A Limited Engagement

by Bethany Michaels

  She pulled out of the parking space and headed for the airport.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A shiny black Lincoln was waiting for her on the tarmac when she got off the plane. Outside the fence of the small, private airport were Derek and about a hundred of his closest fans. Derek was smiling and posing for pictures, signing autographs, and generally looking like the sexy sports celebrity he was, in his jeans and black polo shirt emblazoned with his team’s logo. No one even noticed her until Derek got a big grin on his face and made his way through the gate toward her. Then every cell phone camera went off at once.

  Derek didn’t seem to mind who was watching as he pulled her into his arms and put his lips on hers without a word of greeting. There was a roaring in Lilly’s ears, and even though she was aware of all the people watching them and taking pictures, the sound faded away, and her entire world comprised only Derek. His taste, his feel, the solidness of his chest under her hands. He broke the kiss and smiled down at her.

  “Hello to you, too,” she said breathlessly. It felt like it had been a million years since she’d touched him instead of a handful of days. Scary how good it felt to be in his arms again.

  “Hi.” He kissed her again, a quick one this time. “You have a bag?”

  “No, just my briefcase.” She glanced at the race fans snapping pictures. She hoped her hair and clothes weren’t too messy from the long flight. She should have checked out a mirror before she got off the plane. It hadn’t occurred to her that she needed to be photo-ready.

  “Good. Saves us time.” He picked up her bag while Lilly shouldered her purse.

  “Thanks for coming out, y’all. I have to get my fiancée here back to the shop. We have a dinner meeting.”

  There was a disappointed sigh from the crowd as Derek grabbed Lilly’s hand and tugged her through the crush and into the waiting car.

  Once they were alone, Lilly released all the tension she’d been holding in a long exhale of air.

  “That wasn’t too bad,” Derek said, putting the car in gear. “I was afraid there would be a crowd.”

  “That wasn’t a crowd?” she asked, buckling her seat belt. “It seemed like the whole city was out there.” She’d never loved public speaking, but presenting her ideas to small groups of people was something she’d worked on. She had become good at it, even though she still got nervous right before she walked through the conference room doors. But being the focus of a mob was another thing entirely.

  “Naw, just some of the local fans and tourists.”

  “I don’t know how you do that. Put up with it all the time.”

  “You get used to it,” he said. “Besides, if it weren’t for the fans I wouldn’t have a job. Sponsors pay for the fans a driver exposes to their brands. Fans are incredibly loyal.”

  “It’s just that it doesn’t seem to end. Wherever you go, you’re at work. You have to be ‘on’ all the time.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’m beginning to see why so many celebrity meltdowns are caught on camera. If people follow you around constantly, they’re bound to catch you on a bad day once in a while.”

  Derek glanced at her, concern furrowing the little patch of skin between his eyebrows. “Sorry. I guess I should have sent one of the guys to pick you up. I just was anxious to see you. I didn’t think about the fans bothering you.”

  “I’m fine,” Lilly said. “It’s temporary, right? After I’m just the ex, no one will care enough to take my picture.”

  Derek frowned and looked straight ahead as he merged onto the interstate.

  “So we have a dinner meeting?”

  Derek’s grin was back, along with a glint in his eye Lilly recognized. The kind he got when he was naked and getting ready to rock her world. “Hope you’re hungry, because I’m a starving man over here.”

  She shivered at the promise in his voice. Putting a hand on his thigh, she smiled back. “Now that you mention it, I’m starving myself. You have anything particular in mind?”

  She slid her hand up his thigh, and the wheel jerked. Good to know that she wasn’t the only one affected.

  “It’s a surprise. But you are most definitely dessert.”

  The race shop wasn’t far from the airport, and Lilly was surprised to find that it was in a business park. The building was modern-looking, all chrome and glass with giant letters on the outside reading Stewart-Sawyer Racing.

  “Wow. This is your place?” They pulled around back and through a gate, parking beside several closed garage bays.

  “What did you expect, a hole-in-the-wall somewhere?”

  “Well, your garage back in Penny Ridge isn’t quite this fancy.”

  “This is our corporate office, museum, and race shop,” Derek said. “It’s classy.”

  He pulled out a pass and scanned them into the building. She stepped inside only to be met by total darkness. It was only eight o’clock here. Derek had told her they’d worked late into the night all week.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “I kicked them out and told them not to come back until morning.” Derek flicked on the lights. The garage was huge and high-ceilinged. There were several identical cars, each parked in its own little area, and although there were tools and car parts and laptops at each station, the place was eerily clean.

  “Embarrassed of me, huh?” She stopped a few feet inside the door. Derek pressed against her back, molding his body to hers. She swore he must know where her “on” switch was because the second he touched her, she was purring and ready to go.

  “Wanted to give you the private tour.” His voice was doing that low-pitched rumbly thing that made her panties damp just imagining all the things he could show her. “Come on, you have to see the museum. I just bought something new.”

  Lilly wasn’t actually all that excited about a bunch of old cars, but at this point, he had her by the proverbial G-string, and she was ready to follow him just about anywhere if it meant he’d put his hands on it for real.

  He led her to a large open room filled with glass cases stuffed with helmets, old pictures, fire suits, flags, and other racing memorabilia. And then there were the cars. All kinds of cars—boxy stock cars, low-slung open-wheel cars, a few really old cars that looked like something her grandfather had owned, and of course, some of Derek’s cars.

  “That’s a ’62 Bel Air coupe,” he said, indicating a shiny red car behind velvet ropes.

  “Looks like a big backseat,” she said, leaning to look in the window.

  “Wait’ll I show you the ’53 Hudson Hornet.” He winked at her. “I’ll bet drivers got into all kinds of trouble in the backs of those.”

  “Now you just have to impress women with a room at the Waldorf Astoria. The romance is so gone,” she teased.

  “Here’s the new baby,” he said, stopping in front of a car that clearly hadn’t been given the showroom treatment yet. Its paint wasn’t as shiny, one of the mirrors was broken, and the tires looked like they’d been just about used up. But clearly Derek saw past all those flaws as he gazed at it like a lover. “It’s a 1949 Lester MG. Beautiful, right?”

  It was small and low to the ground and looked almost like a child’s toy. But the narrow front, large engine box, and open wheels made it clear it had power.

  “Nice,” she said, wandering over to a stock car displayed next to it. It was banged up, rubber tire marks on the lower body and crinkled sheet metal in the rear. Above the door was a driver’s name she’d never heard of. Still, it didn’t look much different from a normal car.

  “Mind if I take this one for a test drive?”

  “You know how to drive a stick?”

  Lilly tossed her hair. “Puh-lease. I may have been living in the city for a few years, but I’m a country girl at heart.”

  “That’s got about eight hundred horsepower under the hood. Think you could handle something so powerful?”

  She circled the car, running her hand over the smooth contours of the raci
ng machine.

  “You don’t trust me?” She looked at him over her shoulder, shooting him her best come-hither look.

  He swallowed hard, his eyes darting from her hands stroking the hard skin of his car to her eyes, and back again.

  “I watch some of the races, you know.”

  “Really? Didn’t know you were a race fan.”

  “I’m not,” she said, undoing the top two buttons of her blouse with one hand. She stroked his rear spoiler with the other. “I just turn it on at the end so I can see you.”

  He just stared at her as she made the slow circuit of the car, undoing more buttons as she went. “Kinda warm in here, don’t you think?”

  “It’s an inferno.”

  She smiled at him and pulled off her suit jacket, dropping it on the floor, then continued on around the car. “Hmm, still hot.” She paused, undid the rest of the buttons on her blouse and slid it off her arms.

  “Getting hotter by the second.” His eyes were glued to her breasts.

  She leaned into the passenger-side window, resting her arms on the opening. “This car doesn’t have much legroom.”

  He bent to peer in the driver’s-side window. She made sure her breasts were filling up most of the opening. He noticed.

  “Most drivers are fairly small,” he said, his voice sounding strained.

  “I see.” She walked to the front of the car, and with her breath hitching in her throat, she popped the button on her skirt and let it slither down her legs to pool on the pristine floor.

  His reaction to her black bra and panties and strappy heels made it totally worth the money she’d dropped at Victoria’s Secret on the set.

  “Wow.”

  She walked around the front of the car slowly, letting Derek look his fill. Normally, she wasn’t such an exhibitionist, but seeing the way he looked at her, like he wanted to devour her in one bite, made her feel sexy. And feeling sexy gave her confidence to be the woman she’d always wanted to be: comfortable in her own skin.

  When she’d completed the circuit to stop in front of him, it was her turn to look. Gone was the boy she’d crushed on. This Derek wasn’t a teen fantasy, and he wasn’t just the boy next door any longer. He wasn’t the athlete who graced all the glossies in the checkout lane. He was someone new to her, someone different. She’d known him all her life yet felt like she was just getting to know him for the first time. There was more there than she ever could have imagined.

  And she wanted him.

  “Come here,” she said, though he was only a breath away.

  Without hesitation, his arms went around her; his lips were on hers. He kissed her as if he were a drowning man and she was his last breath of air. His frenzy ignited her desire, too, and within seconds his mouth was not enough. She wanted to touch him, feel his skin on hers. Lilly tugged his shirt from the waistband of his pants and ran her hands greedily over his flesh.

  He broke the kiss long enough to rip his shirt off over his head before crashing into her again. He lifted her to the hood of the car and spread her thighs in welcome. She reached for his fly and began to unbuckle his belt.

  “I’ve never done this in a car,” she said in his ear, then nipped at his earlobe. “I thought the backseat was where all the action took place.”

  “There is no backseat in a stock car.”

  She popped the button on his pants and shoved her hands inside. He groaned, burying his face in her neck.

  Lilly grabbed his ass with both hands, needing to feel his hard length pressed against her. “I guess the hood will have to do, then.”

  “Wait,” he said, just as she slid her hands into the waistband of his underwear. “If you’d like those panties to be in one piece when you put them back on, you’d better take them off now.” He kicked his shoes off and shimmied out of his pants.

  Lilly smiled and spread her legs. “Do your worst.”

  With a growl, he snapped the elastic on one side of her panties, then the other, leaving her completely bare. “You take my breath away,” he said, staring at her sex.

  She wanted to tease him a little more, but then he kissed her and all she could think about was him. In her, around her, his scent, the texture of his skin, the way he used his hands to fuel a raging need in her that could only be assuaged by having Derek deep inside her.

  He discarded the scrap of lace that had been her panties without breaking the kiss, then moved between her splayed thighs. He unhooked her bra with a speed that would have won him the pole at any race in the world, then pulled away, eyes blazing. “Lie back,” he said.

  Lilly obliged, the cool sheet metal of the car on her bare skin making her suck in a breath. Her nipples puckered, and she raised her arms above her head to make them stand out for Derek all the more.

  “You are a fantasy come to life,” Derek said. “I’ve dreamed of seeing you like this. Naked and ready for me, sprawled across the hood of a car.”

  “I hope the reality is as good as the fantasy.”

  “Better.”

  “Well then why are you still standing there?”

  “Enjoying the view.”

  She expected him to pounce, but he didn’t, instead getting to his knees to kiss her dangling ankles and then lick a line up the inside of her leg to her knee. His large hands encircled her thighs, caressing the sensitive skin with the pad of his work-roughened thumbs.

  Lilly was burning up inside, barely able to resist arching her hips as his mouth moved steadily toward her center. She put her hands in his hair, grabbing handfuls of it, trying to get him to hurry, yet loving that he was drawing things out.

  “Slow down, lady. We don’t need to rush to the finish line.”

  “Don’t you want to make it to the winner’s circle?”

  “It’ll be there when I finish. This is a pleasure cruise, not a sprint.”

  He flicked his tongue on the inside of her thigh, making Lilly cry out. Her voice echoed through the empty garage.

  “I love that sound,” Derek said against her flesh. “I love knowing that I’m the one causing you to make it.”

  “Derek, please.”

  “Please what?”

  “I need you. Inside me. Now.”

  “Do you?” he said, getting to his feet. He brushed the soft hair covering her mound but didn’t linger, only teasing. He stroked across her flat belly, her ribs, and finally cupped her breasts.

  “I don’t know what I like better,” he said. “Your wet center or your full breasts.”

  He leaned in to taste one nipple, pulling the hard nub into his warm, wet mouth. Pure need shot in a direct line from her breast to her clit. She was swollen and needy and wasn’t sure she’d wanted anything so badly in her life as Derek.

  “Derek.”

  “That’s right. Say my name. Let me know who’s right here with you, giving you pleasure. Say it.”

  She repeated his name, breathier this time, with a groan breaking out midway through.

  “God, Lil. You don’t know what that does to me.”

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  He moved between her thighs then, and she heard the faint rustling of his sheathing himself before she felt pressure at her opening. She bit her lip, the anticipation making her squirm and reach for him.

  “Please. Derek, please.”

  “Please what? Tell me. Tell me what you want from me. What you want me to do.”

  “I want you to fill me up,” she said. All attempts at any type of decorum were pointless. She wanted him too badly to beat around the bush, so to speak. “I want you inside me. Right now.”

  “Lilly.” He drove inside her in one long thrust.

  She groaned as her body stretched to accommodate his length.

  “Is that it? Is this what you wanted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you think about me the nights we’ve been apart?”

  “Yes,” she said, squirming. He pulled out slowly, and Lilly dug her nails into his back, needed him to fill
her again.

  “Did you touch yourself?”

  “No.” She sucked in when he stopped. She was done playing. She wanted him to quit teasing and give her what she needed. “I used my vibrator and thought of you doing me in the hot tub.”

  “Damn, Lilly. I—”

  He gripped her hips, working himself in and out of her body at a pace she hadn’t thought was possible. Tension climbed within her, tightening her muscles. She bit his shoulder, almost there, needing him to push her over the edge. He reached between their bodies and worked her clit with his fingers. Light exploded behind her eyes, and hot, cresting waves of pleasure flooded every corner of her body, stealing her breath.

  He was right behind her, calling out her name as he burst deep inside her. Their cries echoed through the empty garage.

  Lilly lay for a moment, catching her breath. She stared at the rafters, wondering how shy, conservative Lilly, who’d always had a plan and thought everything out in advance, had ended up naked on the hood of a car, having amazing sex with the boy next door. Then he shifted and gazed down at her, his blue eyes flashing, and she decided it didn’t really matter. There was nowhere else she’d rather be.

  “I always knew you were a screamer,” he said. His hair was slick with sweat, and he was still breathing heavy.

  She punched him playfully on the arm. “That wasn’t me. That was you.”

  “So you’re saying that wasn’t you screaming just then?” He shifted his hips, and Lilly had to bite back a groan. She sensed a two-fer in their future.

  “Absolutely not.”

  He shifted his hips again, and Lilly felt him starting to grow hard. “Fine. I’ll let you get away with that little lie this time.” He kissed her neck in the spot that always sent heat zinging straight for her sex. “But I’ll expect a retraction in about twenty minutes.”

  Her blood began to pound all over again, and the exhaustion she’d felt only moments earlier dissipated. She wrapped her legs around Derek’s hips. “Deal.”