Hard and Fast (10 page)

“Well, that’s a good point you make,” he said, his car in park and idling. Sliding his hand down the leg of her jeans, he rested it on her kneecap. “You were more than willing to have sex with me. And I was more than willing to have sex with you.”

“So why didn’t we?” she asked, licking her bottom lip in an unconscious gesture that made Ty shift on his seat.

The only illumination was from the lot lights, and he couldn’t see her eyes, but he could practically
smell
the attraction between them. Her body had tensed, and so had his, and he glanced into the backseat, wondering for a split second if it would work for a quick tussle. But when he took Imogen to bed, which he was going to, sooner or later, he didn’t want it to be quick and awkward, with a gearshift up his ass. Awkward was why he had pulled the plug the night before.

“We didn’t because we started thinking too much. Worrying.” He squeezed her knee. “And you’re right. I’m sorry, it was stupid to think that you had somehow planned to target me based on that book. That sounded insulting and I didn’t mean it to. It’s just that I got to thinking that maybe you weren’t really interested in me.”

She could be honest, so could he. Even if admitting his momentary insecurity made his skin crawl and a sweat break out down his back.

“Of course I didn’t target you. Especially considering the way your profile reads.” Imogen flashed him the first smile he’d seen from her all night.

He would have enjoyed it except he got stuck on her words. “My profile? What profile?”

“Didn’t you read Chapter Two? There are profiles of all the single drivers. Yours says you were voted least likely to commit by other drivers’ wives.”

“Excuse me?” Ty was both shocked and offended. “That’s in a
book
?”

“It is. It also mentioned your astrological sign is Taurus, giving you a propensity for stubbornness.”

Imogen looked amused.

Ty was not.

“What the hell? I can’t believe they’re using that ‘what’s your sign?’ crap to put character flaws on me. In print. God, that just makes me look like an asshole. And I can so commit.” He yanked the keys out of the ignition more aggressively than was necessary. “I was engaged once. I would have married her. She was the one who dumped me.”

Imogen’s grin disappeared. “Oh, I’m sorry. What happened?”

Ty rubbed his chin, instantly sorry he’d brought the subject up. “I was only twenty years old and scraping along doing local races and I was in love with her. She cared about me, I guess, initially, but then she went off to college and reassessed her options. She decided she wanted someone with a little more earning potential. Someone smarter than me.”

“Intelligence isn’t equal to the credentials you can hang on a wall. There are all kinds of intelligence, and clearly she was lacking in some if she missed your good qualities.”

“Like that I’m stubborn?” Ty said stubbornly, not wanting to accept Imogen’s sympathy.

“No, like your honesty, your tenacity, your quick wit. Your loyalty, your focus.”

Ty found himself stupidly touched by Imogen’s assessment of his character. But hearing he was profiled as a commitment-phobe and bringing up his ex-fiancée had him feeling tight in the chest and edgy. He didn’t want to get emotional, lose control of the situation. So he tamped that all down and hid his feelings, giving her a slow grin.

“You see all those things in me yet you still didn’t target me? Damn, I’m offended.”

“I can’t target you, because I am trying to objectively follow the rules of the dating manual to see what level of success I achieve with them. Therefore, I need to stay uninvolved and unbiased in regard to the men I flirt with, and I cannot achieve that with you.”

Ty didn’t think he could be more shocked by anything Imogen said, but she always managed to find a way to do just that. “Wait a goddamn minute. So you
are
planning to use the dating rules to hook a man? Just not me?”

“No, of course not. I don’t actually want to catch a man. I just want to see if the initial chapters regarding preparation, meeting, and flirtation have any level of success as part of my research for my thesis. I only intend to flirt a little with some of the drivers and see what reaction I get.”

Ty was feeling his blood pressure rise with each ridiculous word she spoke. “I can tell you exactly what’s going to happen! You’re going to have drivers crawling all over you, hoping to get a piece of your classy ass.”

She frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Me? I’m being ridiculous? You’re the one flirting for your thesis. What the hell kind of degree is that anyway? A doctorate of dick tease?”

It was a petty thing to say and he knew it, but what exactly was her objection to flirting with
him
?

Imogen gasped. “I beg your pardon?”

“It doesn’t sound like science to me, babe. But what do I know? I’m just a stubborn driver who has commitment issues.”

“I’m a sociologist. I study and observe the patterns of behavior of humans. And your behavior right now is irrational.”

Ty felt a tic start in his eye. He wasn’t sure how they had gotten there, but he was going to finish the conversation because he couldn’t contain his frustration much longer. She hadn’t even gotten a tiny peek at irrational yet. “Just one more reason why you can flirt with everything that walks but I’m leprosy.”

This would be the point where every female he had every dated either (a) threw something at him or (b) started screaming expletives.

Imogen did neither. She turned in her seat, looked him straight in the eye, and said, tightly but calmly, “You are missing the point. The reason I cannot flirt with you is because I am attracted to you. I am invested in the outcome of my actions towards you. I want you to be attracted to me in return. In short, I like you. Therefore, I cannot remain detached if I try to follow any sort of rules with you. In fact, I think it is safe to say, I wouldn’t be able to follow any rules where you are concerned.”

Ty felt a grin threatening. “You like me?”

And Imogen surprised him yet again by making a face and saying, “Well,
duh
.”

Alright, then. He laughed. “I like you, too, Emma Jean.”

“I suspected, but I appreciate your confirmation.”

There was his prim-and-proper Imogen again. “So what are we going to do about it?”

“We’re not going to do anything about it at the moment. We’re going to be friends and get to know each other. You’re going to help me learn about stock car racing, and steer me in the direction of who I might interview for my research. I’m going to focus on my thesis, and then when all that is done, we can reassess our relationship.”

He wasn’t liking the sound of any of that. “You’re telling me I’m just supposed to sit back and pretend I don’t want you naked all while I’m watching you hit on my coworkers?”

“I had to watch you with Nikki on several occasions,” she pointed out. “Hardly my idea of a good time.”

Ouch. “Fair enough. But I didn’t really know you then and I really didn’t know you were interested in me. This is going to mess with my head.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage. Look, what does a month matter? If we’re still interested in each other, then we’ll only have the added benefit of having gotten to know each other better. It’s a win-win situation.”

Not for his dick.

“Maybe you can live that logically but I can’t. You’ve already figured out I’m stubborn and irrational and determined. I am not hanging with this.” He wasn’t. It was stupid and he wasn’t doing it.

Her dark eyes blinked up at him behind her glasses and if he wasn’t mistaken, her bottom lip jutted out slightly. “Please? I really, really need your help, Ty. Teach me about racing.”

Shit. All those goddamn girl tricks weren’t fair. Soft voice, big eyes, pouty lip . . . he couldn’t resist them. “Fine,” he growled. “Get out of the car and into the garage before I say something I will seriously regret.”

Or before he hauled her into his backseat and showed her that sometimes logic had no business between a man and a woman, but that pleasure always did.

 

 

NOT sure exactly what they had established between them, other than the fact that they wanted to have sex, which they already knew, Imogen climbed out of Ty’s car warily. This had all the makings of a bad idea. “So where are we exactly?”

“This is the garage and offices of Hinder Motors, the team I race for.”

“What does driving for a team mean?” She was really struggling to understand the ins and outs of racing.

Ty gestured for her to follow him across the parking lot. “It’s too expensive for individual drivers to have their own car and crew. A car and engine alone can cost a hundred and fifty grand, so there is a car owner who handles all the expenses associated with racing, including securing sponsors. The driver benefits from all that money and the expertise of quality staff, and he gives a piece of his purse to the team in exchange for them paying all his expenses. A lot of car owners have multiple cars today, and that’s why we call it a team. The Monroe brothers and Ryder and I all race for Hinder Motors, so it’s to our advantage to help each other even as we compete with each other. If the team is doing well, the corporate sponsor dollars coming in to Hinder Motors on the whole will be better.”

What amazed Imogen was that Ty berated his personal intelligence. He sounded pretty damn savvy to her. “Wow. I knew it was complex, but I had no idea.”

“It’s really not, once you understand it. And having multiple cars on one team gives us the ability to info share on pre-race tests at tracks. Each car is only allowed four single-day test sessions of your car, but if you have four cars racing, you can share any data you learn from all those runs with each other.”

Imogen was wishing she had brought a notepad to jot things down on. “But doesn’t that make you all sort of even when you start a race?”

“Cars are close to even. It’s the skill of the driver and how the lady in black treats you that day that determines the winner.”

“The lady in black? Who is she?” Imogen frowned up at Ty as he flashed his ID for a security guard and they entered the building. If there was another Nikki in Ty’s life, she was going to be profoundly irritated.

Ty grinned at her. “The track, sweetheart. The lady in black is the track.” He strode down the hallway, but he shot her an indecipherable look over his shoulder. “And did your dating manual tell you that you should be prepared to share the man you snag with the lady in black? No point in getting jealous because drivers are in love with her and she’s a huge part of our lives.”

She had read the entire book, and there was nothing that Imogen would classify as a warning or a word of caution. It was all full steam ahead until you had achieved your goal of marriage to a driver and lived happily ever after. But she could see Ty’s point. Any woman looking to live with a race car driver had to accept that his career consumed a large majority of his time. You either had to accept it or be miserable, and jealousy and unhappiness over it could destroy your relationship.

Truthfully, she didn’t know how she would feel about that herself. She didn’t think she was needy, and her own aspirations consumed a lot of time, but maybe the inflexibility of it would eventually wear on her.

Ty pushed open a door and Imogen followed him into a garage. There were several cars in various stages of construction, some just raw frames, others looking ready to roll onto the track with all their decals in place. The room was cool and smelled like tires, and Imogen was surprised to see that while there weren’t a lot of people working, it wasn’t empty either. One car was a flurry of activity with at least eight men moving around it, talking, drilling, or screwing, or whatever it was they did to prep cars.

“Whose car is that?” she asked. “What are they doing to it?”

“The fifty-six car is Elec Monroe’s.”

Of course, she should have known that. Tamara had her husband’s car number tattooed on the interior of her wrist, in a gesture that had impressed Imogen. She wasn’t sure she could handle being jabbed repeatedly with a needle and permanently discolor her skin to prove her love. Needles made her light-headed and she’d probably faint during the procedure, knocking the tattoo artist over and winding up with an indistinguishable blob.

But Tamara seemed happy with hers.

“Why are they working on it so late?”

“There must be something they’re tweaking. That car should already be on the hauler ready to go to Martinsville in the morning. The rest of our cars for this weekend are already loaded.”

“Then what are all these cars I’m looking at?”

“Cars for Texas, two weeks out.”

“You don’t drive the same car every week?”

“No. Have you seen a race, babe? We beat the hell out of them. They need some work done after a race.”

That was true, but she had never thought about the implication of such abuse.

“And every driver needs an immediate backup car, in case his is wrecked in pre-race testing or qualifying.”

“Where is your car?”

“The sixty car, over there. Looks like they finished the paint job. I got saddled with green this year, which is just about my least favorite color. But for a ten-million-per-week sponsorship deal, I’ll suck up the fact that I’m driving around looking like a moving golf course.”

Ty started walking toward his car, so Imogen followed him, drinking in the sight of all the cars in various stages of construction around her. It looked so intricate, so complex.

A few guys waved and greeted Ty from their industrious labors over Elec’s car. One even asked, “Who’s your girl there, McCordle?”

“This is Emma Jean,” Ty told them. “She’s a research student at the university.”

Despite the fact that he refused to use her real name, Imogen was pleased by his description. He could have easily dubbed her the lunatic who wanted to have sex with him, but only after she conducted research on a thesis that was rapidly turning into the educational equivalent of quicksand.