Dirty Ties

Her arms came around my back, and we stood there, bodies entangled, my bloody hand hanging at my side, and shared a moment of relief. Slowly, our muscles loosened, our breathing evened out, and the thump of our hearts swallowed all sound.

Too soon, she leaned back, and her stubborn chin pointed at the clock on the wall. “We have two hours to clean this up and get our asses to the race.”

“Kaci,” Collin and I said at the same time. Trent was no longer a threat. We didn’t have to race. “You and Collin can take over Trenchant and keep your careers, live a lawful life that’s not on the run.”

“No. Collin can keep his career.” Her eyes flickered with fire. “And he needs this win, this money to fight our parents after he turns them in.”

I glanced at the gore on my hand, at the bodies bleeding out on the floor, and looked to Collin.

He stared at his shoes, his face smeared red. “Once our parents are found guilty, all control and voting rights within Trenchant will be passed to me. I may or may not keep the company, but I want to be the one to make that decision.”

Kaci nodded, and I touched a knuckle beneath her chin. “I want to strangle you for slipping off that elevator.”

“No, you don’t.”

I shook my head. “You don’t want to run Trenchant?”

Her jaw tensed beneath my touch. “I want you.”

Three words, and she owned me. Hell, she owned me the first time I saw her at the finish line.

She placed her fingers on my face. “We’re so close, Logan. The fourth option. You and me.”

Reckless, maddening, perfect woman. A sigh pushed past my lips. “There’s an incinerator in the basement. Let’s start there.”

An hour later, the bodies were burned to ash. We’d taken turns in the shower, and Kaci and Collin sat side-by-side on the couch, deep in conversation.

I stood in the kitchen, gulping coffee and psyching myself up for the final lap. But I couldn’t shake the atrocities of the night. Collin’s near-death by a father who wasn’t his father. The dragging of bodies to the basement. The smell of cooked flesh. The mopping up of so much blood. I was fucking tired, and I hadn’t even begun to think about all the shit with my mother and her sister.

Yet as I listened to Kaci and Collin’s conversation, they spoke only of the future, making plans for Trenchant, his visits to Italy, and his relationship with Seth. It was like a door swinging open, and beyond it waited a stretch of road. One that led forward, toward endless possibilities, toward my future with her.

I dumped the coffee in the sink, gave the old church one final glance. Then I grabbed our helmets and strode to the door. “Ready to race?”

She jumped up, and her smile gave me a bright fucking glimpse of what I was racing toward.

30

Kaci

Three minutes till race time. I was trying to be cool. Laid back. Not freaked out. Cool. Cool. Cool. But the engines of several dozen racing fanatics vibrated the asphalt beneath my boots. Money exchanged hands along the starting line. Cat calls whistled through the air. And every pair of eyes for two blocks strained to get a look at my bike, the chrome-finish on my helmet, and the black racing leathers with the silver-mirrored stripes that I borrowed from Benny.

No one knew that under all this gear, I was a Trenchant executive, Evader’s lover, Collin Anderson’s wife, and that tonight, I’d killed a man. As I waited at the starting line, the MTT Turbine rumbling between my legs, hopefully no one knew I was seconds from puking in my helmet. Definitely not cool.

Beside me, Logan leaned into his forearms on the gas tank of his sleek BMW S1000RR, his boot kicked up on the frame slider, his black helmet cocked toward nothing and everything. Now that was cool.

And sexy. My God, I would never tire of looking at his ass in tight leathers, his muscular legs straddling the black-polished frame and his broad shoulders as wide as the damn handlebars. His body was built for that bike.

Beneath the dim glow of the streetlight, he and the bike were trim, smooth, and mysterious in mold and operation. From a glance, it was difficult to make out where the bike ended and he began. The strong definition of his back through the jacket, the bulge of his biceps stretching the sleeves, the creases of leather that led around his hip to the size and shape of him between his legs.

My body knew every inch of his, and it heated in memory of how passionately his hips moved when aroused, how delicious his lips tasted, and how full I felt when he was inside me.

“You’re staring, baby.” His syrupy voice dripped through the speaker in my helmet. His head was angled away, but I knew he was watching me in the rear camera.