Plus, if everything went according to plan, she was going to get laid this weekend.
This trip was the single most exciting thing to happen to her in a long time.
Chapter Two
If Sean had put himself in a dumber situation in his life, he was hard pressed to remember it.
Driving to Louisville with Katie Clark was beyond dumb. It was such a bad idea, it deserved its own category.
Lost Causes Sean’s Dick Talked Him Into, maybe.
They hit a light, and Katie squeezed the phone between her shoulder and ear so she could downshift and steer at the same time. She’d given up on the speakerphone when Ellen’s call came in. Probably wanted to avoid further embarrassment.
She changed lanes rapidly without signaling, laughing at something Ellen said on the other end.
“I did not say that. Huh? Oh yeah.” She glanced over at him, her brown eyes dancing with amusement. “It’s been a lot longer than that. Nope. Uh, no. I’m just saying—Yeah, well, long enough that I’m hoping everything still works.”
She listened, then laughed.
She put her foot to the accelerator and ran her car right up the ass of a Ford pickup that was going too slow for her taste.
It would be a miracle if they made it to the job in one piece—a fact that only served to highlight the idiocy of his presence in the car. He was escorting Katie Clark to Louisville so she could have sex with another guy. Why not just cut off his balls and hand them to her?
Of course, he wouldn’t be able to tell her what he’d done or why, since he couldn’t fucking talk around Katie. He’d have to convey the message telepathically. You might as well take these. I’m not using them anyway.
Sean swallowed a laugh and looked out the side window. They were inside the clogged interstate perimeter of the city now, the traffic heavier and the scenery more obviously urban after hundreds of miles of rolling fields covered in a blanket of dingy snow.
His own phone buzzed in his jacket pocket, a nagging reminder of other claims on his attention. His best friend and business partner, Mike Anderson, had been trying to call him all morning. Something was going down in California. That, or Mike was panicking for no reason. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Sean’s fingers itched to whip out the phone and tap a quick message to Mike. Fuck off, I’m on leave.
It would probably do the trick, but on the whole, he preferred to know what was going on in San Jose. Just because he’d relinquished control of the company seven months ago didn’t mean he’d fallen out of the loop.
Besides, he liked fixing problems. Bring him a problem, and Sean solved it. It was the way he was wired.
Katie was the exception—a problem he could neither solve nor enjoy.
He’d been studying her for almost four hours, trying to compile a list of everything that was wrong with her so he could use it as a weapon against the way she made him feel.
Unwillingly compelled. Trapped.
He’d climbed into her car this morning intending to crack her open like new code. No matter how well it was written, he could always find a hack. Finding the perfect hack had been his obsession once. He’d built his whole career on it.
But after a few minutes in her tiny Volkswagen, all he’d been able to think about was the way she smelled.
In high school, she’d come to class in a cloud of watermelon Jolly Ranchers and whatever lip balm she was wearing that day—root beer, cherry, wintergreen. Grown-up Katie still had a thing for lip balm. Today she wore something minty, and it mixed with another scent from her hair or her skin that reminded him of fresh grass and lemons and filled the whole car, making it impossible for him to keep a clear head.
Four hours wasted reminding himself that there was nothing wrong with that straight, shiny black hair skimming her shoulders and moving like water when she turned. Nothing wrong with those warm, lively brown eyes or her olive skin. And her body … she had slim hips and small breasts, and she shouldn’t have caught his attention every time she moved, but damn it, she did.
Katie wasn’t stunning. She wasn’t even beautiful. She was cute in an ordinary sort of way, but she got to him. She had this energy, this bright, shiny presence that drew him in.
Katie Clark made him weak. He almost hated her for that.
Sean pointed to the right, signaling that she should take the exit for Bardstown Road up ahead. Katie was too busy riding the brake pedal to notice. Sean waited for the car that had been tailgating them for half a mile to slam into the rear bumper, but the crash didn’t come.
She laughed again. “You’re just jealous,” she said. “What? No way. He’s too hot to be disappointing. He’s going to be—”
Sean plucked the phone out of her hand and disconnected the call.