Page 8 of Nitro
“Of anything that gets to me.” Her chin tipped a fraction in an obvious challenge.
I took one more step because I could smell her now—soap, heat, and the line of sweat from the small of her back—plus the faint metallic thread of fresh-cut steel that haunted The Pit. A smudge of grease on her throat snagged my attention. I wanted to wipe it away with my mouth.
“Track rule eight. Drivers don’t touch backup hardware without clearance.”
“Shop rule eight,” she returned, matching my cadence as she slipped her coveralls back into place and zipped them up, “don’t run your mouth if you haven’t looked at the data.” She flipped the switchbox, and the screen replayed her pull. “Look at that curve and tell me you like the stock map. Tell me with a straight face.”
I didn’t take the bait. The curve was fine. I wanted to be the problem, not the map.
“Not the point,” I ground out.
“Right,” she murmured. “The point is control.”
Heat licked up my spine. She had me. She knew it and didn’t back away from the knowledge. Instead, she stepped in close and lifted a finger to poke my chest, right where the Route 66 with wings was inked on my left pec under cotton.
“Blow up at me for ‘abusing assets’ when you leave them queued cold at thirty-minute idle intervals.” Another poked beat. “Tell me to ‘trust your timing’ when you haven’t asked a single question about how I like my brake bite set up. And my favorite, lecture me about risk while spinning out a prospect in the lot to prove a point.”
I leaned in, just enough to make her tip her head back. “That prospect shouldn’t have chirped second without straightening out his wheel.”
“He shouldn’t have chirped second, period,” she shot back. “That asphalt’s trash. Your lesson nearly took his ankle off.”
“Nearly,” I echoed, keeping my tone flat. “Which he’ll remember.”
She snorted softly. “I will too.”
“Good.” I held her stare. “Learned fear is useful. Beats the kind of fear you pretend you don’t have while you carve a line with your teeth.”
At that, something flickered behind the green. A shadow. Old and furious. She started to step around me.
Not today.
I slid a palm to her hip and went with her, guiding without forcing. She stopped, her spine hitting the cinderblock wall lightly with a sound that was more breath than impact.
“Don’t order me around,” she warned, her voice low. “I don’t work for you.”
“The Pit is mine,” I returned just as softly. “Gauge often runs this place, but Kane and I own it. The rules here are mine. You decide to test where the edges are, test them with your mouth, not a throttle.”
“Or what?” Her brows lifted, daring, and that was the spark in dry grass.
“Or I test something else.”
Her breath hitched. She tried to cover it with a smirk and failed by a millimeter. “We going to trade empty threats all afternoon, Nitro?”
My road name in her mouth was gasoline. I didn’t think. I just moved.
“Fuck,” I muttered, because she smelled so goddamn good.
One hand caught both her wrists and pinned them above her head to the warm cinderblock, the other slid to the heavy brass zipper tab at her sternum. I pulled it down in one smooth line to her navel. The sound—metal on teeth, quick and sure—feltobscene in the little room. The coveralls parted. Her chest rose hard. I lifted the hem of her tank, found hot skin, and pushed it up until her breasts spilled into my palms—small, perfect, tight peaks already beading at my breath.
“Stop me.” It was an offer, not a dare. If she said the word, I’d back up all the way to the wall.
Her eyes caught mine and didn’t blink. “Don’t stop.”
That counted as an invitation where I came from.
4
NITRO
