“Only when I need to unwind,” she answers, smiling at me.
“You unwind at a race track?” I ask, skepticism oozing out of every word.
“Of course, don’t you?” She flutters her eyelashes at me as she turns her body in my direction.
“Not exactly.” I smirk. “I come here to lose myself in the speed and the danger. It doesn’t relax me, it makes me want to race.” Honesty with a total stranger. That’s new.
“Do you race?” Her eyes sparkle, and she leans into me. Maybe I haven’t entirely lost my touch.
“Occasionally.”
“Legally? Like on a track? Would I know your car?” Her excitement is palpable, almost contagious.
“No. I own a Honda. I race it around with buddies. Mostly street.”
“Dangerous.” She says the word like a purr. This woman is into the bad boy image. I’m getting a bit too old to play the bad boy, but I figure it can’t hurt to pretend a little for her.
“Only a tad.” I lean toward her. I can hear the car engines, but the noise is low. They’ll be over the cliff in a minute, then it will be too loud to finish this conversation.
“Have you ever been in an accident?” she asks.
“One. Car spun out on a curve, hit a post. Ended up in the hospital with a broken leg.” She reaches out a slim, pale hand and rests it on my upper arm.
“You poor baby.”
“It was pretty rough.”
“Did your girlfriend take care of you?”
She’s not even sly about her quest to find out if I’m single. Remarkable. “Nope,” I answer. “No girlfriend, then or now.” I flash her a dangerous smile, one a bad boy would give. I should know, I spent years being that guy.
“How ever did you manage?” she asks, leaning even closer.
“Mates checked up on me. I did alright.”
“I would go crazy, pent up at my flat with a broken leg.”
I nod. The cars are getting louder. Judging by the decibels, I imagine we only have a few more seconds before the noise becomes deafening.
“I’d have to have a vibrator to keep me from going totally bonkers,” she says.
I am not easily shocked, but that did it. I laugh out loud at her blunt honesty just as the first car comes racing into view. “We men don’t need toys, we’re all set.” I wave my hand beside my head as the volume from the race picks up to an ear-splitting decibel. I can see her laughing, but I cannot hear it.
We both turn our attention to the race. My mind wanders. During my recovery, I did have a sexual release, actually. It’s unfortunate we landed on this topic, since I was trying to avoid thinking about her. After my accident, we Skyped almost daily. She can be so naughty once you get her going. Liz always starts off shy; you have to open her like a present. But once it’s unwrapped… best gift ever.
“Yes! Yes!” The girl next to me is jumping around; she snaps me back to reality.
“Your car win?”
“The #8, yeah. I had 20 quid on him.”
“Nicely done.”
“Thanks. Hey, I’m Angie, by the way.” She extends that hand again, and I shake it.
“Ben.”
“Well, Ben, you are absolutely adorable. I do hope you’ll ring me.” Angie produces a pen from the back pocket of her tight jeans and scribbles a number on my hand. She winks at me.
