The Chase (7 page)

Now she was sitting here with him next to her realizing that the past decade had been a ridiculous gigantic misunderstanding and that everything she’d thought and felt needed to be shoved through the do-over machine. All that was confusing enough, but when you added in that killer kiss, well, she was as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Evan had dared her into that kiss, knowing full well if he had just tried to kiss her she would have balked. He knew her well enough to know that if he challenged her, she wouldn’t back down. It was scary to realize he still knew her that well, and mortifying to think that she was so competitive she couldn’t walk away from something stupid when she was dared.

It had also been a shock to realize that the second his lips pressed on hers, it had been like nothing had ever changed. It was like she was eighteen all over again, and she had flung her arms around him and kissed back for all she was worth.

And yet, even while she saw how potentially dangerous that was, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

“Alright, where do you live?” she asked, turning down the heat. It might only be March and still crisp, but she was burning up from the inside out.

“In those town houses off of Singleton Road right by the Harris Teeter. Where do you live?”

Kendall thought it was a damn miracle they’d never run into each other at that grocery store. Not that she cooked. “I live across the street in that apartment complex. Literally right across the street.”

“It does have a small town feel here, doesn’t it?”

“It’s more like you can’t go five feet without tripping over someone involved in stock car racing one way or the other.”

“Does your family still live here?”

“Yep. My parents are in the same house out in the sticks. My sister Kyle is a nurse, and my sister Kaylynn is a kindergarten teacher. They have six kids between them.” Enough kids to keep Kendall from feeling the urge to procreate herself, and enough kids to keep their mother off Kendall’s back for that very same reason. Sort of. Well, not really.

“Damn. It has been a while. Your sisters were younger than you.”

“As my mother reminds me as often as possible. How are your parents?”

“Good. Great actually. They’re having a grand old time being stepgrandparent’s to Tammy’s kids. I guess it was no surprise to any of us that Elec got hitched first, but his bride came with a ready-made family. My mother better enjoy it. I don’t see Eve or me following suit any time soon. Or ever.”

Kendall refused to question why his anti-marriage stance would bother her, but it did. “I’ve seen Elec with the kids at the track. He’s a good stepfather.”

“He took to it like a fish to water.” Evan suddenly tapped her hand on the gearshift as she drove. “Nice car, by the way. I like watching you drive.”

Lord, she was blushing in the dark. “You’ve seen me drive plenty of times. And this isn’t even a race car.”

“No, it’s sexier than that. It’s you relaxed, yet in charge.”

She had no idea what to say to that, but she couldn’t help but press the gas pedal just a little harder to feel the speed, show off just a touch.

“Hey, you remember how we used to race on that old dirt track on Route 3? God, I haven’t been there in years.”

“Of course I remember.” She remembered every minute of every day she’d spent with Evan. They had laughed a lot racing around the track, and they had fooled around a lot as well, in the back of his old Ford. Funny how she thought back and they both seemed so young, so free, so immature, yet at the time she would have sworn she was all grown and then some. “It’s no surprise you haven’t been there. You’ve been a little busy.”

“We should go there. Right now.”

“What? Why the hell would we do that?” Kendall chanced a glance at him. She recognized that sound of enthusiasm. Evan had been an impulsive teenager, and it seemed he hadn’t changed in that regard.

“For old times’ sake. We’ll take a spin around the track. This car can handle it.” He gave her a charming smile. “Come on . . . What are you, chicken?”

“That only works once a night.”

Kendall braked at the intersection and told herself to hold firm. It was idiotic to go running off to an abandoned dirt track at eleven at night with Evan Monroe.

“Come on, please? It’s been a really shitty day, Kendall.”

Something about his tone had her turning to look at him.

“I lost my sponsorship today.”

Her hand jerked on the gearshift. Holy shit. “Are you serious?”

He nodded. His eyes were unreadable in the darkness, but she could see his jaw was set, even as he shrugged in nonchalance.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry. That sucks. What happened?”

“Underperformance. Tough economy. Don’t worry, I’ll work it out. But today is a bad day. And I’d like to go sit on that dirt track with you if you don’t mind.”

Like she could say no to that? “Of course.” She changed lanes and turned right, heading away from the storefronts and condos. They drove in silence for a minute, then she asked, “Does anyone know?”

“Just you, me, and Eve. And of course, the suits who pulled the plug. But by tomorrow everyone will know.”

Kendall was touched that he had shared that with her. She knew how she would feel if she were in his shoes. Defeated, frustrated, like she were going backwards. It was a tough business, with very few at the top. “Sponsorship is a rough aspect of this business. We need it, yet how much of it controls us? I mean, it was inevitable that I got a female deodorant as my sponsor. I’m a woman, they want me to sell product for women.”

“Calling attention to the very thing you’re trying to avoid.”

“Exactly.”

“No one is going to forget that you’re a woman, Kendall. You might want to consider embracing the edge it gives you.”

Part of her bristled instantly, but then she thought about what he was saying. “Don’t you think that’s a sellout?”

“We’re all sellouts. We have to be. And I will take the next sponsor who offers to pay my way, even if its diapers or sexual lubricants. It’s business, not personal.”

Kendall snickered. “I don’t think we’re going to see a lube car anytime soon. Though if we did, I would probably get it. A hot pink and purple car with a giant phallic-looking bottle all over the side.”

“And I’ll be driving the adult diaper car.”

“Not even baby diapers?”

“Hell, no. This is my horror fantasy. Totally the incontinence car.” He laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t say it out loud, I’ll bring it on myself.”

Kendall pulled into the track road, her car hitting ruts and bouncing hard. “It will all work out, Evan, I know it will.”

There was a pause, then he said, “And if it doesn’t?”

That vulnerability in his voice squeezed her heart. “It will,” she said firmly.

He didn’t answer, just looked out the window and pointed. “Park it right along there, and let’s have a sit.”

Kendall parked, and they climbed out and moved around to the front of her car.

“Can I sit on the hood?” Evan asked.

She appreciated the respect. “Sure. This isn’t a special car. Just my everyday car.”

“It’s kind of flashy for an everyday car.” Evan sat on the hood, his legs spread wide, forearms on his thighs.

Kendall tried not to find that attractive, but failed miserably. She also tried not to look at his crotch, and bombed out there, too. Not that she could see anything, given the angle, but just knowing what was there had her feeling warm despite the cool night air.

“I’m a flashy kind of girl,” she told him, which was a total lie.

“That’s a total lie. You’re a tomboy, always have been.”

The truth, yes, but it didn’t sound particularly flattering out loud. “Gee, what every girl dreams of hearing.”

He grinned. “A sexy tomboy. Always have been.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Uh-huh, thanks.”

He patted the hood next to him. “Sit down. And you don’t need to be so defensive about not being a girly girl, you know. Everyone is their own person. So your sisters have traditional female jobs and you drive a race car. So what? And you can break down an engine and take a turn at one sixty and swear like a sailor. Doesn’t make you any less female.”

“I know that.” Kendall climbed onto her car, feet on the fender. “Damn, this hood’s cold. I do know that. I can wear a dress and feel feminine after an afternoon in the garage. By the way, transmission fluid makes an excellent conditioner, which I found out after letting half my head get soaked by accident. My hair was soft for a month.”

Evan laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. So what’s the problem then? So you straddle two worlds, two traditional ideas of gender roles. A lot of women do.”

“It’s not like I want to be a guy, or even one of the guys. I just want gender to not matter.”

“Well, guess what? It does. So just own it. Use being a hot chick to your advantage.”

Kendall sighed. She wasn’t even sure what was bothering her, really. She was just tired of always fighting to get ahead and then feeling like it had been handed to her out of pity or curiosity because she was a woman. But intellectually she knew no one was handed a damn thing in this sport. She had earned it, or she wouldn’t have it.

She also knew Evan had a point. She could rail against the ways of the world all she wanted or she could learn to live with it. “When did you get to be so smart?”

“What? I always thought you were a hot chick.”

One glance over at him told her he had known exactly what she had meant and it wasn’t about her looks. But if he couldn’t take a compliment, she could. “Oh, yeah? Am I a super hot chick?”

“Definitely. Because you’re the chick who can look beautiful in a dress, who can be a lady, yet at the same time is not afraid to get down and dirty. You like speed, and that is so goddamn sexy.”

Kendall went still on the hood of her Vette. That was how she saw herself, a girl definitely, yet a girl who liked to drive fast and get her hands dirty. That Evan saw that so clearly and thought it was sexy was, well, hot. He was hot. She’d always thought he was damned attractive, and here in the chill night air, in the silence of the empty track, with him looking at her like he thought she was the only woman who had ever existed on the planet, she wanted him the way she hadn’t wanted a man since she was eighteen.

It had been him then and it was him now. Which was a very strange and overwhelming feeling.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“No. Thank you.” He leaned closer to her. “I’m going to kiss you again and you have about ten seconds to stop me.”

Throwing caution to the wind in her personal life wasn’t usually Kendall’s style. Really not even on the track. She was methodical and aggressive, but not impulsive or a daredevil. But at the moment, she was perfectly willing to toss over common sense and let Evan Monroe lay his lips on hers just one more time.

“I’m not going to stop you.”

“Hallelujah.”

She didn’t. In fact, Kendall leaned forward and eliminated that final sliver of air between them.

God, he felt so good. He was warm and strong and familiar, even after all these years. It was like her body, her senses, her heart remembered every taste, touch, scent of his, knew how they fit together.

And fit together well, they did. One touch of their mouths, one brush of a kiss, and Evan had pulled her closer, practically onto his lap on the hood, his lips claiming hers with hard, demanding kisses that took her breath away and took the chill right out of her body.

“God, you feel good,” he said, his hands rushing over her sides, down to her thighs, her backside.

Kendall had nothing to say in response, her mind a total blank, filled with nothing but desire and raw need, so she let her actions do all the talking. She plunged her tongue into his mouth, her own hands gripping the lapels of his shirt, her breath hot and anxious, one leg hooking over his. She kissed him with all her pent-up frustration, ten years’ worth of sadness and worry and anger over how she thought he had perceived her. She kissed him out of relief, out of lust, out of concern for his immediate future, out of fear for her own. Out of passion and aggression and intensity.

For the memory of her first love, the man who shared her need for speed.

A kiss wasn’t enough to contain, control all those chaotic thoughts and emotions.

Kendall reached her hand for his thigh and found a burgeoning, encouraging erection jutting towards her.

Thank goodness. She was hot and wet and she was taking a ride whether he liked it or not.

Evan was drowning in lust, Kendall kissing the hell out of him, her tongue everywhere, her warm little body getting closer and closer with each touch of their lips. His hands were racing over her tight backside, and he was working on a painful throbbing erection, knowing it was destined for a letdown, when she dropped a hand right onto his junk.

“Oh, damn,” he said, before he could stop himself. “Kendall, don’t, you’ll kill me.”

He meant that sincerely. While he wasn’t celibate like he had claimed earlier, the way his body was reacting now he might as well be. A couple of strokes and he’d be so hard he wouldn’t be able to sit in the passenger seat. She’d have to lay him out in the backseat so he didn’t suffer any injuries.

“Shh,” she said, which was a sure indicator he was about to be tortured.

He was right. Kendall unzipped his pants.

“What are you doing?” he asked, because he had to know how tight of a rein he needed to have on his control.

She gave a soft laugh as her finger worked down the zipper then moved to his button. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Unzipping my fly. But to what purpose?”

“I’m going to get on you and ride you.”

Evan’s ears rang with a dull buzzing. His vision blacked out. Every muscle in his body constricted.