Page 18 of Speed Trap

“Are you okay?”

Sunny pivoted to face me and frowned as our words clashed together, indistinguishable from each other and thankfully garbled. I sighed my relief as the offer that had slipped out without any forethought and certainly without my permission was swept away in a moment’s confusion.

“I’m fine.” I pried my fingers from her shoulders and speared my fingers through my hair. “Thank you. For—” My head tipped to one side as I considered her, letting a slow, sin-filled smile spread over my face. “For dealing with a horny man who didn’t get to have lunch with the girl he came to see.” Why was I speaking in third person like a fucking numpty?Why?

Sunny raised an eyebrow, the faintest hint of a smile curling those luscious, swollen lips. “You do think highly of yourself, don’t you?”

I shrugged. “Part of the job, I guess.”

“You guess?” Sunny cleared her throat, tugged at the hem of her top. “Well, some of us don’t have that issue and Idohave to go back to work.”

“Oh.” I blinked owlishly at her. The penny clunked into place. “Ah. Well. I’ll uh— I’ll leave you to it.”

Ten minutes in her presence and I was a blathering fool.

“Mmhm.”

Sunny watched as I backed my way out of the small kitchenette, banging my hip on the equally small table and my elbow on the door frame.

I managed to give her a rueful and somewhat crooked grin before I turned and fled, running straight through the same woman who had interrupted us a moment before. My apologies followed me down the short corridor that opened into the foyer area.

I sucked in icy air-conditioned and over filtered oxygen that had probably circulated the entire building a dozen times before it reached the ground floor but for me it was the breath of life.

Heat that flushed my face receded with each breath. I stood in the center of the blessedly vacant entrance foyer to the building. My car was visible outside the front doors where I had parked—illegally—and I headed for it with some measure of relief.

The same relief of a teen who had approached his first crush and not been told to fuck off.

That gave me pause. I sketched a glance over my shoulder, but the corridor behind me was empty. Either Sunny had retreated to her office or she and her co-worker were having the gossip fest of a lifetime.

I only hoped the encounter—and my subsequent retreat—didn’t make it to the press.

Mind, those were the articles readers seemed to devour, when a celeb put their embarrassment on a plate and served it up to the world stage.

Apparently, it made us more human.

Those moments only made me feel small, and for a driver who needed to focus and believe in himself and his ability, that was never a good thing.

My breath evened out as I strode to the double glazed doors with my usual confident gait, even if I didn’t feel it. It was a trick I had learned early on.

Never let them see you sweat.

Never let them see the fear.

Never feel the fear.

It might sound like a whole lot of motivational happy-snappy bullshit, but that same line had gotten me to right here. I’d cling to thatfake it ‘til you make itscreen and no one on earth was going to take that away from me.

Except maybe Sunny.

What the hell are you doing to me, Coops?

I shook my head, the energy that had been my constant companion since I’d started racing liquified in my veins. Sunny did that to me, put my body back into high adrenaline mode, striving forward to a finish line I couldn't see.

The last of my awkwardness dropped away as I stepped outside and reached for the door of my car. Some faint movement in my peripherals caught my attention, or maybe it was just howwrongthe situation was, and my brain processed the image before my gaze had registered the damage.

The car parked beside the doors, the blue Cobra Sunny drove glinted weirdly. Sunlight bounced off glass at odd angles.

Driver’s intuition kicked in, registering that same reflected light that told me the car beside me in a race wasn’t reacting the way it should.

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