Anticipation fizzed over her in a wave of goose bumps. The scary thing was that beside him was exactly where she wanted to be.
That definitely was not good.
Nine
Amelia had never had a date fall asleep on her before. Should she be insulted?But Toby wasn’t exactly a date. He was her temporary lover and the last obstacle to overcome in getting her life back on the right track.
Although the hotel was barely a mile away, traffic moved at a crawl compliments of the vast number of people wanting to celebrate the opening of the Monte Carlo season. Toby hadn’t lasted five minutes in the dark car before his big body tilted against hers.
She liked the warmth and solid weight of him against her side. Turning her head slightly, she buried her nose in his soft hair to inhale his scent. Desire curled deep in her abdomen. How could she want him this badly? Which twisted Fate had cursed her to finding sexual satisfaction with the one type of man she’d sworn to avoid?
But was Toby really an adrenaline junkie in the sense that she’d come to know and despise through her job?
She’d spent countless hours on the Internet over the past week, learning more about NASCAR than she’d ever wanted to know, and what she’d learned had surprised her. Safety was apparently a priority for the organization, and the rules and regulations intended to keep the drivers safe were overwhelming.
Car racing wasn’t bungee jumping, but she’d always dumped them in the same category. Reckless. Pointless. Stupid.
The articles she’d read about Toby from Business Week to ESPN had all been complimentary. They’d praised his driving skill, his coolheadedness, his business acumen and his determination to make his organization one of the best. In fact, one of the magazines had proclaimed Haynes Racing Inc. a rising star among NASCAR’s top dynasties.
Was she wrong about Toby? She suspected she might be. Without a doubt he had an ego, but it looked as though he’d earned the right to be proud. And maybe she had been prejudiced.
Was she also wrong about her father?
As a child, she’d only heard her mother’s side of the story. The slurs had only increased in frequency and viciousness after her father’s accident. These days Amelia tuned out the words when the tone turned ugly. But until Toby had pointed it out, she had never considered the financial side. Her father had planned ahead and he had provided for them. If not for his pneumonia and long hospital stay, they would have managed without her grandparents’ assistance—not that she’d ever wish Gran and Pops out of her life. She adored them both, and if not for them holding the fort, Amelia couldn’t be in Monaco.
People who lived for the moment didn’t plan ahead. They acted impulsively, foolishly and without thought for others. Despite his risky job, her father didn’t fit that description.
Neither did Toby.
Or was she just fooling herself? Had sexual attraction impaired her ability to think logically?
She studied Toby in the darkness of the limo. Each flicker of light from passing cars and buildings accentuated the tired lines on his face. He looked softer somehow and more boyish without the playboy facade or the competitive edge sharpening his square jaw and prominent cheekbones.
Struggling with the need to trace the shadowy smudges beneath his eyes, she tightened her fingers around his where he’d linked their hands and rested them on his thigh and shifted her gaze to the designer boutiques, sidewalk cafés and posh hotels outside the windows.
Of the trio of her, Candace and Madeline, Amelia had always considered herself the together one. She was the one who knew where she was going and had a plan to get there. Or so she’d thought. She had a job she loved, a comfortable home and great friends. Before Monaco, she’d been convinced the only thing keeping her life from being perfect was the right man to share it with.
How could she have been so wrong? A man wouldn’t fix what ailed her. She needed to work on herself. And why had it taken Toby and a trip abroad to show her the error of her ways? She’d learned more about herself in the past two weeks than she had in the previous twenty-seven years.
She’d been sabotaging her search for Mr. Right, emulating her mother’s martyrdom and harboring a secret resentment toward her father for an accident that probably hadn’t been his fault. She was a psychiatrist’s dream patient. He’d hear her pathetic tale and see the dollar signs years of therapy would generate.
The question was, where did she go from here?
Amelia didn’t have the answer when the limo stopped at the hotel entrance. She braced herself for another dose of Toby’s magnetism and then gently shook him. “Toby, we’re here.”
He jerked upright, blinked and then his eyes zeroed in on hers. How could he look alert so quickly? “Sorry. Too many twenty-hour days.”
“That’s not good for you—especially with a concussion.”
“Did I ever tell you your nurse voice turns me on?”
Heat seeped through her veins like an IV narcotic, leaving her flushed and dizzy. Luckily Louis opened the door at that moment, giving her a few minutes to recover.
Toby helped her from the car. “Night, Louis.”
“Good night, sir.” He nodded. “Mademoiselle.”
“Good night, Louis,” she replied as Toby’s arm looped around her waist. He led her into the hotel and straight to the elevator. For some foolish reason Amelia’s muscles tightened with nervousness. “Should I congratulate you on your team’s performance last weekend?”
He turned sharply. “You watched?”
“Yes. And the race shows afterward, too.” Her stomach burned and churned. “I saw you on the pit box. You’re quite popular with female fans.”
The brass doors opened. The hand at her waist urged her into the cubicle. Toby leaned a shoulder against the wall and appraised her. “Jealous?”
Yes. She focused on the seam between the doors. “I would like to think for safety’s sake that we are exclusive during this…affair.”
He caught her chin and forced her to look at him. His eyes were direct and sincere. “I barely slept while I was gone. When I did, I slept alone.”
She shouldn’t feel relieved and hated that she did. If he’d tomcatted around, she’d have the perfect excuse to end this before it was too late. “I couldn’t blame you if you did. Those women are beautiful, built like Barbie dolls and—”
“Easy.”
She frowned. “Are you saying I’m not? Because I fell into bed with you faster than I ever have with anyone before. Then and now.”
He laughed. “Sugar, you wear me out with all the chasing. But that’s okay. I like chasing you. Great view.”
He accompanied his words by patting and then caressing her bottom. Her internal muscles squeezed. Backing her against the wall, he lowered his head. Shamelessly eager for his kiss, Amelia lifted her chin. His breath swept her lips and her knees weakened.
The elevator opened with a ding. Toby withdrew, leaving her unsatisfied. He linked his fingers through hers and towed her down the hall to his suite. There was no question where she’d spend the night and she didn’t play coy. For better or worse, she wanted this, wanted him.
She stepped inside and stopped abruptly. Two lamps lit the sitting area and a torchière illuminated the space in front of the windows where the dining room table used to be. “What is that?”
He banded his arms around her from behind, sandwiching her between the warmth of his hands on her belly and the press of his lean body blanketing her back. His lips grazed her bare throat, making her hot and trembly. “Ping-Pong table.”
“I can see that. But why do you have one in your suite?” She gasped as he nipped her earlobe. His hands rose at a snail’s pace to finally cover her br**sts. For a man whose claim to fame lay in speed, he could be incredibly, torturously slow at times.
“We’re going into training tomorrow. But tonight we’re gonna make up for lost time.”
The latter statement made her heart stutter, but she focused on the former. “What kind of training?”
“Eye-hand. Reflexes. Reaction times. Endurance.” He shifted his hips, and the hard length of his erection pressed the small of her back. “Ever play video games?”
“Um…no.”
“I’ll teach you. Loser plays nak*d.”
“I don’t think so.”
He had no problem with eye-hand coordination, if the thumbs simultaneously circling her br**sts were any indication. And endurance…Her train of thought jumped the track as he pinched and rolled her n**ples through her gown. Oh, yeah. Endurance had never been an issue either.
Desire knotted inside her. It wasn’t fair that Toby could make her ache when the two men she’d loved enough for intimacy hadn’t even scratched the surface.
He nudged her forward with a bump of his hips. They crossed the room and stopped with the side of the green table pressing inches below her mound. Toby released her without stepping away. The air shifted as he moved behind her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his tux jacket hit the floor. His shirt followed. And then he unzipped her dress. His warm, slightly rough hands brushed her shoulders, sweeping the spaghetti straps down her arms until the yellow fabric pooled on the table. The cut of the dress hadn’t allowed for a bra.
He sucked a sharp breath and ran a finger under the elastic of her plain white cotton panties. “These are so damned sexy.”
He had to be joking. She wanted to turn and look in his eyes, but Toby held her captive between his h*ps and the table. “Don’t most men prefer Victoria’s Secret thongs or something sheer?”
His bare chest scorched her back and his hands recaptured her br**sts. He caressed, plucked the tight tips and licked, sucked and nibbled her neck for excruciating moments before answering, “I’m not most men. I like these—” he snapped the elastic, and the slight sting below her navel was about the most erotic thing Amelia had ever experienced “—because they’re straitlaced. When I get you between the sheets, you’re anything but. You burn me up.”
Had it not been for the table digging into the tops of her thighs, she might have collapsed. Leaning forward, she flattened her palms on the cool table to keep herself upright.
“Got a problem with that?” He pushed her panties past her hips, bunching them with her gown at table height. Slipping his fingers into the cleft of her body, he found her wetness. His growl vibrated against her nape and down her spine.
“No,” she whispered. Desire arrowed straight to her core as he caressed her. Her fingers and toes contracted. She was incredibly close to cli**x and he hadn’t even kissed her mouth yet.
She tensed, trying to maintain control, and he bit her neck, not hard enough to leave a mark but enough to make her drop her guard.
“Let go for me, Amelia,” he ordered.
One hand teased her breast. The other delved through her damp curls with devastating, unrelenting accuracy. His teeth grazed a trail along her neck and shoulder as he relentlessly rushed her over the edge. She shuddered in his arms as release racked her far too quickly.