She stuck the key in the ignition and the Lamborghini’s powerful engine rumbled to life. The leather seats wrapped around her. She reached over and snapped on the radio. Classical music poured from the stereo speakers. Mozart, she recognized. One of his more gallopy tunes.
“It’s a manual,” Liam said. “Six-speed. You know how to handle a stick?”
She lowered her lashes, slanted him a surreptitious look. “I know my way around a gearshift.”
A whiskey-laced smile languidly curled his lips. “What about a five-hundred-horsepower, ten-cylinder big block engine? Know how to handle one of those?”
“You tell me after the ride.”
“You know these babies go from zero to sixty in four seconds.”
Katie licked her lips. “That’s a lot of thrust.”
“It is.”
“Impressive,” she said. “But there is something to be said for a more leisurely ascent.”
“Top speed is a hundred-and-ninety-two miles an hour.” She could hear the smile in his tone.
“You’ve been holding out on me, James.”
“How’s that?”
“Pretending that you’re staid Mister Workaholic without an adventuresome bone in his body, but then you’re driving a work of art like this.” She patted the leather dashboard. “There’s danger lurking in your soul. You’ve been covering it up.”
“You think so?”
“I know so, and I intend on rocking your world.”
“You already have,” he said. “So don’t rock my car.”
She laughed and put the Lamborghini in Drive. Her nipples tightened, part excitement, part fear. She was glad he could only see her profile, glad the night was dark. But even as she told herself this, she couldn’t help turning her head for a better look at him.
His shoulders were angled toward her, his gaze beaded on her. The glow from the dashboard light threw shadows over his angular jaw. His scent heightened her awareness. Expensive whiskey, combined with woodsy cologne and the rich smell of leather. Her father used to have a similar fragrance-manly, grounded, trustworthy.
Liam was looking at her with a kind of wonder.
In the dimness, his face appeared craggier, more rugged than in light. His thick dark hair stood up slightly in the back, an errant lock refusing to stay down. The look in his eyes changed. And along with it the intensity of the tugging sensation in her belly increased. There was a flicker of something golden in his eyes, something wild and unexpected.
The form of his lips changed, his posture, the slant of his eyebrows. He was someone else entirely. Bachelor of the year no more, this man was darker. He’d seen things, dark things. She thought of his childhood brush with street gangs and her heart tweaked.
Katie was thankful for the console that kept their thighs from touching. Otherwise, she doubted she could have kept all four tires on the road.
Her fingers gripped the smooth ball of the gearshift head and slipped it into the next gear as they left the driveway and merged onto the street.
LIAM SAT beside Katie, his pulse pumping faster than the Lamborghini’s heated pistons. He didn’t like being in the passenger seat at the mercy of her driving skills, out of control of his own vehicle. He wished he could edge her aside and slip behind the wheel, but she was right. He’d had too much to drink and his reaction time wasn’t what it should be.
Neither were his cognitive skills, because he found himself thinking thoughts that were better left suppressed. Enticing, dangerous thoughts about what it would feel like to ride in the car beside her every day for the rest of his life.
“You wanna see how I handle big boys’ toys?” She challenged and, without waiting for his reply, hit the freeway doing seventy.
She tossed her head like a high-spirited filly. Her hair fell forward, the tips of the light blond strands grazing the top of her cleavage. She reached up to slide a lock of hair behind one pearl-studded ear.
Liam felt the rhythm of her movements rush straight through his stomach and into his groin. Something about the way she handled the quivering thrust of his V10 engine inflamed him. She was like a luxury sports car herself, with fine rounded curves and bosoms protruding like headlights.
Enveloped in their cocoon of precision machinery, she rushed him through time and space. Speed, wrapped inextricably with sexual need, gushed through his brain, his limbs and his entire body. She was fast and adventuresome and exciting. And he worshipped her in an orgy of pure velocity.
Liam was so busy filling up with testosterone that her next comment took him by surprise.
“You want to tell me what happened back there with the mayor?” Katie asked. “Or are you just going to let me believe you’re a total horse’s ass?”
“You picked up on that?”
Katie grinned. “Give me some credit, will you? A blind woman could have picked up on your animosity toward Delancy. Thing is, I get the distinct impression he has no idea that you hate him.”
“You’re very perceptive.”
“Don’t sound so amazed. Just because I like to keep to the lighter side of things doesn’t mean I’m clueless.”
“I never said you were clueless.”
“You thought it.”
“Never. Impetuous yes, clueless never,” he admitted.
“I also noticed that you didn’t answer my question,” she prodded.
“Which question was that?”
“Why do you hate Finn Delancy?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Guyspeak for you don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah.”
“Why not?”
“Why not what?”
She cocked her head and gave him a piercing glance before returning her attention to the road. “Why don’t you want to talk about it?”
“Because it’s none of your business.”
“It might not be any of my business, but you certainly look like you need to talk about it.”
“I don’t need to talk about it.”
“How long have you kept this-” she waved a hand “-complicated thing bottled up?”
“All my life,” he said, and then immediately regretted it.
“You’ve got a dark secret.”
“Not really. Just something I’m not particularly proud of.”
“You might feel better if you got it off your chest,” she ventured.
“I seriously doubt it.”
“The thing about secrets is,” she went on, ignoring his denial that he had a secret, “once you tell someone about them, they no longer hold any power over your life.”
“I don’t have any secrets. In fact,” he said, “I hate secrets and dishonest people.”
“So is Delancy the dishonest person with the secret?” she guessed. “Do you have something on him?”
“Sort of.”
“And you don’t approve of him.”
“I hate him.”
“If you dislike the man so much, how come you accepted his dinner invitation? How come you agreed to introduce him at the Habitat for Humanity event?”
“Can we not talk about Delancy?”
“Okay.” She surprised him by suddenly letting go of the conversation.
Silence fell. All they could hear were engine sounds and road noises.
From the time his mother had told him his father’s identity when he was sixteen, Liam had plotted and schemed and planned for his success. He’d studied hard in school, played every sport Fernwood Academy offered and did lots of volunteer work. He got straight A’s and won a merit scholarship to Harvard. He cut clippings of his achievements and made scrapbooks. He’d graduated cum laude from Harvard Business School, all the while buying run-down houses in South Boston and restoring them for resale.
Because of his achievements, women were crazy for him. And other than his glorious mistake with Arianna, there hadn’t been room in his life for romance. He’d had a few girlfriends, yes. But somehow he’d managed to always keep things casual. It was easier that way. Nobody got hurt.