Shawn’s part, she actually took her friend’s hand and pulled her away.

“Wait,” Rhett said. “I still want your number.”

But to his disappointment, Shawn just gave him an apologetic smile and a wave. “Nice to meet you,” she said, as she was dragged away.