Getting women was never a problem when you were a driver, and he’d done his fair share of sucking up the attention. But Elec had never been one for a string of meaningless hookups with women he had nothing in common with, even when he’d tried to convince himself he was.
It had occurred to Elec not too far into his career that he was plain old over busty bleach blondes with half a brain throwing themselves at him on a regular basis. They made him uncomfortable, feeling like a notch in their proverbial bedpost. Item ten on their life list: Nail a race car driver.
That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a woman he could talk to.
A woman like Tamara Briggs.
Yet he had spent years actually avoiding dating anyone like her because the bottom line was that women like Tamara wanted children, and he couldn’t have any. He was shooting blanks, and nothing short of a miracle was going to change that. Aside from his own personal disappointment that he’d never be a daddy, he had steered clear of maternal types.
Why fall in love with someone only to tell her the truth and have her dump his ass in pursuit of a man who could give her babies? It didn’t sound like a good time to Elec. So he’d dated women like Crystal, his latest failed attempt at companionship, who was more interested in the limelight than him, and he’d been left feeling like there wasn’t ever going to be the right relationship for him.
But Tamara Briggs was very, very tempting. And she had children already, he was fairly certain. That had to count for something.
“You caught me. I do remember your name. And just so you know, I’ll answer to anything but Junior.”
“Why? Because it makes you feel like you’re in your father’s shadow?”
“No. It’s because I’m not a Junior.”
Tamara laughed, a soft, throaty laugh that spiked his desire up yet another notch. He wouldn’t have thought it was even possible to be so turned on just sitting fully dressed in the back of a cab, but life took unexpected turns, and this was new knowledge he was happy to have.
“Oh. Well, alright then.” She gave him another side smile. “That makes total sense.”
“I’m sorry you lost your purse,” Elec added. “I hope it turns up.”
“Me, too. I don’t even know what I did with it, and that’s driving me crazy. I never lose things. Never.” She waved her hand in the air. “God, this weekend has been a total disaster.
Maybe I should have just stayed home.”
That would have been seriously unfortunate because then Elec wouldn’t have been treated to the view of her long legs or her luscious lips, and that would have truly been a damn shame. “Why? What else has gone wrong?”
She shot him a sheepish look. “I brought a man I’ve been seeing with me.”
Elec felt a serious kick of disappointment. She was dating someone? That was just all sorts of wrong. “So where is he tonight? Why isn’t he taking you home?” And could Elec pay him off to get rid of him?
“I broke up with him.”
Thank the Lord. Now he didn’t have to worry about stealing the poor sap’s woman, because he was fairly certain he was going to take a crack at it, morally wrong or not.
“There just wasn’t any . . .” She cleared her throat. “He’s very nice, but there was no . . .
between us, you know. Do you know what I’m saying?”
“You mean no sexual attraction?” he asked, not sure why she wasn’t just saying that outright. It happened all the time. That’s what friendship was for. Sometimes you just didn’t feel any sort of physical connection with someone of the opposite sex.
She nodded rapidly. “Exactly. Only, I feel like I led him on by inviting him for this weekend.” She turned more fully to him, uncrossing her legs and drawing them up onto the seat in a way that created a tunnel between her dress and her inner thighs. “The thing is, I haven’t dated at all since my husband was killed.”
Distracted by the fact that he could almost see up her skirt—almost, but not quite—which was teasing him something terrible, Elec was having a little trouble concentrating on her words. He forced himself to drag his gaze away from those legs and look up at her face.
Focus. Form words. He could do that. “Well, that’s understandable. It hasn’t been all that long, has it? Two seasons ago, right? You don’t get over something like that in the blink of an eye.”
Hell, how did a wife ever get over losing her husband in a wreck? He wasn’t sure.
“Thanks for saying that.” Her hand came out and softly touched his knee before pulling back. “And I’ve been busy raising my kids, juggling my career. This was the first guy I’ve gone out with and I thought I could make myself like him since he’s nice and safe and stable. Tonight I figured out I can’t do that.”
Elec wanted to touch Tamara back, to stroke his own hand over her bare knee, or slide his fingers into her thick hair, but he restrained himself. “No. You can’t force yourself to feel attracted to someone.” He’d learned that with the bimbo brigade. Just because a woman looked good on his arm before a big race didn’t make up for the awkward silences, or worse, the mindless chatter she threw at him until all he wanted was a remote control to turn her volume down.
“No. You can’t.” She gave a soft laugh and pressed fingers to her temples. “God, I have no idea why I’m telling you all this. You’re probably regretting getting saddled with me. I’m babbling.”
“Obviously you needed someone to talk to, and sometimes a person you don’t know is the best bet. You feel like they have no bias on whatever you’re saying.” He gave her a smile.
“And I’ve been told I have one of those faces. People like to tell me things.” Sometimes things he could do without, frankly, like the bank teller’s description of her hysterectomy.
“You do have one of those faces,” she said softly. “Like you’re actually listening, not just looking for an opening to turn the subject back to you.”
The look on her face led him to believe she’d known a lot of men like that. He shrugged. “I like listening to people talk. Most people are fascinating. And I’m not all that comfortable in the limelight, anyway.” Which had been a major setback in his career, something he fought against every day. “My mother used to call me Elec the Eyeball, because I was always sitting and watching. Staring, I guess.” He grinned. “Not really a flattering nickname, but I actually think she appreciated me being a quiet kid, and meant it in an affectionate way. My brother and sister were kind of loud.” In the way that the roar of forty-three cars circling the short track at Bristol was kind of loud.