Beau snatched the keys back. “I’m not driving the Ferrari. I’m in the Lambo. If you liked the Ferrari, you’re gonna love the Lamborghini.”
She hurried to keep up with him. “So you’re letting me drive?” she asked hopefully.
“Not today. It’s a little tricky. You’ll need a lesson first.”
She glanced up, that same hot spark back in her eyes. “A lesson sounds good. Always something new to learn.”
As he led her out of the house, Beau couldn’t help wondering if they were talking about cars or something a lot more personal and a helluva lot more interesting.
Sooner or later, he intended to find out.
Chapter Eight
Ignoring the senator’s Mercedes, also parked in the garage, Cassidy slid into the burnt orange leather seats of the Lamborghini. The doors slid down from above and locked solidly into place.
The gleaming, low-slung, slate-gray vehicle looked like something fromBack to the Future, only far more advanced. The cockpit belonged in a high-test airplane and, amazingly, there were no carpets, just industrial steel floors.
As she clicked on her seat belt, she couldn’t help thinking how much her two brothers would love the gorgeous sports car that had to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Beau pressed the start button and the powerful engine roared to life. It growled like a predator as it idled in the garage. Beau backed out, then pulled onto the road and drove out of the subdivision.
“We could take the long way,” he said, tossing her a hopeful glance. “Get up a little speed.”
She couldn’t stop a grin. “Oh, yeah.” She watched his big, suntanned hands on the paddles next to the steeringwheel, shifting gears with perfect precision as the car shot forward down the road.
What was it about a hot guy in a hot car that was such a turn-on? She glanced down at the big black high-topped sneaker on the gas pedal. “Where’s the clutch?”
Beau shifted and the engine whined into a higher gear. “Semiautomatic transmission. Clutch is electronically controlled. You can shift manually or drive it in automatic mode.”
She itched to try it, wondered what it would take to convince him, then clamped down on where that thought led. One-night stands weren’t her thing and she didn’t have time for a fling, especially not with a heartthrob like Beau, a guy half the women in Texas drooled over.
They hit an open stretch of road just outside town and Beau let the sleek gray panther out of its cage. The acceleration pressed her back in the seat and adrenaline shot through her blood. She liked speed and she liked beauty and the Lamborghini had both. She could definitely get used to a car like this.
“Wow,” was all she said.
Beau grinned, making him look even more appealing and sending her pulse up again. It was the first time he had let down his guard and shown a side of himself he mostly seemed to keep hidden.
“She’s just getting warmed up,” he said. “We’d need a track to really give her a run.”
“Her?You think of your car as a woman?”
“Sure. She’s got plenty of fire but she’s hard to control. You gotta keep her in hand or she won’t behave the way you want her to.”
A flash of heat rolled through her. She closed her eyes to banish an image of them naked together. Dear God, whatwas wrong with her? She had certainly never had these kinds of thoughts about Rick.
She kept her gaze determinedly on the road. If she looked at Beau, he might guess what she had been thinking, and nothing would be more embarrassing. Slowing the Lamborghini, he turned and started winding his way back toward town.
“Why did you quit racing?” she asked as her blood pressure returned to normal. “According to what I read, you loved the sport more than anything else in your life.”
He cast her a glance. “I did love it. Racing was my passion, still is and probably always will be. It’s just . . . sometimes life throws you a curve you aren’t expecting.”
“Like what?”
“I got hurt pretty bad in Le Mans a few years back, spent three weeks in the hospital.”
She’d seen that in an article she’d read. “That’s why you quit? You got hurt?”
“Not exactly. As much as I loved the sport, I had other things I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to build Texas American into a company I could be proud of. I never intended to make racing my life. But I quit after Le Mans because the guy driving one of the four cars involved in the crash—one of my best friends—was killed in the collision. The report said I wasn’t responsible, but there’s no way to know for sure. I couldn’t handle the thought of being the guy who got another man killed.”
