His hands closed on her wrists and pulled her in, closer. His voice rasped into her hair. “Do you think it’s safer to sit sideways like that?”
Maggie leaned into the solid wall of his chest. “Nothing about this is safe.”
“Put your legs over mine. Face me.”
She shook her head. That would be too much. His chest pressing into her breasts. His hips settled into the cradle of her pelvis and her open thighs. The heat of him burning through layers of clothing until she couldn’t stand it and tore them off. She’d done that once, ripping with frantic hands, not knowing if it was her shirt or his, or both, just needing his bare skin against hers and as much of him inside her as she could get. Her sex clenched as if protesting the empty space she wanted him to fill and she shivered as if she’d been cold for months and only now remembered how it felt to be warm.
“You stayed away a long goddamn time,” Adam muttered. She felt his lips move against her hair, and that tiny caress made her weak.
“I don’t live here anymore. Remember?”
“I remember.” Adam’s hands on her wrists tightened. “You left a note on the bathroom mirror. Hell of a way to say goodbye.”
She’d tried to say goodbye the traditional way, but her mouth always turned traitor. It proved incapable of doing anything but kissing him until there wasn’t any space or breath for words. And then in the end she couldn’t leave him sleeping without any explanation. So she’d scrawled a few words on a post-it note and stuck the message where he’d see it.
“You could have woken me up.”
Maggie closed her eyes and shook her head. If he’d been awake, she would never have been able to look into his face and say goodbye. She’d tried, not just that night, but nearly every night. Beginning with the first one when she’d gone to him knowing she was leaving and determined not to go without giving in to the desire to be with Adam, just once.
Only once hadn’t been enough for either of them. She hadn’t been prepared for that. Hadn’t expected Adam to want her the second or third or fourth time that night. Hadn’t expected him to ask her to stay. Hadn’t imagined waking up to him settling over her and between her thighs the next morning while he woke her up everywhere.
And then the days that counted down to the last one passed in a tangle of heat and need. Talking had been low on the priority list whenever they were together, and she hadn’t been willing to give up any of the minutes she had with him. Hadn’t wanted to spoil it.
“Did you think I’d make a scene?”
“What?” Maggie’s eyes flew open and she turned to look at him without thinking about how close he was. “No. I didn’t think you’d make a scene over me leaving.”
She didn’t think he’d notice or care, in fact, and maybe that was why she hadn’t been able to say the words out loud to him. By the way, Adam, I’m moving to Chicago. I have a job with a monthly entertainment magazine there.
Maybe she’d harbored a fantasy so secret she’d never dared to look at it, tucked away in a hidden corner of herself, in which she said those words and he refused to let her go. If she’d said the words to him and he’d nodded and said, “I’ll check your tire pressure before you leave,” it would have shriveled that secret dream forever.
Adam would never demand that she stay with him. But the wish pierced her and she closed her eyes again so he wouldn’t see it written there as clearly as her printing on that goodbye note.
“Kiss me, Maggie.”
It wouldn’t take much. She only had to change the angle of her head, lean closer a fraction of an inch, and her lips would touch his. But she hesitated, caught by the memory of how quickly the smallest contact spiraled out of control.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now, Adam.” Her voice came out lower than she’d intended, in a pitch that sounded like seduction and invitation. Even her voice had to betray her around Adam? Unfair.
“Because it isn’t safe?” Adam’s voice was a dark whisper at odds with the bright kitchen.
Maggie nodded. She’d known she’d have to see Adam during her visit. Even if it was just to be told “no” when she asked for an interview. She hadn’t expected him to show up on Anne’s front porch, let alone suggest they pick up where they’d left off six months before. She didn’t have a condom in her pocket, and unless he did, it wasn’t a good idea to start something they’d want to finish.
“Maybe that’s how you like it.” Adam’s hands loosened and stroked her arms, shifting from holding her captive to seducing her into staying. “Do you know why I quit racing?”
“No.” Maggie licked suddenly dry lips, caught by their closeness, the hard muscles of his thighs under her butt, the surprisingly gentle touch of his work-roughened hands on the sensitive skin of her inner wrists and arms. The rough texture of his skin rasped at hers, but his hands were careful, and the combination of toughness and tenderness seduced her all over again.
She remembered those hands on steering wheels very well, pulling peak performance out of any machine he controlled. No wonder he’d driven her crazy every time he put his hands on her.
“I watched you,” she said, a soft admission. “When I was in high school.” He’d been older, dangerous, an enigma in a black leather jacket and a demon on the track. She’d held her breath and sometimes closed her eyes, unable to look, but he never lost control and always won. And then, inexplicably, he’d quit racing and bought a half interest in Village Auto Repair. “Everybody thought you were going to be the next Dale Earnhardt.”
“Earnhardt’s dead. That was kind of a wake-up call. It occurred to me that an adrenaline junkie behind the wheel was going to end up out of the game sooner or later. I realized if I wasn’t careful racing wouldn’t be the only game I’d be out of permanently.”
Maggie frowned. That didn’t ring true. “I thought all race car drivers were adrenaline junkies. Thriving on risk, spitting at danger.”
“To a degree, maybe.” Adam’s hands smoothed their way up her arms to her shoulders, holding her lightly but surely. “There’s something seductive about pushing the redline.”
His hands crept up into her hair, his thumbs rubbing the back of her neck, fingers massaging into the base of her skull while he spoke and Maggie had to fight to focus on his words. “What’s that?”
“The redline?” Adam shifted under her and folded her into his arms with his hands still buried in her short curls. “It’s the edge, Maggie. The maximum speed an engine can reach. When you’re redlining an engine, you’re pushing everything to the limit, as hard as it can go. And if you go just a little too far, something’s going to break.”
He slid one hand around to cup her jaw and lift her chin, angling her face closer to his. “You know that feeling. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” The word was a broken whisper. Her eyes were caught by his. She felt like she was falling into him. Every time she’d been with Adam, she’d felt that thrill of danger and power in every touch, every kiss, and known she was balancing on a very thin edge.
“Ride the redline with me, Maggie.” Adam feathered a kiss across her lips, so soft, so faint it was barely there and yet her mouth burned with awakening tactile memory. “I’ll take you as far as we can both go, and we’ll burn this thing out together.”
“Burn out, or crash and burn?”
She wasn’t sure she’d actually asked the question out loud or if she’d only thought it until Adam answered her. “Either way, it’ll end.”
The prospect of speeding at the edge of control with Adam until they both slammed into some final wall would have scared her six months ago. But since then she’d lived the awful limbo of unfinished business.
Walking away from Adam hadn’t been a clean break. She’d just postponed the inevitable. The idea of going on this way, month after month, maybe even for years, feeling the pull of him on her body and her emotions, that would be worse. His way, no matter how much it hurt when this thing between them went up in flames it would finally be
finished.
“One of us needs to hit the drugstore,” Maggie said after a minute of silence. If he so much as kissed her again, they were going to need at least one form of protection. Latex couldn’t save her from every kind of repercussion, but it would cover the big ones.
“I’ll take care of that.” Adam rubbed his jaw against the top of her head, a rough caress, but a strangely intimate one. Sitting like this with him, his body under and surrounding hers, caging her on his lap, Maggie felt a sense of safety at odds with his risky proposition.
“Thank you.” It wouldn’t cause any comment if Adam bought a huge box of Trojans. If she bought them, on the other hand, that would lead to speculation she could do without.
“I want you tonight.” The statement was flat, hard. A demand.
Maggie pressed herself closer to him. “Not tonight. I need to be here to help when the baby wakes up. What about tomorrow? I could meet you for your lunch break.”
She almost laughed as she realized she was planning and scheduling a nooner the way she’d go about setting up an important meeting. Well, maybe the businesslike approach was best.
“Are you going to let me eat you, Maggie?”
A shudder ran through her. So much for business. If the memory of his mouth on hers made her burn, the memory of the wicked rasp of his never quite smooth-shaven jaw on the soft inner flesh of her thigh and the glide of his tongue over the sensitive bundle of nerves between her legs set her on fire.
“If that’s what you want.” Her voice was an unsteady thread of sound. She wanted it. If she was honest, she wanted anything he cared to give her after months of restless dreams and relentless need that nothing seemed to shut out.
“I want you.” Adam crushed her against his chest for a breathless moment. Then he let her go and set her back on her feet, holding her by the hips while she got her balance back. “I’m not going to be gentle the first time, Maggie. Be ready for that or don’t come.”
His words sent her wildly off-center. Maggie felt like the floor was tilting under her and was grateful for his hands on her, lending her support.
“I want you, too.” The bald admission hung in the air between them, but then, it wasn’t anything he didn’t already know. And wasn’t that why they were going to finish it once and for all? He only had to be near her for her to be ready, aching, urgent.
After six months of celibacy, Maggie didn’t want gentle. She wanted Adam hard and fast inside her. Right now would be good, but tomorrow at his place would be better. They’d have condoms and privacy.
Adam’s hands tightened on her hips. “I promised myself I wouldn’t ask if you’d been sleeping alone since you left.”
But he wanted to know the answer. Maggie debated the merits of honesty versus evasion and decided to trade truth for truth. Although she wasn’t sure if it would make things better or worse if she knew he’d been sleeping around while she slept alone. She’d already admitted she didn’t have a lover now, and he didn’t either, or he wouldn’t have come to her for sex. A part of her hoped he hadn’t found her easy to replace.
“There hasn’t been anybody else.” Maggie met his direct gaze and held it. “What about you?”
“The last woman I was with left me while I was sleeping.” Adam scowled at her.
There didn’t really seem to be any right answer to that, so Maggie said nothing.
Adam’s hands dropped away from her. He stood and towered over her in silence. Then he bent and kissed the corner of her mouth in one swift, brief motion. “Noon tomorrow. If you’re going to be late, call the garage and let me know.”
She nodded. He walked back to the front door and Maggie trailed behind him. He left without another word. She closed the door after him, and then turned around to lean against it.
Back in town less than twenty-four hours and she was already tangled up in the past. Tangled up in Adam and the crazy desire she really needed to grow out of and get over. It had been bad enough living with her teenage crush. She was an adult now with no excuse for being at the mercy of her hormones. She needed to make sensible, adult relationship choices. More sensible and adult than just remembering to use condoms.
Adam might have given up risking his life on a regular basis, but that didn’t make him a safe prospect for a relationship. He didn’t have relationships. His name had never been linked with a woman. Just women, plural, and none of them were average women like her.
Maggie didn’t have any illusions about herself. She wasn’t a spectacular beauty, or centerfold material, or particularly brilliant. Just average. And men like Adam didn’t settle for average.
Although she did wonder why he’d settled here, in Reston, Virginia. He could have started his career as a mechanic anywhere, but he’d chosen to stay in his hometown.
Of course, if he’d really wanted to put racing behind him, why not stay here, where everybody knew he’d won the Daytona 500 so nobody would talk about it? It was old news and he was one of their own and his past would just mean he was an automatic authority on anything automotive. Maggie was willing to bet he had very few, if any, customer complaints.
Especially from women. She suppressed a shaft of envy at the thought of all the women who must come from miles around to have Adam service their engines.
You did the same thing, she lectured herself. She’d pretty much thrown herself at Adam one day at the garage. He’d taken what was offered, and she’d be stupid to think she was unique in his life.
Except maybe as the only woman who’d ever left a note on the bathroom mirror while he was asleep. He’d seemed very bothered by that.
Well, he wouldn’t have to worry this time around, Maggie thought. When it was over, she was certain he’d be the one who walked away. Then she’d go back to Chicago and get on with her life, finally cured of the need to compare every man she met to Adam Richards.
Chapter Three
When Pete played “Painted On My Heart” for the third time that morning, Adam gritted his teeth and plotted revenge. Better yet, he’d just go with theft and vandalism. Steal Pete’s Cult CD and drive over it.
Of course, if he did that, Pete would download a replacement from the internet and probably program the office computer to play the damn song on startup. His best course of action would be to ignore it and not give any hint that Pete was striking a nerve.
Bad enough that Maggie was striking a nerve. Scratch that, his whole neural network was affected.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He’d planned to go see her one last time, face-to-face, to prove to himself that their past fleeting attraction was just that. Fleeting. Past. Mere attraction.
He should have known better. Mere attraction didn’t drive a man to do the things he’d done with and to and for Maggie Parker. He’d felt obsessed with the need to touch her. He’d even wondered more than once if she’d penned a note and fled while he was unconscious because it had seemed like the only sure way to escape.
Had she thought he’d drag her to the floor and drive inside her before she could make it out the door if he’d been awake? And what would she have been more concerned about, that he’d want her too much to stop or that she wouldn’t want him to?
Well, they’d stopped all right, like an engine thrown into reverse. She could have put on the brakes instead. She could have done a lot of things. Like telling him she was leaving and asking him if he wanted her new phone number. Instead, she was just abruptly and completely gone, leaving him with no easy way to stay in touch, no excuse to call and chat and casually inquire if she wanted to see him over the weekend or if there might be something she needed to tell him a month or two later.
That last question had really gnawed at him. They’d been careful. Adam hadn’t taken any chances with her, but nothing was foolproof. Well, at least that one was answered after last night. Maggie’s body was unchanged, and so was the strength of their mutual attraction.
He wasn’t going to spend the next six months reaching for her at nigh
t and finding an empty space instead. He was going to use her hot little body until he had one redhead exorcised from his memories. The next time she left, it would be over.
Meanwhile, if Pete played that song one more time, Adam was going to get even.
“That Anne Parker’s a beautiful woman,” Pete commented.
Anne, as in Maggie’s sister? Adam scooted out from under the truck he was bringing back from the dead to look at his partner. Pete was replacing a distributor cap, whistling while he worked. “Don’t you mean Anne Wilson?”
“Not for long,” Pete said, his tone confident. “She’ll be Anne Parker again as soon as she’s up to filing papers on Brad’s abandoning ass.”
“So you’re planning to make a play for her.” Adam stared at him, incredulous.
“I figure after taking a model like Brad around the block, she’ll be ready to consider what I have to offer.” Pete leaned out to grin at Adam.
“She’s a smart woman,” Adam pointed out.
“I know. That’s why she’ll appreciate my finer qualities.” Pete was serene, fingers sure, working in time to the music that was driving Adam insane.
“You don’t have any finer qualities.” Unless Pete thought his twisted sense of humor was going to win her over. For all Adam knew about relationships, Pete might be right.
He pictured the neat, professional woman coupled with Pete, who’d taken to shaving his head when his hairline started to recede. The image made him bite his lip to keep from laughing. “You also don’t have any hair.”
“Ah, you’ll see,” Pete said, all confidence. “She’s a nurse. She’ll know that early male pattern baldness is linked to high testosterone levels. When a woman wants a man who can last, she looks for one whose hair didn’t.”
“Stop talking. Please. This is a side of you I do not need to imagine too closely.” The last thing he needed was to picture Pete’s horizontal technique. Although it was doing a good job of distracting him from Pete’s musical torture.
Redline Lover: Take Me, Lover, Book 1 Page 2