Hot-Wired / Coming on Strong

“Looks like y’all are gonna run out of daylight,” Scooter said.

True enough, the day had begun to soften around the edges, making way for a Tennessee spring evening. Already, a sliver of a moon was showing itself in the sky. That was okay. Afternoon, evening or night, it didn’t matter. She was determined they’d get this done.

“It’ll be fine.” She patted her purse, “I brought my flashlight.”

“Smart thinking,” Darnell said in his quiet, reflective way as they crossed the gravel lot to where the big outfit took up several parking spots. Of course, Stillwell Motors Racing wasn’t alone. Half a dozen race trailers commandeered spots.

Natalie checked her watch. Nearly seven o’clock. “We’ll definitely need a flashlight at this rate. Does he have any concept of time?” Was it her imagination or did Scooter and Darnell exchange a look? “What?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Darnell said.

“I didn’t say nuthin’, neither,” Scooter seconded.

While Darnell and Scooter looked guilty, Tim appeared confused. “Beau’s always on time, for everything.”

“Really?”

“Yes, ma’am. He’s amazing. I keep the log book on all of our runs but I don’t really need to. He can tell you what the track temperature was and our setup from three races ago. Beats anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Wow. That is pretty amazing.” Uh-huh. And he didn’t like Cash Vickers. This was getting more and more interesting. “Sounds like he has a heck of a memory, too.”

Tim nodded, reminding her of one of those bobble-head dolls. “I keep telling him he oughta go on one of those game shows. He’d win, for sure.”

“Tim, whyn’t you go check the tire pressure on the trailer tires?” Scooter suggested. “It’d be bad to have a blowout on the way home.”

“Yes, sir.” He ambled off to the rear of the trailer.

Scooter lowered his voice. “You can’t pay Tim no never mind. His daddy went to county jail last year and since then Beau’s really taken him under his wing. Tim sorta idolizes him.”

She refused to feel all warm and gooey inside because Beau had mentored a kid. She absolutely was not going to add a gold star to the top of the heap of attraction that was simmering inside her. Sitting next to him at dinner…“That’s sad.”

“Which part?” Darnell asked. As far as she could tell, Darnell didn’t miss much.

“Both.”

Beau, the man of many faces, crossed the parking lot, his long legs eating up the distance. Her pulse began to race as he closed the gap. “I’m ready if you are. We’re burning daylight.”

He made it sound as if he’d been standing around waiting on her. She ground her teeth and resisted the urge to thwack him upside his too-handsome head with her purse. “I’ve been ready.” Generally speaking, for the last two weeks. Specific to today, since four o’clock.

She bid the other guys goodbye and this time headed toward Beau’s truck. Funny, but she thought he’d hesitated for a second before walking around to his side, as if he was going to open her door for her and reconsidered at the last minute. She was finding herself more and more intrigued with exactly who and what Beau Stillwell was.

She climbed into the truck, settled against the tweed upholstered seat and buckled up. The floorboard was a utilitarian, uncarpeted vinyl. A worn aluminum clipboard sat in the center of the bench seat along with an orange measuring tape. While it was neat and clean, the truck obviously had both miles and years on it. “I’d have put you in a Corvette, Camaro or Mustang,” she said.

“Have you ever tried hauling two-by-fours in one of those?” He turned the key and started the truck.

“Guess that wouldn’t work out too well,” she said. “Why does your engine sound funny?”

He hung a left out of the parking lot onto the highway. “It’s a diesel.” He patted the dashboard, “She’s a workhorse.”

They rolled along and silence filled the space between them. She noted his hands on the steering wheel. He had broad, square hands with a smattering of dark hair on them. His nails were short and clean. They were the capable, masculine hands of a working man and they suited the hard-muscled rest of him that she’d seen. A warm flush spread through her. She could almost guarantee they’d be callused and rasp against a woman’s skin—more specifically, her skin.

Natalie was abruptly achingly aware that only about a foot separated them. How was it that he always seemed to invade her space when she was around him?

And what in the heck was wrong with her? She’d spent two weeks tracking him down to sit idly by and contemplate his hands? Not hardly.

She opened her day planner and flipped to her notes detailing the particulars of the Stillwell-Vickers wedding. “Caitlyn’s discussed with you what she wants done at Belle Terre?”

“As my granddaddy used to say, is the backside of a pig pork?” He slanted a sideways glance her direction. “If you know my baby sister at all, you’ll know she has no problem telling someone what she wants and when she wants it.” Evident affection underscored his wry exasperation.

Natalie chuckled. The few times Natalie had been around the pretty little blonde, when her sister, Shelby, had roomed with her at the Watkins College of Art and Design, Caitlyn had always been forthcoming and occasionally demanding. However, she didn’t strike Natalie as spoiled so much as indulged—a subtle, yet important difference. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.”

“Right. You’ve worked with her on the wedding.”

“And I met her a couple of times when she and Shelby were roomies. Have you ever met Shelby?” Her baby sister had mentioned Caitlyn’s older brother occasionally. She mostly just groused that he was more of a father than a brother and complained about him being overprotective.

“No. I’ve heard plenty about her from Caitlyn but I’ve never met her. I keep a busy schedule.” A flick of his blue eyes in her direction set her heart beating a little faster. “Is she as pretty as you are?”

All her breath lodged in her chest. He thought she was pretty? She’d always been the practical one, the smart one, the organized one, but out of a long-running list of foster sisters, she’d never been described as the pretty one. She curled her fingers into her palm.

And this wasn’t about her. He’d asked about Shelby, even if it had been in context with Natalie. Shelby and Beau Stillwell? Over her dead body. Beau Stillwell had heartbreaker written all over him. “She’s too young for you.”

“How old do you think I am?”

She’d guess early thirties. Chronologically he wasn’t so far out of bounds. Experiencewise, however…And it wasn’t simply because Natalie felt as if she’d been caught in a deep current of desire and was being swept along that every part of her rebelled at the thought of her foster sister dating him.

She was her parents’ only biological child, but she maintained the role of oldest child rather than only child because her parents had started fostering children when Natalie was five. Even as a child she’d been the one to try to bring some semblance of organization to their household. Her hippies-at-heart parents had never figured out that having structure was liberating rather than confining.

All her big sister instincts rose to the surface. She didn’t think Beau was actually interested in Shelby but just in case…“Too old for my little sister.”

He offered a challenging smile that sizzled through her nonetheless. “You don’t like me, do you, Natalie?”

No. Like wasn’t a word she associated with him. It was as if he bypassed every reasonable, rational, functional aspect of her and tapped into her elemental core. When she was around him, she felt everything with a new intensity. It was as if she were supercharged. She’d never been so aware of herself as a woman and him as a man. But did she like him? Did she particularly like feeling this way? No. But then again, it was a rhetorical question. “That’s really immaterial, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see it that way. We’re going to be working closely together on the remodel.”

Working closely with him on anything struck her as a lousy idea. He turned everything in her world topsy-turvy and Natalie didn’t like topsy-turvy. “Once we get the dates down, it really doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“That’s not the way Caitlyn sees it.” He looked altogether too smug. “She said that’s what she was paying you for.” His voice dropped and slid over her like the play of velvet against naked flesh. “She assured me you’d be at my beck and call.”

Her. Him.

Naked. Needy.

Wet. Hot.

Beck and call.

The very idea sent a shiver down her spine and a rush of slick heat between her thighs.

“Within reason,” she managed to say.

“Reason’s not part of the deal.”

WHAT THE HELL? He liked women. He liked spending time with women, but he never got caught up in them. But that’s exactly how he felt about Natalie Bridges. Caught up. Tangled. Intrigued.

Interested…aroused, even…was fine, but that wasn’t what all of this was about, he reminded himself. Caitlyn was going to make a big mistake and it was up to him to make sure she didn’t, by whatever means possible.

Beau rounded the last curve beneath the arch of overhanging oaks and Belle Terre spread before him. Son of a bitch. Cash Vickers would have to show up with a harem and light a crack pipe to get his baby sister to walk away from this.

Set on prime rolling Tennessee hills, even with its vague air of neglect reflected in sagging and missing shutters, Belle Terre was spectacular. The house itself boasted an imposing front of soaring columns and two stories of floor-to-ceiling windows with a second-story balcony overlooking the front door.

“That’s a helluva tax write-off, wouldn’t you say?” he said.

Natalie pushed her hair back over her shoulder. Thick and shiny, it was the kind of hair that left a man itching to run his fingers through it—or hungry to feel it teasing against his bare chest, his belly and finally his thighs as it followed the trail blazed by her lush mouth over his body. She quirked an eyebrow in inquiry. “You haven’t seen Belle Terre before? Not even the video?”

He pushed aside a ripple of guilt. Videographer was Caityln’s professional calling, but it wasn’t his deal. “Nope. I don’t spend a lot of time watching music videos.” Apparently the video—Caitlyn’s project and her intro to Cash Vickers—that went with his hit song “Homesick” had been shot at Belle Terre. According to Caitlyn, Vickers had bought the place because she’d fallen in love with it. “First I heard of it was when he gave her Belle Terre and a ring. I’ve been meaning to get out here but I’ve been busy.”

He glanced over at her. The dying sunlight slanting in through her window picked out red threads in her hair.

“You know, Caitlyn has her heart set on having the wedding here,” she said.

He had the oddest feeling that they could have been discussing their own child, years from now. It was the first time he’d ever felt someone really understood the level of responsibility he felt for Caitlyn. “I caught that.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re sequencing out the remodel today. It’s a bit of a tight timeline.”

Yeah, if they were actually looking at an August wedding. And he caught on right away that she was taking him to task. He was quick that way.

He parked in the circular driveway that fronted the stately columned home. “My sister is obsessed with Gone with the Wind.” He didn’t need a psychology degree to figure out that she’d identified with Scarlett O’Hara losing everything. He’d figured her latching on to an iconoclastic heroine was better than developing a drug addiction or identifying with some goth singer who looked like the Grim Reaper and wore makeup. His sister, however, was amazingly well-adjusted considering her childhood. “It’s a wonder she hasn’t tried to change the name of the place to Tara.”

A spontaneous smile—as opposed to her usual I-have-to-be-nice-to-this-asshole smile—curved her lips and lit her eyes. “She did.” It left Beau with the oddest feeling that he and Natalie shared a bond. “Cash put his foot down on that. He said they had to respect the history of the place.”

He nodded. Much as he didn’t want to, he felt a measure of grudging respect for Vickers on that. Beau knew from experience that telling Caitlyn no wasn’t easy. He also gave Vickers points on standing behind Belle Terre’s history.

“Beautiful Land is certainly a fitting name.” The house sat on a knoll with gently rolling green hills beyond it. The Miscanauga Creek lay at the foot of the slope to the right rear of the house.

“It is, isn’t it?” She pressed the button to release her seat belt. “Shall we start with the outside since we seem to be losing daylight?”

“Sure, sugar pie.” That ought to grit her teeth and kill the camaraderie he felt squeezing in with the sexual tension that was thick enough to cut. Sexual tension he could deal with—revel in, in fact. Camaraderie was outside his realm of experience. “You’ve got something to take notes on?”

Her smile tightened around the edges but she kept it in place. She held up a notebook. “Right here, sugar pie.” Touché. “Just let me know when you’re ready.” She tugged at her seat belt, a frown blooming between her delicately arched brows. “It’s stuck.”

He very seldom had passengers but he recalled that belt had wanted to stick the last time Scooter rode with him to the parts store. “Come to think of it, it’s been kind of temperamental lately.”

“Temperamental?”

“Yeah. You know, a little stubborn. Difficult. Let me see what I can do.” He grinned. “It just needs the right touch.”

“Oh, and you have it?” Something hot and sexual and exciting danced between them.

“It’s worth a try since you’re not doing such a hot job releasing yourself.” His voice came out all warm and gravelly because he’d just painted a picture in his mind of her stretched out on his bed, her head thrown back, that mane of thick hair hanging over the side of his mattress as her fingers delved between her spread thighs, stroking, her brown eyes hot and sultry, her breath coming in short, quick pants as she sought gratification.

He reached across the expanse separating them and his fingers encountered hers. She jerked her hand away, as if she felt the same rush he did. “There’s a button…” he said, the backs of his fingers pressing against the curve of her hip. “You have to touch it just right—not too hard.” She turned her head and her delectable mouth was right there. His jeans seemed to shrink, growing tighter across his crotch.

He pressed the button. Nothing happened. He pressed again. He shifted. “Got to find the sweet spot.” The tip of her tongue peeked between her lips and left a moist glistening trail between the plump pinkness of her lips. Did she know she was slowly killing him? He was pretty sure she didn’t. Still stuck. “C’mon, baby, let go,” he coaxed.

The seat belt, if anything, pulled tighter against her chest, throwing her breasts into distracting relief.

“Can you, uh, see what you’re doing?” She sounded breathless.

He was damn glad to hear it. Breathing was an increasing challenge on his end.

“I don’t have to see. It’s all in the touch.”

“Well, obviously you don’t have it any more than I do.”

“Let me try from another angle.” He got out and walked around to the passenger side. He opened the door and leaned in, across her. Her breath gusted warm against his neck even as her scent slipped around him. His arm brushed against her right breast as he leaned in. Totally an accident, but the result was the same. Her indrawn breath seemed to echo the tightening and clenching low in his belly.

He pressed the button and tugged, but it didn’t budge. “I can’t get it out.”

A breeze blew through the open truck doors and a few strands of her hair danced along his jaw.

“Maybe you should try lubricating it.”

“I’ve got just the thing.” He stepped to the toolbox in the back and quickly returned. She was still sitting there strapped in. There was no way he could’ve deliberately jammed the seat belt but this was perfect. Well, kind of perfect because she didn’t look nearly as pissed off as some women would’ve been. Actually, she didn’t look pissed off at all as she tried to release the jammed mechanism.

Why hadn’t he ever noticed before how sexy a woman could look with a seat belt bisecting her chest? He’d have to be a dead man to not see the way it showcased her breasts, tugging her shirt tight over them, her nipples outlined in taut ball-tightening relief. He wasn’t anywhere close to dead.

“WD-40,” he said.

He reached between her and the seat belt to spread a clean work rag over her thigh and hip. “Scooter’s already got me paying for one outfit. I don’t want to buy another. By the way, are you always getting into jams?”

She sputtered…actually sputtered, but her brown eyes sparkled with laughter and desire. “You…I…Ohhh.”

“Hmm. Should I take that as a yes or a no?”

“You should take that as a you are a bad luck omen. I never had these kinds of problems before.” But there was no real ire in her voice, and her eyes had darkened.

“You’re debunking all kinds of myths for me. I expected a wedding planner to be more even-tempered.”

“You seem to bring out the best in me.”

“Ah, am I tapping into your inner bad girl?”

She shook her head, sending her thick fall of hair on that sinuous slide over her shoulders that he found so hot. “I don’t have an inner bad girl.”

He didn’t believe it for a minute. “How disappointing.” The flash of heat in her eyes told a different story. “I think you’ve got plenty of bad girl just waiting to be released.”

“You are so wrong.”

“Am I?” He abandoned the seat belt and reached up to wrap a thick curl around his finger. “Are you sure? There aren’t any wicked bad-girl thoughts running through your head right now?”

“Maybe one…or two.”

She parted her luscious lips and tilted her chin in a classic invitation to a kiss.

“Ah, Natalie has a naughty side…”

HEAVEN HELP HER but she wanted to kiss Beau Stillwell. Ever since she’d walked in and seen him nearly naked, she’d wanted this. It was as if he were some dark angel sent to torture her. And if she hadn’t wanted him before, his gravel-filled “Naughty Natalie” did the trick.

Beau released her hair to trace the line of her jaw with one finger. He angled his head and her breath quickened in anticipation. She slid her hand around the back of his neck, her fingers testing his corded muscles.

He brushed his mouth over hers. Sampling. Coaxing. Teasing. Nice. She kissed him back. A civil exchange.

Totally unexpected, he swept his tongue against her lower lip and then dragged it into his mouth between his own lips—a delicious faint scrape of teeth and then a sucking.

“You have the most delectable, decadent mouth,” he murmured and then proceeded to make delectable, decadent love to her mouth. She strained into him. Restricted by the seat belt, she pulled him closer.

They nipped, licked and then segued into hot, hungry, openmouthed kisses. She moaned in the back of her throat, a wordless entreaty. His big hands found her breasts, and nothing had ever felt as good as his mouth on hers and his hands cupping her through her clothing, his palms rubbing against her erect points. She arched her back, pushing her nipples harder into his hands. Hungry. So hungry.

He released her mouth and unleashed a tormenting torrent of kisses down her neck, his tongue dipping and delving along her collarbone. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. She tugged his head further down and then his mouth was on her breast, mouthing her through her cotton spandex T-shirt and her bra. He caught her tip in his teeth, and the light abrasion sent her into the stratosphere. Her eyes fluttered closed when he drew her into his wet mouth, suckling her through the cloth.

Where or when it would’ve ended she’d never know, because in the very dim recesses of her still-functioning mind, she registered the sound of an approaching vehicle.

She pushed against his shoulders, her breathing frantic gasps. “Someone’s coming.”

A little more time and it could’ve been her. What, what, what had she been thinking?

His blue eyes glittered when he raised his head and looked beyond her shoulder through the back window. He shook his head slightly, as if clearing it. “Tilson Dobbs. He’s a retired Marine who’s handling security for the place. I’ll go check in with him.” She was still trapped by the seat belt. He glanced down her chest to the wet, puckered material. “You might want to button your jacket.”

Chapter 5

HE MIGHT JUST HAVE TO kick Tilson’s ass. They’d spent an hour and a half now going over the exterior and the downstairs, listing the necessary repairs and remodel required for the wedding and reception. Natalie actually had a good eye and an equally good grasp of what Caitlyn wanted done. But for the last hour and a friggin’ half, Tilson had stuck to them like glue.

When Tilson had driven up, Beau had explained he was checking out the house and Tilson had been all set to ride his Mule, the all-terrain vehicle he drove over the property, off into the sunset to “secure the perimeter.” And then Natalie had emerged from the cab of the truck. She’d resourcefully loosened the seat belt straps by pulling them and then climbed out.

Tilson had taken one look at her tousled hair and kiss-swollen lips and decided the perimeter didn’t need securing nearly as much as he needed to check out the new female on the Dahlia horizon. Beau was pretty damn tired of Tilson trotting along with them and he didn’t care for the way he kept eyeing Natalie. Sort of like a dog circling a juicy bone.

The guy was a persistent son of a bitch, Beau thought as Tilson followed them out of the house, into the now-dark night. They were finished making their list so Tilson could vamoose. Beau flicked on his flashlight and Natalie pulled out a pink one.

“Y’all want to grab some dinner now that you’ve wrapped things up out here?” Tilson asked as they covered the distance to the truck.

Beau cut him off at the pass. “We ate at Headlights on the way out here.”

“How about grabbing a cup of coffee and a piece of pie at the Waffle House, then?” Tilson didn’t even pretend to include Beau in that invite. “I can give you a ride to your car afterwards.”

Once again, Beau didn’t give Natalie a chance to answer. He opened the truck door for her, light from the dome spilling out into the dark, and said to Tilson, “We’ve got to discuss scheduling on the way back to her car. Got to use that time wisely.”

Hell no, he wasn’t feeling proprietary at the thought of Tilson nibbling at the fullness of her lower lip or mouthing her tightly budded nipple through her T-shirt the way he himself had earlier. Not a whit, because Beau didn’t do proprietary with women. They were fun, a good time was had by all, and he moved on. Nope. It was simply that Natalie taking off with Tilson didn’t fit in with his plan. That was all. Nothing more.

Natalie shot Beau a look that promised more to say on the matter later. However, she said to Tilson as she slid into the cab, “Thanks, but we do need to wrap up the business.”

Beau closed her door. “See ya, Tilson,” he said as he rounded the truck to his side. Tilson looked decidedly unhappy but that wasn’t Beau’s problem, now was it?

Natalie sat buckled in the middle. She gestured to the mess next to her. “That seat belt is done for. I can’t get the buckle loose and the belts won’t retract.”

He grinned and slid in next to her. “I’m not complaining.” He buckled up and they headed back to the drag strip.

They weren’t touching but he felt her body heat with mere inches separating her hips, thighs and shoulder from his. He caught an occasional whiff of her perfume, or maybe it was just her shampoo and the smell of her skin, but he liked it. He was more than ready to take up where they’d left off when Tilson had arrived.