Ten first dates, p.35
Ten First Dates, page 35
That had been some good Insta content. Hot Mechanic peeling his sweat-slicked t-shirt up his rangy torso, revealing a six-pack dusted in golden brown fuzz. He’d wiped his face with the hem, then dropped it down, letting the damp fabric cling to his belly, not fixing the way it rode up a bit, still revealing the flat pane of his lower abdomen above the waistband of his shorts.
She hadn’t posted it online. She’d saved it to her phone instead. Maybe he had an account himself. It would be better content for him than it would be for the team.
That’s what she told herself—that she saved it for him, this guy whose name she didn’t even know, but who she’d decided was her final chance to reboot her short-lived career in this building.
That decision had happened immediately after the workout. He’d taken charge of the pit crew, even though she didn’t think that was his job, and reminded everyone of the day’s agenda.
Which is how she knew to come back here, now, at the end of the day.
He was running a few of them through pit crew practice because they have a new tire guy on the team. This was the last thing he’d barked to everyone else—and she’d put it on her own schedule, too.
The garage bay had a raised viewing platform at the back, where she was standing now, with stairs at either end. Underneath the platform was where a lot of the…stuff…was stored. You need to know what the gear is called.
There was a lot she needed to know. So far, she’d memorized the race schedule—they were two weeks into a six-week break, then a ten-week circuit would start. She wanted to be Knowledgeable with a capital K by the time they were back on the track.
She forced herself to listen to the words Hot Mechanic was saying to the new team member.
“Don’t rush. Fast but smooth, that’s the rule. We want to finish before the fuel guy, but going faster than that just invites trouble.”
“Fast but smooth,” the new kid said, parroting what he’d just been told. But it didn’t look like he understood.
And maybe Hot Mechanic saw the not-listening panic in his eyes, too, because he gestured for the kid to come closer. The new guy glanced up at Monica, nervous and quick, but Hot Mechanic didn’t glance back. Like he didn’t care, or maybe he didn’t realize she was standing on the catwalk just behind him.
He dropped his voice. “Like when you’re fucking, you know?”
Heat swarmed through Monica’s lower belly.
The kid stared at him.
She stared at the back of his head.
He sighed. “If she asks you to go faster, what she’s really saying is, do exactly what you’re doing right now, just…”
“Faster?” The kid was confused. Maybe he wasn’t as good at sex as Hot Mechanic was.
Because Monica didn’t have a ton of experience, but what she did have affirmed the hypothesis that jack-rabbiting was the most common response to an urge for more, and often that urge was communicated as a breathless “faster” that didn’t really mean exactly that.
Hot Mechanic knew exactly what it meant. “Speed up. Gradually. So she can’t feel the shift in gears.”
“But it needs to be under seven seconds.” The kid’s cheeks turn pink. “Not sex. I mean, the tire change.”
“Don’t worry about how long it takes. Worry about being smooth. Focus on the car not even being aware that you’re sliding on a new tire. Pretend the car is a girl—or guy, whatever—that you’re trying to impress. Don’t worry about me. I’m not here. It’s the car you want to be smooth with.”
Monica let out a low moan, and the kid looked up at her.
This time, Hot Mechanic didn’t miss the fact that someone was standing right behind him. He turned slowly, every inch of his tall, muscular body on alert. When he finally looked up at her, he didn’t look embarrassed about the conversation she’d just overheard.
He looked annoyed that she’d been eavesdropping.
Which she hadn’t been.
This was a workplace, and she was there to do her job. Sort of.
You thought you could seduce him.
Well, that was before she knew that he apparently knew everything about sex. And back when she thought she might have the upper hand, because she was a pretty twenty-one-year-old and he had a dick.
From the suspicious look on his face, it was clear it wouldn’t be that easy. “Can I help you?”
There was something utterly irresistible about the command in his voice. She blushed and gave him her brightest smile. “I certainly hope so.”
His brows rose, and he waited.
“I’m…” she trailed off. Re-assessed. Figured out that the first thing she needed to do was prove to him she was allowed to be here. Time to play it straight. She flashed him her keycard. “I’m new here. From marketing. I have some questions, but please, finish up what you’re doing first.”
He frowned, but accepted her answer and turned around again. “Let’s do this three more times. Then we’ll call it a night.”
The driver in the car backed up, then rolled forward again. The team surged forward, each doing one task. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than before. The second time was a little slower, but the third time looked exactly like on a race day, and Monica clapped.
Hot Mechanic shot her a look that said, we don’t applaud people for just doing their jobs.
She pressed her lips together, holding back all her other impulsive responses—questions, quips, and attempts to be cute that she just knew would land badly. This guy wasn’t that easy to impress. She knew that instinctively. And yet that only made her want to impress him more. To win him over and show him she was worthy of his time.
It didn’t take long for everything to be returned to its rightful place. For the team to disperse, leaving them alone. Just long enough for her to take another good look at him and assess him again. Not as Instagram material this time, or a potential racing-business coach, but as a…
As a what, Monica?
He locked up a tool cabinet. Everyone else in the garage had been wearing race team overalls. Not him, though. He was wearing black jeans, snug to his thighs. The knees were worn, but not yet ripped, and a metal chain looped from his belt to his back pocket, where the faint outline of a wallet did nothing to obscure the distinct curve of solid thighs to an even tighter, more solid ass.
How did a mechanic get a lower body like that? Non-stop squats? He was built like an athlete, like a baseball catcher, not like the graceful leanness of most people in racing. But he wasn’t just built differently. He was taller than most everyone else in the building, too.
“What on earth does someone from marketing want with a grease monkey like me?” he finally asked, breaking the silence in the garage.
She jerked her gaze up from his ass. He wasn’t looking at her. He was still puttering around with tools, but somehow she knew she was busted for checking him out. She scrambled down the stairs, and as she crossed to him, he turned and leaned back against a workbench.
Stopping just in front of him, she squared her shoulders. “Thank you for letting me watch the tire-changing practice.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t remember giving you permission, exactly.”
“Thank you for not kicking me out, then.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Have you been kicked out of a lot of spaces?”
Not exactly. Shamed out, maybe. “I have a lot to learn about racing still. Not everyone has your patience with new hires.”
“My patience?” He laughed. “You may have gotten the wrong impression about me, Ms…”
She doesn’t want to give him her name.
He shrugged. “You’ll learn plenty about racing soon enough. You pick it up by osmosis just being here.”
“I spent fifteen years of my life trying to do that, and it never worked.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t look old enough for that sentence to make any sense.”
Damn it. She held out her hand. “Monica Fischer.”
Understanding dawned, and he screwed up his face in a fuck no, you’re the owner’s daughter expression. “Josh Kincaid. Let me just put my foot in my mouth…”
He checked his hand as if worried it might have a smear of grease on it, then wrapped his fingers around hers. She ignored the rush of heat that crawled up her arm—don’t think about the sex analogy he made earlier—and focused on the fact that his handshake was firm, strong, and lasted the perfect length of time.
“Nice to meet you, Josh.”
“Same to you, Ms. Fischer.”
“Monica.”
“Mmm. So, you’re returning to the family business after…?”
“I just graduated from college.”
“Ah.” He dropped her hand like a hot potato.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I think it was something. Is it my age? You think I’m not old enough to hack it here? We have drivers who are younger than me!”
“It’s not—” He growled with an exasperated sigh. “You’re what, twenty? Twenty-one?”
“I just turned twenty-one.”
“Happy birthday, Miss Fischer.” She didn’t miss the pivot from Ms. to Miss. However old this guy was, it was old enough that twenty-one was too young to be taken seriously. “Here’s your first lesson about racing. The pit crew does not fraternize with the boss’s daughter.”
She blew a raspberry. “That’s a stupid rule. And I’m not looking for fraternization. Just a little help with getting up to speed.”
“I’m not the guy for that.”
“I think you are.”
“You’re wrong.”
“What are the other rules, then? Tell me that much.”
He shook his head. “Oh, no. I’m not going to be your racing tutor.”
“Why not?”
“Because everything I tell you will only trigger more questions.”
“That makes me an eager student.”
“That makes you…” He stopped, turned around, and dragged his gaze down her body. And in all the ways his handshake had made her feel like an equal, if only for a brief moment, this heated glance made her feel like an object. “A very dangerous liability.”
She’d bet money that was intentional. “A sexy liability?”
He laughed. “Oh yeah, Miss Fischer. You are absolutely sexy. And you know it, too. Now run along.”
“I’m not a little girl you can boss around.”
He leaned in close. “I promise you, the only people I want to boss around are pit crew trainees and mature, willing women. Do we understand each other?”
She had never felt more mature or willing than at this moment. Damn shame that was one-sided. “We certainly do. You don’t want to fuck me.” She liked the way his eyes blazed in surprise. She grew up on race tracks. Sure, she may have left them behind six years ago for a Swiss boarding school, but the salty language was baked into her soul. She leaned in. She wasn’t going to be scared off. “But you’re willing to make me think you want to scare me off, because you’re afraid of getting in trouble for helping me. Except I need you to help me, because I’m quite certain that you are the only person on this entire campus who sees me as a fully formed human being with the potential to learn this business from the ground up.”
He blinked.
Blinked hard. “I’m not afraid of getting in trouble.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
He dropped his gaze to her mouth. His eyes turned steely. “Nothing.”
“Good.” She pressed her lips into a flat line. “Then what’s my next lesson?”
“I don’t have time for this. I have to—” He glanced at his watch and sighed. “Jesus, it’s late. I need to clock out.”
“Can we resume this tomorrow?”
“No, I’m not working tomorrow.”
“So, Monday?”
“Not Monday, either. I’m working then.”
“But this is work.”
“This would be extracurricular self-guided study. Nobody on this campus is paid to give you lessons about racing.”
“Would you prefer I pay you directly, then? Let’s call it a lucrative side hustle for you.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation.”
“Because of what people will think.”
“Sure. That.”
She nodded. “All the more reason to do it off-campus. What are you doing tonight after you clock out?”
“I’m—” He took a long, slow breath. It filled his chest, making him look forbidding, older and bigger and sterner than before.
She shouldn’t find that as attractive as she did, but if there was something Monica Fischer excelled at, it was getting attention from older men who wanted nothing to do with her.
He gave her a pained look. “You want to learn about racing from the ground up?”
“I do.”
“What’s your most prized possession in this world?”
Her autonomy was probably the wrong answer. “I have a vintage couture—”
He rolled his eyes. “Never mind. Just swear on your right kidney that you’ll never tell your father about what I show you tonight.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Is Springsteen all right?”
“Sure.”
And that was the extent of their conversation for the first half of the drive into L.A.
Having a twenty-one-year-old socialite as his passenger was an unforced error. Why had he opened his big mouth?
Josh blamed the fact that other people who worked at Fischer Racing were dicks to her. He couldn’t abide by that. Just because she was the owner’s daughter didn’t mean that she couldn’t pull her own weight…eventually.
And the way she stood toe-to-toe with him as he tried to brush her off? Maybe not even eventually. Maybe she might surprise people. But they would either need to give her a chance, or she would have to break them down and take the chance she deserved.
After working for the company for six years, he was pretty sure the latter was more likely. Fischer Racing was not a warm and fuzzy work environment.
As traffic slowed down, he shot a glance sideways at her. She looked rich, for lack of a better description. Slim and yet well-fed, with very good skin and even better hair. Pretty, he had to admit, if one liked them young and saucy, which he didn’t.
He had nine years on her, and she probably had ten million dollars on him just because of how trust funds worked. They had nothing in common. Not even if she really liked the growl of his engine and hadn’t blinked at his custom five-point harness seat belts.
Earlier, she’d surprised him by calling him on his weak attempt to intimidate her. He’d leered at her tight jeans and silky top, letting her think he was picturing her naked. Now he had to scrub that from his memories, because he’d saddled himself with a student for the night.
He couldn’t actually guess what she looked like naked, anyway. She was so far out of his league, it wasn’t funny. Did rich girls look like porn stars, waxed and sculpted to perfection?
Josh usually went for down-to-earth bed partners, who didn’t mind a bit of grease (although he always scrubbed his hands, because he very much did like to get his fingers wet), and who knew his heart and soul were in the engine of a car. He wasn’t one for splitting his attention for more than a few hours.
Besides, he didn’t know where he’d land next. He had a plan, and maybe on the other side of that plan, he’d think about finding a woman to settle down with.
He liked the idea in abstract. Pulling the same warm body on top of his every night. The familiarity, the secrets. The babies they would have one day. But it was always in the future, not the now.
His brother Owen had an eighteen-year-old daughter—and Owen had been eighteen himself when he found out he would be a dad. That had been enough “racing to be a grown-up” for all the Kincaid brothers. In the nineteen years since, none of them had settled down.
The rest of them had joined the military back in Canada, as if that might ward off babies. Owen was a paramedic now. Will was a school principal. Seth was a float plane pilot. Adam had just gotten out of the military himself, and was working as a mover but thinking about firefighting school.
Josh was the lone outlier. The one who’d run south of the border and found his way into the racing circuit because he was just that good with cars.
It twinged, sometimes, that he hadn’t done the public service thing the way his brothers had. But it wasn’t like their military service wasn’t selfish in some ways. It paid the bills and gave them adventure, and that had been how racing had started for him.
Now, though…
He glanced down at Monica’s hand, resting on the black vinyl bench seat between them. She was petting his ’69 Gran Torino.
His gaze caught on the flex of her hand, on the way her knuckles were pinker than the rest of her skin, and her nails were short, the thumbnail a little ragged.
At least her hands were that of a normal human being. And she appreciated a good-looking car. Or maybe Springsteen just had that effect on people.
She shifted again, then lifted her gaze to look at his profile more intently. “So we’re going to a…”
He hadn’t told her anything yet. “You’ll see.”
“Maybe you’re kidnapping me.”
He laughed. “You begged me to kidnap you. You demanded to know what I was doing tonight and knew—without even hearing what my plans were—that your need to learn about car racing trumped all.”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a second. “Did I say thank you for including me in your mystery, non-kidnapping plans?”
“I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “It’s fine. It’s good to have friends in high places.”
“Oh, I assure you, I’m not in any high places.” She sucked in a sharp breath.
But she would be one day.
He’d looked her up when she disappeared to collect a tiny purse barely big enough to hold her phone, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses that glinted in a way that made him think they were worth almost as much as his car. She was the only child of the billionaire owner of the racing team, Michael Fischer. Her father was in his late sixties. At some point in the next twenty years, she would inherit his entire fortune. Become a minority shareholder in a few major tech companies and a Major League Baseball team, and the sole owner of a sprawling racing empire.
