Rock the Beat
Page 17

Holly studies the menu. “This place has the best Bloomin’ Onions. Do you like those?”
I nod. “Sure, I just don’t eat fried stuff often. This body is a temple. I try to keep it in shape.”
She shakes her head. “I’d eat them every day if I could, but I can’t afford to come here. Last time I was here was last fall for my nineteenth birthday when I came home from school.”
“Nineteen? Wow you’re a baby.” And it’s nearly illegal for me to have the dirty thoughts I’ve been having about her.
“Actually, last night was my birthday. That’s why I was at the bar. I’ve officially left my teen years behind.”
“Well, happy belated birthday. I’m glad I could give you a taste of being twenty.” I smile and she scowls at me. “Maybe you should’ve let me give you a real present last night…” She shakes her head at me, but there’s no hiding the blush in her cheeks.
I know deep down she likes it when I talk dirty to her. I can read people.
I need a subject change before I dwell on the things I’d like to do to her any longer. “You go to college?”
“I used to. I gave it up to come home and help Dad at the track. He couldn’t afford to pay his employees anymore.” I notice the frown on her lips, and I don’t like it—a face that pretty should never be sad. I want to immediately fix it.
“Well, maybe when my investor buddy comes through you can go back?”
Her eyes flit to mine. “I would love to. It just sucks all my friends back at school will be ahead of me now.”
“You’re still young. You’ll make new friends.” I point out. “What were you studying?”
“Psychology.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Wow. That’s impressive. You’re smart and hot. That’s a pretty badass combination.”
She giggles. “Thanks. I wish more guys thought that way. A lot of them have problems with women who take school so seriously.”
“What do you mean?” I ask completely confused. “I love smart women—all women, actually.”
“I haven’t had great luck with men.”
That’s a shame. I rest my elbows on the table and lean forward. “Maybe you’ve just been dating the wrong guys?”
There’s a heat between us as we stare each other in the eye. I know she feels it too, because a slight blush creeps up her neck into her cheeks, making me think about what she’d look like after an orgasm. One that, at the moment, I would love to give her by sinking between her sweet, creamy thighs and licking her into oblivion.
Images of what’s hidden beneath those clothes, and the way her mouth tastes, toy with my brain and my cock twitches in anticipation.
I open my mouth to tell her fuck the dinner—let’s get out of here and I’ll give her something else she’s starving for when our overly chipper waitress with bottle-blonde hair approaches the table. “What can I get you two to drink?”
I shake myself out of my daze as I try to clear my sex-crazed brain from thinking about fucking Holly any longer. I can only endure so much torture. “A Bud Light.”
“A Coke, please,” Holly says.
Once the waitress is gone, Holly taps the table with her index finger and directs her attention at everyone else in the place but me. It’s like she’s afraid to look at me again. I completely get it—the attraction between us is hard to deny, but we both know we need to fight it. There can never be anything more than innocent flirting between us and last night needs to be kept locked away.
It’s a bad idea to mix business with pleasure. Even I know that.
Before I can start a conversation about the track, her eyes grown wide and she tries to hide her face behind her hands. “What are you doing, Holly? You look like a crazy person.”
“Don’t say my name,” she whispers harshly, ducking down and grabbing for a menu.
“What? Why?” I turn around in my seat and notice a guy standing at the bar joking with the pretty, busty bartender. He’s about my height, at least six foot, and is covered in tattoos, just like me. His head is shaved along with his face. She can’t possibly be hiding from that guy. I turn back around and find Holly hiding behind the menu she picked up. “Why? Don’t you want the guy at the bar to see you?”
“Yes. Please let me know when he’s gone.”
If I weren’t so puzzled by this uncharacteristic deviation from the normal Ice Queen act I’ve seen from her so far, this would be hilarious. But my concern for her outweighs my personal amusement. What in the hell did that guy do to her? “Tell me who he is first.”
She sighs dramatically and I bet if I could see her she’d be rolling her eyes. “He’s Jackson Cruze.” The tone in her voice makes it seem like it should be obvious to me who the guy is.
I glance up at the ceiling and try to go through my mental files on why that name sounds so familiar. It hits me. I do know that name. I saw it in one of the motocross magazines I read on the plane from Kentucky to here. I do a double-take of the guy and then ask her, “He’s the MX hotshot, right? The one getting all the press right now?”
“Yes,” she hisses.
I lean back in my seat. “Shouldn’t you want to talk to a guy like that to get him to promote the track?”
She drops the menu and stares me in the eye. “No. He’s the last person on earth I want to speak to.”