Page 11 of You Wish
“Our money needs to be spent by the end of the year if we’re to keep our non-profit status.”
“Which is why we’re starting with Jake first.”
“How much would an ambassadorship with Jake Evans cost us?”
“Nothing. All the drivers I work with would do it because it’s a great cause,” she said. “This is bigger than ad campaigns and press releases. Polish fades. Authenticity sticks. You can buy glossy. You can’t buy the look on a child’s face when their favorite driver reaches out a hand. That’s what makes people open their wallets—because it makes them feel something.”
Whitmore studied her for a long moment, silence stretching until Georgia’s pulse hammered in her throat.
Finally, he sighed, setting his pen down with a soft click. “You’ve grown a spine since I last saw you.”
Georgia blinked, not sure if it was a compliment or a warning.
His mouth softened into something almost like a smile. “I like that. Fine. You’ve got my okay. But listen”—his eyes sharpened again—“I’m giving you the rope. Don’t hang us with it.”
Relief surged through Georgia, but she kept her expression professional. “I won’t.”
4
“Harder?” the sexy feminine voice asked, her breath tickling his ear.
“God, yes,” Jake moaned.
Go as hard as you want, baby. I can take it.
Her hands changed direction, gliding over his pecs and down his six pack, while her fingers teased his sides.
A woman’s hands on him was exactly what he needed after that race. Too bad it wasn’t the hands he wanted, he thought, remembering the way Georgia used to run her nails down his back in gentle scrapes—as if marking him as hers.
He’d never been anyone’s. Not even his parents’. They’d chosen to leave him to be raised by his grandparents. Not his sister, Rachel, just him—leaving him with a feeling of always being second. So being claimed by Georgia had been addicting.
“You’re really hard,” she said in a quiet voice. Her hands dropped to his hips. “We need to loosen you up a little.”
Crack.
“Jesus,” Jake hollered.
“You said hard,” said Jeanie, his physical therapist, her hands twisting his hips in opposite directions. Blood rushed to his head as the bone slid back into place.
Jake wasn’t one of those young guns anymore. At twenty-nine, his body couldn’t take the g-force of the car as easily as it used to.
But what a race. He’d taken first, leaving Henry in the dust and crossing the line with nearly six and a half seconds between them. His focus hadn’t been this laser in months. When he’d climbed into his car, it was as if they melded into one being. Moved as one, his tires getting just the right amount of traction on the tarmac.
Singapore always brought the heat. At ninety-two degrees, with a humidity index of seventy-two percent, he’d lost eight pounds of water weight over the sixty-one laps. And his muscles felt it.
“How’s your shoulder?” Jeanie asked.
“Better than last week.”
“Magic hands,” she said and?—
Right. Left. Right.
Crack.
Jake moaned in relief as the built-up pressure in his neck evaporated and the bones realigned. Then her hands slid up and around his shoulder blade, her thumbs digging deep into the muscle surrounding it.
Jeannie was one of the best in the industry. Her chiropractic–deep massage combo was exactly what his body craved after a race weekend. Between practice, qualifying, and the race, it was nonstop from Friday until Sunday. And the intensity of the sport took its toll—on even the younger drivers. They just rebounded faster.
