by Alice Ward
I flipped on the television just as he said, “I don’t really think you want to know.”
I stared at him as I flipped to the ESPN channel. “Seriously? Oh, mother frig bottom,” I grouched. “Don’t fool with me. You’re telling me the rookie who hit me won?”
He nodded solemnly, then said, “Mother frig bottom?”
I started to shake my fists wildly in front of me, but the pain was enough to squeeze tears out of my eyes. “Gah!” I shouted. My throat hurt, but not that much, so I screamed again, louder this time. “Gah! Dammit all back to hell! That frigging fracking jerkface!”
I punched a pillow. Oh, fuck, that hurt. Somehow, even my knuckles were sore.
Locke just watched me calmly from the corner of the room, hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “I’m glad you’re surrounded by pillows. You can’t break anything.”
My CageFree started to beep. I stared at it with disgust as it showed my heart rate skyrocketing.
To my surprise, Locke came over to me and unfastened it. “I think you can do without this for now.”
Grateful, I rubbed my hands over my tired, puffy face, and stared at a commercial for Gatorade on the television. “Did you see the coverage of the race? Did they cover my accident?” I asked, turning up the volume as SportsCenter came on. “Maybe I at least looked cool when I crashed.”
He shook his head. “Are you sure you want to see?”
I wasn’t. But I knew I’d see eventually. I quieted him as the announcer started to talk about the race. There, sure enough, was the rookie’s punchable face, smiling as he did his victory lap. Scumbag. Extremely attractive scumbag, but a scumbag nonetheless.
“The other big news from the Pocono 400 comes from Number 77, the only female in the field, rookie Emma James,” the announcer added, after the real news of the race was reported. I already knew I wouldn’t like what he had to say, from the way he was smiling kind of condescendingly. I tried to reach for the remote, but suddenly, in slow motion, I saw a replay of my car, flipping end over end over the guardrail.
Holy shit. My neck cracked and my muscles throbbed at the harrowing sight. It was brutal.
But the announcer didn’t go on about the crash. No, that was an aside. He said, “After a crash at the 300th lap, James emerged from the crash with minor injuries, only to get hot and heavy with her sponsor, owner of UnCaged Fitness, Locke Cage. Yes, love is in the air at the Pocono Raceway, and Locke has definitely caged this driver.”
I stared at the screen in horror.
Then I looked at Locke, who was reaching for the remote. I tried to grab it from him, but he quickly whisked it away, and my injuries prevented me from getting it back. “Is that what they’re saying? I was in third place in that race! I nearly died! And all they care about is our kiss? Holy shit!”
He flipped off the television set. “Just calm down.”
“Calm down? Why aren’t you riled up? Aren’t you pissed?” I grabbed my phone and started to browse through the NASCAR message boards. Then I scowled at what came up. “Oh, you’re probably not, because you’re not the one being accused of… listen to this… Emma James must have slept her way into the field at Daytona.”
My heart beat faster as I read the comments. None of them were good. “Oh, this one is particularly nice. ‘She may drive like a girl, but she apparently does a lot of other things like a girl too.’” I clenched my fists. “Annnnd someone just posted fan fiction about me having a gangbang with the entire field after the race. Wonderful. I can read about how I blew all my competitors in excruciatingly vivid detail. That’s awesome.”
“You can find anything on the internet, Emma.”
I rubbed my face again. “But I don’t see your name mentioned here. I guess that’s why you’re not riled up. No one has you blowing thirty-nine race car drivers in a row, huh?”
He shook his head and sat beside me, then pried the phone out of my hands. I yanked it back, then moaned as every muscle protested the movement. “Come on. This isn’t good for you.”
“Oh, it’ll be good. I’m going to comment on every single one of these asshole messages and tell them to go to hell.” I scowled deeper, stretching my fingers, getting ready for a marathon commenting session. “And then I’m gonna track them all down where they live and—”
“And that’ll make you feel better?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
I sighed, and to my horror, emotion burned behind my eyes and nose. I blinked it all away, refusing to cry and thought about his question.
Okay, no. It wouldn’t make me feel better. It would probably only make me feel worse. Despite my reluctance to hand it over, I eventually let him take my phone, frowning all the while. He set it on my night table and studied me. “You need to get some rest.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m too angry.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, smoothing out the sheets on my legs. “It’s my fault. The kiss.”
I looked at him and shook my head the few millimeters it would go without shooting pain through my entire body. That wasn’t it. In fact, that was the only thing so far that had gone right since my crash. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, it is.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “But I couldn’t help it. Seeing you like that made me go a little crazy. I was glad you were okay. Really glad. I don’t know what the hell I would’ve done if anything happened to you.”
His eyes met mine, and the tenderness I saw there caused the damn emotion to burn in my face again.
I smiled, touched deep into my soul. I wanted him. Even now, half-dead, all of me wanted him. Having been so close to death, I needed him to make me feel alive.
He lifted the blankets up to my chin. “You should get some rest.”
“Actually,” I said, reaching out to take his hand. “I want you in bed with me. Naked. Skin to skin. I need you close to me right now. Can you do that?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Um…”
I did something I never did. I flirted… looking up through my lashes and everything. It seemed to be working too. “I might be dying. Don’t refuse a dying woman’s last wish.”
His nostrils flared, his breath growing heavier. “I would never do that.” He was already lifting his shirt over his head, baring that chest that left me breathless every time. He slipped out of his pants and underwear and walked around the bed to slide in next to me. I laid there, thinking I wanted to take my clothes off too, but there was a huge crevasse between thinking and doing. I couldn’t even summon the strength.
When he slid in next to me, I stuck out my bottom lip. Flirting and pouting in the same day. Wow. “Help?”
He kissed my temple and helped me peel off my pajamas and underwear with only a little bit of struggle. By then, the codeine was kicking in, dulling the edges of the pain, making it tolerable. I knew it would be much worse tomorrow as he lay me back among the pillows. Hovering over me, being careful not to put any pressure on me, he lowered his head to kiss me gently, his warmth seeping into me.
He shifted until he was beside me, but instead of kissing me again, he lifted his phone off the night table and started to page through it. I growled, wanting to take all cell phones and smash them against the wall. “What are you doing?”
He kissed the very tip of my nose. “You bared your awkward teenage years to me, you know, with that Chase Elliott poster? So I want to show you something.”
Suddenly interested, I had an idea of what he was going to show me.
I just didn’t know how bad it would be.
He thrust the phone under my nose. There was a picture of a very large kid with freckles, fiery red hair, and a mouth full of metal. His face was covered in chocolate. He was completely awkward, completely goofy, and yet he was smiling with childhood glee like he hadn’t a care in the world.
It was Locke. I could see him, somewhere in there, among the extra chins and the freckles. The same eyes, the same nose, the same lips. I ran a finger over the sweet f
ace. “How old were you in this?”
He shrugged. “Twelve? Thirteen? Laura called me Pudge. Actually, she still does, sometimes, whenever she wants to put me in my place.”
I gazed at the picture. “You look sweet,” I said honestly.
He let out a slow, soft laugh. “That’s because of the chocolate on my mouth. I was a disgrace. I was begging to be made fun of.”
“I wouldn’t have made fun of you.”
“I know you wouldn’t have. You would’ve probably felt sorry for me. But now you can see why I won’t show these pictures to another living soul.”
I smiled. That he’d trusted me with this… I knew something big was happening between us. Something that wouldn’t easily be rendered apart. When he set the phone down and wrapped his arms around me, he kissed the top of my head like I was something very precious to him.
“I love this,” I told him, feeling high and snuggly in my bed, his arms caging me in, his fingers playing with my hair.
“Better than your race car driver fantasies?”
“Please. Way better.” And maybe it was the codeine talking, but I felt brazen. “Besides, even if you couldn’t drive a lick, you’re way hotter than all of them put together.”
He smiled and dipped his head down, kissing me again, his lips tender and sweet. “I love you, Emma.”
Before I could respond, he covered my mouth again, taking my words, my breath, my soul with his kiss. Then he turned me on my side until my back was spooned against his front, his lips on my shoulder, my neck, my ear.
When he slipped inside my body, it was the most tender of connections. I’d never had sex like this, his cock gliding in and out of me from behind with the gentle flex and withdrawal of his hips.
But just because it was tender didn’t mean it wasn’t intense. I moaned, not from pain, but from the exquisite pleasure he gave me.
His hand came around and our fingers linked together. I lifted his hand to my mouth, pressing my lips against his knuckles as emotion clogged my throat.
Crying during sex wasn’t anything I ever expected to do, but the tears fell as he whispered into my ear how much he cared for me, how much I meant to him, how much I’d changed his life, his words in time with each stroke.
Nothing had been so simple or meant more than those stolen moments of Locke loving me with a tenderness I didn’t know existed. It broke down the final walls that I’d surrounded myself with for so very long.
“More, Locke. Give me more.”
He kissed my shoulder, thrusting a bit harder, a bit deeper. “I’ll give you everything.”
Each rhythmic thrust was slow and deep, a melting together of our bodies, our lives. He loved me. Loved me.
Tomboy.
Redneck.
Hot head.
Woman.
He hadn’t tried to change me. Maybe file down some of my roughest edges, but he loved me exactly as I was.
When a deep wave of release hit me, I cried out his name, and found him already there, riding the wave with me. He pulled me tighter against his chest, my lips on my neck as we shuddered together. I stayed there, motionless with him deep inside me, content not to move for the rest of the night. Hell, maybe for the rest of my life.
“Boss?” I whispered when I could finally breathe again.
“Yes, my love?”
Very slowly and with the agony of a thousand sore places pulling at once, I turned over to face him. I needed to see his eyes, his expression. I linked our fingers together as our breath mingled in the space between us.
“I love you too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Locke
With the Shred Like a Girl campaign in the record books, it was time to start looking for prospects for the Hang Like a Girl ads. We had a few ideas lined up, aerial artists from all over the country, but now I needed to go through and narrow down the best ones. Laura had been begging me to take a look for a week, and I’d been putting it off. So the morning after the accident, I set up shop in Emma’s apartment, trying to page through their bios from there as she rested.
It wasn’t easy though.
My email was on fire. Every time I answered one, another came in. They all revolved around the incident at Pocono.
You sly dog! Are you tapping that? An old friend from college had written.
One of my female clients, who’d always had a thing for me, had sent, Don’t tell me you’re off the market! I might die!
Our in-house counsel wrote, I must warn you that this kind of behavior isn’t advisable.
My voice mail was full of calls from reporters. I didn’t know how they got my private cell number, but somehow, they had. I deleted the messages, one by one, shooting off emails to a few people, making a half-hearted attempt to do damage control.
But if there was damage, it wasn’t to what I felt for Emma. Even if my company dissolved to shit, and everything else fell apart… I had Emma. That was most important. And what the hell did it matter what Emma and I did in our private lives? So what if I was her sponsor and just happened to be in love with her. I should’ve been able to shout it from the rooftops. It was none of their damn business.
I got a text from Laura an hour later, as I was still trying to make it through the first line of a bio from an aerial artist who lived in Minneapolis. Wow, this has media circus written all over it.
I texted back. We are both consenting adults. It’s not that bad.
A second later. Tell that to the twenty reporters I just talked to. You two are front-page news.
I laughed bitterly at the ridiculousness of it all. It was a fucking kiss. I hadn’t stripped her naked and made love to her right there. Must have been a slow news day, if a fucking kiss was front-page news.
Then I thought of what Emma had said. This wasn’t hitting me nearly as bad as it was hitting her. In this fucked up world, I was the conqueror, the hero. But Emma had been reduced to an opportunistic slut. That was the damage I had to repair.
My thumbs flew over the screen. All right, what should we do?
Press conference, stat, came back her answer. Where are you?
Emma’s.
Please tell me there are no reporters parked outside.
I didn’t even stand up to check. No clue. Not when we came in last night, at least.
Are you decent?
I rolled my eyes and typed. Funny.
Hold tight. Joe and I will be right over.
Right.
It was probably a good idea to have a damage control powwow with Laura and Joe, our PR guy extraordinaire, before this got any more out of control. I threw my phone down and stretched, then went to check on Emma. She was beaten, that was for sure, because it was ten and she was still dreaming away, looking angelic in her sleep. I smiled at her and went out to the balcony for some air.
It was hot, with not a sea breeze to be found. The ocean was a thin line of turquoise blue in the distance. In another week, Emma was to compete in another race in Bristol, but I’d already called to say that wasn’t happening. Her future schedule was on the back burner until she felt strong enough to get back into it. I thought of the crash and wondered if I’d ever be strong enough to last through another crash like that. I hoped I wouldn’t have to.
I answered the door when they knocked and led them into Emma’s unlived-in living room. Laura came in and looked around. “Her father went to pick up her mother at the airport. They should be here in another hour or so. How is she?”
“Fine. Beat up. Still sleeping.”
We sat down on the cream-colored sofas, and I put my feet up on the glass coffee table. Joe, a former Olympian in halfpipe skiing, used to look at me with admiration. Hell, he’d even told me I was his idol when he’d started his job. Now he looked at me like I was some kind of moron. As a public relations man, he was used to putting out fires, but probably nothing as scandalous as this damn kissed that had purportedly rocked the NASCAR world to its core.
“Hey,” I said in respo
nse to his reproachful look. “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
“That remains to be seen,” he said, running his hands through his crazy brown hair before pulling his laptop from his bag. He sat down and opened it. “Okay, so, I’ve gotten the press release drafted. Want me to give it a read? See how it feels to you?”
Laura nodded.
He cleared his throat. “Locke Cage, owner of Uncaged Fitness, responded today to rumors of a possible relationship with his sponsored race car driver, Emma James. After James was involved in a harrowing crash at the Pocono Raceway during the Pocono 400, cameras recorded Cage coming to the aid of James and kissing her passionately at the crash site.”
With that, he looked at me pointedly, as if he expected me to explain myself.
“Nix kissing passionately,” Laura demanded. “Change to, embracing with obvious concern for her welfare.”
I looked at Laura, astonished. So rather than tell the truth, it was better if we fabricated things? When had she become so tainted to think that lying was better than being straight with people? “What? Anyone with eyes could see that was a lie. We kissed. With tongue. For like, ten minutes.”
She scowled at me. “I don’t know that it’s a lie. The camera was far away. There were lots of people around, in the way. It could’ve been an embrace.”
All right, fuck it. Whatever.
“Go on,” I barked.
He looked back at the paper. “Well, this is where we’d add a quote from you, Mr. Cage. I put in, ‘Miss James and I are friends, and I am emotionally invested in the welfare of all my properties. I was merely beside myself with worry after the accident, concerned for her wellbeing. When she opened her eyes, I was overcome with emotion, which I may have expressed inappropriately. My actions were unwarranted, completely unprovoked by Miss James, and I would like to express my sincere apologies to Miss James and her family.”
I stared at Joe, horrified. “What? No. Inappropriate? I didn’t molest her. That makes it seem like I was copping feels. She kissed me back.”
Laura shook her head. “That’s not going to fly though. There is no relationship, remember.”