by Cat Schield
“You’re really not supposed—”
“Right now!”
“Sure. Sure.” He backed up a step. “Follow me.” He led her to a gate that opened onto the track. “Be careful.”
But she was already on the track, pelting toward Jason’s ruined car without any thought to her own safety. Because of the dozen or so men gathered around the car, she couldn’t see Jason. Wielding her elbows and voice like blunt instruments, she worked her way to the front of the crowd in time to see Jason pulled through the car’s window.
He was cursing as he emerged, but he was alive. Relief slammed into her. She stopped five feet from the car and watched him shake off the hands that reached for him when he swayed. He limped toward the crumpled hood, favoring his left knee.
Jason pulled off his helmet. “Damn it, there’s the end of my season.”
It could have been the end of him. Ming sucked in a breath as a sharp pain lanced through her chest. It was just typical of him to worry about his race car instead of himself. Didn’t he realize what losing him would do to the people who loved him?
She stepped up and grabbed his helmet from his hands, but she lost the ability to speak as his eyes swung her way. She loved him. And not like a friend. As a man she wanted to claim for her own.
“Ming?” Dazed, he stared at her as if she’d appeared in a puff of smoke. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to watch you race.” She gripped his helmet hard enough to crack it. “I saw you crash. Are you okay?”
“My shoulder’s sore and I think I did something to my knee, but other than that, I’m great.” His lips twisted as he grimaced. “My car’s another thing entirely.”
Who cares about your stupid car? Shock made her want to shout at him, but her chest was so tight she had only enough air for a whisper. “You really scared me.”
“Jason, we need to get the car off the track.” Gus Stover and his brother had been part of Jason’s racing team for the past ten years. They’d modified and repaired all his race cars. Ming had lost track of how many hours she and Jason had spent at the man’s shop.
“That’s a good idea,” she said.
“A little help?” Jason suggested after his first attempt at putting weight on his injured knee didn’t go so well.
Ming slipped her arm around his waist and began moving in the direction of the pit area. As his body heat began to warm her, Ming realized she was shaking from reaction. As soon as they reached a safe distance from the track, Jason stopped walking and turned her to face him.
“You’re trembling. Are you okay?”
Not even close. She loved him. And had for a long time. Only she’d been too scared to admit it to herself.
“I should be asking you that question,” she said, placing her palm against his unshaven cheek, savoring the rasp of his beard against her skin. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and never let go. “You should get checked out.”
“I’m just a little banged up, that’s all.”
“Jason, that was a bad crash.” A man in his late-thirties with prematurely graying hair approached as they neared the area where the trailers were parked. He wore a maroon racing suit and carried his helmet under one arm. “You okay?”
“Any crash you can walk away from is a good one.” Leave it to Jason to make light of something as disastrous as what she’d just witnessed. “Ming, this is Jim Pearce. He’s the current points leader in the Texas region.”
“And likely to remain on top now that Jason’s done for the season.”
Is that all these men thought about? Ming’s temper began to simmer again until she saw the worry the other driver was masking with his big, confident grin and his posturing. It could have been any of these guys. Accidents didn’t happen a lot, but they were part of racing. This was only Jason’s second in the entire sixteen years he’d been racing. If something had gone wrong on another area of the track, he might have ended up driving safely onto the shoulder or he could have taken out a half dozen other cars.
“Nice to meet you.” As she shook Jim’s hand, some of the tension in her muscles eased. “Were you on the track when it happened?”
“No. I’m driving in the second warm-up lap.” His broad smile dimmed. “Any idea what happened, Jason? From where I stood it looked like something gave on the right side.”
“Felt like the right front strut rod. We recently installed Agent 47 suspension and might have adjusted a little too aggressively on the front-end alignment settings.”
Jim nodded, his expression solemn. “Tough break.”
“I’ll have the rest of the year to get her rebuilt and be back better than ever in January.”
Ming contemplated the hours Jason and the Stover brothers would have to put in to make that happen and let her breath out in a long, slow sigh. If she’d seen little of him in the past few months since he’d made it his goal to take the overall points trophy, she’d see even less of him with a car to completely rebuild.
“The Stovers will get her all fixed up for you.” Jim thumped Jason on the back. “They’re tops.”
As Jim spoke, Jason’s car was towed up to the trailer. The men in question jumped off the truck and began unfastening the car.
“What happened?” Jason called.
“The strut rod pulled away from the helm end,” Gus Stover replied. “I told you the setting was wrong.”
His brother, Kris, shook his head. “It’s so messed up from the crash, we won’t know for sure until we get her on the lift.”
“Do you guys need help?” Jason called.
Jim waved and headed off. Ming understood his exit. When Jason and the Stovers started talking cars, no one else on the planet existed. She stared at the ruined car and the group of men who’d gathered to check out the damage. It would be the talk of the track for the rest of the weekend.
“Looks like you’ve got your hands full,” she told Jason, nodding toward a trio of racers approaching them. “I’m going to get out of here so you can focus on the Mustang.”
“Wait.” He caught her hand, laced his fingers through hers. “Stick around.”
She melted beneath the heat of his smile. “I’ll just be in the way.”
“I need you—”
“Jason, that was some crash,” the man in the middle said.
Ming figured she’d take advantage of the interruption to escape, but Jason refused to relinquish her hand. A warm feeling set up shop in her midsection as Jason introduced her. She’d expected once his buddies surrounded him, he wouldn’t care if she took off.
But after an hour she lost all willpower to do so. Despite the attention Jason received from his fellow competitors, he never once forgot that she was there. Accustomed to how focused Jason became at the track, Ming was caught off guard by the way he looped his arm around her waist and included her in the conversations.
By the time the car had been packed up later that afternoon, she was congratulating herself on her decision to come. They sat side by side on the tailgate of his truck. Jason balanced an icepack on his injured knee. Despite the heat, she was leaning against his side, enjoying the lean strength of his body.
“What prompted you to come to the track today?” he questioned, gaze fixed on the Stover brothers as they argued over how long it would take them to get the car ready to race once more.
The anxiety that had gripped her before his crash reappeared and she shrugged to ease her sudden tension. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you race.” She eyed the busted-up Mustang. “And now it’s going to be even longer.”
“So it seems.”
“Sorry your season ended like this. Are you heading back tonight?”
“Gus and Kris are. I’ve got a hotel room in town. I think I’ll ice my knee and drive back tomorrow.”
She waited a beat, hoping he’d ask her to stay, but no invitation was forthcoming. “Want company?”
“In the shape I’m in, I’d be no use to you.” He shot her a wry sm
ile.
As his friend, she shouldn’t feel rejected, but after accepting that she was in love with him and being treated like his girlfriend all day, she’d expected he’d want her to stick around. She recognized that he was in obvious pain and needed a restful night’s sleep. A friend would put his welfare above her own desires.
“Then I guess I’ll head back to Houston.” She kissed him on the cheek and hopped off the tailgate.
He caught her wrist as her feet hit the ground. “I’m really glad you came today.”
It wasn’t fair the way he turned the sex appeal on and off whenever it suited him. Ming braced herself against the lure of his sincere eyes and enticing smile. Had she fallen in love with his charm? If so, could she go back to being just his friend once they stopped sleeping together?
She hoped so. Otherwise she’d spend the rest of her life in love with a man who would never let himself love her back.
“Supporting each other is what friends are for,” she said, stepping between his thighs and taking his face in her hands.
Slowly she brought her lips to his, releasing all her pent-up emotions into the kiss. Her longing for what she could never have. Her fear over his brush with serious injury. And pure, sizzling desire.
After the briefest of hesitations, he matched her passion, fingers digging into her back as he fed off her mouth. The kiss exhilarated her. Everything about being with Jason made her happy. Smiling, she sucked his lower lip into her mouth and rubbed her breasts against his chest. As soon as she heard his soft groan, she released him.
Stepping back, Ming surveyed her handiwork. From the dazed look in his eyes, the flush darkening his cheekbones and the unsteady rush of breath in and out of his lungs, the kiss had packed a wallop. A quick glance below his belt assured her he would spend a significant portion of the evening thinking about her. Good.
“Careful on the drive home tomorrow,” she murmured, wiping her fingertip across her damp lips in deliberate seduction. “Call me when you get back.”
And with a saucy wave, she headed for her car.
*
The sixty-eight-foot cruiser Jason had borrowed for Max’s bachelor party barely rocked as it encountered the wake of the large powerboat that had sped across their bow seconds earlier. Cigar in one hand, thirty-year-old Scotch in the other, Jason tracked the boat skimming the dark waters of Galveston Bay from upstairs in the open-air lounge. On the opposite rail, Max’s brothers were discussing their wives and upcoming fatherhood.
“She’s due tomorrow,” Nathan Case muttered, tapping his cell phone on his knee. “I told her it was crazy for me come to this bachelor party, but she was determined to go out dancing with Missy, Rachel and her friends.”
Nathan’s aggrieved tone found a sympathetic audience in Jason. Why were women so calm about the whole pregnancy-and-giving-birth thing? Ming wasn’t even pregnant, and Jason was already experiencing a little coil of tension deep in his gut. He hadn’t considered how connected he’d feel to her when he’d agreed to father her baby. Nor could he stop wondering if he’d feel as invested if they’d done it her way and he’d never made love to her.
“I’m sure Emma knows what she’s doing,” Sebastian Case said. Older than Max and Nathan by a few years, Sebastian was every inch the confident CEO of a multimillion-dollar corporation.
“I think she’s hoping the dancing will get her contractions started.” Nathan stared at the cell phone as if he could make it ring by sheer willpower. “What if her water breaks on the dance floor?”
“Then she’ll call and you can meet her at the hospital.” Sebastian’s soothing tones were having little effect on his agitated half brother.
“You’re barely into your second trimester,” Nathan scoffed. “Let’s see how rational you are when Missy hasn’t been able to see her feet for a month, doesn’t sleep more than a few hours a night and can’t go ten minutes without finding a bathroom.”
Sebastian’s eyes grew distant for a few seconds as if he was imagining his wife in the final weeks before she was due.
“Do you know what you’re having?” Even as Jason asked Nathan the question, he realized that a month ago he never would have thought to inquire.
“A boy.”
Jason lifted his Scotch in a salute. “Congratulations.”
“You’re single, aren’t you?” Sebastian regarded him like a curiosity. “How come you’re not downstairs with Max and his buddies slipping fives into the ladies’ G-strings instead of hanging out with a couple old family men?”
Because he wasn’t feeling particularly single at the moment.
Jason raised the cigar. “Charlie said no smoking in the salon.”
“But you’re missing the entertainment.” Nathan gestured toward the stairs that led below.
Some entertainment. Max might be downstairs with a half dozen of their single friends and a couple of exotic dancers someone had hired, but Jason doubted his best friend was having any fun. Max wasn’t interested in any woman except Rachel.
Up until two weeks ago Jason hadn’t understood what had come over his friend. Now, after making love with Ming, his craving for her had taken on a life of its own. His body stirred at the memory of her dripping wet in his kitchen. The way her white blouse had clung to her breasts, the fabric rendered sheer by the water. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if she’d denied him then. Gotten down on his knees and begged?
Probably.
Jason shoved aside the unsettling thought and smirked at Nathan. “When you’re free to hit a strip club any night of the week, the novelty wears off. You two are the ones who should be downstairs.”
“Why’s that?” Nathan asked.
“I just assumed with your wives being pregnant…”
Sebastian and Nathan exchanged amused looks.
“That our sex lives are nonexistent?” Sebastian proposed. He looked as relaxed and contented as a lion after consuming an antelope.
The last emotion pestering Jason should be envy. He was the free one. Unfettered by emotional ties that had the potential to do damage. Unhampered by monotony, he was free to sleep with a different woman every night of the week if he wanted. He had no demanding female complicating his days.
“Did it surprise either of you that Max is getting married?” Jason asked.
Sebastian swirled the Scotch in his glass. “If I had to wager which one of you two would be getting married first, I would have bet on you.”
“Me?” Jason shook his head in bafflement.
“I thought for sure you and Ming would end up together.”
“We’re close friends, nothing more.”
Sebastian’s thumb traced the rim of his glass. “Yeah, it took me a long time to see what was waiting right under my nose, too.”
Rather than sputter out halfhearted denials, Jason downed the last of his drink and stubbed out the cigar. The Scotch scorched a trail from his throat to his chest.
“I think I’ll go see if Max needs rescuing.”
They’d been cruising around Galveston for a little over an hour and Jason was as itchy to get off the boat as Nathan. He wanted to blame his restlessness on the fact that the bachelor party meant a week from now his relationship with his best buddy would officially go on the back burner as Max took on his new responsibilities as a husband. But Max had been splitting his loyalty for three months now, and Jason was accustomed to being an afterthought.
No, Jason’s edginess was due to the fact that like Nathan, Sebastian and Max, he’d rather be with the woman he was intimate with than whooping it up with a bunch of single guys and a couple of strippers.
What had happened to him?
Only two weeks ago he’d been moaning that Max had abandoned him for a woman. And here he was caught in the same gossamer net, pining for a particular female’s companionship.
He met Max on the narrow stairs that connected the salon level to the upper deck, where Nathan and Sebastian remained.
“Feel like getting off t
his boat and hooking up with our ladies?” Max proposed. “I just heard from Rachel. They’ve had their fill of the club.”
Jason glanced at his watch. “It’s only ten-thirty. This is your bachelor party. You’re supposed to get wild one last time before you’re forever leg-shackled to one woman.”
“I’d rather get wild with the woman I’m going to be leg-shackled to.” Max punched Jason in the shoulder. “Besides, I don’t see you downstairs getting a lap dance from either Candy or Angel.”
“Charlie said no smoking in the salon. I went upstairs to enjoy one of the excellent cigars Nathan brought.”
“And this has nothing to do with the warning you gave Ming tonight?”
Jason cursed. “You heard that?”
“I thought it was cute.”
“Jackass.” Swearing at Max was a lot easier than asking himself why he’d felt compelled to tell Ming to behave herself and not break any hearts at the club. He’d only been half joking. The thought of her contemplating romance with another man aroused some uncomfortably volatile emotions.
“And it doesn’t look like she listened to you.”
“What makes you say that?”
Max showed him his cell phone screen. “I think this guy’s pretty close to having his heart broken.”
Jason swallowed a growl but could do nothing about the frown that pulled his brows together when he glimpsed the photo of Ming dancing with some guy. Irritation fired in his gut. It wasn’t the fact that Ming had her head thrown back and her arms above her head that set Jason off. It was the way the guy had his hands inches from her hips and looked prepared to go where no one but Jason belonged.
Max laughed. “I know Nathan and Sebastian are ready to leave. Are you up for taking the launch in and leaving the boys to play by themselves?”
Damn right he was. “This is your party. Where you go, I go.”
Eight
Rachel Lansing, bride-to-be, laughed at the photo her fiancé sent her from his bachelor party. Sitting across the limo from her, Ming wasn’t the least bit amused. Her stomach had been churning for the last half an hour, ever since she’d found out that there were exotic dancers on the boat. And her anxiety hadn’t been relieved when she hadn’t spotted Jason amongst the half dozen men egging on the strippers. He could be standing behind Max, out of the camera’s range.
