The Good Girl In My Bed (Dangerous Desire Book 2) (11 page)

Besides, white-white hair looked awesome against her olive skin, especially with the damn-near iridescent purple streak that hung down to her cheekbone she’d added yesterday.

“Only three?” Jay
tsked
, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “You tired today or something?”

Sami fixed him with a direct gaze. “
You
try having multiple orgasms while executing a nic nac on a bike your mechanic
still
hasn’t fixed the mono-shock rear suspension on, in front of the country’s leading motocross journalists
and
your main sponsors.”

Jay laughed. “Ouch.

“Yeah, that’s what my clit said.”

Sami threw her leg over her bike and scruffed at her hair again. In about ten minutes she would be speaking to said journalists and sponsors. That’s why they were at the Sydney Stadium, after all. To see her perform the routine that scored her the International Women’s Motocross Championship title last week in Dallas. To celebrate her win with interview questions and cheesy photos, and maybe—in the case of her sponsors—throw some more money her way.

“Your clit needs to—”

“Ms. Charlton.”

At the excited shout behind them, Sami and Jay turned.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Jay muttered, handing Sami back her helmet. “I’m outta here.”

Sami scowled at her mechanic. If the sod weren’t so fucking good at his job, she’d hit him. Or sack him. Or crash-tackle him to the ground before he could get away. No
way
was she facing Dianne Slough alone.

“Ms. Charlton.” The woman waved, tottering toward her on six-inch heels.

Sami rolled her eyes. What kind of idiot wore six-inch heels to a motocross event?

The same kind who works for Mr. Oh Look at Me I’m So Fucking Awesome.

Before Sami could pretend she hadn’t seen the woman hurrying toward her across the pit track, Eli Swanson’s personal assistant was squirming like an excited puppy directly in front of her.

“Hello, Ms. Charlton,” the woman chirped. “Mr. Swanson was very impressed with your performance today.”

Sami pulled a very unladylike face. “
Mr
. Swanson can blow me.”

Dianne Slough gasped. Sami had no idea why. “Mr. Swanson can blow me” was her standard response every time the woman relayed a condescending compliment from the international motocross superstar.

“He’s asked if you’ll join him in his private box for a drink,” Dianne plowed on.

“Hell no.”

Dianne’s wide smile didn’t falter. Sami had to give her points. No matter how many times Sami was rude to her boss—via Dianne—the woman continued. Swanson must pay her a shitload of money.

“Didn’t realize Biggest Dickus was in Australia at the moment.”

At Jay’s chuckle, Sami turned to find her mechanic standing on her right. Jay and Dianne had history. She didn’t know what it was, but it had something to do with when Jay was Eli’s head mechanic. She raised her eyebrows at him and he shrugged with a grin. “What? I’ve got your back. See how bloody awesome I am?”

As always, Dianne stubbornly refused to admit he was there. She didn’t even rise to the bait of Jay’s favorite nickname for her boss.

Draping her elbow on Jay’s shoulder, Sami fixed Dianne with a wide grin. “Tell Swanson when he makes a public apology for saying female motocross riders have no chance of being better than their male counterparts, we’ll have drinks. Until then…” She tossed Jay a sideways wink. “My butt. His lips.”

Dianne let out a sigh, cast Sami a disappointed look and then turned and tottered across the dirt track leading to the pit exit.

It took Sami half a second to realize the entire exchange had been witnessed by more than one member of the media.

Crap.

Turning to the hovering photographers and journalists, she flashed them a grin. “Who wants to ask me if I think Eli Swanson is afraid to challenge me in a freestyle race?”

Beside her, Jay let out a snort.

“So you really do think you could beat him?” a male reporter from the leading Australia sports station asked, microphone pointed at her. “You really think you’re better than the three-time International Motocross Champion?”

Sami let her grin stretch wider. “I don’t think it, Mike. I know it.”

“What do
you
think, Rutledge?” The reporter, Michael Bailey, swung his mic to Jay. “You were Swanson’s mechanic for five years before jumping ship and joining Team Charlton. Do you think she’s got what it takes?”

Jay slid Sami a sideways inspection. “Fucking oath,” he said, holding her gaze.

For some reason, and for the first time, it dawned on Sami how incredibly blue his eyes were.

Blue and direct and burning with—

“So, Sami, what would you bet to get the chance to prove you’re better than him?” Michael asked, his tone humored.

Heart thumping faster than it really had any right to, Sami tried to drag her stare from Jay’s. Tried but failed.

Holy fuck, since when did her mechanic have such sexy eyes?

Since forever, woman. Admit it. You’ve always thought his eyes were gorgeous. You’ve just never seen him looking at you with such obvious…

An unexpected throb pulsed into warm life at the junction of her thighs.

Sami swallowed. Fuck, why the fuck was she suddenly so horny?

“Ms. Charlton?” the reporter prompted. “What would you bet to—”

“Anything.” The single word answer fell from her lips in little more than a husky murmur.

Jay’s jaw bunched. That heat she’d never seen in his eyes before flared again.

Never seen before? Or never noticed before?

The guffaws of the surrounding media yanked her out of the disquieting moment.

Michael Bailey laughed, scribbling something in the notepad in his hand. “Brave woman.”

The sound of the Bee Gees singing
Stayin’ Alive
filled the air before Sami could respond.

Jay’s mobile phone.

Her mechanic bit back a muttered curse and turned away from Sami and the media, withdrawing his phone from the back pocket of his coveralls as he did so.

Sami found her gaze roaming over him. God, he had a nice back. And shoulders. And an incredible butt.

Sami shifted on her feet, gripping her helmet tighter with hands that for some reason wanted to shake. What the hell was going on with her? What was meant to be a relaxed demonstration for her sponsors and the media to celebrate her latest title had somehow become wholly
not
relaxing. Maybe she needed to fire up her bike, rev it up a bit and cliffhanger and can can a couple of orgasms her way. Climax away the weird, funky tension trying to fuck with—

“That’s what Biggest Dickus wants me to tell her?”

Jay’s low voice uttering his nickname for Swanson jerked Sami back to the pit.
And
her mechanic. If
she’d
heard him, the gathering media would have as well. Michael Bailey was probably doing an internal dance of joy; he damn near had a cottage industry going reporting on the Swanson/Charlton rivalry.

She studied Jay’s back, his broad back, with its broad shoulders and narrow hips and tight—

“Word for word?” he asked into his phone.

A pause followed. A short one.

“Okay then,” Jay went on. “But it’s Swanson’s funeral.”

He disconnected the call, shoved his phone into his pocket and then turned back to Sami, his expression as unreadable as his voice. “Swanson’s agreed to your bet. He wants to discuss with you in his private box what
he
gets when
he
beats
you
.”

Sami’s tummy clenched.

Jay’s stare held hers. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “The emphasis,” he said, “is his.”

Eli didn’t consider himself an arrogant or conceited man. He just knew he was better than anyone else at what he did.

He wasn’t North American Motocross Champion five times running, nor International Motocross Champion three times running, because he was average. He was far from average.

Nor had he achieved such success because he played it safe.

Playing it safe was for the weak, and he wasn’t weak either.

He’d been weak once. He wouldn’t be so again. Being weak had cost him. A mechanic and a friend.

“Arrogant” and “conceited”
were
words used to describe him, however. By the media, his fans and his sponsors. His rivals also called him the same, along with “dangerous”, “insane” and “ruthless”.

Of all the titles and names bestowed upon him, his favorite—fuck-knuckle—had been granted to him by the woman currently shaking her head at his ex-head mechanic on the television screen before him.

Watching Sami Charlton argue with Jay Rutledge, he wished the reporter controlling the live feed from Fox Sports would forget professional ethics for one moment and direct the camera’s mic at the pair.

Not only did he want to hear Sami’s Australian accent, he wanted to hear what she was calling him today. And what his one-time best friend was calling him as well.

Which one was arguing against his invitation, he wondered.

Rutledge? He and his ex-mechanic had not parted company on the best of terms, but they’d once shared almost everything.

At the sight of Jay shaking his head and stabbing his finger to the center of his palm, Eli guessed the mechanic wasn’t singing his praises. He’d seen that very body language before. The day Jay told him he was an “arrogant fuck” who was going to die all alone if he wasn’t careful.

“Careful” was another thing Eli didn’t do. In any aspect of his life, a fact he’d pointed out to Jay.

It was only when he’d seen Rutledge on ESPN a week later, standing beside Sami as her new mechanic, that he’d realized the Australian had returned to his homeland and gotten himself an Australian boss.

One Eli wanted to fuck with every bone, every fiber, every
molecule
in his body.

Turning his attention to Sami on the screen, Eli’s cock pulsed.

He’d kissed her once. After she’d come second to him in a charity ride for childhood leukemia in Tennessee last year.

Kissed her like he wanted to fuck her—hard and with possessive hunger.

The media covering the event had captured the kiss
and
the fiery lust in Sami’s eyes when he’d released her.

He watched that footage every night. Went to bed with the memory of it in his head and in his body.

Two weeks later, body pent-up with denied desire and charged energy, he’d been asked by a reporter on CNN if he thought female MX riders were as good as their male counterparts. The reporter had pointed out Sami came close to beating him in the charity ride.

Eli had said no to the notion.

He’d wanted an excuse for Sami Charlton to contact him. To confront him. To give him a piece of her feisty, fired-up mind.

She hadn’t. Instead, she’d called him a fuck-knuckle live on air during an interview.

Settling back in his seat now, he watched her throw up her hands at Rutledge. Watched her utter words he couldn’t hear with lips he ached to taste again.

Had Jay tasted them?

His ex-mechanic had had a thing for her for a long time, ever since she first appeared on the international circuit—a risk-taking rider with a trashy mouth and a hot body.

Jay didn’t think Eli knew about his desire for the woman, but Eli did.

On screen, Sami threw her helmet straight at Jay’s chest, spun on her heel and stormed out of the camera’s frame, leaving her mechanic with a scowl on his face.

It would appear Rutledge had lost the argument.

“Care to comment, Jay?”

Eli smiled as the reporter—Michael something or other—shoved his mic in Rutledge’s face.

Rutledge rolled his eyes. “To borrow my boss’s words: my arse, your lips.”

And with that, he walked out of the shot. But not before Eli saw him yank his cell from his pocket.

On a small table beside his chair, Eli’s phone rang.

His heart thumped harder in his throat. His groin throbbed.

Waving a dismissive hand at Dianne as she reached for the ringing phone, he waited.

A few moments later, silence filled the room.

A second after that, the voice mail alert sounded.

“Why don’t you get yourself a coffee, Dianne,” he said with a smile for his personal assistant.

“Thank you, Mr. Swanson. Do you want anything?”

He shook his head, and then waited until she had exited the private box—provided today by one of his minor sponsors—before retrieving his cell and listening to Rutledge’s message.

“Sam says you’re on.”

Eli returned his phone to the table.

He thought of the way she’d responded to his surprise kiss a year ago, of the wild, almost uninhibited way she rode a circuit. Of the insane tricks she pulled when freestyling. Thought of the heated venom she used when talking about him to reporters.

And then, chest tight, groin tighter, he allowed himself to think of the foolish bet she’d made but a few moments ago.

Anything. She’s bet
anything
she could beat him.

He smiled again, an expression he knew people would label smug.
Let’s see how true to her words—and how confident in her skills—she really is.

Settling back in his chair, he rested his ankle on his knee and took a sip of mineral water from the sweating glass in his hand. Savored the icy-cold liquid as it flowed down his throat. Focused on it.

Drew a slow breath, held it for a count of five and released it.

Took another sip of water and studied the cloudless blue sky beyond the tinted window before him.

The door to the private box crashed open. A gust of hot, petrol-tainted air rushed into the room, followed immediately by the heat of Sami Charlton’s ire.

“When
you
win?” she sputtered, repeating the words he’d had Dianne deliver to Rutledge in their earlier telephone conversation.

He didn’t rise from the chair as she stomped to where he sat.

Instead, he took another sip of water, ignoring her.

She stopped directly in front of him, hands balled on her slim hips, legs spread, eyes flashing bloody murder.

“You said ‘anything’, correct?” he asked, emphasizing his Southern drawl with deliberate intent. She’d once declared his accent “as sexy as all hell” during an interview. Of course, that was
before
he’d kissed her in Tennessee. Before the infamous are-males-better-than-females question.