Playing Dirty. Lauren Hawkeye

didn’t believe in love at first sight...but oh, she sure believed in lust.

      “Sitar music. Heavy metal. Purple in your hair, and the scents of vanilla and engine grease on your skin.” He sounded bemused. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a very unique woman?”

      “All the time.” She was pretty sure it was a bad idea, but the way this strange man was looking at her made her very, very hot. Riding on instinct, she reached for the cherry-red can of Coke that still dangled from his fingers and lifted it to her lips. “But you’ve only scratched the surface. There’s a lot more to me than the color of my hair.”

      “I can imagine.” He watched her with painstaking attention to detail as she lifted the can to her lips and sipped. The rush of sugar burst over her tongue, and she imagined she got just the slightest taste of him, as well.

      “Are you always this forward?” He tracked her tongue as she ran it over her lips.

      “Afraid of catching girl cooties?” Beth handed the can back and arched an eyebrow. “And yes, I often am. I’m usually pretty clear on what I want.”

      Stepping away from where they were still curled together beneath the hood of the Turbo, she laced her hands together and dipped her head. “But sometimes I like to be told what to do, too.”

      Her heart pounded as she made the admission. Had she judged wrong? She couldn’t have. She liked to go after what she wanted, true enough, and she felt no shame in wanting what she did. But she usually felt the subtle little click that she had with Ford when the dynamics between them were just right—as in, the other person wanted to be in control, and Beth wanted to relinquish it.

      “I...” Ford took a step back, not the reaction that Beth was expecting. He looked her over again, and her skin felt on fire everywhere his gaze touched.

      No, she wasn’t wrong. She felt it in her gut. But he didn’t seem to be all that pleased by the notion.

      “I’ll tell you what to do, then.” The struggle to regain control was evident in his voice. One blink of her eyes, and the stern businessman mask was back in place, shuttering the hint of passion that she’d glimpsed below. “Order the part. Fix the car. And call me when it’s ready for pickup.”

      Beth felt the same slight chill that she had when she’d noted that he seemed uncomfortable with whatever this was sparking between them—felt it and resented it.

      She wasn’t asking for a ring—she was just embracing her needs and desires, like she and her sisters had always done.

      “You didn’t ask how much the parts and work are going to be.” Beth’s temper rose, so she unlatched and slammed the hood of the Turbo closed, hard enough that most people would have turned to check that she hadn’t taken a golf club to the metal.

      He didn’t turn, didn’t look back—not at the vehicle and not at her.

      “Like you’ve pointed out already... I can afford it.”

      Well, then. Clearly he wanted to highlight the differences between them. Beth cocked her head and watched as he headed out of her driveway and back in the direction of the café, probably off to research his accommodation options, which she could have told him were few. She suspected he wasn’t going far.

      His gait was easy, the stride of a man who knew that he had the world at his feet. As if pulled by her gaze, he finally cast one look back in her direction.

      The intensity of the connection when their eyes met nearly brought Beth to her knees. Yes, that attraction was there, burning brighter than any she’d ever felt.

      So why was he turning away from it? From her?

      She could dwell on it, could go cry into a bottle of wine with her sisters over the rejection, but she’d never seen the point. Sex was supposed to be easy, fun. And to her it always would be.

      If Ford Lassiter was uncomfortable with being attracted to her, well, that was his problem. Beth was just fine with who she was. Still, it was a damn shame he was a stick-in-the-mud, she thought as her lips curved.

      A man who looked that good in clothes? He would surely look even better out of them.

       CHAPTER THREE

      THE SURFACE OF the bar was sticky beneath his hand as Ford placed his whiskey glass back down. It was his second of the night, and he felt like he needed to indulge in at least one more, just to get his head back on straight.

      He’d been feeling off center ever since the interlude with a certain little mechanic that afternoon. Damned if he could entirely understand why.

      “One more?” Even in the dingy bar that was connected to the equally dingy motel he’d had no choice but to book a room in, the bartender who approached him was still more his type than the woman who’d laid into him about responsibility that afternoon. Tall and slender, with icy-blond hair and a neat sleeveless blouse, she more closely resembled the women he dated back in the city.

      Neat. Proper. Nice.

      He considered for a moment, contemplated indulging some of this frustration in a flirtation with the blonde. Maybe it would lead to a nice dinner and some equally nice sex.

      Before he could consciously decide, his hand covered his glass. “Not right now, thanks.”

      There was a flicker of disappointment in the blonde’s eyes as she nodded and walked away, and Ford cursed himself. That was the kind of woman he should be attracted to.

      Curvy mechanics with rainbow-bright ink snaking over their pale skin didn’t belong in his life. Not even for a night. And not because of that brightness...but for other, darker reasons.

      Settling back on the stool where he’d been seated since the need to escape the shabby motel room had clawed at his skin, Ford blocked out the thunderous music from the old-timey jukebox and allowed his mind to pull up the image of her—of Beth Marchande.

      Nothing about her made sense.

      She moved like she couldn’t care less about anything but was quick to speak up when she had something to say. Confident—she was quietly confident, owning her curves in a way that stick-thin women he knew back home didn’t seem capable of.

      Her hair, in that long, thick braid, was midnight black up top and twisted with bright purple below. Purple...what kind of woman had purple hair?

      And yet he couldn’t stop imagining it wrapped around his fist as he thrust into her.

      Jesus. He needed to get a grip or he’d embarrass himself in the middle of this dive bar.

      He’d been in her presence for less than an hour, and yet he already knew he’d never forget her. She was too vibrant to ever be erased.

      “Forget about it.” He’d fucked it up that afternoon by being an asshole, he knew that. It would be best to signal that sweet blonde bartender and order another drink, to forget all about Beth Marchande of Marchande Motors.

      But damn it...when she’d stood there, hands clasped submissively in front of her? When she’d issued that invitation, had said she liked being told what to do, while he could just make out the outline of a barbell piercing her right nipple, pressed against the tissue-thin fabric of that skimpy shirt?

      She’d pierced right through to the core of his basest desires, the ones that he tried with an iron fist to keep locked away and buried.

      Lots of men with his power, his position, indulged in all sorts of hedonistic things, and he didn’t judge them for that. But after seeing his father go through wife after girlfriend after mistress, treating them all like his possessions?

      As far as Ford was concerned, nice men didn’t have the urge to tie their women up. Didn’t have their palms tingle with the need to redden white skin, to leave a mark of mastery.