Bryce ignored them too. “You know, I was thinking this morning,” he said, his lips still only inches away.
She couldn’t take her eyes off of them. “Is that where all that smoke came from?”
He ignored her. “I was thinking how a jail cell would be the perfect place to make love to you, smells and all. You know, no phones, no Harry, no pizza boys…no way for you to boot me out. But then I thought, wait, why would I want to make love to a woman on a cold, hard, smelly jail bed when I could make love to her in the middle of the desert instead?”
She jerked away, suddenly remembering they were supposed to be fighting. When she took a step back she summoned what few brain cells his kiss hadn’t sucked out and said, “Don’t you think Harry might have something to say about stopping his truck to enact some sort of petty revenge? You’re already slowing things down by stopping to let me out after an hour.”
“What makes you think we’re stopping to let you out today?” he asked.
“Bryce,” she said warningly. He had to be kidding.
“Oh it won’t be petty,” he said smugly. “And Harry’d want to watch.”
She colored, her face glowing as brightly as the taillights on Bryce’s truck.
“You forget about the business he’s in.”
No. She remembered.
“Go ahead and mount up,” Harry said from right behind her, and his timing couldn’t have been more superb.
CJ turned toward the man, horrified that he’d overheard. Then she spotted Harry pointing at the truck. Her face turned redder. Bryce chuckled. “I wanted to do exactly that last night,” he murmured in her ear. “But you wouldn’t let me.” He drew back. “Maybe I’ll have better luck today.”
She was seized by the thoroughly childish urge to stomp on his foot. “I’m getting out after an hour,” she said.
“C’mon, you two. We’ve only got a few minutes to get this thing to the starting line.”
Bryce leaned forward, placing a hand on her shoulder. “C’mon, CJ,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s time to head off into the desert.”
“Not without a cattle prod, I’m not,” she hissed back.
“A cattle prod, hmm. That might be kind of fun. I’m sure Harry has one…or something close.”
“You’re twisted.”
“Not as twisted as a woman who calls the cops on her lover.”
CJ turned back to face him. “You’re not my lover.”
“Oh, no? That wasn’t you screaming my name last night?”
“I didn’t scream.”
“No?”
“I moaned,” she clarified.
“Ah. Well, those were some of the loudest moans I’ve ever heard.”
She blushed because she really had made a lot of noise. “And I did not call the cops on you.”
“That’s what you say, but in hindsight, the manager never admitted that he was the one who called the police. I wouldn’t put it past you to pull a fast one like that.”
“I didn’t pull a fast one, I merely showed you to the door.” And she hadn’t called the police. She really hadn’t.
Someone waved a hand between them. It was Harry. “Are you going to help her into the truck or shall I get out the crane?”
“I will,” Bryce announced at the same time CJ muttered, “Jerk,” under her breath.
Bryce grabbed her right beneath her breast, copping a quick feel as he supposedly helped her up the step ladder that sat beneath the sill of the truck. CJ closed her eyes and tried not to notice the tingles his fingers sent through her whole body as she slid into her seat, silently cursing.
“Let’s see,” Bryce mused as he strapped himself in next to her a moment later. “I guess I’ll wait until Devil’s Bones to pull over. Do you mind waiting that long? Of course, it could be sooner, but I like the name. It has a certain ring to it, wouldn’t you say? Kinda memorable. And it reminds me of last night, you know, when I left your room with a huge boner.”
“Don’t be crass,” she snapped. CJ checked to make sure there were no stray things attached to her belt and said, “I’m sorry you were left, ah, hanging like that, but that’s no reason to force me into riding along all day.”
“It was very definitely not hanging,” he said. “And I thought you were supposed to ride along all day.”
“I’ve changed my mind.” She put in her ear pieces even though the last thing she wanted was Bryce’s voice in her ear all day. “But you know, you and Harry ought to get together and exchange euphemisms. Maybe you can help him name his products.”
Bryce considered her suggestion as she leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms over her painfully hard nipples. “That’s a great idea. He’d probably like what you called it last night. What was it? Little Bryce?”
“I said no such thing.”
“Or was it Big Bryce?”
“You must’ve been hearing things. If I called it anything it was the Teeny Weeny.”
“Teeny Weeny? Hardly. More like Whoppin’ Weeny.”
She snorted in disdain. “Yeah right.”
“Or maybe it was Pleasure Pumper.”
“How about Pencil Pecker?”
“Or Whopper Wanger?”
“And how about you two move it to the starting line?” Harry interrupted.
CJ looked outside in horror. Bryce’s crew stared at them both, all of them grinning from ear-to-ear, except for Harry, who frowned. “Ohmigosh,” she screeched, clutching the window sill. “You opened the mic, didn’t you?”
Bryce smiled.
“You, you, you,” words failed her. “You bastard. You total and complete bastard.”
“Bryce,” Harry interjected, barely able to control his laughter. “You better close that mic before the FCC fines us.”
“Roger, Harry,” Bryce said, moving the switch on his steering wheel into the off position. “Did you pull your harness tight? I don’t want any more bruises sprouting up on your shoulders.”
“What do you care?”
He smiled. A cat-in-a-fish-store kind of smile. “My, my, my. We’re in quite a snit, aren’t we? Could it be because now everyone knows you and I have been intimate?”
“We have not been intimate.”
“But we will be…soon.”
“Yeah, over my dead, bloated and decomposed body.”
“That’s not what you said last night.”
“Well, you can forget all about last night. Besides, today’s the last day of the race. I hardly think you’re going to jeopardize your chances of winning by pulling over to exact some type of revenge.”
“You’re wrong.”
She glared at him dubiously.
“You see, I don’t want to win the race.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious, CJ.”
“What? Do you think I’m, an idiot? You’re in a race. Of course you want to win.”
“Not if I’m determined to teach a certain brunette a much-deserved lesson.”
Uh oh. “You can’t be serious.”
“Would I joke about something like this?”
He was known throughout the United States for his pranks, of course he would. “I don’t believe you. I refuse to accept that you would bilk the charity you’re racing for out of…how much difference is there between first and last?”
“Twenty grand.”
She gaped, not even flinching when he started the truck, the sound rivaling that of a 747. “Twenty grand? Bryce that’s a lot of money for those children to lose out on.”
“Don’t worry, I have every intention of making up the difference.”
He’d what?
He would. He’d make up the difference.
And then the true ramification of what he was telling her sank in. She stiffened in her seat. “You mean to tell me, I’ve been sitting in this truck for two friggin’ days, hypothetically to cover a race a lot of people expect you to win, only now you tell me you have no intention of doing so?”
�
�Yup. And when I lose I’m going to blame it all on you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
Yes, he would. He was really truly that angry about how she’d booted him from the room. She fumed for a long, silent moment. “If you do this, Bryce, then I’ll tell the Associated Press, my editor at DRIVE, every member of the press that this race is fixed.” She crossed her arms in front of her and gave him a “take that” look.
It didn’t seem to faze him because he just smiled in an all too knowing way and said, “No you won’t. If you do that then I won’t make up the difference between first and last, and if I do that, then the children lose out.”
She stared at him for a long, simmering moment. “You wouldn’t do something so petty just so you could…could…”
“Boink you?”
“Try to teach me a lesson,” she contradicted.
“Oh, yes, I would.”
“No way,” she squeaked.
He actually laughed aloud. “You know, CJ, even if you’d been sincere in blackmailing me, I still wouldn’t change my mind about Devil’s Bones. You see, it’s time you realized that sometimes, I like to have the upper hand.”
“So exactly how do you plan on losing this race without Harry finding out? By slashing the tires?” He couldn’t possibly be serious, but CJ just couldn’t leave the subject alone.
They’d been out on the road for a half-hour, her nails practically embedded in the roll cage as they negotiated a rough stretch of road that rivaled the L.A. freeways.
“No. I’m fresh out of knifes today. I thought we’d get lost instead,” Bryce answered as he steered the truck between two cacti. “So I guess you’ll get your way after all. You won’t be forced to ride along with me all day.”
“Lost? How in the heck are you going to convince him we’re lost when this truck is equipped with GPS?”
“Easy. We really are going to get lost.”
CJ gawked at him, then turned and stared out at the barren expanse around them, bits of scrub faced off with cactus like Wyatt Earp at the O.K. Corral, the huge cacti raising their arms as if in surrender. She sympathized with those cacti right now.
“You’ve got to lay off snorting that starter fluid, Bryce. It’s affected the few brain cells you have left.”
“Racers get lost out here all the time. Take the wrong fork and wham, you’re off course. And GPS only tells you where you are, not how to get back home.”
“You mean you don’t have a TomTom or a Garmin or something?”
He shot her a glance meant to convey his amusement at the silliness of her question. “We have maps,” he said. “Which I forgot to bring today.”
Liar.
She would just bet he forgot. CJ released her death grip on the roll cage and murmured, “Amazing. Even with thousands of dollars worth of equipment, men still manage to get lost. And if there was a gas station around, you probably wouldn’t stop to ask directions.”
“Probably not. But if I see one I’ll be sure to pull over.”
She rolled her eyes. “And I still don’t think Harry is stupid enough to believe you, nor that you’re actually going to do this. I happen to know they can track people via GPS.”
“Trust me, sweetheart, our GPS unit will be miles away from where we really are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Darn thing fell off at the start of the race.”
“It did not.”
“I’m afraid so,” he said with a false smile.
“Bastard.”
“I only have your best interest at heart.”
“Yeah, well, the last man who said that left me with ten thousand dollars worth of credit card bills.”
“Jeez. What’d he buy you? A new car?”
“No. He bought himself a new motorcycle,” she grumbled. At his raised brows she dared him to say something derogatory. He didn’t, but that didn’t reassure her. It’d been nearly an hour since she’d first climbed into the truck with him. That meant their first check point was up ahead. Would he let her out? And if he didn’t, how would she escape?
And escape she would.
Bryce in a hotel room she could handle—well, once she got her wits about her—Bryce out in the middle of the desert with no distractions, no interruptions, no phone to dial 911 when she had her heart attack from his lovemaking was something she was determined to avoid at all cost, which meant she would have to fake an illness, ask Bryce to drop her off at the next stop. There was no way she could let him make love to her. Last night was close enough.
Last night had been heaven.
Yes, it had, but she wouldn’t let him touch her again. He might be delusional about how she looked, but she wasn’t delusional about how this would end. He would leave her high and dry once the race ended.
The radio crackled, Harry saying, “Ah, Bryce?” in a panicked tone. “We got a problem here. Would you do a position check for us?”
CJ’s brows rose, confused by the odd request, but when she looked at Bryce she knew. A groan rose in her throat, a groan which grew louder when Bryce gave her a smile that could only be called Machiavellian. “Sure, Harry,” he said.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, mumbling, “Bryce Danvers, don’t you dare tell me you were serious about leaving that GPS behind.”
She heard his naughty little chuckle, then the words that set her heart to beating like the drums in a reggae band. “Now, now, CJ, when have you ever known me to lie?”
Chapter Eleven
“You…you…you, putz!”
He quirked a brow at her saying, “I thought I was a bastard.”
“Damn it, Bryce,” Harry’s frantic voice interrupted. “Boink her later. I need your position. Now.”
Bryce shot her an amused smile. “What should I tell him? Missionary? Doggie? What’s your pleasure? Well, aside from sixty-nine. I know you like that. Or should I dub what I did to you thirty-four-and-a-half. What’s half of sixty-nine?”
“Stop it, Bryce.”
“Bryce?” Harry’s voice boomed again.
“Roger, Harry,” Bryce said, but he didn’t even look down, just said, “Well, would you look at that. The display shows an error message.”
“Sonofabitch, Bryce. That’s what we thought. Your GPS isn’t working.”
“That’s because he left it at the start/finish line,” CJ yelled.
“Now, now, Ceej, don’t be telling any lies,” Bryce said with a smile bright enough to light up the dark side of the moon. She wished he was on the dark side of the moon.
“Bryce,” Harry cried. “Did you copy?”
He looked away from her. “Roger, Harry. We copy. We’ll pull over and try to figure out where CJ went wrong.” He took his foot off the gas.
CJ jerked in her seat. “Where I went wrong?” she snapped, watching as Bryce unplugged her mic. “You’re the one who left the darn thing behind. Don’t you dare tell him I got us lost just to suit your petty sense of revenge.”
He chuckled. CJ balled her hands into fists, her anger gaining momentum in direct opposition to the speed of the truck. “Why the heck do we have to stop?”
The smile turned to a leer. “What’s the matter, honey? You scared? You should know it’ll be good. Even better than last night.”
She clenched her hands in her lap. “The only thing I’m scared of is catching the clap from you.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said smugly. “I brought lots of condoms. Green ones, yellow ones. Ribbed, un-ribbed. Here.” He reached behind the seat. “Choose.”
CJ gaped at him in horror as he dumped a smorgasbord of safety on her lap, sunlight catching the foil packages and turning the inside of the truck into bright prisms of speckled color.
She stared down at them in disbelief. Her eyes narrowed in on a green and white package with the words, “Extra Large” emblazoned on the front. She looked at another one. They were all extra large. “Great,” she muttered sarc
astically. “Did you bring sunscreen too?”
He didn’t hesitate a beat as he answered, “For my rear?”
“As in you being on top? I don’t think so.”
“But, I’m always on top.”
“Not this time, bud. Not now, not ever. You can get rid of the condoms and the sunscreen.” She shoved the foil packages off her lap, hearing them scatter on the sheet metal floor with a sense of satisfaction.
“You like making love au natural, eh?”
“The only thing you’re going to make love to is the Joceline in a Box. So you can just drop the Casanova routine.”
He laughed again as the truck finally came to a dust disturbing stop. CJ’s heart beat even louder. The desert stretched for miles around them, the road was on a slight incline which dissolved ahead into small mountains, blue sky and fuzzy white clouds. CJ unclenched hands when she felt her fingernails digging furrows into her palm, then tensed again as Bryce cut the engine, the absolute quiet of desert so complete it was almost deafening.
The thump in her ears grew louder, her breath came faster. This is ridiculous, CJ, a little voice warned. Get a hold of yourself.
I’d rather get a hold of Bryce, the devil inside her answered back.
Well, you can’t have him. He only wants you because you happen to be more convenient than the blow-up doll stashed behind the seat.
Who cares? answered that other voice. He’s the sexiest man you’ve ever laid eyes on. You’d give up chocolate for a year in order to have him. And if can make you scream like he did by just using his mouth, just imagine—
“CJ?”
She jumped, the sound of his voice so near, for a moment she forgot she had a helmet on. But it was the way he put his hand on her leg that suddenly made her palms wet as hand wipes, made her legs tremble like a marathon runner, made her breath catch like a diver entering a pool of freezing water.
Playboy Prankster Page 13
