Read Crossing the Line (Hard Driving) for Free Online

record?”
    He paused, and she realized he was waiting for her to acknowledge what he’d said, to assure him that she wouldn’t quote any of what he said next.
    “Yes.” It was a single word, but imbued with so much more than agreement to keep his words out of the paper.
Yes, I want to know you. Yes, I want all of your intimacies.
    It was exactly what she was trying to do. Gain his trust. Get him to talk about more than just the mess at hand. Her strategy was working so well, and so quickly . . .
    And she felt horrible. It almost made her
not
want to know what he was about to say.
    Still, she clicked the recorder off, and the sound echoed in the suddenly dead-silent room.
    His eyes darkened to almost black, and that voice went low and raspy again. “Everybody makes mistakes. But sometimes pretending that you’re doing the wrong thing for the right reasons only hurts you and the ones you love. By the time you realize how misguided you were, often it’s hard to change what you’ve done without causing even more damage.”
    What was that supposed to mean?
    “Then again, sometimes it was the right decision all along. It’s hard to know. Either way, that’s one of the reasons why I love racing. You can have a hundred people on your team, working to make you a success, but at the end of the day, it’s your mind, your life, moving at a hundred fifty miles an hour. That kind of experience is pure freedom.”
    Cori frowned, still confused. What was he talking about? Why would he talk about freedom as though it were something he didn’t have outside of his race car? Ty was known for being an incredible driver with a charmed life. Well educated, two loving parents, and he’d never been injured while racing. Before last week’s blowup, the picture that the media presented to the public was one of dreams fulfilled.
    And until this moment, she hadn’t thought much about it, which was ridiculous. Because now, sitting here, all she could think was that she should have known better. She
was
the media. She understood how spin could change someone’s perception of a person. And spin happened at every level. Starting with the subject, himself.
    And damn if that didn’t make her want to know more about him.
Only
him.
    But then he gestured toward her, smiling as though he hadn’t said something profound and intense and
aw fuck completely off the record
. She wouldn’t be able to write about it.
    Fine. That wasn’t really what she was after, anyway. Life philosophy was hardly an exposé, like what Alex had demanded from her.
    “What about you? Any interesting life lessons you want to share?” He leaned back, his legs sliding out ever so slightly and . . .
    His knee bumped hers, and the most delicious shock of awareness shot through her.
    Oh my God I am going to be the first person in history to die of flirting.
    He was beautiful, and he was flirting with her, and she was trying to ruin him.
    She focused half her energy on not moving her knee at all—which was a lot harder than it sounded—and the other half on forming coherent words. “I’ve learned that, if you really want something, you should go after it and not let anything stand in your way.”
    He cocked his head and raised a brow. His knee didn’t move, either. “What kind of experience taught you that?”
    So hot. The square inch of contact between the two of them—the contact that neither of them were acknowledging, apparently—was making her flush with desire. From the touch of knees through cotton and nylon.
    She nearly whimpered. The arousal was making her feel reckless. Willing to tell him anything. “I, uh, well . . . my parents are both doctors. They wanted me to be one, too. I thought I would do it, had gone through premed in undergrad at Harvard and applied to med schools. I’d gotten in to a few and was sitting down to write my acceptance to one of them when I realized that I didn’t really want to go. I wanted to be a sports journalist, instead.