Would it be such a crime to get to know him better, especially since they both must know this would never go beyond a romp?
“Hey, maybe you and I should start over,” she murmured.
“Really?” He appeared both shocked and pleased.
“Well, you must admit, that was a pretty crude come-on you gave me back at the dealership. ‘I love how they grow ’em in Texas.’”
“So you’re not from Texas?” he inquired innocently.
Allison didn’t know whether to be charmed or exasperated. “Stop dodging the question.”
“Then you are from Texas?”
She ground her teeth. “As it happens, I’m from—”
“Dallas, right, angel?”
Allison issued a short laugh. “How did you guess?”
He gave a shrug. “You strike me as one of those snooty, Big D girls.”
“Yeah, and you strike me as a hick from the sticks,” she shot back.
Undaunted, he continued. “Let’s see, I’m betting your parents live in Highland Park, that you made your debut at the Idlewild Ball, then went on to SMU.”
Allison felt all color leave her face. “Actually, it was the Tyler Rose Festival, but… How did you know all that?”
He eyed her cynically. “Honey, I know the type.”
“Ah. Mr. Experience speaks.”
“Yep.” His voice oozed a maddening self-confidence. “I could tell the minute I saw you that you were a Big D girl out on the untamed streets of Houston. And still wet behind your ears as far as our fair metropolis is concerned, aren’t you, darlin’?”
“Don’t call me darlin’.”
“Well?”
She sighed. Buckaroo Babe was proving to be a bit savvier than she’d anticipated. But then he must deal with a wealthy clientele at the dealership. Surely she was not the first former debutante he’d come on to….
Realizing he was patiently awaiting her reply, she cleared her throat. “Actually, I’ve only lived here six months. A job transfer. But two of my sorority sisters also live in Houston, and that helps a lot.”
“So you three gals have trendy lunches at the Galleria while you roast all the men in your lives?”
“How jaded you are.” But Allison blushed as she realized he’d again hit the nail on the head.
“I should take you out and show you some real Houston hospitality,” he continued with relish.
“You mean pit barbecue and line dancing? Even in Dallas we have that.” Feeling a bit guilty for her sharp retort, she added, “However, if you really have fixed my car, I think I’d be willing to buy you dinner.”
He swung a broad grin her way. “Are you trying to pick me up?”
“Are you trying to pick me up?”
He laughed, then gestured at the long line of cars stacked before them. “Tell you what. Looks like gridlock from here to the dealership. Let’s go for a drive on the prairie and test her out.”
Allison gasped in mingled shock and fascination. “Are you joking? Go for a drive with you? You’re a stranger. I don’t even know your full name.”
“Pete Chisholm, ma’am.”
“Pete Chisholm?” She rolled her eyes. “I should have known it. A perfect name for a retro throwback like you. In case you haven’t heard, ‘good old boys’ are a dying breed.”
“Bite your tongue, woman,” he scolded.
“Tell me, are you any relation of—”
“Jesse Chisholm of Chisholm Trail fame?”
“Yes.”
“Nope. None at all. And Jesse’s stomping ground was more Kansas and Oklahoma, as I, er, recollect, ma’am.”
She groaned at his deliberately exaggerated drawl. “Sounds as if you personally knew him.”
“You think I’m that much of a relic?” Leaning toward her, he took her hand and just brushed her fingertips against the leather-sheathed gearshift, in a highly suggestive gesture. Voice going low and sexy, he asked, “Why don’t I show you what this classic chassis can do?”
Allison recoiled as if burned. His touching her hand had been totally unexpected, his trailing her fingers over the gearshift blatantly erotic, dissolving her senses in a hot puddle. By all rights, she knew she should smack him silly and toss his butt out in the streets. The problem was, she was already hooked, and she loved what his audacious words and wicked touch were doing to her.
Nonetheless, she managed to hurl him her sternest look. “Okay, we’ll take a little drive. But make another pass like that one, and I’ll shoot you out of the saddle, Tex.”
He only chuckled, grabbed a CD from her millennium collection and inserted it in the drive. Steppenwolf wailed at them to get their motor running.
Allison’s engine was already in overdrive….
4
“YOU’RE GOING to get us a ticket!” Allison protested.
“If I do, I’ll pay for it,” Pete calmly replied.
They were literally bolting down the tollway toward Highway 290, Steppenwolf screaming in their ears. Allison judged Pete was driving at least eighty-five as he whipped through the rush-hour traffic. Her engine throbbed, roared with energy. Allison had no idea her sedate little sedan was capable of behaving like an Indy 500 racer, any more than she’d known that a sexy urban cowboy could make her own motor thrum this way….
But then, look who was behind the wheel. Sexual power seemed to radiate from Pete as he drove. Allison could see it in the intensity of his expression, the tautness of his muscled body, the strength and purpose of his large hands on the wheel, the gleam of pure animal pleasure in his eyes. He was as revved up as the car.
Oh, to have all that raw lust for life directed toward her!
And wasn’t it? The very question made her go weak.
Reining in her errant thoughts, she managed to say, “Okay, you’ve convinced me you’ve fixed my car.”
Pete zigzagged past two slow-moving vehicles. “That’s not all I want to do.”
“Oh?” She swallowed hard.
“I want you to appreciate her, see what she can do.”
Allison grimaced. “Have you ever been tested for mental illness?”
He chuckled. “I could tell when I was tuning her up today that she was dying for a good, hard ride.”
Suddenly Allison was strangling. Everything Pete said was rife with sexual meaning. And her nerves were hardly soothed by his breakneck driving as he vaulted them onto Highway 290 and shot down the freeway in a squeal of rubber.
In a near-futile attempt to keep her head above water, she changed the subject. “You take pride in your work, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
She offered him a conciliatory look. “Guess I was a little hard on you today.”