Full Throttle (Fast Track) (4 page)

Not that she was planning to fake a marriage, because how would she do that? But it seemed best to proceed with caution. She may not know what the hell she was doing when it came to men, but she knew her way around the business world, thank you very much, despite what, apparently, her grandfather thought.

That, she had to admit, was at the crux of her dismay and shell shock. She’d thought her grandfather trusted her with the business—to find out he didn’t was salt in the wound of her grief.

“How was your day?” she asked Rhett inanely, suddenly realizing she didn’t want to talk about Clinton’s visit, because then she would have to say out loud that she was going to lose the track because her grandfather hadn’t trusted her.

“It was a day like any other,” he said, shifting gears and gunning it across the four-lane road to the opposite parking lot. He handled his truck like a driver, and she was attracted to that, to the way his hand rested lightly on the gearshift, fully in control, forcing the truck to bend to his will. “Running some trials on Eve’s car. It’s running loose, but she has a great mechanic in Sheppard. He’ll tighten it up, no problem.”

It was an addiction, this sport, this career, this lifestyle. She knew that, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She couldn’t walk away without trying. She just couldn’t. There was no way. It was in her blood.

A crazy idea popped into her head. A very insane, she couldn’t be serious, idea. Yet she couldn’t help but follow the thought through.

She quickly calculated some figures based on the insurance information Clinton had given her. Rhett Ford was hard up for money, he had told her that. He also understood the love of racing. He was attracted to her, he was single, he was clearly a man who did what he wanted, with no regard for anyone’s opinion about it. He was a risk taker.

But was he desperate enough for cash to marry her?

And could she go through with it?

It was ludicrous, the very concept.

But once the idea had taken hold, Shawn couldn’t shake it. She could save her livelihood, the last connection to her grandfather, a sport that she loved. If Hamby Speedway closed, there wouldn’t be a regional dirt track in the area, and that would be a crying shame.

To do that, she needed to get married.

Why not Rhett?

As he parked and came around and opened her car door, then the door to Milt’s, when he pulled out her bar stool, and took her coat from her and hung it on the back of her chair, she debated with herself, her heart pounding at twice its normal rate as she contemplated blurting out such a bizarre business proposition to him.

“What kind of beer would you like?” he asked her.

“I’ll take a Guinness.”

“That’ll grow hair on your chest. I’m impressed,” he said with a close-lipped smile, his eyes assessing her.

She laughed, a sound of pure relief that she hadn’t screamed out a marriage proposal. Yet. “That hasn’t been the result for me, thank God. I like dark ales. When I’m feeling really sassy, I like a good Irish Car Bomb. Jameson dropped into Guinness is a taste like no other.”

“Now I’m really impressed.” Rhett put his keys on the scratched-up bar top and said, “I’ll do one if you do.”

Uh-oh. “Are you daring me?” How could he have figured out already that was her weakness?

“I’m definitely daring you. In fact, I double-dog dare you.”

Damn it. He was either psychic or Eve had been telling tales.

Shawn slapped her purse on the bar and said, “I’m in.” No matter that she hadn’t eaten dinner and, on an empty stomach, was very likely to get snookered from whiskey at the end of such a stressful day. She could not turn down a dare.

Rhett grinned and flagged down the bartender. “How competitive are you? Think you can drink it faster than me?”

“Oh, I know I can.” Hell, she had paid half her living expenses in college from bets on how fast she could shoot a beer. “It’s all about opening up the throat to take it all down,” she told him confidently.

His eyebrows shot up. “Now that’s a mighty fine talent to have.”

Oops. That did sound a little sexual. Shawn felt her cheeks heat. “Don’t be rude.”

“What? I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Thinking what?”

Damn it. He was good at this. He wasn’t going to say it, that they were both thinking about her giving him a blow job. Neither was she going to say it. “Just take your drink.”

He gave her a slow grin as the bartender set the glasses with the Guinness down on the bar in front of them, three-quarters full. A shot of Jameson was next to each glass, waiting for them to drop the shot glass down inside the Guinness. “On the count of three.”

Shawn picked up her shot of whiskey and let it hover over the Guinness, which she held in her right hand. From experience she knew to throw back with her dominant hand. Her coordination was better. She eyed Rhett as he counted, making sure he wasn’t going to cheat.

“One,” he said, and for some reason she shivered.

There was something about the way he stared at her. It was like he could give her an orgasm with the sheer force of his will, just from the intensity of his gaze. She shifted uncomfortably.

“Two.”

Shawn licked her lips, her hand shaking slightly. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. She was trapped by his eyes, which were such a deep green they were almost emerald. He was . . . arresting. That was the word for him. It threw her off her game and she felt her wrist slacken a little, her girl insides warming in arousal.

“Three.”

Shit. He had gained an advantage by being sexy. Shawn dropped, lifted, drank, the sting of the whiskey masked by the smooth maltiness of the ale. She opened the back of the throat, let it all flow down, and slapped her empty glass back on the table while she finished swallowing.

Rhett was a few seconds behind her.

“Ha! I was first!” Not that she was one to gloat or anything. Much.

“Wow,” was the bartender’s opinion. “I’ve never seen a woman drink a car bomb that fast.” The bartender was big and brawny, covered in tattoos, his beard enveloping the bottom half of his face in bushy salt-and-pepper hair. Shawn took it as a serious compliment.

“Thanks.” She beamed a little.

“That was impressive,” Rhett agreed.

“Well, you were no slouch yourself,” she said, wanting to soothe his ego a little. “But I might have forgotten to mention that I supplemented my income in college from bets over how fast I could down a car bomb.”

Rhett’s eyebrows rose. The bartender laughed.

“You’ve got to appreciate a woman who can shoot whiskey.”

“Well, my grandfather’s name was Jameson. It seems disrespectful not to be able to handle his namesake, you know what I mean?” Shawn suddenly felt melancholy. God, she missed Pops.

The bartender fist-bumped Rhett. “You’re a lucky man, brother.”

“Not yet, but I’m hoping,” Rhett told him.

“Ah. Well, good luck.” The bartender winked at Shawn. “Make him work for it, hon.”

Except the truth was, she needed Rhett Ford more than he needed her, so she wasn’t going to be forcing him to dance on a string. If anything, it was about to be the other way around. Or more like her crawling on the floor for him with a gag ball in her mouth.

Oh, God. There were going to have to be some ground rules on this fake marriage thing. Which she really needed to discuss with him. Her palms started to sweat, the liquor heating up her extremities. In her mind, one way or another, it was already a foregone conclusion. That’s how she was. She made a decision, and everyone else needed to fall in with it. Somehow she didn’t think Rhett Ford was the falling-in type.

Not having any idea how to reply to the bartender, she cleared her throat, wishing she were like Eve, who was never at a shortage for words.

“Where did you go to college?” Rhett asked her as the bartender moved on to other customers.

Not that Milt’s was jumping. There were only a couple of guys in their fifties at the end of the bar. Good. Fewer witnesses when she asked Rhett to marry her and he started laughing.

“I went to the University of South Carolina.” Then, because it would be expected, and because she already had a slight buzz from the whiskey she added, “Go Cocks.”

She expected Rhett to laugh or make a crack in return. It’s what people did whenever she referenced USC’s mascot, the gamecocks. It was funny. Juvenile humor, yes, but funny. It was the only legitimate way to say “Go Cocks” in a conversation in public ever.

But Rhett didn’t laugh. In fact, his eyes darkened. “Say that again,” he told her. It wasn’t a request, it was a demand.

Shawn felt her face and chest burn, from the alcohol, from desire. “What?” she asked him, bewildered. “What do you mean?”

“Say ‘cock.’ I want to hear you say it.”

It could have been a creepy request. But somehow it wasn’t. It was just a complete and total turn-on. It was the oddest thing to her, that all Rhett had to do was look at her, his gaze trained on her and only her, and he commanded her full attention. Commanded her.

“Cock,” she whispered, licking her lips nervously.

“Louder.”

“Cock,” she said more confidently, aware of how he subtly shifted toward her, his body firm and masculine, his knee brushing hers.

He made a sound, in the back of his throat, that told her what she’d just said was as effective as if she’d gripped his cock itself with her hand. Her nipples beaded, and she realized that he might be younger than her by more than a couple of years, but he was fully mature and in control of himself and his desires. Possibly more so than she was.

It was so sexy, so hot, that she did exactly what she had been hoping she wouldn’t. She blurted. Instead of approaching him with a business proposition, the words just spilled out of her mouth like ice water on a flame.

“Will you marry me?”

RHETT
blinked at Shawn. All the blood had gone south to his cock just watching the dirty word roll off Shawn’s plump lip, so maybe he was at less-than-full mental capacity, because he could have sworn she had just asked him to marry her. Which could not be what she had said. Hell, he’d had to talk her into a beer.

“What?” he asked, wanting to shake his head and rattle it into a reset like they did in old-school cartoons. “What did you say?”

Shawn blushed. She looked down at the bar, fiddling with her empty Guinness glass. “See, here’s the thing. I need a husband. I’m offering money. Are you interested? A business deal, pure and simple.”

He was not following her at all. “Why the hell would you need a husband?” This wasn’t the fifties. If she was knocked up, no one was going to think anything of it. It couldn’t be for any sort of tax advantage. God knew, she was better off being single if she wanted a break from the IRS, so he didn’t understand.

Her eyes finally met his, and she looked emboldened, determined. The shift was dramatic, and it had his body responding again. There was something so damn sexy about her, vulnerable yet strong at the same time.

“Let’s just say that if I don’t get married, I’m going to lose something that means a lot to me. It’s ridiculous, but there it is. I’ll give you a hundred grand if you stay married to me for a year.”

Rhett actually felt his jaw drop open. A hundred thousand dollars? Was she serious? That was more money than he could ever hope to see at once. While he had made a decent living on Evan’s pit crew, he’d taken a pay cut to switch to Eve’s crew, and he’d be lucky if he made five grand off his dirt track racing this year. There just wasn’t a lot of cash at this level, and he wasn’t expecting to win right out of the gate. He was aiming more for breaking even on his car and expenses. A hundred grand. Damn. That was a lot of cheddar.

But he shook his head. “I need more details. That’s a lot of money, and this doesn’t seem above board to me, Shawn. I don’t want to get involved in something illegal. Or be some sort of pawn to make a boyfriend jealous.”

Now it was her turn to look surprised. “I would never involve you in something like that! Either of those things! I wouldn’t ever do anything illegal. Hell, I don’t even jaywalk. And I am not the kind of woman to play games in relationships.”

She looked so indignant that Rhett instantly trusted what she was proposing was something that, while not exactly typical, wasn’t sketchy either. “So then tell me what it really is.”

Shawn sighed. “I guess I can’t expect you not to have questions. I shouldn’t have just blurted it out like that. But the thing is, I’m desperate. I’m not sure if you heard, but my grandfather died in November.”

She paused, jaw working, he suspected both from grief and from struggling to find the words for what she needed to say.

“I’m really sorry, Shawn. That must be very difficult.” His own grandparents were all still miraculously alive, and he knew he was fortunate in that regard.

“Thanks.” She ran her finger around the rim of the glass, slowly, methodically, her nails painted a rich, ruby red that surprised him.

He would have expected something more natural, clear polish or a pale pink. The image of those red nails on her pale flesh popped into his head. He wanted to see them splayed over her breasts, trailing down her belly to bury inside her hot, moist inner thighs. Rhett cleared his throat and shifted on his stool. He needed another drink. Preferably with ice he could pour down his jeans to cool him down.

“Pops owned the track and ran it for forty years. I’ve been working there since my midtwenties. It’s my . . . life.” She looked pleadingly at him, as if she were begging him to understand.

He did understand the love of racing, but he still didn’t understand what she was getting at. “You love racing. I get that, Shawn. It’s my life, too.”

She nodded. “I assumed the track was left to me. Or at least a portion of it, so that I would continue to run it as operating manager. My father hasn’t been around since I was a kid, and my mother hates everything about racing. My brother is an optometrist, go figure, and he was never big on being a Hamby anyway. So it was always me and my grandfather, playing in the dirt, as he called it. But it turns out he didn’t leave me the track free and clear. His lawyer read his will to me today, and it seems the only way I can inherit is if I’m married.” The grimace on her face showed him exactly what she thought of that.

“Are you serious?” Rhett could see why she was having a bad day. “Why would he do that?”

She gave a bitter laugh. “I guess he thought I was devoting too much time to the track and racing. He wanted me to settle down and breed, like a good girl.”

Oh, yeah. That was bitterness. He couldn’t exactly blame her. “Jesus. And I thought my mother was bad, always dropping hints about how I should get married sooner than later.”

“She does? But you’re only twenty-five.”

“I know. But she thinks that I should be married and have a baby by now, like she did. You have to start early to rack up nine kids, you know. She’s always on my case about it, giving me advice in front of my whole family.”

“What kind of advice?”

“She thinks I should smile more,” Rhett told Shawn. “She says I scare women.” It was true and he knew it. But somehow he didn’t think he scared Shawn much.

In fact, Shawn laughed. “Now that’s funny.”

“Clearly, I don’t scare you.”

“Only a little,” she admitted. “But that’s more because I can’t figure out why I’m attracted to you.”

“I mean, who would be?” he asked ruefully.

Shawn smacked his arm. “That’s not what I mean! It’s just bad timing, you know? But then I thought, well, maybe it’s not bad timing. If I have to be married to save the track, maybe you’d be a good candidate. But now it just sounds crazy and rude and creepy. I don’t know what I was thinking. If anyone should be frightened here, it should be you.” She fussed with her bun, which was sliding south. “You must think I’m a total freak, popping the question to a guy I just met.”

“I’m flattered.” He actually was. Yes, it was crazy. It was crazy that her grandfather would expect her to jump into a marriage. It was a plan bound to fail. But he respected that Shawn was willing to do whatever it took to save her property, to save what was meaningful to her. He would probably consider doing the same thing, though he wasn’t exactly one to like being told what to do. But he admired her guts and her businesslike approach to the problem. Instead of crying, she’d sought a solution. “And I’m not saying no straight out. I just need to hear what would be expected of me.”

“You’re not saying no?” she asked, eyebrows shooting up as she froze with her arms above her head, tightening her hair thing.

“No, I’m not saying no.” He wasn’t. Insane or not, she had just dangled a hundred grand in front of him. Not to mention, he’d been looking for a good excuse to get to know her better, both with clothes on and off, and what could be a better excuse for that than marriage?

Was marriage a huge commitment that he shouldn’t take lightly? Yes. But this wasn’t a real marriage. He didn’t think. “What does this marriage mean exactly? Is it paper only? We would never see each other?” He wasn’t down with that. He couldn’t walk around and be secretly married, shagging other women and taking money for something he hadn’t really
done
. It all just seemed too dishonest to him. He liked his cards out on the table. If he was going to be fucking anyone, it was going to be Shawn.

His wife.

Oh, damn. He should walk away. This was dicey.

Yet, he wasn’t. He flagged down the bartender and said, “Can we get two more shots of Jameson? Skip the Guinness this time.” This was a straight-up liquor conversation.

Shawn took a huge breath. “The deal is this. We have to be married for a year, but we have to live together at least for the first six months. So you would have to move in with me. I have a guest room that you can use, and I suppose the positive is, you’ll be saving on rent for six months.”

That was an attractive thought, he had to admit. He’d only been in Nolan’s old apartment for five months, and while he loved the freedom, the rent was kicking his ass. “Guest room, huh?” So he wouldn’t lose his own space, exactly. But he wouldn’t get the ultimate benefit of marriage—having a warm woman in his bed every night.

“Yes. If we get married before February fifteenth, the will states I get the funds to hire a full-time marketing director for the upcoming season, which would really be helpful, so that would be my preference. To get married before then, I mean.”

Rhett watched her face carefully. She seemed to have shifted into efficiency mode.

“I can have my lawyer draw up a contract outlining what I just described and that you’ll receive payment upon completion of the year. I will pay for the divorce. I will pay for the initial marriage license fees and all of that. So there is no risk, no hidden cost to you. We both enter and leave the marriage with what we came with, save the hundred grand fee.”

No hidden cost?

Just a year of his life.

Could he commit a whole year to a woman who didn’t really want to be involved with him, even for money? Or did she?

Those were the real questions on his mind.

“I’m not the tidiest person, I’ll admit, so if you’re a neat freak, that is something to consider,” she added.

That wasn’t a factor he cared about it. He had more important concerns.

“I wouldn’t want it to be a secret,” he told her. “I can’t live like that.”

“It has to be a secret,” she said. “No one can know about the money. My grandfather’s lawyer said I can’t marry an actor, a stripper, or a criminal, and he’ll be doing a background check. We can’t let anyone know we’re faking it, that it’s not a real marriage, or it’s null and void.”

“A background check? I don’t have anything to hide.” Rhett took the whiskey from the bartender with a murmured thanks, and threw the shot back. It burned going down, and he welcomed the distraction. “I meant, I can’t keep the marriage a secret. I wouldn’t be able to date and tell women I’m free and available when I’m not, regardless of the circumstances.”

“Oh.” Shawn lifted her own shot glass and bit her bottom lip. “I guess I just assumed we wouldn’t . . . see other people. But now that you say that, I realize that’s a lot to ask. I suppose if you’re discreet . . . I mean, it’s not a real marriage and you have . . . needs.”

Hell, no. Rhett shook his head. “That’s not how I roll, Shawn. Real or not, I’m not interested in any woman who would sleep with a man she thinks is married.”

“Celibacy is a lot to ask. Even for a hundred grand.”

Rhett gave a low laugh, sliding his hand over to rest on her thigh. She jerked slightly. “Who said anything about being celibate?”

“Me?” she asked, suddenly sounding unsure of the whole thing.

He shook his head slowly. “No. If we do this, sex will be a part of the equation.”

“But . . .” She took a sip of her whiskey. “I would feel like I was paying you to sleep with me.”

Now that was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard in his entire life. Hell, he would pay her for sex, not the other way around. “You wouldn’t. It would be entirely voluntary on my part.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

Was she serious? Or did she just want him to work for it? Spell it out. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. But we both know you want me to.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s really ballsy.”

“It’s true.” Rhett moved his hand higher, stroking through the denim of her jeans, feeling the heat at the juncture of her thighs, his thumb rubbing over the seam. “I give it two weeks, tops, before we’re fucking.”

“What makes you so confident?” she asked, her expression annoyed.

Yet she didn’t push his hand away. Nor did she deny it.

“Because you want me as much as I want you. I can practically smell how wet you are for me.”

Without hesitation, she tossed her shot of whiskey into his face.

It missed his eyes, fortunately, because that shit would have stung. It didn’t particularly surprise him, nor did it piss him off. He just slid his hand over his face, pulling the random drips of liquid off his nose and cheek. He licked his lips.

“You’re an asshole,” she told him.

But she still didn’t push his hand away. In fact, she had spread her legs a little, her hips moving forward so his light touch was more intimate, the pressure greater.

Oh, yeah. She was exactly the kind of woman he needed. She was going to fight it, yet she could more than handle his proclivities. She was going to enjoy them. And he was going to enjoy teaching her how much she could take pleasure from submission.

“I accept your offer,” he told her. “And I’m changing my estimate to one week.”

 • • • 

SHIT
fire, Shawn was in trouble. She was breathing a little too raggedly from both agitation and arousal. It was entirely possible that she was in way over her head with Rhett. Because her impulsively tossing a drink in his face didn’t seem to anger him one bit. If anything, he seemed even more confident, more pleased with her. His movements were slow and methodical, and he was still resting a hand between her legs and she was letting him.

But he knew precisely how to push her buttons—all of them, good and bad.

“Is that a challenge? A bet?” God, she needed to work on her inability to back down from a dare. It was going to land her in a marital bed with Rhett Ford, her ankles over her head.

Though maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, now that she considered her vagina. Nope. Not such a bad thing.

The corner of his mouth tilted up in a slow smile. “Yes. I’ll marry you, and we’re going to have sex within the first seven days, because you want to.”

“I can resist you,” she bluffed. “One week is nothing.” Then because she couldn’t look him in the eye when she was so blatantly lying, she turned and flagged down the bartender. “Could we have more napkins? My whiskey seems to have spilled on my friend’s face.”

The bartender nodded. “I saw that. We’re not going to repeat that, are we? Or I might have to ask you to leave.”