“It’s a Lotus, Lexi.”
“Yeah, but where’s the rest of it?”
“Get in the car.” Vincent held the door open for her and pointed to the seat. “Does it run on triple A batteries?” Lexi snickered as he closed her door with a little more force than necessary.
He slid gracefully into his seat, the engine roaring to life with the turn of his key. He turned to her, his sunglasses in place, and revved the engine. Over the thundering noise he shouted, “No batteries, honey. It’s all about power.” Even though the man was sexy as hell as he pulled out of the parking garage and onto the city streets, Lexi managed to keep her cool, refusing to stroke his ego where his car was concerned.
“Power shmower. Can you drive this thing or what? There’s nothing worse than a guy with a fast car who can’t drive it properly.” She raised a challenging eyebrow in response to his incredulous glare.
“Hold on.” He threw the car into gear, and they went screaming down the street.
Lexi tried not to focus on the way the muscles of his forearm clenched and coiled as he shifted gears. She tried to ignore the way he licked his lips and smiled as he whizzed past car after car. And more than anything, she tried to ignore the way his hips rocked slightly as he pumped the clutch in and out. There was no reason to dwell on the sensual confidence with which he drove the city streets, changing lanes and fluidly gliding along the road. Nothing good could come from fantasizing about those things, but the adrenaline rush as they whipped along the street made Lexi’s body ache in a delicious way that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Unconsciously, Lexi fanned her hand in front of her face, trying to cool the flames that engulfed her body. Vincent, of course, noticed. “Are you hot? Do you want me to turn up the air conditioning?”
“No, no, I’m good,” Lexi said, blushing. She took a few deep, calming breaths as she watched the buildings fly past the window. She maintained control until she felt a warm hand gently graze her thigh.
“Still think it’s tiny?”
Before she could stop the words from flying from her mouth, she said, “I’m quite certain nothing of yours is tiny, Vincent.” Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “I said that out loud, didn’t I.”
Vincent laughed. “Yes, you did.”
“Sleep deprivation, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.” She sighed in relief and pointed out her window. “Oh look, there’s my place. Pull over here.” The car had barely stopped before Lexi leaped out and made a run for her door, desperate to put some distance between her and Vincent, but he jumped out and called after her.
“I’ll be back in,” he glanced at his watch, “an hour? Be ready when I get here.” She stayed on the sidewalk and gave a tiny wave as the car peeled out of the parking space. In a matter of seconds it disappeared down the street and out of view. Lexi shook her head, trying to clear out the very dangerous thoughts that rolled around in there. For the sake of her heart, she had to purge her erotic fantasies about Vincent. She leaned her head back as she rode the elevator to her floor, mentally trying to plan out her wardrobe for the presentation so she could save time after she jumped out of the shower. When she got to her apartment, she found a note taped just under the peephole.
Lexi, You are in so much t rouble with me. Get over to my place as soon as you read this. Hope “Ugh.” Lexi didn’t have time to deal with a tantruming Hope. She had just under an hour to get ready and clean her apartment before Vincent returned, and she couldn’t be late. Carefully turning the knob, Lexi tried to silently slip into her apartment unnoticed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Hope’s eagle eyes peeked out of her apartment door. “You weren’t going to blow me off again and sneak
inside, were you?”
“Hope, I have to leave for the Stone presentation with Vincent in an hour, so I don’t have time.”
“Oh, you have plenty of time.” Hope linked her arm with her friend’s and guided her into her apartment. “So Vincent’s coming over? I assume he dropped you off, and going by your clothes, it looks like you two crazy kids spent the whole night together.”
Lexi unhooked her arm from Hope and began putting the couple of dishes that were in the sink into the dishwasher. “We were working, Hope. I told you.”
“No, you didn’t tell me anything. The Neanderthal you sent downstairs to take me to dinner told me.”
“I worked all night and then fell asleep on a couch. Boring. How was your evening with Sean? You’re being very quiet about things, and I didn’t even get an angry text from you.”
Hope’s mouth fell open. “Didn’t get a text? Are you serious? Did you lose your phone or something? I texted you about twenty times!”
Confused, Lexi rummaged to the bottom of her purse where she found her BlackBerry. Twenty-one missed calls. Eighteen were from Hope and three were from Sean. She remembered that after she got Hope’s text, she had set the phone to vibrate and tossed it into her bag. It must have fallen to the bottom, and with her hectic night, she completely forgot about it.
“Hope, I’m so sorr—”
“Save it. The night was … well, it wasn’t a total bust.”
Lexi laughed. “I’d say so after this ‘OMG he’s so flippin’ hot!’ text you sent at nine-oh-nine p.m.”
“That wasn’t from me. He stole the phone for a minute.”
“M-hmm.” Lexi scrolled through a few more explicit texts and snickered.
“Oh, give that to me. I was drinking last night. Half of those comments were made under the influence.”
“Hey, I was just getting to the good ones about Sean’s lips wrapped around an olive!” Lexi pouted.
“Okay, okay. I admit it! The guy is incredibly sexy and charming, and he makes me all hot and bothered when he calls me ‘babe.’ There, I admitted it. But he’s still a pig and a jerk, and he’s going to need to work on that before he gets to put his hands on this.” Hope gestured her hands down her curvaceous body.
“Fair enough.” Lexi hopped off the stool she had been sitting on and waved her friend into her room. “I have to get in the shower, but come tell me about your night.”
While Lexi showered, Hope filled her in on all the details of her night with Sean. Lexi was impressed. It sounded like he had behaved like a perfect gentleman, although he had definitely turned on the charm. Hope had put on a brave face with him so he wouldn’t know that his words and actions turned her insides to mush.