Alison Kent - Fast, Furious and Forbidden

Glowering, Trey turned. The woman in the doorway had the sun at her back, which put her face in shadow. It didn’t matter. He knew without question who it was standing there giving him the eye. Had known who was speaking the moment he’d first heard her voice.

That didn’t mean he was able to answer without taking a deep breath first. Seven years had done nothing to dull his body’s response to having her within reach. “Cardin Worth. It’s been a while.”

She wore black Converse sneakers, low-riding jeans, and a black Dahlia Speedway logo T-shirt. His pulse began to hum, but not because of the way she looked in her clothes.

Humming was what it had always done when she was around. What it had done even before the pants-around-his-ankles incident all those years ago. What it had done anytime he’d thought of her since.

He’d thought of her a lot. A whole hell of a lot. “How are you?”

Pulling off her sunglasses, she came further into the trailer, her long black ponytail swinging, her cheekbones more defined than he recalled. “I’m good, Trey. You?”

“The same.” He looked on as she laid down the glasses, as she picked up and fondled the wrench he’d come for. He’d always thought she had the most graceful hands, had always wanted her to touch him more than she had the night she’d caught him bare-assed. “What brings you out here so early on race weekend?”

“I’m actually looking for my grandfather.” Her gaze came up, intense, searching. “Have you seen him?”

“Jeb? No.” Trey shook his head. He hadn’t remembered her eyes being so blue. Her body being so…fine. But he finally did remember his manners. It didn’t matter that her grandfather was someone he really didn’t care to see. “Is he doing okay?”

A comma of a dimple teased one side of her mouth. “Flying as right as ever, thanks.”

“And you? You’re doing okay?” Because he sure as hell wasn’t.

Her smile took pity, her gaze softened. “We already did that part.”

“Right. Sorry. My mind’s—”

“On the race?”

Actually, it had gone back seven years to the night of the kegger celebrating her class’s high school graduation. The night of the pants-around-his-ankles incident. The night he’d backed her into the wall and listened to her breathe.

He still wondered how long she’d been standing there, why she’d stayed and watched instead of skittering away. If she’d been as turned on as he’d thought. If she dreamed about that night the way he did, for no reason that made any sense.

He cleared his throat, went back to what she’d asked him. “Yeah. Farron Fuels is always a big one for Butch.”

“For all of Dahlia,” she reminded him sagely, her hometown pride strong.

He nodded in response, knowing her family, along with the others whose businesses thrived on the income generated by visitors who’d come to the spring drag racing series to see “Bad Dog” Butch, would get the bad news soon enough.

Thanks to one Artie Buell, son of the local sheriff, who’d messed with Butch’s wife at a local watering hole where she’d stopped for a drink with Sunshine’s wife last night, this weekend’s Farron Fuels was the last one for Butch—who would’ve landed behind bars and had to forfeit the race if Trey and the others hadn’t kept him from kicking Artie’s ass.

Butch had no use for a town where a supposed upstanding citizen, one related to what passed for the law, didn’t know that a married woman’s no meant no. So this year’s race was it. Corley Motors, one of the biggest outfits in top fuel dragster racing, wouldn’t be coming back to the Dahlia Speedway.

And once he’d finished his business here and cut his personal ties with the town, that meant neither would Trey.

Cardin turned the torque wrench over in her hands, a thoughtful crease appearing between her arched brows. “It has to be strange to have grown up here, yet never visit. Except during the Farron Fuels.”

He wanted to tell her it wasn’t strange at all. That these days he didn’t think of Dahlia as anything more than another quarter mile strip of asphalt he needed to get his driver down as fast as he could. But he didn’t say anything, just waited for her to dig deeper for whatever it was she wanted.

She did, switching from a gentle trowel to a more painful pick. “Surely you miss seeing old friends? Spending time at home? Hanging out with Tater, as inseparable as you two were?”

He missed Tater, sure. They’d been best friends before either of them could spell his name. But the only thing that would’ve kept Trey here had never been his to come home to—even though she’d sought him out and was standing in front of him now.

And so he shook his head.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Hmm.” Her tone said she didn’t believe him. “There’s not anything about Dahlia you miss?”

“Nope,” he said, and knew he lied.

“Or anyone?”

“Nope.” Another lie.

“Not even Kim Halton?”

Kim Halton had been the girl on her knees when his pants had been around his ankles. The girl who’d finished what she’d started, then left Trey alone to pull up, zip up and deal with the girl who had watched.

“There is one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I miss seeing you.”

“Pfft.” She fluffed her fingers through her bangs, hiding behind her hair and her hand. “When did you ever see me before?”

He wondered if her refusal to look him in the eye meant her cool was all a ploy. Then he wondered how much of the truth she really wanted.

He went for broke. “You mean besides the time you stood there and watched Kim blow me?”

Color rose to bloom on her cheeks, but it was her only response until she gave a single nod.

That one was easy. “I saw you at school, in the halls, shaking your ass on the football field. I saw you every time I came into your family’s place for a burger or a beer.”

“That was a long time ago, Trey,” she said, her voice broadcasting her bafflement. “At least—”

“Seven years,” he finished for her.

Her frown was baffled, too. “You say that like you’ve kept track.”

“I have.” He knew exactly when he’d moved away from Dahlia. When he’d last seen her except in passing at the annual Farron Fuels.

“I don’t get it. You were two years ahead of me in school. We didn’t exchange more than a couple dozen words.”

Words had nothing to with the heat she’d stirred in him then. That she still stirred now, a stirring he felt as his blood flowed south. “So?”

“So, there’s no reason for you to miss seeing me.”

“None you can think of, you mean.”

“Whip—”

“Hold up.” He lifted a hand. “Forget about me missing you. Let’s talk about the nickname instead.”

That got her to laughing, a throaty, bluesy sound that tightened him up. “Hey, I had no idea it would stick. You can blame that on Tater.”

She returned the wrench to the shelf, her fingers lingering, her lashes as thick and dark as the bristles of an engine brush as she lifted her gaze coyly to his. “At least most people think it’s about you cracking the whip over your team.”

That was because most people hadn’t been there to hear the gossip about him whipping it out for Kim Halton.

He was lucky their secret had stayed close. That no one knew he couldn’t have cared less about Kim. That, instead, he’d wanted the girl watching from the doorway as Kim stroked him. The one too close to his doorway now.

He moved to block it. “I suppose it could’ve been worse.”

“You’re right.” She paused, added, “I could’ve called you…Speedy.”

Ouch. But he grinned. “Maybe I was wrong when I thought I’d missed seeing you.”