Page 32 of Endurance

“Sloan, how can you say that? You barely know me.”

“I know enough.”

“Well, I don’t. I have work that needs to be done. Going to your fancy lair is the last thing I should do.”

“My lair? You make me sound like Tony Stark,” I said with a smirk. “I may have been able to fly around the track, but that’s as far as it goes. No Ironman super suit is hiding in my closet.”

Looking down at the ground, she puffed out an exasperated sigh.

“Sloan, I—” she stopped short, seeming to notice something. “Well, would you look at that? Damn it. I somehow managed to get grease on my hands again. I’m going to run back inside and wash it off before I get it on my clothes or all over the interior of the car.”

Without warning, she ducked under my arm and hurried back toward the entrance to the track.

Oh, hell no.

Following close behind her, we closed the distance and entered the building. When I saw her disappear behind the door to the women’s restroom, I looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then slipped in and locked the door handle behind me.

Kallie was standing at the sink washing her hands and looked up in surprise when she saw me. “Sloan, what are you doing? You shouldn’t be in here.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not…it’s not,” she stammered. “It’s not appropriate.”

I grinned as I slowly advanced toward her.

“I don’t care about being appropriate, Kallie. You should know that by now. I’ve never been one for decorum, so you’ll have to do better than that.”

“Well, I also don’t trust you to be in here alone with me. You’re…” She trailed off, appearing flustered, as she focused on scrubbing the nonexistent grease from her hands.

“I’m what?”

“You’re dangerous for me,” she blurted out.

“Dangerous?” I chuckled. “Oh, baby, you have no idea how dangerous I can be—especially when I want something. You’ve read my file. I like to win, and there’s nothing I want to win more than you. If you tell me you don’t want me, I’ll walk out that door, and we’ll keep it professional. But I don’t think you will. I think you want us to happen just as much as I do. I don’t know why you’re fighting it.”

“You’re wrong. You don’t know enough about me to know what I may or may not want. And I’m telling you I don’t want this.”

She wouldn’t meet my gaze but instead moved over to the electric hand dryer and placed her palms under it. Hot air buzzed from the machine as I stepped up behind her and rested my hands on her hips. I lowered my head to her ear, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the dyer.

“I think you’re lying. I saw it all over your face when we were out by the car. Even now, you’re flushed, and your breathing is erratic. Am I wrong?”

The dryer finished, and she lowered her hands to her sides. She didn’t attempt to move away from me, but she also didn’t answer and instead seemed to be lost in contemplation. I needed to see her face—to read her eyes and know if this fantasy I had of being with her was just one-sided. For all I knew, her erratic breathing was from frightened nerves. The last thing I wanted was for her to be afraid of me. Spinning her body so that we were standing toe-to-toe, her bright green eyes stared up, and I held her gaze steady.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, Sloan,” she finally said. “Yes, I know there’s this weird, inexplicable energy between us, but you don’t understand. I can’t be with you.”

“Stop letting a stupid contract get in the way of things. It doesn’t change the way I feel. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I first saw you in Long Beach.”

“You don’t understand. It has nothing to do with our contract. Well, maybe it does, but that’s not the main reason.”

“Does the main reason have something to do with the warning you mentioned last night?”

“It has everything to do with the warning. Please, trust me on this,” she pleaded.

“The only thing I trust is my gut, and my gut is telling me there’s only one way this is going to end.”

“And how is that?”

I pulled her closer, pressed my lips against the delicate skin of her ear lobe, and whispered with heated breath, “With me buried deep inside of you.”

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