Scalper finally managed to unlatch his belt and fell flat on his face inside his wreck. Jake simply revved his engine and roared back into the race.
The three lead buggies were charging through the sand, jumping the low dunes one after the other, heading straight for the beach, with the fourth buggy catching up fast.
Jake was now starting to master his untamed beast, getting a handle on the heavy steering and the burnt-out clutch and the unpredictable traction in the sand. He cranked through the gears again, and soon he was spearing through Elvis’s sand cloud and coming up behind him fast.
The ground beneath his wheels became firmer, the driving became smoother and easier, and Jake realized they had just driven onto wet, compact sand. Instead of churning, they were flying faster than ever, the sand clouds now watery jets.
Killer turned left again, just before he hit the waves, and made a beeline straight down the length of the beach.
Richard did the same, staying hot on Killer’s heels.
Elvis went to turn his wheel. Suddenly a neck-jarring jolt from behind rocked him. His hands slipped from the wheel. There was another sharp impact from the rear. Elvis tried to grab the wheel, but it was too late. He was speeding straight ahead—no, he was being pushed straight ahead—directly into the water.
Jake’s bumper slammed into Elvis’s tail bar once more, enough to send the purple buggy plunging into the sea with so much speed that a fountain of water exploded into the air.
Rather than sink, the vehicle’s thick, air-filled tires kept it afloat, sending it out into the Persian Gulf. If Elvis could swim, he would live to race again, but Jake wasn’t about to hang around and find out. He reversed out of the kneedeep water that the shove had carried him into, then spun the steering wheel left, in hot pursuit of Killer Khoury. And more importantly, Richard Conrad.
The spray from the wheels of the two leading buggies shot up in their wake. Jake kept the accelerator flat to try to gain on them, following their tire lines in the wet, glassy sand, quickly gaining on the tall masts of water spraying up into the air behind their buggies.
He saw on the left the mountainous sand dune looming large, getting closer and closer, steeply gobbling up the sky—the last challenge before the finish line. On the other side of it, he knew that Jahmar and his crowd of bidders would be eagerly watching the peak of that dune, laying bets to the last second on who would come soaring over the crest of the dune first.
Jake didn’t give a shit about winning. All he cared about was getting closer to Richard.
He was closing the gap fast, but Killer Khoury closed it for him even faster. As Richard tried to steal the lead, Killer snapped the wheel and knocked Richard into a spin that sent him hydroplaning across the slick, wet sand. By the time Richard managed to regain control of his buggy, Killer had already veered away from the sea and was climbing his way up the steep final dune.
Jake was also now slicing an arc in the shining shore as he turned from the beach toward the giant sand hill.
Richard jerked his gears and sprang into motion, accelerating fast and cutting a line straight for Jake.
As the foot of the enormous dune approached, Jake began pulling back on the gears, the engine revving loud and high, when suddenly—
SMASH!
Richard’s buggy sideswiped Jake’s so fast and so hard that the two vehicles locked together, side by side, heading at full speed toward the sand dune. Metal screeched and groaned as Jake tried to pull away from Richard, but the side bars of the buggies had hooked one another and refused to give.
The vehicles hit the base of the dune and started to climb as fast as they could. Richard and Jake battled with their gears, trying to keep their buggies moving as fast as possible, all eight wheels spinning madly up the dangerous incline.
“You’re gonna kill us both!” Jake yelled, feeling the strain of the weight of both cars vibrating up the gearshift.
Richard only laughed. “What’s the matter? You strike me as the kinda guy who enjoys getting up close and personal!”
“I am! But I also enjoy being alive!” Jake rammed through the gears, his engine struggling.
Richard did the same, smiling through his clenched jaw, enjoying the thrill and danger a little too much.
Up ahead, nearing the top of the slope, Killer Khoury’s engine was howling, his wheels perilously churning through sand. But Killer didn’t care. All he could see was the prize awaiting him at the finish line.
The one thing he didn’t see was the bolt that had come loose when he slammed into Richard, the same bolt that now bounced and jumped until eventually—
Poing!
It leapt free, springing out of its joint and rattling down into the engine and lodging itself in the fan, splintering the blades instantly. There was a spark, then a dreadful gasp from the buggy as the fan spluttered and stalled and the engine’s temperature skyrocketed in the heat of the Dubai day.
Within a moment, Killer stopped cackling. Within the next moment, his buggy coughed up a lungful of smoke and radiator fluid, then seized completely. The vehicle’s momentum pushed it upward for a few hopeful seconds, carrying it within a few feet of the dune’s peak, before gravity took hold and dragged it back down the mighty slope.
At first the buggy simply slid backward, as though it was reversing back down the dune, then the vehicle veered sideways. Killer unbuckled his belt and tried to jump free, but before he could escape the left front and back wheels sank deep into the sand and the entire buggy flipped sideways, sending the vehicle into a high-speed somersault—
—heading straight for Jake and Richard.
“Pull away!” Jake shouted, eyes fixed on the oncoming blur of blue and silver, Killer’s screams getting louder and louder like the siren of a fast-approaching ambulance.
“I can’t!” Richard shouted back, snapping desperately at the wheel. “We’re locked.”
Jake jerked his own wheel, but the twisting front tires of the two buggies only slowed their ascent, putting them in danger of sliding backward too. He cocked one leg out of the cabin and began kicking at Richard’s buggy as hard as he could.
Killer’s howls grew louder.
The spinning buggy began to hop and bounce like a boulder rolling down a mountain, changing shape with each bounce.
A headlight whistled through the air.
A wheel flew off.
Jake kicked at Richard’s buggy harder still. “Faster!”
“Are you crazy! That thing’s coming straight for us!”
“Faster or the same thing’ll happen to us!” Jake kicked again. The side bar gave a little.
Killer’s buggy hurtled toward them.
Jake’s boot connected with the side bar again. He heard the sound of metal grinding against metal, the sound of the side bars unlocking. Then he heard Killer’s scream mere feet away.
Jake turned his wheel hard left.
Richard turned his hard right.
The two buggies separated just in time to let Killer’s pulverized bowling ball roll straight between them, so close it turned Jake’s side mirror into a desert relic.
As Killer’s runaway buggy vanished behind them, Jake and Richard tore up the remainder of the dune, heading directly for the blinding sun, noses pointed to the sky, feet flat to the floor.
Richard took the lead.
Jake fought back.
Richard nudged ahead.
The two buggies burst over the crest of the dune in an explosion of sand and speed.
Richard hit the downward slope first, followed closely by Jake, barely in control, touching down, then skimming off the sand, springing into the air once, twice, before the wheels took hold of the sliding sand and devoured the descent. Despite the steep angle of the dune, braking down the hill did not appear to be an option for Richard. The roaring engine and the suck of gravity sent the buggy plummeting toward the foot of the hill as the needle on the speedometer quivered north of 110 miles an hour.
Richard shot a wink over his shoulder, as if the race was already won. But Jake was much closer than he thought, and there were still 300 meters to go before the finish line.
Suddenly the incline leveled off, sharper than Richard or Jake anticipated.
The buggies gave a loud crunch and shudder as their noses scraped the sand, digging out great divots before the vehicles fired off on the straight, flat homestretch. Up ahead, Jahmar stood surrounded by the cheering, jeering crowd, his arm raised, signaling the invisible finish line.
Jake shifted gears one last time and nosed ahead, but only for a moment.
Richard clenched his teeth, biting against the violent tremor and growl of his buggy, pushing it faster and harder than he had ever pushed before. He took the lead by mere inches.
As the finish line raced toward them, the crowd began to part, men hurrying left and right, clearing a path for the two oncoming buggies.
Jake’s needle spiked at 122 miles per hour.
He gave it just that little bit more and nudged it up to 123, enough to slide into the lead as the finish line approached. Only 80 meters away now.
70.
60.
Richard swore over the roar of his engine, trying in vain to regain the lead.
Only 30, 20, 10 meters.
Then suddenly—
—Jake hauled as hard as he could on the emergency brake.
The red buggy twisted into a whiplash spin.
A cloud of sand erupted in the air.
Richard blinked, stunned and confused—and suddenly he crossed the line first.
Jahmar’s arm fell, announcing the winner, as Jake’s buggy spiraled to a halt three feet short of the finish line.
The spectators whooped and howled and shouted abuse at each other before descending upon Richard, whose buggy finally braked another 50 meters down the track. But Richard ignored the pats on the back and the handshakes. Instead he leapt out of his seat, threw his helmet in the sand, and stormed back to the finish line.
Just as Jake pulled himself free of his red buggy and peeled off his helmet, a furious Richard Conrad pounced on him, slamming Jake in the jaw with a right hook so powerful it knocked Jake off his feet.
“Why the fuck did you throw the race!?”
Jake spat out blood. “Because I don’t want your damn prizes! All I want is information!”
Richard let go of Jake’s shirt and pushed him back to the ground. The look of anger turned to one of gleeful control once more as he pulled himself to his feet, not taking his eyes off Jake. “All right, then. Jahmar, I want to change the prize.”
Bewildered, Jahmar came running over. “Change the prize?”
“Yes. Keep your
loot
. Instead,” he pointed to Jake, “I want him.”
Jake squinted at the silhouette of Richard against the sun. “You’re buying me?”
“I’m not buying you. I won you. No rules, remember. You lose? You lose everything!” Richard pulled a tiny cell phone from his pocket. “Now, why don’t you and I finish this somewhere more private.”
As Jake wiped the blood off the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, Richard flicked open the phone. “Stevens, bring the chopper.”
Richard scrunched the Egyptian cotton sheets in his fists, twisting them in savage swirls as he bit down hard on the soft, cloudlike pillow. He was facedown on the bed, already naked, his round hard ass exposed, lifting itself into the air, searching blindly for something to fill it. That something came in the form of Jake’s index and middle fingers, shining with lube.
Richard let out a muffled moan into the pillow and shut his eyes tight. The room was spinning. Or more accurately, the four-poster canopy bed was spinning.
Slowly the lavishly adorned walls and glistening water view from the master bedroom of the Burj Al Arab’s Royal Suite rotated, but Jake was more interested in the handsome young construction tycoon splayed on the crisp sheets beneath him than the panoramic Persian Gulf vistas. After all, he had some construction work and digging of his own to do.
With another pained groan from the pillow, Jake’s ring finger joined the other two fingers already excavating a passage into Richard’s ass.
“Fuck!” Richard growled, his teeth releasing the pillow. “I want it fucking harder. Deeper, fucking deeper!”
Jake did as he was told, scooping his fingers deeper into Rich’s begging ass, using more force, the lube making succulent sucking sounds. It made Jake’s mouth water; it made him want to taste that exquisite ass for himself. He removed his fingers and buried his face between Richard’s bulbous, beautiful cheeks.
Twenty minutes earlier they had arrived at Dubai’s landmark hotel—standing like the white, wind-filled sail of a traditional Arab dhow skimming across the gulf—via Richard’s personal chopper, which he insisted on flying himself and landing on the hotel’s helicopter pad before being escorted down to his usual suite on the 25th floor. The young Englishman quickly dismissed Stevens, his personal butler, before swiftly leading Jake up the marble and gold staircase to the master bedroom, leaving one shoe by the library entrance and one on the leopard-print tufted carpet. His shirt set sail across the floor and settled on the Carrera marble. His jeans he flung over a mahogany chair. His tanned naked body splayed across the bed, stomach down, ass up.