Page 20 of Speed Trap

“—Do this to you.” Hawk finished for me. He snapped pictures of my car with his phone one handed, though that comforting touch never left my back.

“Shouldn’t you be doing that with mine?” I dragged my gaze from the mess in front of me and stared at him.

Hawk nodded, pocket this phone and slipped mine from between numbed fingers. “Where’s all your details?”

“Glove compartment, like any normal person.” I tried for my usual level of sass, but any energy I’d had left after Hawk’s hot and heavy make out session in the lunchroom deserted me.

Hawk nodded and slipped his jacket off. The bundle of cloth was wedged into my arms as he yanked his shirt over his head, revealing a lean, ripped body that must have been years in the making.

Every ridge of muscle, every tendon stretched ripped and taut beneath tanned skin that gave his back a carved quality. I knew the drivers worked out. Endurance racers were fit in both mind and body—for the hours they were in the seat, they had to be. But being up close to Hawk like this, when he radiated power and fury… I was not prepared. Also, that rage wasn’t directed at me. Thankfully.

I swallowed through my numbness as a trickle of need lifted my heart rate. It might be as inappropriate as hell but right now, my eyes glued to the perfect body before me instead of the ruined one behind me, I’d take feeling anything over feelingnothing.

“Get a good eyeball in, Coops.” Hawk grinned at me over his shoulder, wrapping his shirt around his hand.

I frowned, my mouth open to protest as glass crunched beneath his boots. He reached through the shattered window, bending at the waist to fight with the glove compartment. Muscle stretched over ribs where a leaner man might have fallen into the skinny, weedy category, a teen who hadn’t grown into his body yet.

Hark had no such issues. At twenty-four—I knew every stat for every racer who threatened Benson’s title—KC Hawking fit into his frame in a way that left no doubt that he could own any room he chose.

He straightened, wiggled a wad of folded papers in his shirt-wrapped hand in a mini victory dance as he stepped away from the wreckage and back to me. Dusting the shirt off, he gave it up as a bad job and dropped the wadded material into the wreckage.One arm slid around my waist, drawing me into his side as he pressed the wad into my hand.

Warm skin contacted my body from hip to shoulder, and if I turned my head the slightest amount, my mouth would be pressed to his chest.

I blinked, my attention on the ridges of abs that ran the length of his lower torso and disappeared into his jeans. They made me want to turn him to face me so I could count the damn things properly.

“Eyes up here, Coops.” The warmth in his voice held a warning note as the papers waggled before my eyes again.

I dragged my gaze to his face to see heat warring with concern…and something I couldn’t quite identify in his luminous yellow gaze. Short curls draped over his forehead where his hair had grown longer in the off season.

“Thank you.” I took the sheaf from him and flicked through aimlessly. My over sensitized mind whirled and nothing in front of me sank in as I stared at the papers without reading the words.

Hawk’s breath hissed between his teeth above me.

Large hands covered mine in a gentle touch, the same tender touch he’d shown me in the lunchroom earlier.

“Here.” He thumbed through my insurance and service papers until he came to the right one. “Phone.”

“What? No.” I gripped my device as a lifeline. “I can do this bit myself.” Hawk watched me with hooded eyes, and I got the impression he was assessing my sanity. “But thank you.”

My limited conversational skills did nothing to alleviate his concern, though my gentle headbutt to his chest softened the tight lines around his mouth the smallest amount. His touch dropped away leaving a void of cold air that caressed my skin in his wake. Hawk reached into his car and shucked his leather jacket over his bare chest.

I managed to keep my eyes on his face, this time.

“I’m going to be right over there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at his yellow Maserati parked right in front of the office building as he shifted me away from the wreckage of my own car. “I won’t be far. Make the call, Coops. I’ll leave you alone while you get everything sorted. Then…come back to me. Please.”

I stared into hooded eyes and got lost, but one truth stood out at me. What Hawk said was a lie.

He wasn’t leaving me alone at all.

Something warm blossomed in the empty pit of my stomach. I nodded, and typed in the number for the insurance on my phone. It took three goes for my shaking thumbs to enter the information, and in the quiet of the parking lot, Hawk’s quiet report to the police bounced off the pavement and ricocheted back to me.

A slow smile melted some of the numbness that consumed me. Hawk was nothing like Benson had led me to believe, or what the media showed. He was so different to what I had expected. There was so much about him that appealed to me.

But if I was seen with him…

The numbness wore off completely in a swell of panic that flowed over me in a nauseating wave. I swallowed back my rising nausea on two fronts and made the call. But the seed of fear sown over the warmth Hawk returned to me.

I stood alone after all, giving out the stark details of the wreck that held all the emotions of only one person.

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