Hunter had beaten her to the punch. When Ty had reached the child, he had tugged on her ponytail as a greeting, and she had immediately launched herself from her stepfather’s arms to Ty’s, and was now settled on his back with her arms around his neck.
Suddenly feeling awkward, Imogen pushed up her prescription sunglasses and adjusted her handbag on her shoulder. “Hi,” she said in an act of verbal brilliance.
“Hi,” he said back with a smile. “I’m glad you all made it here safely. And in case you were wondering, you look very pretty in that dress.”
“Thank you.” She suspected it was a stupid thing to wear a babydoll dress with ballet flats to a racetrack, but it wasn’t race day and she was comfortable in it. And okay, she had wanted Ty to think she looked good after not seeing her all week.
“Hey, Imogen,” Elec said, his arm wrapped around Tamara. “How are you?”
“Good, thanks, and you?”
“Fabulous now that my family’s here,” he said. “Thanks for suggesting this trip.” He squeezed Tamara tighter and kissed her cheek.
“You’re cracking my ribs,” she protested, but the grin on her face said she didn’t really mind.
Tamara turned to her husband, and the look they gave each other was so tender, so private, so loving, that Imogen felt a lump rise in her throat. She looked away, toward Ty, and felt that lump threaten to choke her when she saw the way he was staring at her, a smile on his face.
Who the hell was she kidding?
Imogen had spent the past two weeks interviewing drivers and their wives, and after every interview she had told herself that they had something she didn’t, that there was a connection and a rightness to each of those couples that didn’t exist with Ty and that she couldn’t allow herself to fall for him.
But she had.
And it had been altogether too easy.
There he was, standing there in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with a beer ball cap on his head, Hunter climbing all over his back, and giving her a secret, sensual smile. He made her feel and want more than she ever had before in her life.
“What’s Viagra?” Hunter asked him, arms around his neck.
“Not anything I need,” Ty told her.
Elec coughed to cover up a laugh, while Tamara looked flustered to have the subject brought up again.
“Well . . .” she said, clearly struggling with how to handle it.
Imogen decided to jump in and help her. “It’s a prescription drug taken orally by men suffering from the medical condition erectile dysfunction. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the drug is that it can last longer than is desirable, resulting in discomfort, which is why you did in fact use the word contextually correctly when referencing the ride as lasting uncomfortably long. Good job, but it is actually adult humor, and not something your friends are going to understand, though, so where’s the fun in that?”
She had been banking on Hunter’s eyes glazing over, and they did.
“Oh. Okay,” Hunter said. She jiggled to readjust on Ty’s back, and knocked his hat askew. “How’s your car looking? Can I see it?”
“It’s up to Elec. He’s the one who’s got to get you a garage pass since he’s your stepdaddy. You know the rules—no kids in the garage unless they belong to a driver.”
Tamara had moved from Elec to Imogen’s side. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I consider myself a capable mother, for the most part, but Hunter’s language leaves me speechless. I don’t know how to handle it, and I think you did an amazing job. You told her the truth in a way that wasn’t inappropriate and you shut down the subject.”
“Big words tend to bore kids,” Imogen said. “And if you say something like erectile dysfunction fast enough, they can’t process it enough to retain or repeat it.”
Tamara laughed. “Let’s hope that’s the last of the Viagra conversations. For any of us.”
The thought of Viagra led to thoughts of Ty’s penis, which led to thoughts of it fully erect and buried deep inside her. Imogen shifted in her flats and crossed her arms across her chest to hide her suddenly tight ni**les.
“No joke.”
But Tamara was already distracted. “Petey, what’s in your hand?”
Her son stood up, a fat worm dangling from his fingers. “Nothing.”
“Oh, Lord.” Tamara turned to her husband. “Did Evan find somewhere to stay for the weekend, or do we need to get a hotel?”
Imogen had forgotten that Elec’s brother Evan shared his motor coach, which had made sense in their mutual bachelor days, but was now probably less than convenient.
“He’s crashing with Ryder,” Elec said. “No big deal. Unless you want a hotel, darling. It makes no difference to me.”
“I want to stay in the coach!” Hunter yelled.
“The lady wants to stay in the coach,” Elec said with a smile for his wife. “But it’s up to you.”
“That’s fine. The kids can sleep in Evan’s room. That’s probably better than all of us sharing one hotel room anyway.”
“Oh, yeah,” Elec said with a look so hot that Imogen almost blushed witnessing it.
Imogen was so busy studying Tamara and Elec’s marital and family dynamic with something she would categorize as jealousy, she didn’t notice Ty had moved much closer to her.
“Glad I don’t have a roomie,” he murmured to her. Then he reached out and kissed her, Hunter still on his back. “I’m also real glad to see you, Emma Jean.”
“Sick!” Hunter proclaimed, making gagging gestures with her free hand. “Let me down.”
“Sure thing, monkey.” Ty squatted and she scrambled off, running over to her brother to inspect the worm.
“You’re good with her,” Imogen told him.
He just shrugged. “I like kids. They’re impulsive and honest.”
“Much like you?”
“Maybe.” He grinned. “Would it be impulsive to drag you away to my coach right now?”
“Inappropriate more so than impulsive.”
“I’m paralyzed,” he said. “I can’t think of a single thing to do right now that isn’t inappropriate in front of kids.”
She had to really admit she loved the way he wanted her, the way he acted like it was a serious struggle to contain his desire around her. It was something entirely new for her, to have a man so passionate about her that every encounter resulted in sex. In her experience, most of her previous boyfriends had been perfectly content with once a week, and they had never allowed lust to enter their eyes in public.