The door opens again. He grabs a flashlight from the dashboard and flashes me a devastating grin. “Are you coming, baby?”
Coming? Coming where?
I blink as he leans in close once more, his spicy cologne tangling my senses. “What’s the matter?” he murmurs. “You look flustered.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I grumble, making him laugh. “Who’s the tease now?”
“As I said, my girlfriend doesn’t share, and I won’t do her dirty.” It’s too dark to see his face when he leans in to murmur against my ear, “Want my cock, beautiful? Admit you’re my girl.”
“Kane…” I start, but he’s already gone, shutting the car door.
Dammit. Why does he scramble my brain like this? I join him at the front of the hood, where he waits, bathed in headlights.
“What are we doing?” I glance back at his black car, which blends into the night like an extension of it.
He presses the flashlight into my hand. “First things first. We walk the track, get you familiar with it.” His smile turns sharp. “Then I teach you how to race.”
My mouth falls open, and he walks off before I can say a word. Race? Is he gonna teach me to race?
Tearing after him, I almost crash into his back when he suddenly stops and turns around to point out an imperfection in the asphalt. I barely hear a word of it, still trying to process that he wants to teach me to race.
“Are you listening?”
“No? You said?—”
He quiets me with a finger on my lips. “When you drive this road every weekend, it becomes second nature. Experienced racers know the road like the back of their hand. Don’t be a rookie and lose a race because you’re unfamiliar with potential hazards. You have seconds to gain an advantage and seconds to beat the competition. Even the slightest mistake could cost you the win.”
He crouches. “Shine the light here.”
When I do as he says, Kane points out a small pothole. “It might not look like much, but trust me, you want to avoid things like this.” He stands up and walks off, stopping every now and then to scuff the blacktop with his shoe while discussing things I need to take into account. I listen as best I can, but one question burns at the front of my mind.
“What car am I gonna race?”
Surely, he doesn’t mean his car?
Kane slips his hand into his pocket, takes out his keys, and tosses them to me. Of course, I’m not prepared. I scramble to catch them, and they fall at my feet with a soft clink of metal.
“You’ll race your boyfriend’s car.” He winks and meanders off, back the way we came.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I shout after him.
He spins around, walking backward with a mouthwatering grin that could melt ice. “You do now.”
“Do not.”
What am I? Five?
“Merry and Pippin say otherwise.”
“I thought everyone shipped Frodo and Sam?”
Kane shakes his head with a genuine smile. “Stop being so fucking stubborn and get behind the wheel so I can teach you how to make grown men weep on the track.”
“Stop bossing me around.”
“But it makes you wet.”
S’poseI can’t argue with him there.
