Page 20 of Start Your Engines

My whole body is on fire. I stalk towards him and grab him by the shoulder, yanking him around to face me. He stares at me with a mixture of hatred and something else that makes my skin prickle, even as my whole body flames in anger.

“Don’t ever call me Crasher again,” I reply shakily.

“I would never call you that. I would rather die than hurt you. I hate what I did to you that day. I meant to protect you and keep you safe.”

His eyes pinch, and his lips are tight. My chest heaves as I stare at him. Adrenaline sparks through my body, making my limbs burn. He holds my stare as my fingers press into his racing suit. Anger bubbles between us. He licks his bottom lip slowly. I suck in a breath, and he parts his lips as he stares at me. I lean in, and his chest brushes against my breasts. Heat bursts between my thighs, and the fire of his touch threatens to consume me. He lifts his hand to my face, and my lips tremble. All the tension in his shoulders disappears. His eyes soften, and the earlier lines disappear. The contrast is so overwhelming that my pulse rises, and turmoil flips around my body.

I won’t let this happen. I can’t.

“Can you just keep driving like you’re capable of?” I whisper, repeating one of my requests.

I hold my breath in anticipation.

“Yes, I can do that, Miss Coulter. Boss.” His last word is like a punch. He pulls back so quickly I nearly fall, his suit ripped from my hand.

It’s what I needed to hear. I am his boss. Nothing more.

He walks away. I’m left standing alone in the garage. Goosebumps cover my skin, and I can’t forget what he said. What does he mean by saying he meant to protect me that day?

CHAPTER 9

Senna

“He said what?”Jacs asks as I stare at the pink sparkling varnish on my toenails.

“He said he’d rather die than hurt me.”

“Bloody hell,” she says, puffing out her cheeks with one long breath. “And what did you reply?”

“I didn’t,” I stutter.

Jacs shakes her head as she tops up my second glass during one of our after-race prosecco and pedicure evenings. Two and a half is my limit, or I start making mistakes, and after today and with no sleep, it would end in a fuck or a fight.

“So what now?”

I stare at Jacs with her bobbed red hair and freckles highlighting her nose and cheeks. I thought I’d discovered a real-life unicorn when I found her. The number of women in racing is increasing, but there’s still not enough.

“Now, I avoid him and get a makeover.”

I sense her stare and grimace.

“Because you fancy him?” Jacs waggles her toenails, painted in our team colours, but with the addition of silver stars. “You’d change your look for him?”

I jump off the bed and study myself in the mirror. “Of course not. The avoiding is because of him?—”

“Because you’re attracted to him. It’s hard not to be. I bet those lips could do amazing things all over a woman’s body, and maybe his dick really is as big as Antoine’s.” I catch her dancing eyebrows in the reflection in the mirror and giggle.

“Hey, those are your thoughts, not mine. I don’t think of him that way.”

I drag my teeth over my lower lip. Connor’s lips are kissable. They always have been. When he was eighteen, I spent too much time staring at them and imagining pressing mine against his. But that was a teenage crush. The things I’ve imagined lately are R rated.

“Of course you don’t. And you didn’t just have the filthiest idea. Your eyes give away everything.”

I stick my tongue out at her and choke on the scent of nail varnish.

She adds with a cackle, “I bet he can do the sexiest things with his tongue, too.”

I smirk and roll my eyes. I need to keep any attraction to Connor locked firmly away. He’s not mine to pursue. The guy has more changing moods than I do. And more importantly, I can’t let anything get in the way of this job. The race went better than I hoped, but it wasonerace.

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