Page 34 of Down & Dirty

Her disapproval hung in the air between us as she pulled her door closed and I walked back to my truck. The way she regarded my lifestyle as superficial and meaningless shouldn’t have bothered me. But it did.

I’d worked hard to carve out a life entirely different from the one I’d left behind in Maine. One with travel and culture and adventure. And I’d succeeded. But here I was paying someone to help me create the façade I needed to hold on to it all. It made me wonder just how far I’d actually come.

CHAPTER 12

SKYLAR

DirtyDana.com Celebrity Gossip with Sass

It’s been weeks since we’ve seen hot-moto-man Cory Ellis with a gem on his arm. The racy racer has opted for the cover of darkness, after his most recent honey-boo hit the skids with a sex tape scandal that left little to the imagination—if you know what I mean. Seen only in glimpses coming and going from his team’s training facility in Murietta, Cory looks just as fine as ever, that tousled hair and razor-edged jaw still sending out it’s siren’s song. How long will we have to wait for our badass biker babe to grace our streets again—with or without a new smitten kitten on his sleeve? Or has he ditched the damsels in undress for good? Only time will tell if pulling back the sheets on his former lover’s past means a new future for our favorite motocross model.

It had been almost two weeks and still there’d been no press about Cory and me. I knew he had the power to change that, so it was starting to bother me that we were doing all this playing around and nothing was coming of it.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like I was actually looking forward to my face being splashed about on the grocerycheckout trash rags. But I was being paid for this—the first check had already dropped into my bank account. So, the lack of press attention felt like I wasn’t keeping up my end of the bargain.

I started to wonder if he was reconsidering taking us public.

And I don’t care how strong your self-confidence is, no woman could resist reading into that. I certainly was.

By my assessment, we’d been doing well. We’d made it through a couple more dinner dates without incident, and at the shop I’d gotten used to stopping over to see him after checking on Ronnie.

Since we’d cleared the air about Indiana, it felt like less of a lift for me to be nice. Or nicer, at least. He seemed genuine when he’d apologized. And even though I knew he was still the take-no-prisoners competitor he’d always been, it was a relief to know it wasn’t personal against Ronnie.

We still hadn’t been physical or anything in front of the team, but given the animosity between us before, you’d have to be blind to not see how much closer we were getting.

And yet, that’s apparently exactly what my brother was. Blind.

The guys had just finished up another training run, and we were walking back to the office when I sped up to get in stride with Cory.

He gave me a warm grin. One I’d gotten used to. It was an easy smile for him, crinkling the corners of his eyes with just the slightest hint of mischief. It honestly wasn’t all that hard to look at.

“It seems like you’re getting more comfortable on the new bike.”

“Does it?” he replied sarcastically with a hollow laugh as he scratched the back of his head. “Cause I’m thinking it might be time to swap out the bars. Something still feels off.”

I could hear the concern in his voice. We were still months away from the January start of the Supercross season, but there were gaps in the schedule coming up for the holidays and OTMwas unlikely to remain patient with a rider on their team who couldn’t find his groove.

“I’m sure Billy can get you dialed in. There’s plenty of time.”

Cory’s scowl faded as he looked down at me with an open expression. “I appreciate the optimism, gorgeous.”

Flaming heat raced to my cheeks, but I managed to keep from tripping over my own feet as Cory held the door for me. His hand slid to the small of my back, a place he seemed to like keeping it when we were on our dates. He winked as he guided me through the door, and I knew there was no way the others had missed any of what had just happened.

He’d never been so bold before, and while no one else around us reacted, it felt like a spotlight was beaming down from overhead, the heat of it searing my skin. For all my worrying that he was having second thoughts, Cory had just punched us up a level with that one.

And I knew this with certainty as my brother’s hand wrapped around my arm and he tugged me through the side door to a hall of conference rooms.

“What the hell was that?”

“What?”

He blew out a hard breath. “Don’twhatme with those doe eyes, Sky. The entire team just saw you and Ellis mooning over each other.”

I stuttered for a second, the realization hitting me that he was finally seeing it. My nerves pumped blood faster to my already red cheeks as I forced myself to play the part I’d been planning for weeks.

“Bro, you really need to get out more if you think that was mooning. Do you even know what that term means?”

“I know what I saw. That guy just undressed you with his eyes and you fucking liked it!”

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