Page 5 of Speed Trap

Grimacing, I tossed the mangled cup in the trash, and turned to find my employer glaring at me.

“Benson!” I took a step back and ran into the trash can.

Benson followed my retreat, stalking me in a quick step that both reminded me of Hawk and didn’t. Hawk might have prowled his prey, and all too well I could see how he might be in an intimate moment. He reigned in his fury, letting it out inch by controlled inch, and that energy could be devastating in the bedroom.

Or out of it.

Benson raged from the outside at full blaze, and there was nothing controlled in the presence he aimed right at me, right now.

“Benson, I was going to check on the photographer and make sure nothing leaked out about you?—”

My words died on my lips as he pushed into my space with a snarl. Fear fueled an adrenaline rush through my veins in an icy deluge.

“What the hell are you doing talking with the competition? Is it you spreading my strategy around for everyone to know? Or maybe a little refugee like you just doesn't know how things work in the US?”

You arrogant, racist bastard.

It wasn’t anything new, nothing I hadn’t heard before. I’d dealt with people thinking I was stupid, slow or uneducated purely because I had an accent that I hadn’t been able to hide, despite having escaped my homeland thirteen years before.

There was no point in calling him out on it. That would leave me with no job and an angry man with no incentive not to attack me. It was a shitty situation all over. My mind flitted back to the easy, loyal relationship filled with mutual respect I’d witnessed between Hawk and Ryan and reminded myself that it wasn’t a fairytale.

Which driver is meant to be the asshole here?

I withdrew into myself and frowned, determined to pull myself together and deescalate the situation. “Benson, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me when you’re slutting it up for my biggest competitor?” His lip curled.

Heat rose up my neck. “That wasn’t what I was doing?—”

“You remember the terms of your contract, don’t you, Sunny?” He leaned forward, hot breath puffing in my face. “Because I’ve gotten used to seeing you on my team. I’d hate to see you banned from the track…for life.”

Benson pushed past me, storming back to the crew. His threat rang in my ears, an echo that wouldn’t quit, and I realized the entire garage had fallen silent.

I really did need to find that loophole in my contract.

Now.

CHAPTER THREE

HAWK

Unscheduled adrenaline surged through my veins as I walked away from Sunny Cooper. The sexy as sin little hellion had fired me up, but it was her tenderness with Ryan that brought out the beast I buried deep, damned contradictory thing that it was. Seeing her care for him after her driver’s attack broke something inside me that should have been hard and fearless.

And anyone with a heart who stayed on Benson’s team was clearly in the wrong place.

Feelings weren’t practical in our line of work but where I tried to stay energized and focused, Benson was just a total asshole all round. I doubted he ever turned that thing off.

Sunny Cooper was a league of her own, wasted on him.

I wanted her on my team.

“Don’t do it,” Ryan muttered beside me, pushing his hands through his short, salt and pepper speckled hair. “Don’t even think about it. You need to stay focused on now. The season starts in a few weeks.”

“She’d be a firecracker in the—” I caught myself and frowned at him to cover my irritation at his mind reading skills. “In the marketing department. If she can make Benson look good, imagine what she could do for us.”

“Knowing him, he’ll have her tangled in so much legal jargon that it’ll be the next millennium before she’s free of him.”

I knew firsthand what Benson was like. Trust wasn’t something I’d put in his path. My thoughts soured and I nodded. “Yeah. Remember that rookie driver who took him on as a mentor? Peter something? Kid tried to get out of it when Benson’s sweet and caring nature shone through.”

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