Crossing the Line (Hard Driving) by Audra North Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. That if he wanted to talk to her off the record, seeing as she was the only female reporter on the circuit, they’d need to meet where there was no chance of being seen.
    Surely he’d understand. And if he didn’t, she’d simply say no to seeing him outside of the races and go back to her normal life, which involved exactly zero hot men with liquid brown eyes. She’d have to figure out what to tell Alex if it came down to that, but she’d cross that bridge when she got there.
    The plane landed and she quickly shot the story over to Alex, who immediately replied that he’d look it over and,
if it was any good
, he’d post it right away. Not
Thanks for getting this in so quickly.
    But what had she expected? Alex wasn’t exactly a model of decency.
    He’d actually told her to sleep with Ty if it helped their cause. She’d been offended and he’d just laughed, all nasty and insinuating.
    It didn’t help that now she really did want
to sleep with Ty.
    But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
    Keep this under control.
    What a difference between a man like Alex and one like Ty. The way he’d cheered her accomplishments in journalism, barely even knowing who she was, had been a breath of fresh air. It had made her feel proud and inspired about her job for the first time in months.
    Of course, she’d probably be inspired if he so much as looked at her the way he’d been doing earlier today, with their knees touching and the big bed behind them and . . .
    Jeez
. She really needed to stop thinking about him like that.
    By the time she’d driven the forty-five minutes back to her tiny suburban home—the only place where she could afford rent on her sad salary—she was exhausted.
    She dragged herself into the bathroom and brushed her teeth, then fell into bed and dreamt of Ty’s hand in hers . . . his hand on her body . . . everywhere.
Everywhere.
And by the time she woke up the next morning, she was shaking with need. She hoped he wasn’t an early caller, because if he rang her up just then, she’d probably have an orgasm as soon as he said hello.
    As it was, she lingered a few more minutes in bed, bringing herself to climax with her hand, shrieking Ty’s name when she came and feeling hotly embarrassed about it afterward, even though it wasn’t as though anyone had heard her.
    Nothing like having intense sex fantasies about a guy you can never actually have sex with.
    She headed in to the office, parking in the employee lot where the
Gold Cup
offices were located. Now that she was back at work, she was starting to get excited, wondering whether her article would get any traction.
    Putting aside the exposé, what she had written about the
race
—about Ty—was good. She was even willing to say it was
really
good, even though she wouldn’t admit that to anyone else. It sounded too conceited.
    But . . . huh. Wait a second.
    What if she pulled in a decent number of hits on the story? That was another way to get revenue. The more hits, the better. It was how
most
places—reputable places—got advertisers and stayed in business.
    Maybe, if her work did okay, then they wouldn’t need this shady investor or the exposé, and Alex would let her off the hook. Then she could take things with Ty wherever he wanted them to go . . .
    The possibility buoyed her steps and had her walking cheerfully into the building.
    But when she stepped out of the elevator and walked through the office doors, Alex immediately spotted her from his desk . . . and he didn’t look happy.
    “Bellowes! Get in here!”
    Oh no. Oh no.
What had she done wrong? She knew her piece was different; she’d married stats with human interest and thrown in a few predictions of her own. But she’d thought she’d done it in a good way.
    She hadn’t considered that it might be different enough to piss off Alex. Maybe even get her fired. Then this whole thing would have been for naught. Not that she knew for sure that