Ahead in the Heat (5 page)

A
nnie had never played with fireworks before, but sitting next to Sean in his car felt like being strapped in next to a rocket launcher. He was dangerous and explosive. Part of her was tempted to reach out and touch him. His grip on the stick shift left his knuckles white with strain. The tendons along his neck stood in stark relief.

Sean Westin didn’t take things as lightly as she’d thought. Even his vehicle was something of a surprise. She’d have guessed Porsche or Lexus, but instead he drove a late-1970s Bronco. True, it had been fully restored and improved so there were butter-soft leather seats and a dashboard that rivaled any new car. The in-dash GPS was so fancy, she was surprised it didn’t do the actual steering. But the body was all business, and Sean even had two boards in the back, both of them midsized shortboards good for a wide range of surf conditions.

“Should I ask where we’re going?”

Sean had insisted on driving to the event tonight. It had seemed the most sensible option at the time, but now she regretted that she’d be an extra problem when Sean didn’t need any more shit. She couldn’t even imagine what he’d be worrying about. The calls he’d likely have to make.

“No. Yes. Fuck. Sorry, Annie.” He smacked the steering wheel. “I should take you home, but I just hit autopilot to my place.”

“It’s all right.” She twisted the hem of her dress around her pinkie. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice the shot of nervousness overtaking her. “Head home. I can always call a cab.”

“No, you don’t have to do that.” He sighed. “I’ll take you home after I make one phone call, yeah? That work?”

She nodded, leaning into the corner between the seat and the door, watching him. Part of her knew if she said a single word in protest, he’d change course and take her to her place. But he’d just been given a hell of a wallop, so she was sure he needed to bring in his cavalry. As quickly as possible.

He drove with one hand atop the steering wheel and the other on the gearshift. His motions were small and efficient. On the way to the party, he’d been a good driver, but the way he kept his calm now, when he was this upset, was appealing. She wanted to watch him drive in more extreme circumstances. Off-roading in Baja, maybe. Or driving one of the fast cars she’d pictured him in.

“I’m so surprised you don’t have a sports car.”

“I do.” He cracked out a smile, almost unwillingly it seemed, because he quickly doused it. He flashed a quick glance at her. They were rolling down wide, smooth highway, and the streetlights surged and waned between, but it never was completely black. Such were the benefits of California toll roads. “I have an Audi R8.”

“Then why aren’t we driving that?”

“You didn’t seem like the sports car type.”

For some reason, she went stiff, wedging herself out of her comfortable corner. The back of her neck tightened. “I’m not cool enough for the fancy car with the non-name?”

“You sure do get sullen fast.” He reached into the space between them, covering her hand where it rested on her knee. “I thought you’d like my Bronco better. That’s all.”

She stared at his hand. The bones were long, and he was full of grace. He was so tanned that she looked even paler than her normal shade of porcelain by comparison. Her heart took a sickly lurch. He was dealing with so much. His injury was bad enough, and she’d put him through a wicked workout this morning, culminating in side arm lifts that had stretched his shoulder to its full capacity. As reward for her physical punishment, he’d brought her to a glamorous sports-world event, thinking they’d have a great time, but then he’d been delivered awful news. With all that on his plate, here he was, comforting her because she’d been unreasonable about which overly expensive car they were driving.

“How much did the Audi cost?”

He chuckled. “Has anyone told you it’s rude to ask stuff like that?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re paying me a three-million-dollar bribe for physical therapy. I think we’ve moved beyond rude.”

“You don’t even know rude, sweetheart,” he drawled, completely taking the piss out of the words. There was nothing serious behind his intent.
Just more and more teasing until Annie thought she might strip out of her skin.

“You’d be surprised what I know,” she retorted. Except she didn’t know shit, not really. She wasn’t the flirty type. There had been that long period after she’d been on the competition circuit, through college, when the thought of sex and flirting had been more terrifying than intriguing. Therapy had worked her through lots of those issues, but it had left her with a different problem. Guys either thought of her as their little sister or they were hot-shit players who didn’t glance at her even for a second.

It was completely obvious which category Sean fell into. He was too gorgeous for words, much less for Annie.

Yet his hand still rested on hers. The cuff of his shirt hinted at dark, crisp hair. His wrists were thick. Man wrists. The kind of hands she’d been scared of a long time ago. But Sean’s were different.

Or at least they felt different to her.

She swallowed the tight knot in her throat. “The car,” she prompted again, because that was so much safer than where this conversation could end up if they didn’t have nearly as many barriers between them. “How much was the car?”

“Close to a quarter mil. After taxes, at least.”

She nodded as if that made perfect sense in her everyday world. She struggled to pay her bills in addition to the center’s bills. The groceries alone were enough to make finances downright painful. Part of the goal of turning her ad hoc backyard setup into an official center on Seventeenth was splitting her life more definitively. Her days were absorbed by either
work or the kids. The plans included a salary for a director, and though Annie intended to keep direct control, she couldn’t wait for a little more time off.

She wasn’t asking for much. Maybe one Saturday a month, to start with. She’d had to jump through hoops to get things covered so she could come out tonight. After all, she’d have to slowly relearn how to actually occupy herself when she wasn’t surrounded by a half dozen teenagers. Maybe she’d have time for lunch with Tabitha and Rebecca, her best friends since their third year of college, when they’d randomly ended up as roommates based on a message posted on a coffee shop bulletin board. She
missed
Tabs and Becky. They were funny, and she could do with some funny in her life.

She could also do with some sex. It had been entirely too long since she’d had a man. The last time she’d been out on a date had been with Brad a year and a half ago. Brad, a music producer, had ridden a crotch rocket motorcycle and knew how to pick a delicious bottle of wine. Annie had been pretty impressed with him . . . but not impressed enough to return his calls.

Sean would have eaten a guy like Brad for breakfast. On toast. With marmalade.

There were no lights on in Sean’s house, but when they pulled in, the garage door opened to reveal bright white. Even Sean’s garage gleamed. The few yard tools he had, like a rake for the pebbled postage-stamp front yard, were perfectly aligned and hanging from Peg-Board like soldiers at attention. There was a red highboy Craftsman toolbox, with a workbench next to it. Overhead, there was an
organization shelf from which glass jars hung, arranged by size. Annie squinted. Were they filed by color and type too? Because everything on the left shone silver under the fluorescent lights, and things on the right were darker in hue.

Parked at the front of the garage was the sports car she’d quizzed Sean about, but they didn’t linger long enough for Annie to admire it. Sean bolted upstairs to the kitchen, giving her a fast brush-off before heading up another level to the second floor.

Annie shouldn’t have followed him. Casting aside her better impulses, she stepped through an open door upstairs to find his office. She ignored the trembling knot of nerves in her stomach, but she was very aware of a damp prickle taking up the center of her palms.

She knew better than this. She thought about him too much. She liked him too much.

She had to regain some distance.

Somehow.

The money he was offering was a lot, but losing it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. She could return to her original five-year plan. It was doable; that was why she
had
the plan.

She needed a way to understand this man.

Crossing her arms low over her stomach didn’t hold in the quibbly feeling that made her warm and oddly fuzzy. Though Sean established himself at a desk on the west side of the room, she stood in the middle and turned in a slow circle.

This room was . . . a war room. There was no other word for it. Battles could be mounted from the place. Sean’s U-shaped desk was covered with three PC
monitors across the left and a Mac on the right. The space between had a couple hard drives, and two small televisions were mounted on the wall to the right. As he sat, Sean flicked them on with a sweeping gesture on a smart remote. They came on muted, one tuned to the weather channel and the other to a financial network.

The entire stretch of the left wall was covered with maps. Her arms still laced over her stomach, Annie stepped closer. There were squiggles and data points all over them that she hadn’t the slightest clue how to read. Nautical charts. Her nose was six inches away from a map of the Azores, a little chain of islands in the Atlantic that were west of Portugal.

Annie had wanted to surf the Azores, but she never got there. Terry had promised there’d be a chance, if she kept up her end of the deal and did everything she could to retain her surfing sponsorship with Leslie Sunglasses, but it had never happened. Of course. Nothing Terry claimed had happened. She hadn’t been destroyed by him either, but she’d been the one to see to that.

Even though she’d been exactly the good little girl she’d been expected to be.

She spun on the balls of her feet, which were aching. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in heels this long. Sudden awareness of the way her feet throbbed also set her up to notice everything else that was wrong with her. The backs of her knees
ached, and so did her lower back. She was hungry. Something like pissiness settled in the knot between her shoulder blades.

Sean wasn’t even looking at her. He had pulled up two computer screens, plus he had just put his phone to his ear. If she left, he wouldn’t notice.

Except for some reason, she couldn’t do it. This was the last place she should be . . . but she couldn’t think of anywhere to go.

She slipped off her heels instead.

“Hey, bro,” Sean said into the phone. “Crisis mode over here. And no, I’m not overreacting.”

She didn’t intentionally listen in while he gave the person on the other end of the line a fast but efficient rundown of what had happened with the owner of WavePro. The guy had been doing his best, but he’d had shit information to pass.

She turned her attention to a different set of charts, these ones color coded and covered in names she’d heard. Slater. Wright. Crews. These were all the members of the ’CT. Westin had all their stats posted, from all their points down to their height and approximate weight. He had listed the types of boards they rode and where they got them from. He charted sponsorships, team divisions, and coaches.

It was all there. Charts and spreadsheets. Covered in ink from handwritten annotations.

“Didn’t I ask you to stay in the kitchen?” said Sean’s curling, stroking voice over her shoulder.

She spun. Her skirt whirled out. She kept her arms locked over her stomach by pure force of will. “Sean . . . you’re a fucking fraud, aren’t you?”

“I
don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but you’re not supposed to be in here.”

“Why? Is it your private space?” She made her eyes wide and, leaning forward, dropped her voice as if she were telling a secret. “Have I stumbled into the bat cave? You’re not hiding a cape and a utility belt, are you?”

He lifted a single eyebrow. “You’ve got a fetish for superheroes, don’t you? Tell me, Annie. Does Superman get your panties wet?”

She made a dismissive noise, wrinkling her nose. “God, no. That guy wouldn’t know his way around Lois Lane’s panties if she tied them to a stick and waved them like a flag.”

Rather than laugh at her, he buried it. “If I’m remembering correctly, I left you in the kitchen.”

“All you said was ‘Feel free to get a drink.’”

He crossed his arms over his chest, only to realize that meant he was mimicking her posture. He didn’t shift, though. There was no sense in giving her more power than she already had. “I did. When I left you in the kitchen.”

“I didn’t realize it was a prison.” Apparently she could give her mouth a stubborn cast when she wanted. The babydoll bow disappeared, leaving
behind a sultry, displeased woman. “You’re going to have to work on your skills if that’s how you mean to keep women confined.”

“I don’t generally intend to go into kidnapping as a hobby,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “It didn’t seem like that much for you to stay where you were while I made a call.”

Her mouth opened, then closed again. She pinned him with a look from under her straight-line brows, but dashed it away.

“Spit it out.” He wanted to touch her. But she had all the signs that said
Hands off
, and for all his shortcomings, he’d never once touched a woman who didn’t want it. There was enough nasty shit in his history, things he’d done that made him an awful human, without adding taking advantage of women on top of it.

She shook her head.

“Spit it out,” he repeated.

She dropped her hands to her hips with a heaving sigh. “You didn’t leave me when I needed you.”

“You were nearly having a panic attack. I wasn’t about to leave you alone.” He sputtered as the rest of the implication caught up. “And I most certainly do not
need
you.”

Dark hurt flashed in her eyes, but she quickly buried it. Here and gone in a second. She was a woman who knew about hiding behind a mask. “You got shit news tonight, Sean.”

“Thanks for the reminder, Baxter.” He had done what he could for the night. His call to Max Sherwood, his manager, would start the ball rolling in a hundred directions. The rest he’d have to deal with
in the morning. Including a visit to Tanner Wright. When Tanner’s half brother kicked up a giant storm of scandal, Tanner had managed to coast through and ride it out. He might have advice for Sean. That Tanner had left the circuit made Sean slightly uncomfortable, but at least he’d be a trustworthy, unbiased source.

If Sean had anything to say about it, heads would roll. He’d shut down this documentary and do it instantly. There was too much in his past that needed hiding. He’d had a major fuckup, and he’d gotten lucky when it was time to tidy it up. More than lucky. But there was one thing he could say with one hundred percent assurance. “I’m clean.”

“I know,” she responded instantly.

His chest blew wide on a deep breath. Fucking hell, that had felt good. A weight stripped from him that he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying. Max had been on his side, but that felt like a given. Max was paid to be on his side. He was paid a hell of a lot of money, as a matter of fact, a percentage of Sean’s greater earnings. So it was in Max’s best interest to ensure that Sean’s career progressed in a positive manner.

Annie had no reason to believe him. No invested motive. But she looked up at him with wide, sincere eyes. Her lips were slightly parted in a serene smile.

“How do you know?” He couldn’t help but ask. Faith was something he’d never managed, not easily. Definitely not blindly. But she seemed like she had it for him, and they’d known each other—what? A week? That was kind of hard to believe in itself. He’d have thought he’d known her longer.

“This room.”

“You said this room made me a fraud.” His office was probably the most cluttered room in his house, but that wasn’t saying much. He had two shelves of reference manuals, most of them pertaining to climate and weather patterns. The multiple computers were an indulgence. Technically he could do what he needed on a single screen. But the setup made it easier to monitor conditions in three different areas at once. He not only needed to know about where he’d surf the next week; he liked to keep an eye on the next two ’CT destinations as well.

She spun away, leaving him with a view of her shoulders. She had dressed relatively conservatively, showing little skin until tonight. He wondered if she realized what a temptation even her shoulders were. She was made of muscle and elegance, and when she lifted a hand to touch the list of his competitors, she created a divot at the cap of her shoulder. “How much work do you put into these rankings?”

He shrugged, then reminded himself that she couldn’t see that. “Some. Most of the process is automated. Downloading information from the Internet.”

“You’re a competitor, Sean Westin. Not a playboy.” Her head tilted, and dark hair shifted across the tops of her bare shoulders. She was cream and chocolate, blending her personality’s sharp edges. Her hair was thin, but it looked butter soft. Touching it would be like touching spider’s silk.

“Can’t I be both?”

For some reason, that made her turn around. The gentle oval of her face was tempered with that silken
hair. Her eyes were widely spaced, her cheeks soft. “Don’t you eventually have to decide what you are? Isn’t that part of growing up?”

He knew better, but he put a hand on the wall by her head, right between his analysis of Rowdy McMillan’s second heat at the Hurley Pro and the overall standings of the last Billabong event. Leaning in was so damn stupid that he tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. She didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Kept staring at him with those eyes that he wanted to drown in and that mouth that he wanted to taste.

He tested the tight limitations of his right arm to let the ends of her hair skim like feathers over his fingertips. She was worth the pinch of pain. “Growing up is bullshit. That’s why everyone wants to be done with it as soon as possible.”

Her head tilted. “I don’t think that’s true. There are lots of people who hold on to their high school years with an iron grip.”

“The star football players. The homecoming queens. The ones for whom everything worked.” The words spilled out with a hefty dose of bitter ashes.

“You weren’t one of those, were you, Sean?”

When his shoulder pulled with fatigue, he put his hand on her waist, framing her in. She shied away from his touch as if she wasn’t the one in charge. He’d seen that when he tried to take her hand at the party. Even in the middle of a crisis, she’d held safe within herself. But crowding her meant that maybe she’d stop asking stupid questions about his background. He wasn’t ready to answer, because the answers blew. There was nothing lovely about being
trapped in a house with a crazy woman. “No. I wasn’t.”

“You’re certainly making up for lost time lately then, aren’t you?” She lifted her face toward him, defiantly raising her chin. She wasn’t completely unaffected, though. Her hands flattened against the wall at her hips. The pulse at the side of her throat fluttered like a butterfly’s wings. “Putting on the playboy act. I don’t think that’s real. I don’t think that’s who you really are. Maybe a hard-drinking, bar-fighting surfer would take drugs to try to catch up. But you’re this Sean Westin, the one who devotes hours to research. Who knows your competitors inside and out. Who’s made himself an industry. You wouldn’t risk any of it by doping. Steroids would defeat the purpose.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” he growled. Fuck, he needed to shut his own mouth up, because what was he arguing for? She was saying good things about him. But at the same time, it felt like she was going too far beneath his surface. Crawling under his skin. He didn’t know what to do with that. How to respond. She assumed his biggest concern was doping rumors. How cute.

She smiled serenely. “Sure I don’t, Sean,” she agreed, except she laced her words with doubt, teasing him. “But I also know you’re about two seconds away from kissing me.”

The hand he had braced against the wall clenched into a fist. He dropped to his elbow, crowding her even more. He had to pull back his bad arm, which made the nerves across the back of his skull crawl with frustration. She smelled like pure skin and soap
and the faintest hint of flowers. No perfume for her. She didn’t put that type of work into herself. “Shouldn’t you run, then?”

Her head fell back against the wall. Her breasts pushed out with the move, her hips bending away. “Do I seem like the running type?”

He hated when other people were right about him. He’d made it his mission to defy expectations in so many ways. Otherwise he’d have a house piled to the rafters with trash, if he’d even had a house at all. He might have been homeless. It came close to being a viable option more than once when he was young. He broke stereotypes about surfers being laid back and lazy. He was neither of those.

But Annie was right about him. He was transparent as glass, because he couldn’t think about anything but kissing her, not anymore. Part of him wanted to blame it on her because she’d planted the idea in his head, but he knew it wasn’t true.

He’d been fixated on her mouth for hours, ever since she’d shown up at his front door in her demure dress with the gold straps. She was a demon meant to torture him.

So he kissed her.

If he’d thought she’d melt, he had another thing coming. She made a welcoming sound, a gasping moan in the back of her mouth, and rose on her toes so that she pushed up against his mouth. Her breasts brushed his chest, but he didn’t touch. He didn’t move his hands from their fisted position at the wall.

Kissing her was like kissing a whirling dervish cloud. She was energy and fire, but if he tried to grab on, he thought she might flit away. Disappear like so
much mist. She trembled under him. Her bones were made of wire and held together with lace. But the lace was made of steel as well.

He tasted vodka on her and regretted it. He wanted only her pure taste. She was wet velvet against his tongue. Every move of his lips across hers was temptation. Keeping his hands still became harder and harder with the pounding echo of his blood in his ears.

The roar was almost enough to drown common sense. He wanted to tell himself to move on, to take more, to cup her breast in one hand. Or at the very fucking least, her tight, slim waist.

But he didn’t move. Only poured his every thought into their mouths, into their kiss. They were something incendiary.

And she was someone who’d been bruised at the edges. He’d suspected it before, but the way she moved and sighed at his kiss confirmed it. Her hands fluttered at her waist, as if she wanted more but didn’t know how to take it. That didn’t sound like Annie in usual circumstances. The way she stood boldly and challenged the world to come at her was one of the things he dug about her.

Sean was used to women touching him, used to them immediately twining their arms around his neck and pressing lithe bodies against him. Hell, sometimes they wrapped their leg around his hip
before he’d even gotten to the point of opening his lips.

Not Annie. She was waiting. She was hesitant.

And he was the worst shithead in the world for liking that.