Hard and Fast (11 page)

“Whatcha researchin’?” a young guy in his early twenties asked curiously.

“I’m getting my doctorate in sociology.” Unlike a doctorate of dick tease, as someone had rudely phrased it. “I’m studying the dating and mating techniques of stock car drivers.”

The young gawky guy’s eyebrows shot up and he looked overwhelmed by the very thought. Another man, older and rounder, glanced up from the tire he was fussing over and snorted. “That makes it sounds like one of them animal shows on Discovery Channel. I’m guessing that’s about the right of it, though. Most men are animals.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ty said.

There was another snort followed by a grin. “Hell, I think I am speaking more for you than for me. I’m a happily married man. No dating and mating for me these days. But you’re doing enough for you and me both.”

“Hardly,” Ty said loudly, clearly annoyed with the conversation. “I’m showing her around so you all need to behave while she’s here.”

Ty took her hand, which startled her, and led her away from the crew. “It was nice to meet you,” she said over her shoulder.

They all grinned and waved.

“Sorry,” Ty said.

“Why? They didn’t say anything rude to me.” And now she was way too distracted by the fact that he was still holding her hand to think about anything else. He had a strong grip, yet he was tender with her, his hand in hers just warm and stable and . . . right.

Oy. That was a scary thought.

Could two people actually be any different than she and Ty?

There was no way she should let her thoughts go there. Ever.

But his hand did feel good.

“Alright,” Ty said, clearly unaware of the ridiculous direction her thoughts were going in. “Stock Car 101. We’re putting you in the car and I’m going to tell you what everything is.”

Imogen eyed the very vibrant green car in front of her dubiously. It didn’t look dangerous. It wasn’t on. So regardless of what she saw the vehicle doing on Sundays, it wasn’t going to spontaneously start itself parked in the garage. She didn’t think.

“Okay,” she said nervously and reached for the door when he let go of her hand. “Where’s the door handle?”

“There’s no door handle. The door doesn’t open. You have to climb in the window.”

Was he serious? Imogen looked at him and frowned. Ty was giving her a very calm and reassuring look.

“No big deal,” he told her. “Just one leg over, then the other, and you slide on into the seat. Go on, it will give you a real feel of what it’s like to be in the driver’s seat.”

That did intrigue her, she had to admit.

“So this is like a
Dukes of Hazzard
thing? I just climb in?”

“Exactly. Go for it, Emma Jean.”

Although an Emma Jean undoubtedly could just hop right into a race car, an Imogen was destined to have issues.

Imogen lifted one leg up, ruing the fact that she had thrown on tight skinny jeans with flats at the last minute in an effort to look somewhat cute when meeting Ty. It was kind of hard to haul her leg past her knee when the denim was restricting her movement. She actually lost her balance and wobbled, grabbing on to the car frame above the open window.

“Do you need a lift?” he asked.

“No, no.” Yes. Imogen tried again, swinging her leg as high as she could and managing to hook it over the opening. But she couldn’t seem to shift her weight to the left leg and was standing there, one leg up, one down, hands clinging to the car.

“I can help you.”

“No, I’m fine.” There had to be a more logical way to do this. She wasn’t strong enough to haul herself up, and in the meantime she was potentially doing internal damage to her reproductive organs perched on the doorframe the way she was.

Retreating back out of the car and down onto the concrete floor, Imogen peeled off her black pin-striped blazer and set it on the hood of the car. Pushing up the sleeves of her white button-up shirt, Imogen grabbed on to the window and jumped, her belly landing on the frame. Her head was in, but nothing else, so she wiggled and tried to pull herself up and forward.

Suddenly Ty’s hands were on her waist and she stopped moving.

His voice rippled over her. “And you say I’m stubborn? You go in like this, you’re going to land on your head and splatter those brilliant brains all over my seat.”

“I have it under control,” she said, breathless both from the activity and from his touch.

“Oh, really?” he asked, laughter in his voice. “But just so you understand, this position you’re in is not helping me stick to your no-flirting rule.”

Imogen felt her cheeks grow hot. She could only imagine what her bum looked like from his perspective. Not as good as Nikki’s, she could guarantee that, given she didn’t have a taste for plain lettuce and couldn’t handle more than fifteen minutes on the treadmill. Even if her butt could be toned to the point of Nikki’s, Imogen wouldn’t know what to do with it because she had been born without the sex kitten gene.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to—”

“I know you weren’t. That’s part of what makes it so damn hot. You’re not being calculating, just naturally sexy.”

Imogen wished she could see his face instead of staring at the black interior of the car. He couldn’t possibly be serious. “There is nothing sexy about me, Ty. It’s not in my DNA to intentionally entice men.”

“Intentional or not, it’s there, honey. You are smoking-hot sexy.”

Flopped over the doorframe like a human teeter-totter, Imogen wondered if Ty had forgotten to wear his helmet a time or two. She was not sexy. If she could have rested her hand under her chin in that position, she would have. Instead she just hung there and felt suspended both literally and figuratively.

She squawked when Ty lifted her up and back out of the car, her shirt riding up and exposing her belly. He turned her around and she stared up at him, yanking her shirt back into place.

He had that look in his eye she was starting to recognize. It was lust and it was flaming red-hot at the moment. Which was sincerely puzzling to her. Since when did dangling in a car window entirely clueless as to what she was doing constitute sexy?

“Let me help you,” he said, leaning closer and closer to her.

There was a split second before he kissed her that Imogen could have used to move away, protest, stop him. She didn’t.

As a matter of fact, when his lips touched hers, Imogen forgot everything—her thesis, their differences, where they were—and put her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

He had such a nice mouth, and he used it so well, warming her from head to toe with a few presses of his lips. Each kiss had her gripping him harder, which had him kissing her harder, until they were melded together, breathing heavily and taking and sharing passion. When his tongue invaded her mouth, Imogen felt an eager tug between her thighs, and she rocked forward in her flats, losing her balance.

Ty buried his hands in her hair and worshipped her with his mouth over and over again. Her glasses were in the way, but she didn’t give a damn, and clearly neither did Ty, since he showed no signs of slowing down for the next hour or two.

They might have stayed that way indefinitely if they hadn’t heard a man’s voice say, “Damn, somebody needs a room.”

They both pulled away and Imogen could feel her cheeks burning as she peeked around Ty to see who had caught them. It was a man in a golf shirt and khaki pants, very trim and toned, an attractive man in his fifties.

“Shit,” Ty muttered under his breath. Then louder, “Hey, Carl, how are you this evening?”

“Not as good as you, clearly.” The man gave Ty a half smile. It wasn’t full-blown, but it looked genuine, and there was nothing leering or suggestive about the way he glanced at Imogen, which reassured her.

Ty turned back to her, and shifted her so she was next to him, his hand in hers. “This is Imogen Wilson, a friend of mine. She’s a grad student in sociology who is very interested in the culture of stock car racing.”

Amused that Ty chose now to prove he did in fact know how to pronounce her name, Imogen smiled. No one needed to know that she was mostly interested in the dating and mating habits of one particular driver.

“Imogen, this is Carl Hinder, the owner of Hinder Motors and the man responsible for my career being where it is.”

Oh, Lord. Given that Ty had just explained a car owner’s role, she knew the importance of this man in front of her. And he had caught them making out against Ty’s kelly green car. She was certainly creating a new definition of classy.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hinder,” Imogen said.

“Likewise, Imogen. And that’s a lovely name you have. Shakespeare?”

“Yes.” She smiled openly at him now. “My mother was a fanatic about her William.”

“Where are you from? I don’t hear any North Carolina in your voice.”

“I’m from New York, born and raised there. I just moved to Charlotte last year and I’m enjoying it immensely. The people are lovely.”

“Well, don’t let this joker monopolize your time,” Carl said with a nod and a grin in Ty’s direction. “Charlotte has more to offer than punk drivers.”

“Hey,” Ty protested. “The lady likes punk drivers.”

Carl laughed. “They always do, especially on Sundays. Good night, y’all. Pleasure meeting you, Imogen.”

“You, too.”

When Carl walked away, Ty leaned against his car and picked at his T-shirt. “Lord, that man scares me.”

“Why? He seems very friendly.”

“Don’t let him fool you. He’s sharp as a tack and a killer businessman. I don’t think I’m afraid of anything for the most part. Not losing, not failure, not death, not snakes or spiders. But that man makes me sweat.”

“What could he do to you?” Imogen asked, amazed to see that for the first time she’d been in Ty’s presence, he did look genuinely uncomfortable.

“Fire me.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Anything. Then that’s it. Who am I if I’m not driving?”

Wow. Imogen would have never guessed Ty had insecurities in any way, shape, or form. She was about to reassure him that he wouldn’t be fired unless he did something catastrophic and that, even if he was, he could find another team to drive for, but Ty cut her a grin.

“Never mind,” he said before she could speak. “Just wasn’t expecting to see him, that’s all. Now, let’s get you into this car.”

Imogen bit down on a shriek when he scooped her up in his arms and turned her so her legs slid into the car. One minute his hand was on her butt, her weight supported by his lean but powerful muscles, the next she was sitting in the driver’s seat of a race car.

Ty watched Imogen sitting stiffly, her hands up in the air like she was afraid to touch anything for fear of what it might to do to her, and he felt immeasurably better. God, what had he been thinking, blurting out that crap about being afraid of being fired and being nothing more than a washed-up loser driver? He didn’t say things like that to anyone. He didn’t let anyone know at any time that the only thing he was really afraid of was being cut off from the one thing he loved and the one thing he was good at. If he couldn’t drive, there was no backup plan for a guy who couldn’t make sense of the words on a piece of paper or on a computer screen.

How did he explain that to someone as brilliant as Imogen? He couldn’t. Of course, neither should he be spending time with her, and he wasn’t planning to stop that anytime soon. She just made him laugh, made him feel good.

Turned him on.

Really, really turned him on. It was the way she blinked up at him with those big blue eyes behind her glasses, all curious and aroused, that made him lose focus on everything except getting her into his bed. Wiggling her cute little ass in front of him hadn’t hurt the cause either.

“Just relax, Emma Jean. The car doesn’t bite. Unlike me.” He winked at her as he leaned in the window.

“I don’t want to destroy anything,” she replied, not even responding to his innuendo.

“Babe, this car can hit the wall and still be salvageable. You can’t do anything to hurt it.”

“You’re positive?”

“Trust me. You’re fine. So here’s the history—stock car racing got its start from guys taking a car they could buy from any dealer, tricking out the engine, then racing it on the beach initially, then on the track. So it was a ‘stock’ car in that it was the same as the family car when they acquired it. Now only the body of the car is the same as a passenger car, and even that has some modifications, but we still use the name
stock
. But if you look around, you can see there isn’t much that reminds you of your personal vehicle.”

“Well, my car isn’t exactly the latest model to roll off the assembly line, but I see what you mean. There are no other seats and I don’t recognize any of these gauges.”

“No seats other than the driver’s, no key ignition, no windows, no speedometer, no locks, no horn, and quite a few other things. Though I wouldn’t mind a horn. Sometimes I feel like hitting one to tell another car to get the hell out of my way.”

“Somehow I don’t think that would have them moving gracefully out of your way.”

“Probably not. So a car is built for speed and safety. It’s aerodynamic, with a powerful engine with 750 horsepower. There are gauges for oil and water temperature, oil and fuel pressure, and a few other things. A brake, an accelerator, and a clutch. A cooling system to keep my ass from burning to the seat or me passing out, and a roll cage in case my car flips.”

“This looks like a regular gearshift.” Imogen put her hand on it.

“Don’t touch that!” Ty said, then laughed when Imogen snatched her hand away. “Just kidding.”

She shot him a look of annoyance. “That was not funny.”

“Yes, it was.”

Her lips formed a little moue of disgust. “This isn’t a very comfortable seat.”