Sami shifted on her feet, gripping her helmet tighter with hands that for some reason wanted to shake. What the hell was going on with her? What was meant to be a relaxed demonstration for her sponsors and the media to celebrate her latest title had somehow become wholly not relaxing. Maybe she needed to fire up her bike, rev it up a bit and cliffhanger and can can a couple of orgasms her way. Climax away the weird, funky tension trying to fuck with—
“That’s what Biggest Dickus wants me to tell her?”
Jay’s low voice uttering his nickname for Swanson jerked Sami back to the pit. And her mechanic. If she’d heard him, the gathering media would have as well. Michael Bailey was probably doing an internal dance of joy; he damn near had a cottage industry going reporting on the Swanson/Charlton rivalry.
She studied Jay’s back, his broad back, with its broad shoulders and narrow hips and tight—
“Word for word?” he asked into his phone.
A pause followed. A short one.
“Okay then,” Jay went on. “But it’s Swanson’s funeral.”
He disconnected the call, shoved his phone into his pocket and then turned back to Sami, his expression as unreadable as his voice. “Swanson’s agreed to your bet. He wants to discuss with you in his private box what he gets when he beats you.”
Sami’s tummy clenched.
Jay’s stare held hers. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “The emphasis,” he said, “is his.”
Eli didn’t consider himself an arrogant or conceited man. He just knew he was better than anyone else at what he did.
He wasn’t North American Motocross Champion five times running, nor International Motocross Champion three times running, because he was average. He was far from average.
Nor had he achieved such success because he played it safe.
Playing it safe was for the weak, and he wasn’t weak either.
He’d been weak once. He wouldn’t be so again. Being weak had cost him. A mechanic and a friend.
“Arrogant” and “conceited” were words used to describe him, however. By the media, his fans and his sponsors. His rivals also called him the same, along with “dangerous”, “insane” and “ruthless”.
Of all the titles and names bestowed upon him, his favorite—fuck-knuckle—had been granted to him by the woman currently shaking her head at his ex-head mechanic on the television screen before him.
Watching Sami Charlton argue with Jay Rutledge, he wished the reporter controlling the live feed from Fox Sports would forget professional ethics for one moment and direct the camera’s mic at the pair.
Not only did he want to hear Sami’s Australian accent, he wanted to hear what she was calling him today. And what his one-time best friend was calling him as well.
Which one was arguing against his invitation, he wondered.
Rutledge? He and his ex-mechanic had not parted company on the best of terms, but they’d once shared almost everything.
At the sight of Jay shaking his head and stabbing his finger to the center of his palm, Eli guessed the mechanic wasn’t singing his praises. He’d seen that very body language before. The day Jay told him he was an “arrogant fuck” who was going to die all alone if he wasn’t careful.
“Careful” was another thing Eli didn’t do. In any aspect of his life, a fact he’d pointed out to Jay.
It was only when he’d seen Rutledge on ESPN a week later, standing beside Sami as her new mechanic, that he’d realized the Australian had returned to his homeland and gotten himself an Australian boss.
One Eli wanted to fuck with every bone, every fiber, every molecule in his body.
Turning his attention to Sami on the screen, Eli’s cock pulsed.
He’d kissed her once. After she’d come second to him in a charity ride for childhood leukemia in Tennessee last year.
Kissed her like he wanted to fuck her—hard and with possessive hunger.
The media covering the event had captured the kiss and the fiery lust in Sami’s eyes when he’d released her.
He watched that footage every night. Went to bed with the memory of it in his head and in his body.