There was too much at stake.
Screw Maddux and his opinions anyway. From what she’d read online the last few days in a bored haze, he was no saint. Didn’t sleep with other men’s women. Ha! What a crock. If the press were to be believed, he’d spent the whole of last season battling it out with Ronan Hawes over the championship on the track and Vivienne McCloud off it. Now he and Hawes were teammates. This guy had very shaky footing if he imagined himself on the moral high ground.
She had to pee. And get him out.
“Thanks for coming, Maddux. I’m pretty sure I’ll be okay. Thanks for your help with this.” She shook her arm. “I’m sure you have plenty to do, so … ”
He turned from the window. “Is this you politely asking me to leave?”
“I could use some sleep.”
“I’ve got things I could do.”
“Okay, then. Thanks again.”
“I’ll hit the gym, get in a workout, schedule a flight, check out, and then come back up to make sure you don’t need anything.”
“You don’t need to do that. I feel a hundred times better, thanks.”
“I’m taking your key so you don’t have to get up when I come back,” he said, already striding toward the door.
“No, no! Maddux, you don’t—”
The door shut over her protests.
“Damn it,” she muttered, gingerly climbing out of the bed and heading for the bathroom, a bag of IV solution clutched in her hand.
She’d just returned from the bathroom and grabbed the crackers, debating another attempt at food, when the room phone rang. She picked it up.
“Maddux, I—”
“It’s Carl.”
She gulped. “Oh, Carl. Hey.”
“That answers that question. You saw Maddux?”
“Yeah. He helped me start an IV. I hope to be better tomorrow, Carl, but if it’s a norovirus, I can still be contagious for two days after my symptoms are gone. We really should consider pushing the start to Wednesday or Thursday.”
“Fine. I’ve got a management crisis at home. I’ll be flying back to the States this afternoon.”
“Ellen Carstairs?”
There was silence from the other end of the line.
“Carl? Don’t you think it would’ve been a good idea to let me know you’re involved with someone?”
“Maddux told you?”
“Yes.”
“See, Brynn? I warned you. People don’t give him enough credit. He’s bright. Too bright for his own good. Cultivating that relationship—”
“I’m not. And don’t change the subject. Does Ellen know this is a sham?”
“Of course. It was her idea and she found you. I would’ve just taken my chances and waited until December to go to Sloan.”
Figures.
“Be back here in the hotel on Wednesday night so we can travel and start treatment Thursday morning in Italy. I’m serious. We shouldn’t have delayed this long.”
“Your room is paid up for the week. If anyone asks, I had to resolve a management issue in New York.”
“Got it.”
“I can’t make you stay away from him, I know, but for everyone’s sake—he can’t be trusted, Brynn. He’s a manipulative, arrogant bastard but a damn fine driver. Don’t get involved with him.”
“He brought me some food out of guilt. Don’t worry about it. I know the terms.”
“So do I. Wish my lawyers had let me put the damn celibacy clause in.”
He hung up before she could sputter her denial and condemn him for his hypocrisy. Off for a lover’s tryst in New York. She couldn’t blame him. Or Ellen. This sport and the guy who ran it had turned all of their lives upside-down.
• • •
Hours later, Maddux slipped into the dark room, balancing a tray with bananas, rice, and apple juice that WebMD had told him was the correct diet for someone coming off a stomach illness. The utter stillness told him she was asleep. He carefully put the room service tray on the desk and toed off his shoes.
Before his workout, he’d done a remote meeting with his team lead about the coming week. Mondays often found him mentally and physically exhausted from the events leading up to the race. The illness had exacerbated those effects, and his workout had been abysmal. Maybe he should ask Brynn once she woke how long it would take to get his energy back. Fatigue had affected his reflexes in the race without a doubt. If he’d been 100 percent, he might’ve been on the podium instead of fifth.
She lay on her stomach, arms under the pillow, her face turned toward him and her mouth parted, revealing a slightly crooked front tooth on the bottom row. Even slack with fatigue, sporting blue shadows on the soft skin around her eyes and her cheekbones more prominent than they’d been just days ago, her face was perfection.
She sighed and shifted, exposing a shoulder and the thin strap of a tank top. His body came to attention, stiffening with arousal. It had been like this for days—that image of her writhing on top of him, the pink tint that had suffused her body, the noise she’d made as she came. He’d had sex with more women than he could count at this point in his life and this, this was the one he couldn’t shake?
And here he was checking on her, his feelings running the gamut from lust to guilt, from sympathy to disgust.
He checked his phone in the dark room. It was a little after eight. He’d left his bags with the bellhop and still had two hours before he had to be at the airport for his flight to Heathrow.
He stared longingly at the bed for a moment.
What the hell. Maddux pulled back the covers, lifted off his t-shirt, then debated the wisdom of pulling off his post workout shorts and decided against it. That might send the wrong message. He really just needed a power nap before he caught a cab for his flight to Heathrow.
Chapter 9
Two weeks later, Brynn stared out the giant window, over the city of Singapore. It was beautiful, the shape of the buildings sleek and modern and so different from the San Francisco architecture where she lived and worked. It seemed she would only see it from her hotel window. They never made it to Italy. Belamar had returned, started the treatment in Belgium, and been too ill to travel. The side effects of the medication was bad enough, but along the way he’d picked up some bug, which led to a harrowing week for both patient and doctor as they holed up in the Four Seasons.
Irritable and ill, Belamar had insisted they travel to Singapore long before Brynn was assured his health was stable—but the next race was in three days. The only bright side to this whole situation was she hadn’t needed to avoid Maddux at the various F1 events. She’d found herself analyzing and reanalyzing the events leading up to their sexual encounter and it still baffled her.
She had just finished squirting the desk and phone with disinfectant when she heard knocking. Did the man ever listen? She’d told him to wait in the jet. The jet she’d serviced three times, cleaning the damn thing herself before she’d let him set foot in it and even then arguing him into a mask. He was susceptible to just about everything and listened to nothing she had to say about infection control.
She’d spent the last three hours scrubbing the hotel room with antiseptic sprays and cleaners—this was her second and final cleaning. Granted, she was glad to swap the hotel in Belgium where she’d read six books, stared out the window, and cared for her patient but—
The knocking came again.
God damn it!
She marched through the giant hotel suite to the entrance and threw open the door with one rubber-gloved hand.
“Belamar, I said—” The angry words died in her throat.
Maddux stood on the threshold, grinning at her.
“Uh oh. Trouble in paradise?” He eyed her bedraggled bun, ratty blue sweat pants, and pink bleach-stained tank top all the way down to her yellow hand containing a spray bottle labeled “germicide.” She knew she should’ve put on a bra.
“Why be cliché with the French maid outfit, I always say. Go the full
monty with hotel maid, or is this disheveled house frau? Whatever it is, it’s very kinky and I am very,” he leaned in to whisper, “dirty.”
She stared at him, too overwhelmed to laugh, stretched to her limits with the whole Belamar situation. She hadn’t seen Maddux since he’d played nurse in her hotel room in Belgium. She was pretty sure he’d stayed part of the night with her, but in the morning he was gone.
“Hey, you okay?” The smile left his face, replaced by a look of concern.
“Yeah, fine. Congrats on Italy,” she said, holding the door open with a foot. She’d watched with something like pride as he’d celebrated second place on the podium with the other two drivers—showering champagne over each other.
“See the race?”
“Yes, we watched on television. Belamar got held up in New York and came back with a cold. But we’re here and he’s excited.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Wondered if you’d show.”
She hoped Belamar wasn’t going to insist on attending Sunday. This race was a logistical nightmare held downtown along the marina, at night. There was no skybox to keep him from the masses.
Calm down.
He moved toward her to let himself in.
She blocked his entrance.
“Out,” she said.
He backed up, she removed her foot, and the door shut in his face.
With a sigh, she put the bottle and rag down, stripped off the gloves, and in a fit of belated vanity, pulled out the two sticks that had long ago abdicated their responsibility to hold up the majority of her hair as she scrubbed the suite.
She stepped into the hall.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Better than you,” he replied, something close to concern in his eyes.
“Yeah, well.” She dragged her arm over her sweaty forehead.
“What are you, some kind of germaphobe?” he asked.
“You can’t be too careful.”
He cocked his head. “Are you seriously worried about the cleanliness of the Singapore Ritz Carlton?”
Now she was coming off like a nut. “I’m phobic about germs, especially after—” She shot him a meaningful look. “Once bitten … ” The words died in her throat as she watched his eyes darken into jade, the planes of his face tautening with intensity.
This thing, whatever this was between them, was magnetic. Brynn stepped forward, almost into his pelvis.
His hand rose up to play with the hair at her clavicle, and she suppressed a shiver. His fingers shaped the curl, pressing it into the curve of her breast beneath the tank top, inches from her nipple. The breath died in her throat. One of his big hands curved around her shoulder, drawing her closer, until she could feel the heat radiating from his body, smell the scent that was all Maddux—pheromones, some distant part of her brain reminded her, just pheromones.
She lifted her chin as his head came down, his lips millimeters away.
A rattle down the hall recalled her to her circumstances, and she took a giant step back. She peered around him and spotted the maid coming out of the room across the hall.
Brynn braced herself for a dose of Maddux’s charm, some risqué suggestion, but his expression was disgruntled.
“What is it about you?” he said. “I kept telling myself to stay away, but it’s like my dick is overriding my common sense.” He looked down in dismay. Brynn kept her head up, her eyes glued somewhere in the vicinity of his ear.
“I’m not sure why you popped up,” she said.
His wicked grin made a reappearance. “And you, a doctor.”
She felt the heat rise in her face. “Very funny.”
“Clearly you and Belamar are,” he waved a hand, “still vacationing together, so this isn’t possible.”
“No. And it’s not even Belamar … Carl. That is, I mean, things are complicated with Carl. It’s not—”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
Her mouth said yes while she shook her head.
His jaw set, he grasped her shoulders in his hands. “Are you sleeping with him? It’s a simple question, Brynn.”
“We’re together,” she hedged.
His grip on her shoulders tightened.
“You’re not. You’re not lovers at all, are you?” He gestured to the door behind her. “Is that the one-bedroom or two-bedroom suite? I can find out.”
She closed her eyes. Belamar had warned her.
Smart. Not discreet. Not trustworthy.
She could not tell him.
She couldn’t not tell him.
“It’s complicated,” she repeated. “Please, Maddux. Leave it at that. I … I’m attracted to you, but,” she stepped back and he released her, “we can’t.”
“Fuck?”
“Yeah, fu—sex. That can’t happen.”
“Does he have some hold over you? Is there—”
“No, nothing like that. It’s … Maddux, please. Could you just … could we skip all the moves and stuff?” She rubbed her cheek with a hand that reeked of rubber and chemicals, her eyes dry and burning with fatigue. “I could really use a friend these days.”
“I’m not sure I know how to be friends with someone I want to fuck,” he said, finally.
“Sure you do. You use self-control. Deferred gratification.”
“Deferred?”
“Friends?” She stuck out her clammy hand.
He took her hand. “Have you eaten?”
“I can’t. Belamar will be here,” she gestured to the suite behind her, “and I have to finish up.”
“Cleaning?”
“Yes, cleaning.”
“You know they have people who do that. This is the Ritz, baby.”
“It’s amazing, right?”
He nodded. “This hotel is where all the drivers stay—walk to the pits, cityscape views. Great gym and pool.”
“Pool?” she said, hopefully.
He eyed her. “You swim?”
“Five days a week at home.”
“Why don’t you come down?”
“Maybe I will. Later. I could use a workout. Thanks for coming by to check on me.” She slid her key card into the door and pushed it open.
He was still staring at her when she shut the door on him for the second time.
Chapter 10
She wasn’t coming. He’d spent an hour in the gym and two hours poolside waiting for her to show up. Not that there hadn’t been distractions. It was a poorly kept secret that this was where Formula One drivers stayed in Singapore. As a result he’d signed a few autographs and taken a few pictures with fans. He’d deflected a few questions about Hawes and their rivalry, answered a few questions about the car. And then he sent a silent message that he didn’t want to be disturbed by donning headphones, grabbing a magazine, and refusing to make eye contact.
Not that he hadn’t noticed the three bikini-clad women eyeing him from their cabana across the pool. Models, grid girls, or just daughters of the extremely wealthy people who followed the sport, they looked to be in their early twenties, tops.
Under different circumstances, he might’ve passed the time flirting. Hell, this time last year, he’d have been in their tent buying rounds and making plans to go out clubbing. Instead he was scanning the entrances to the pool.
One of the girls hopped out of the cabana and strutted to the edge of the pool opposite him, wearing the tiniest suit he’d ever seen. And he’d seen more than his share. She was flawless: long, dark hair, curvaceous body, everything that normally would have his undivided attention.
The woman slid into the water and crossed the pool with lazy strokes. He turned up the music on his phone and buried his head in the magazine.
A shadow fell over him.
Brynn was wearing a swimsuit, but that’s where her similarity to the girl in the pool ended.
Her flesh in the early evening light was so pale she gleamed. Her blonde hair was covered by a green latex cap, and her solid navy swimsuit was all business. She had t
inted goggles tucked up into the leg of the Lycra, drawing his eye up. Her body was lean, but not angular—toned and shapely but not curvy.
His “type” hovered in the water, by the edge of the pool, attempting eye contact.
He sat up, put the magazine aside, and pulled out his ear buds.
“Finally,” he said.
She smiled. “Have you already worked out?”
“Yeah, but I’ll swim with you,” he said rising.
“In that?” she asked, gesturing to his board shorts.
“Who do you think I am? People around here may wear Speedos and banana hammocks, but not me. Texas, remember?”
“Ok, but it’s a lot of drag.”
He lifted his brows. “It’s a lot of drag either way, babe.”
He could see Brynn fight with a smile and lose. “C’mon.”
He stood and took Brynn’s hand. She looked surprised but didn’t tug it away as he led her to the shallow end.
“This place is amazing,” she said, pulling away to walk down the wide steps into the water. “A tropical paradise.” She fitted her goggles on her forehead. “Do you get used to it?”
“I’ve been traveling the world to race since I left Texas at sixteen. But the hotels are much better once you get to F1.”
“Sixteen?” she said, her face a study in astonishment. “That’s so young!”
“Maybe, but I knew what I wanted, and the only way to get it was to go live and race in England.”
“How did your parents afford that? Who took care of you?”
“I was pretty independent by sixteen. I did fine. I shared a tutor with a couple of the other foreign drivers. Sat for the GED.”
“GED, really?”
He smirked. “I’m assuming you were a 4.0 student all the way?”
“4.2,” she corrected, smiling.
“How is that possible on a 4 scale?”
“I took two advanced placement classes for college. They weigh them more heavily. After Gabby died—”
“Your cousin, right?”
“Yeah, after that I just buckled down, you know?”
High Octane Page 24