Full Throttle (6 page)

What the fuck did she want?
And on
the eve of their almost wedding?

“What?” he snapped, a second after he put the phone
to his ear, still frustrated by what happened, or didn’t happen, between him
and Sammy, and half enraged by the cheek of the bitch on the phone. She hadn’t
rang
him for months, so what the fuck was she doing?

“Uh, hi.
It’s
Penny.” Her sultry, skin-chillingly taunting voice flowed into his ear and felt
like an eerie mist of cold.

“I know who it is. What do you want?” He snapped
again, wanting her to get to the point.
Why
did I pick up the phone?

“Well, that’s not exactly friendly,
Josh .”
She admonished him, in her, some would say, sexy
voice. A year ago, he would have said she had a voice to tempt a man to do
anything, a voice that could make a man cum in his jeans. Now, he would say she
had a witchy voice, a voice that made his skin crawl. He thought again of
Sammy, and he remembered her sweet, quiet voice. Josh turned and glanced at the
hotel room door again.

I
should go to her
.

“What do you want?” he asked again, not wanting to enter
whatever game Penny wanted to play. Irritation ran rife through his chest, and
his breaths came out in huffs.

“Well, if you are not going to be nice, I suppose I’ll
just get to the point.”

“That would be good.” He half-listened, half-wondered
what he should do about Sammy, and what she had said about not normally bedding
strange men. She had been honest even in her embarrassment, and he obviously hadn’t
given her the answer she needed, or she wouldn’t have bolted like a frightened
cat. It didn’t sit well with him that she left, and the feeling of regret
burned inside his mind, making him want to vault up the stairs and knock on her
door.

“I miss you.”

Those words yanked him out of his thoughts, and his
attention came right back to the phone and Penny.

“What?” he said, disbelieving he heard right.

“Don’t sound so surprised. I miss you.”

Josh could imagine that she rolled her eyes at him.
She had done that a lot. She always mocked him and his thoughts, picked at faults
in his ideas and plans. And when she believed that he was wrong, which was
pretty much all the time, she rolled her eyes, patted him on the arm, and shook
her head.
Fucking bitch.

“Right.
And
your point is?” he asked, actually enjoying the feeling of giving some back.
Bloody bitch, ringing him out of the blue.
Did she expect
him to fall at her feet?
To rush to her open-armed, and
declare his undying love?
Pfft. No way. Maybe three months ago, before
he’d set up his new company, before he’d managed to scrape together a meager
amount of self-respect, the very same self-respect that she eroded with her
caustic personality.
But not now.
Not ever again.

“What is up with you? Are you drunk?
Or on something?”
Her exasperation came through the phone.

Josh shook his head and pinched the top of his nose
in refrained frustration. When had he
ever
been on something in his life?
Never.
The woman didn’t
know him, hadn’t known him in all the time they’d been together and Josh couldn’t
help but feel relief at being free.

And it was relief he felt, which was new.

Josh laughed and shook his head, already bored with
talking to her. “So, for me to no longer be interested in you, I have to be
either stoned or drunk? Is that right?”

“What? Josh, I just rang to tell you something nice.
I am lonely, and you are tearing a piece off me?”

Oh
here comes the guilt trip.
Josh was the one to roll his eyes this
time.

“Don’t start, Penny. You rang me because you
probably got dumped lately, and you can’t stand to be single, and for some
reason you dialed my number. It’s that simple.”

He let the boredom and indifference sit in his tone
as he waited for her reply. God, this felt good. There wasn’t even a small part
of him that wanted to get on his bike to go to her.

“I called because I genuinely missed you.” Oh, yeah,
she sounded pissed off now. “And all you can do is
kick
me while I’m down.” Her voice had gone all screechy and Josh held the receiver
away for a moment, expecting her to continue in her usual nagging way.

God,
how I hate her.

“Ok, so if we are done?” he added over her speech
and almost laughed when she gasped with anger. Man, if he knew that turning
Penny down would feel this
good,
he would have found a
way to do this sooner. She’d left him a few days before their wedding, telling
him how useless he was, and reminding him of his lack of value after losing his
job. She’d been a viper, a cold-hearted bitch, and she deserved all she got.

“Have you got someone else?” She asked, clearly
realizing that Josh just was not interested.

He looked at the door, his mind passed over Sammy, her
timid smile and shy eyes, and his heart gave a pulse beat of excitement. Maybe…
If he could get her to relax with him, if he could just get her to look at him.
Josh realized in that moment that he’d had enough of women like Penny, women
who use and take what they want from life, fuck the repercussions. He’d had
enough of soul-steeling
bitches,
it was time to start
finding real women, women with hearts. He lifted his eyes and imagined Sammy
above him in her room. Now there was a woman with a soul. It was in her pretty
eyes, in her voice, and in her laugh.

Yep, Penny couldn’t have
rang
at a better time to show him what he really wanted from life, and that it
wasn’t her. She might have been good—great—in the sac, but that was it.

“No, Penny.
I
just don’t know why you rang, and I am too tired to talk to you and try to work
out what game you are playing.”

“You make me sound like a bitch.” Josh heard her
snort a laugh as if the whole idea were ridiculous.

“If the shoe fits…” he muttered.

“Josh! You were the one person I thought I could
count on not to treat me like shit. The one person who I respect, and when I
call you in my hour of need—”

Oh,
please.

“I expected you to listen.”

Josh took in a deep breath and thought for a moment.
All those months, he’d sat by his phone, not allowing it to run out of charge,
just so he wouldn’t miss her call. So many nights he’d gone out and got drunk,
just to numb the deep tear in his chest. The pain of her rejection had been so
acute, he’d been sure sometimes that he could just die from it. The way she just
cut him down so coldly had not only injured his pride, he felt the freezing
effects seep all the way into his very soul, all the way into his very being.
So, the fact that her phone call didn’t make him feel pain, and the need to run
to her, was a good thing. There was no way he was going to allow her to get
under his skin again.

In the last six months he’d picked himself up,
dusted off. He’d set up his own business and was now happy. Better than ever.

“I’m sorry, Penny. But I have moved on. I think that
you should do the same.” He had to bite back the laugh that almost escaped at
quoting her words back to her. The night she told him that, three weeks after she
broke it off, he had just found out that she’d already began a new
relationship.

“Josh—”

“See you around, Penny.”
Or not.
Oh, he hoped not. Josh hung up the phone and tossed it onto the
bed,
he ran his hands through his hair and took a cleansing
breath. He walked to the window and spied his bike, and a slow grin tracked
across his mouth. He loved his
bike,
he loved the way
riding made him feel. And he most certainly loved the freedom it brought to
him. His eyes passed over the little Ducati next to his, and he wondered how he
would get the timid Sammy to open up? It was strange. He had spoken to Penny
for the first time in months, and all he could think about was Sammy, and how
much he would like to get to know her.

Still
could punch my sneaky ass brother for setting me up!

Chapter
Six

“Okay, take deep breaths,” Sammy told herself as she
shouldered her back pack and zipped up her leather bike jacket. Why was this so
hard? Last night Sammy had barely slept as the embarrassment of her behavior
settled in her stomach like a brick, making her feel sick. What had she been
thinking to imagine that she could go to bed with someone as nice—and freaking
hot—as Josh? The man was
all
man. He
was a prime rib steak, and she was probably a dry piece of turkey.

When she had pulled back and began stuttering about
not being that kind of girl... Ugh, the mortification. He’d thought that she
was going to tell him that she was a virgin. Had she looked that scared?

“Pathetic loser.”
Sammy banged her head lightly on the wall beside the door and closed her eyes.
Shame tingled behind her eyes and the nerves shivered through her fingers in an
unsettling tremble at the knowledge that she was going to have to face him
again. Talk to him again!

Next
time you do something as supremely stupid as
this,
make
sure you don’t have to see him afterwards.
Rachel’s words
from the frantic phone call Sammy placed last night from under her
duvet,
flew through her mind.
Next time?
There will never be a next time. This was far too much to deal with, thank you
very much.

Sammy had to accept
it,
she
was not plucky enough to live the life she dreamed. A life where she laughed
loudly, lived without boundaries, and had great sex. Damn her parents and their
suffocating ways.

But she supposed that one day her parents wouldn’t
be to blame. This was just Sammy now, and it was Sammy who put a stop to last
night, not her father.

She dragged open the door with an aggravated growl,
and nearly died on the spot.

Josh stood outside her door, his hand raised as if
to knock, staring at her with surprise. “You ok, Sammy?”

Oh,
dear god, did I just growl in his face?

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine, just rushing around.” She
quickly looked down and pretended to check her zips when she realized that he
was watching her with those dark, sexy, mysterious eyes again. Gosh, his look
alone had the power to floor her.

“So, I just wanted to check that you were ok.” His
deep voice was hushed, but it still vibrated through her entire body. Sammy
swallowed past her dry throat.

“Yeah.
I am
sorry I...” She glanced up and her heart punched a beat. He was watching her
with concern in his expression, his dark brows pulled close together, and Sammy
knew that being nonchalant wasn’t going to work. “Look. I had a few pints and I—well,
I am sorry I led you on.”

He grinned and Sammy noticed his perfectly white,
perfectly straight teeth, and she remembered with a jolt how wonderful his
mouth tasted on her tongue.

So
good
.

“You didn’t lead me on.” He said through that grin,
and then he turned and walked into the hallway. “
You coming
for breakfast?” He called behind him, his dark hair falling over his eyes as he
descended the stairs.

What
did he mean, she didn’t lead him on?
The question
was on the tip of her tongue when Bev and Reg came out of the room next to hers
and said good morning.

Sammy watched as Bev looked at Josh, seemingly
leaving Sammy’s room, and then back at Sammy. Bev gave Sammy a saucy wink.

“Uh
,” No, it’s
not what you think,
she wanted to say. Her heart throbbed in her chest, and
her cheeks burned with embarrassment. Bev and Reg followed Josh down the stairs
and Sammy closed her room door and fell against it. In the matter of twelve
hours, Sammy had gotten drunk, kissed the hottest guy ever, fallen chicken to
nerves, and ran out before she was probably going to have the best sex she
could imagine. And then Bev and Reg had seen the pair at her room door at—she
checked her watch—8a.m., and assumed he’d stayed the night.

So avoiding Josh and hanging around with Bev and Reg
was no longer an option. The pair
were
lovely, but
Sammy could tell that Bev was the sort to pry.
Which was
precisely the last thing Sammy wanted.

Seriously!
Why is this happening to me?

****

After they all ate a hefty breakfast of bacon, eggs,
toast and basically everything the cook offered, they got on their bikes and
began their long day of riding. Josh once again couldn’t tear his eyes from the
petite woman on the sexy little Ducati.