Playing Dirty. Lauren Hawkeye

just wouldn’t do.

      And yet here he was. He hadn’t been willing to be far away from the Turbo, sure, but that wasn’t the only reason that, instead of calling a car to take him home, he’d taken a room in the one small motel he’d been able to find close to the shop.

      The woman had hooked him. He was interested, even if he didn’t want to be.

       Bad idea, Ford. Very bad idea.

      “Excuse me?” Lifting his head, Ford raised his hand to signal for the bartender again. He’d have that third drink, and then he’d go take a long, cold shower. He’d work from his motel room until his car was ready, and then he’d go, as fast and as far as he could.

      Out of reach of temptation.

      The volume of the music increased with the next song, something slow and sultry that he didn’t recognize. Down the length of the vinyl-covered bar, a large young man wearing work boots stumbled onto a stool and slapped a fiver down. “I need a beer, Sallie, and I need it now. There’s one hell of a show goin’ on over there, and I’m thirsty.”

      “Coming right up, Ned.” Ford watched as Sallie—the cool blonde—slid a longneck across the bar to the rough-looking man. The bartender then leaned against the length of covered wood, looking off in the direction the man had come from, and the man looked that way, too. Both seemed to be settling in to watch a show.

      Ford followed their gaze, and lust was an instant, heated punch to the gut.

      His sexy little mechanic was on the dance floor, and she was working it.

      Torn, faded jean shorts cut off high on her shapely thighs, barely covering an ass that was curved enough for a man to get a good grip on it. A white lace camisole on top revealed enticing flashes of skin as well as a black bra that held her full breasts up nice and high.

      Black leather boots with high spiked heels wrapped the length of her calves and all the way over her knees. He could imagine her with nothing but those boots on, hands clinging to his headboard as he moved, hard and fast, between sweetly spread thighs.

      She was gorgeous. Not his type at all, with the crazy hair and the tattoos spilling over her collarbone and arms. But on her, it worked. He shifted uncomfortably and noted that it seemed to work just fine for him, too.

      “Damn.” Ford couldn’t hold back the groan as Beth shifted, stepping into the light, and he realized that she wasn’t alone. No, she had a woman at her front, a man pressed to her back and her eyes closed, her expression dreamy as she rocked between the two bodies, every movement sensual and sure.

      The man behind her was dark and swarthy, and Ford might have thought to be jealous if he hadn’t been so fascinated with the way the man fisted Beth’s hair and pulled her head back. What he’d seen of her today said that she’d protest being forced to do anything, but her lips, shiny with red gloss, opened with a moan that he couldn’t hear but that resounded in his head regardless.

      The woman in front of her, a redhead in a tight dress, rubbed her breasts against Beth’s own. Ford shifted on his stool, his cock hardening fully as the woman dipped her head and licked a slow trail down Beth’s neck.

       Damn.

      As if he’d spoken out loud, Beth’s eyes fluttered open. Lifting her head, she looked across the bar, over to where he sat, aching...and right into his eyes.

      Earlier today her eyes had been the color of the afternoon sky, but now they were sapphire fire, the flames licking along his skin. His gut tightened as she smiled lazily, then slowly, sensually disengaged herself from the tangle of limbs.

      Behind her, the couple continued their dance, but Ford didn’t care—his eyes were on the woman who was crossing the room toward him with slow, deliberate undulations of her hips.

      “Fancy meeting you here, Sir Lassiter.” She stopped well into his personal space, and that vanilla perfume made his mouth water and his jaw clench.

      “Sir?” He arched an eyebrow and tried really hard not to do what he wanted, which was to reach out and place his hands at her waist, to slide her shirt up and feel the warmth of her skin beneath.

      “Mmm, you seem like a sir.” Beth smiled and inched closer, stepping right between his spread thighs. He felt his expression darken—she knew exactly what she was doing, what she was asking for.

      “What makes you say that?” His instincts told him to tug her flush against his body, to press her to him so she could feel exactly what she was doing to him.

      He did not.

      “You seem all proper and noble...like an aristocrat. A knight. Sir Lassiter.” Beth nudged forward just a whisper, and he felt the curve of her hip press into his inner thigh.

      His mouth went dry.

      “Like you’re trying so hard to do what you think is right. But tell me something.” Tilting her head back, she looked up into his eyes, searching. “Why is denying yourself something that you want, that we both want, the right thing? I know you feel it, too.”

      Her open question gutted him. He’d been in the boardroom with billionaires, with sheikhs, with sharks, and he’d bested them all.

      The little woman who smelled like cupcakes? She was bringing him to his knees.

      “I—” He started to explain, but she cut him off, stepping back, her sudden frown breaking the spell.

      “I see.” Her lips pinched together in a mockery of a smile. “I’m not the kind of woman you want to get involved with, right? Not even for a night. Let me assure you, that’s your loss.”

      Wait...what?

      “Wait just a damn minute.” When Beth would have turned, Ford did as he’d imagined, catching her by the waist and hauling her back into the vee of his legs. This time her pelvis connected with the steel length of his erection, and he savored her sharp little intake of breath. “What do you mean?”

      “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.” Beth regarded him coldly, though she didn’t back down. “My hair, my tattoos... I’m far too wild for you.”

      “Oh, do you think so?” The way she was looking up at him, so certain she was right, was a challenge, and he felt something inside him roaring to life to meet it.

      She thought he was turned off because she wasn’t his usual type? Well, he couldn’t deny that she was not at all the kind of woman he was usually drawn to, and his instant attraction to her puzzled him more than a bit.

      But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was what she made him feel.

      “I don’t give a damn about the color of your hair or the ink on your skin. Got it?” The need to prove that she wasn’t the problem was quickly overriding his sense of restraint, the only other thing that had held him back from accepting her sweet offer that afternoon.

      “I don’t know you, yet you make me want things I’m not comfortable wanting. Make me feel things I shouldn’t.” His hands at her waist squeezed, hard, to emphasize his point, and he savored her resultant shudder, which ratcheted up his own excitement.

      “Why would you be uncomfortable wanting something if it doesn’t hurt anyone else?” She was watching him again, lids heavy over those big eyes. “Or maybe you think that it is hurting someone?”

      He kept his stare on her face, absorbing every nuance of her expression, which was open, honest.

      Something told him that Beth Marchande wasn’t going to be disgusted with the demands he might make of her.

      “Sometimes a little bit of hurt is good, Sir Lassiter...especially when I’m begging you for it.”

      “Fuck.” Dragging his hands up her sides, over her rib cage and the swell of her breasts, Ford clasped Beth by the shoulders and tugged her forward, crushing her smirking lips to