Priest (A Standalone Bad Boy Romance Love Story) (45 page)

It runs for a few seconds
before Jax and I come around that last corner. In the background, someone’s
saying, “It’s going to be close,” and in quick response, the shot pans over to
the finish line.

Jax knocks the phone out
of Kate’s mom’s hand, but not before both he and I see my car cross the line
first.

I move to block Jax
completely from getting to Kate’s mom, but he doesn’t make a move. For what
seems like almost a minute, he just stands there gritting his teeth.

Jax nudges his nearest
goon and while the latter is pushing his way through the crowd, Jax continues
to stand there, staring me down.

I don’t move. For a
decent amount of time, I don’t even blink.

The lackey comes back
through the crowd after a minute. He’s carrying a duffel bag.

Jax snatches the bag out
of the man’s hands and I’m not sure if I’m about to get paid or shot.

“You have three days to
leave town,” he says. “After that, I see your face again, I’m going to put in a
skylight in it.”

He more pushes me with
the bag than hands it to me and he turns around, gets back in his Zonda, and
leaves.

“Weren’t you supposed to get
his car if you won?” Kate asks.

“I don’t know about you,”
I tell her, “but I don’t really feel like going after him about that.”

I turn around to face
Kate’s mother.

“So, you won yourself a
little bit of money, have you?” she asks.

“Looks that way,” I tell
her. “Why did you come? You and I never really had the best rapport.”

Kate’s mom motions toward
her daughter. “This one wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to give the man
she loves a second chance,” she says.

“That’s great,” I say,
“but why tonight, though? Why the race?”

“Uh, Eli?” Kate jumps in.

I look around and nobody
except for Jax and his people have even moved from their place. Now all I have
to do is make it through the crowd of over twenty people, each and every one of
whom knows exactly what’s in the bag in my arms.

I mutter, “Maybe we
should talk about this later.”

Epilogue

Kate

It’s been two years since
Eli won his quarter-million, but it hardly feels like any time has passed at
all.

I’d managed to convince
my mom to come down to the race after we got into a phone argument over whether
or not racing was a matter of skill or stupidity. We argued about almost
anything back then.

It wasn’t until I called
my dad and talked him into badgering her about how great Eli is that she
finally relented.

That particular honeymoon
didn’t last too long, though.

It wasn’t Eli’s fault.
Really, it wasn’t. I was the one who first approached him about racing.

I don’t know if my dad
told her or what, but after we had to leave town, Eli gave up racing to start
working on an engineering degree, while I took his place on the road. I don’t
mean to brag, but it turns out I’m pretty good.

For the first year or so,
Eli let me take his Chevelle, but once I had enough money, I gave up the muscle
for my dream car: a dark purple Porsche 911 Turbo S. Eli helped me pick out the
mods.

It’s not that I didn’t
appreciate the Chevelle, but after racing it around the people of our new
hometown of Carlsberg for a few months, I got sick of all the extra weight.
Also, it’s kind of nice racing something I don’t have to hide in a junkyard.

Right now, I’m pulling up
to the stoplight, holding up my pink slip up so the guy in the Koenigsegg Agera
RS next to me will hold up his.

I love it when people
bring their untouched supercars out of the garage. They never expect a modded
car to come out and wipe the floor with them.

Usually, I would never
even consider putting my pristine purple Porsche on the block, but this race is
going to be special. I’m going to give Eli that Agera as a present for our
wedding next month.

He finally wore me down.

The $250,000 Eli got off
of Jax has been great, but the fact Eli didn’t exactly win it legally means we
can never spend too much of it at any given time. Still, it has come in handy
for buying aftermarket parts for Pandora—yeah, I named my car.

Pandora’s rarely the
fastest car in the race, but between my natural love of going really, really
fast and Eli’s patient instruction, it’s a rare event that I don’t come in
first.

The Agera revs its engine
as the light for the cross street turns yellow, and I grip the wheel, my eyes
on the light a quarter mile down the road: our finish line.

It may seem like a bad
idea to pit a 911 against an Agera, especially when slips are on the line, but
I’ve got a good feeling about today.

Our light turns green and
we take off.

The Agera gets a slightly
better start off the line, but I creep up beside it before very long.

I make up some more time
on the gear change, and I start to pull ahead.

Leaving town was probably
harder on Mick than it was on Eli or me, but he’s more than made up for it with
his frequent and usually unannounced visits. When the “I dos” are done, we’re
going to have to start talking boundaries.

What I’ve found most
interesting over the last couple of years is that Desi and I have slowly become
something almost akin to friends. We hardly ever see each other, but when we do
it’s actually a lot of fun.

The one thing I wish I
hadn’t agreed to in this race was the no nitrous rule. I’m still edging him out,
but the line’s coming up pretty quick and the Agera’s right on top of me.

Paz and I had already
started drifting apart by the time I left the hospital, so when Eli and I left
the city, that was more or less the end for us. There have been a few scattered
phone calls, but our conversations never last very long.

We pass the halfway point
in the quarter mile drag and the Agera is holding position, its front bumper
only a matter of inches farther back than mine.

“Come on, Pandora,” I
urge the roaring monster beneath me as I try to push the gas pedal through the
floor.

I know Eli’s somewhere
down there at the finish, just waiting for me to bring this thing home, but the
Agera keeps inching up on me until we’re dead even.

The wedding’s going to be
a pretty small affair, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I may have
overcome my general shyness, but the thought of standing up in front of a
hundred people I haven’t seen in years and likely won’t see again makes me
throw up a little in my mouth.

My dad offered to go
online and be ordained a minister so he could do the honors of marrying us, but
I’d rather have him walk me down the aisle. Also, my dad has a tendency to cry
at weddings…profusely.

I just manage to retake
the lead when I have to shift gears. I don’t lose much, but it’s enough for the
Agera to pull out in front again.

This is bad. Oh, this is
so very, very bad.

The Agera crosses the
line, beating me by what can’t be more than a tenth of a car length, but that’s
not going to matter. I lost.

I can’t believe I lost.

“Oh, Pandora,” I say as I
take my foot off the gas and run my fingers over the steering wheel.

I love this car. I love
this car so much, in fact, that I put my foot back on the gas a second. Sadly,
as I just learned the hard way, the Agera can obviously catch me, so I give it
up and take my foot off of the throttle.

By the time I get back to
the finish line, I’m just trying to focus on keeping my eyes dry. But as I get
out and Eli rushes over, throwing his arms around me, I can’t help it anymore.

It’s embarrassing, I
know, but I’ve dreamed of owning a Porsche since I was a little girl. I’ve only
had it for a year and now after some stupid quarter mile drag race, it’s gone.

Those thoughts help quite
a bit as the other driver pulls up and gets out of his car to find me sobbing
in my fiancé’s arms.

“Kate,” Eli says quietly,
“he’s waiting for you.”

I sniff loudly and wipe
my eyes, saying, “Here are the keys. The pink slip’s on the seat.”

As soon as the word
“seat” has left my lips, I break down into another fit of sobbing. This
continues until the guy tells me to “forget about it,” gets back in his
Koenigsegg, and drives off into the night.

I can’t keep a straight
face for a second longer.

Sometimes you win,
sometimes you lose, but if you’ve developed the ability to cry at will, you’ve
got an edge in just about every situation.

Looking up at Eli, I wipe
my eyes, saying, “Thank God, I was worried I was actually going to lose it that
time.”

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PULSE
BOX SET

The
Complete Series

By
Alycia Taylor

Copyright
2016. All rights reserved.

PULSE
#1

CHAPTER
ONE

The only good thing about this week was
that it was finally coming to an end. Absolutely every work-out outfit I owned
was dirty because the washer had been broken since the previous Friday and I
couldn’t afford to get it fixed until the beginning of the following week. I
worked late every day this week so my brilliant plan was to get up early this
morning and go to the laundromat and wash at least one load of clothes so I had
something clean to wear to work. Go figure it would be the one stinking night
that I’d forget to charge my phone, so while I was sleeping, it died and the
alarm never went off.

I woke up in a complete panic. I could
tell by the amount of light sneaking in through the blinds that it was a lot
later than I’d planned on getting up. I’d thrown back the covers, cussed a lot
and ran out to the living room in my underwear—the last clean pair I had. Thank
God I lived alone and I’d at least showered before I put them on last night. It
was already seven thirty a.m. and my first session was scheduled for eight
o’clock. The gym was a ten-minute drive if I obeyed the speed laws, five if I
didn’t and I got lucky and all the cops were at Starbucks. I realized that as I
stood there in my underwear thinking all of that, I was wasting precious
minutes. I ran to the bathroom, stripped out of the underwear I was going to
put back on while the water in the shower heated up and then took a two-minute
shower. After I dried off, I pulled on a pair of compression pants and a
wrinkled tank that I fished out of the hamper. I did sniff them first to make
sure they weren’t completely disgusting. I grabbed my gym bag that had my
deodorant and body spray in it which I could slap on when I got there and then
I pulled on yesterday’s socks and my Nikes and ran out the door.

I didn’t even bother warming up my poor
little car before pulling out of the driveway but she got a quick warm up as I
sat and cursed the garbage man who was blocking the exit. I made good time for
a few minutes after that, but it seemed like all the city workers were against
me. A city bus came to a dead stop at a green light right in front of me. I had
to slam on my brakes to keep from rear-ending it and then wait until it decided
to move again before I could go because I couldn’t get over into the other
lane. There was a lot more cussing. I finally made it in one piece and left
everyone on the road with me that way as well. I parked my car in the lot in
front of the Madison Gym where I worked and finally allowed myself to check the
time. Damn! It was eight- oh-five! I got out of the car and felt the chill from
where my wet hair had lain on my back as I ran into work. I wish I could get a
do-over on this day…just this once.

When I got inside I pulled my time card
out of my bag and stopped in front of the clock to punch in. The time on the
work clock said eight ten, lying bastard. I bent in half and flipped my long
wet hair over my head. Using my hands and the elastic band I had around my
wrist, I twisted the curly mess up into a bun in the middle of my head. When I
stood back up I realized I had attracted attention. Some of the men in the gym
had actually stopped working out and were staring at me. Geez, how bad did I
look? My face felt as red as my hair as I forced myself across the room through
the maze of exercise machines and the curious stares and found my first client
of the day waiting for me. Mark Fox was an MMA fighter. He was one of those guys
who were born with a six pack and a propensity for sports. He’d never had to
try hard to do anything, it always just came naturally. He was quickly finding
out that mixed martial arts was a whole different ballgame so to speak. He was
taking it good-naturedly for the most part though. I had yet to see him get
genuinely upset about anything.

“There she is,” he said with a grin.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I told him. “You
wouldn’t believe the week I’m having.”

“No worries,” he said. “I’m not in a hurry
today.”

“Good,” I said. “Please just ignore how I
look today. My washer is broken and I overslept…” I realized I was talking too
much. I talked too much when I was nervous and I had a tendency to say stupid
things when I was anxious. I told myself to shut up before I said way too much
and embarrassed myself in front of one of my best clients. I was new at this,
and since I was only an assistant trainer, he was one of my few personal
clients. I liked training Mark. He was a nice guy and he didn’t hit on me throughout
the entire session like some of the men I trained did. I took a deep breath and
said, “Anyways, let’s get started over here on the steps.”

“I hate this one,” Mark said like an
insolent child. I laughed and said,

“Most guys do, but trust me, your feet are
the foundation for your entire body. If they’re not functioning top-notch it
can throw off your entire kinetic chain.”

“And what is a kinetic chain again?” He
knew what a kinetic chain was, he was just stalling. I explained it anyways as
if he really didn’t know.

“The fifty-cent definition is that every
part of your body, your muscles, your joints, and your nerves have to work
together in order to make you move. If just one of those things is off, it will
throw everything else off…and that includes your feet. So let’s go, four-way
holds.”

He made a face at me but he moved over to
the step. He just stood there, though, acting like he didn’t know what to do.
It killed me sometimes how these grown-ass men acted like gigantic babies
sometimes.

“One leg heel raises at twelve, three,
six, and nine o’clock and hold for thirty seconds.” I looked at my stopwatch
and said, “Okay, now.” Mark started the exercises and while he worked I told
him, “Good, you’re doing good. You’ll see, this will make your foundation solid
and keep you on your feet more.”

Mark grunted out a laugh and said, “Are
you suggesting I spend more time on my ass in the cage than I do my feet?”