SAVANNAH

After chatting with a couple of the pit crew guys after the meeting—it seemed as though everyone wanted to tell me about the time they went to a NASCAR race or visited my hometown of Atlanta—I went on the hunt for Jack, the chief engineer.

I was on a mission.

If I was to service Dante's car in the pits, I needed his trust. Judging from the glares he'd given me during the meeting, it sure seemed like he had a problem with me. I wanted to nip that in the bud and confront any awkwardness right away. That was another thing Daddy had taught me: never shy away from a fight.

Jack could probably set me straight on whether Dante had an issue with my presence, or if he wore that sour look on his face because he was nervous about the season opener in Monaco. Right as I was walking out the door, the engineer was on his way in, carrying papers attached to a clipboard. We almost crashed into each other, and we both laughed.

"Whoops! You're the man I want to see, Jack. Sorry for almost running into you."

"No worries, mate. This is brilliant because I was looking for you as well."

"Forgive me for being so forward." I smiled. "But between us, does Mr. Annunziata have a problem with me being on the team? I got a frosty vibe from him during the post-race wrap-up. I wanted to clear the air, if so."

Jack smirked. "You certainly don't mince words."

"In fact, I don't. I know my presence here is a bit unusual, and it might take some getting used to, for some of the guys. I didn't expect to have issues with the star driver, though."

To my surprise, Jack looked amused.

"I was actually coming in here to find you so I could personally introduce you to Dante. I'm sure once the two of you get to know each other, he'll be fine and drop his attitude. C'mon, he's in the garage."

Jack gestured for me to follow him. We walked briskly out of the room and into the bright sunshine.

"So my instincts were correct? Mr. Annunziata—"

"Dante. Please. Call him Dante."

"Dante. Yes. Dante has a problem with me? But why?"

"It's not my story to tell," he said as he headed toward the garage bays. "Let's say he has his reasons for being wary of a woman on the pit crew. Dante can be a bit, shall we say, dramatic. He's hot-tempered, says what he thinks, and has absolutely no poker face. He also can be a little grumpy."

"Sounds like we'll get along great," I said, only half sarcastically.

The white of the concrete bay cut a sharp line against the azure sky. "He'll get over it." Jack paused. "And speak of the devil. There's our man. Dante, I wanted you to officially meet our new team member, Savannah. Sorry we couldn't do this introduction before the test runs, but our superstar was pretty busy with marketing earlier in the day, and he's had sponsor meetings all damn week."

Dante was crouched at the driver's side of his car. He appeared to be studying something on the side, but from this distance and the angle of the vehicle, I couldn't determine exactly what.

He rose and turned to us, fixing those piercing, vicious eyes on me. For a second, I was caught off guard because he filled the room more than I expected him to. Then I gathered my cool and stepped into the garage. I wasn't sure which threw off more masculine energy: the thirteen-million-dollar racecar or its driver.

"Hey there." I made sure my voice was as buttery and Southern as could be. "I wanted to get to know you for a spell. It's wonderful to meet a racing legend, Mr. Annunziata, and it's an honor to be on your team."

I extended my hand, knowing it was a bold move. Daddy had always laughed at how his little, confident daughter would totter up to titans of industry and American sports figures as a child and introduce herself, as if she was the most important person in the world. Competing in beauty pageants had taught me to project confidence; getting an engineering degree and being a woman in a man's world had given me inner strength. This ultra-rich, impossibly handsome athlete would not intimidate me.

Dante turned, his gaze burning with some imperceptible emotion. His hand claimed mine and I was a little surprised by the strength in his fingers. Although that was silly; he was in top form, all muscle. Why wouldn't he have a solid handshake? I continued to smile as I pumped his hand, but looking at his face made my mouth water, my heart flutter, and my legs shake.

I was uncomfortably aware that our skin was touching. It was as if air movement, sound, even time had stopped in the garage as we looked into each other's eyes.

Come on, Savvy. Really? My own accusatory voice echoed in my head.

This was unnecessary and unprofessional. I hadn't joined the team to gawk at a gorgeous Italian. After swallowing, I reminded myself to inhale. I had to look down at my feet, put my glance out of range of his stupidly beautiful face.

The shrill ring of a cell phone went off. Jack made a sputtering noise. "This is for me, mates—it's the boss. I'll take it outside and leave the two of you to get acquainted."

As Jack loped out of the garage, Dante dropped my hand. My palm felt as though it had been licked by fire. Or kissed by his lips.

"Good to meet you." His accented voice matched his looks: deep and sexy with a heavy dose of self-assured amusement. He cocked an eyebrow.

Truth be told, I had no idea what to say, because my tongue wasn't tied—it was bound and gagged. Mostly because he was so sensual looking but also because of his confidence. And I didn't want to come off as stupid. I always felt that if a person had nothing intelligent to say, they should keep their mouth shut. So that's what I did.

Dante took a few steps toward the hood of the race car, then turned and leaned against the machine. He looked like one of those ads you'd see in a men's magazine.

"I was intrigued when I found out we'd have the first female pit crew member on our team. Jack was telling me all about your prior career, Savannah. I'm going to have to read up on your background, of course, but who wouldn't be intrigued by a beauty queen with an engineering degree?"

He shot me a foxy little smile and my eyes widened. He pronounced my name slowly, every syllable rolling off his tongue. His Italian-tinged English was perfect, yet had enough of an accent to be sexy.

Oh my. He was even more stunning when he wasn't scowling. His hand went to the top of his chest and began fiddling with the zipper of his racing coverall suit as he spoke. He was going to read about me? This seemed unusual, if not downright suspicious, and I wondered what he was getting at.

"My pageant career was quite a while ago," I said briskly. "It was pretty standard as those things go. Boring, even."

"A beauty queen," he said, as he lowered the zipper. . . down, further, over his chest and to his stomach. "Jack told me you were, what? Miss Georgia?"

"Runner-up," I replied, not wanting the memory of my pageant days, and being objectified for my looks, to mar this moment.

"Still, that's quite good. I never thought I'd have a beauty queen as my tire changer. Quite fascinating."

Was he patronizing me? Or flirting? It was hard to tell, and deciphering was even more difficult because he was grinning. How could one man possess so much instant charm? I'd never seen anything like it.

Steady. Breathe. I tried to concentrate on the smell of motor oil and rubber tires.

"There's a first for everything." I tried to regain some composure and not let my eyes drift to where his zipper ended. I decided to study the car's tire instead. The way he considered me, with his mouth turning up at the corners as if we were sharing a private joke, made my heart flip-flop.

Unfortunately, I lost focus when he shrugged out of the top half of his race suit, revealing a muscular torso clad in a tight-fitting white T-shirt, the kind that wicked perspiration away from skin. The image of his bare chest, slick with sweat, formed in my mind. Eek.

"How did you get into motorsports?" he asked casually, reaching for the bottom of his shirt.

No. Oh, no. Please don't let him take off his shirt. As he lifted the hem and pulled upwards, I had to remind myself again to think, breathe, and then speak. But of course he was going to take off his shirt. It's what drivers did; I'd seen it a million times during my internships in other circuits. But no other driver had held the appeal of this one.

He paused, revealing a sliver of his bare, ripped stomach. "Sorry, it's too warm in this heat," he murmured. "And I figure, since you're a pit crew member, I need to treat you like one of the guys, no? You don't mind if I get comfortable, do you?"

I shook my head and tried not to stare as he peeled the shirt off. He had perfectly defined shoulder muscles and a V starting at his hips and dipping down below his coveralls. He wasn't bodybuilder-muscular but was cut as if carved from Roman marble. Long, sinewy muscles rippled against smooth, olive-hued skin.

"My father," I blurted. Realizing my answer made no sense, I added, "My father owns a parts company in America. Jenkins International. When I was a teenager, after I finished with pageants, I'd go with him to races all over the States. NASCAR, IndyCar, stock car races. I majored in automotive engineering at University of Georgia."

I didn't tell him that I'd wanted to reject everything pageants stood for—the artifice, the superficiality, the focus on perfect femininity. Motorsports made sense. Being a woman didn't. It wasn't that I couldn't act the part of being a girly-girl—no, I'd been beautiful onstage, once upon a time. I was simply through with projecting an image of perfection. I wanted people to like me for my brains and personality, not my smile and pale skin and red hair.

Which was why it was so disconcerting, scary even, that Dante was staring at me with big, dark pupils and a seductive expression. Oh, sure, men flirted with me often, and sometimes I'd be chummy in return. But I wasn't ever interested in flirtation. Until now.

Which was a pretty big problem, if you asked me.

"You come from impressive credentials." He made wide stretching movements with his arms, crossing one over his torso. The movement sent a little waft of his scent toward me, and even though he'd been sweating in race coveralls, he smelled faintly of lime and spice. And, of course, man.

The man scent was very, very sexy.

"Thanks." I wanted to bury my nose in his chest. "Yes, my family's well known in the American auto industry. My father has a lot of faith in Team Eagle."

He stretched the other arm up and over his head, bending it at the elbow. Transfixed, I watched his muscles ripple. My mind wondered what it would feel like to be lying underneath his chest, to run my hands over it, to arch my own body and feel him against my bare skin. It made me shiver a little, despite the thick Italian heat.

"Your father got you this job, didn't he?" Dante's voice wasn't accusatory, but his words made me bristle.

"He helped, yes. But I have years of internship experience, and excellent recommendations from NASCAR teams in the States."

"I'm sure you do," he muttered.

Without thinking, I toyed with the heavy zipper on my own fire suit and lowered it down. When I realized what a sexually inappropriate message that would send to Dante, I shook my head as if to clear the tension hanging in the air. The motion caused my long hair to snag in the zipper. Damn. Not only was I awkward, but I was also uncoordinated.

"Crap, my hair's caught." I let out a groan, jerking my head.

"Don't move," Dante ordered, stepping closer, making my heart pound as he trapped me between his body and the car. Could he hear my heart hammering in my chest? Because I could, and it made me sweat more.

He tugged at the hair.

"Do you have scissors? Ow. Ow!"

"No moving," he said, this time in a low tone. As if I could move, with him half naked and only inches away. My head bowed slightly and I froze, watching as his hands hovering over my chest, perilously close to my breasts. I could feel my nipples tighten against my shirt under the coveralls.

"These zippers are always a pain."

I held my breath as he used his long fingers to gently tug the strands out of the zipper's teeth while lowering it a fraction. It didn't take much to imagine him stripping all my clothes off, and I exhaled softly. His hips seemed dangerously close to mine too.

Don't think. Don't breathe. Don't speak.

He eased the zipper down slowly, tooth by tantalizing tooth, so as not to snag my hair further.

"You're extremely precise," I whispered.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Of course I am. That's what makes me a champion driver. And a champion unzipper. I'm especially good at the latter."

He was close enough so I could feel his breath on my forehead, and I knew I was flushing pink from embarrassment and excitement. The hard wall of his bare chest was teasingly close, and my fingers itched to reach out and caress everywhere. His muscular forearms. The hollow between his collarbone and his shoulder. His nipples, which were little peaks against the smoothness of his skin.

"There. All better." He arranged my hair behind my shoulders and zipped me up all the way to my neck, as if he wanted me fully covered for my own good. Which was probably for the best. Had he unzipped me even a little more, there's no telling what I would have done.

Embarrassed myself, probably. Gotten fired, even. God, what had come over me? I wasn't normally ruled by my hormones. I wanted to smack my own face.

Raising my head, I stared into the dark, molten pools of his eyes.

"Tu sei bella," he whispered, enunciating each word and sending a wave of desire crashing through my body. I knew those particular Italian words because I'd listened to the unit on flirting in my language app.

You are beautiful.

He slowly tucked an unruly curl behind my ear and everywhere, from my toes to the top of my head, tingled.

"Th-thank you. I guess. But that seems a bit inappropriate for a driver and pit crew member. Unless you say that to all the guys too. Do you?" An awkward laugh exploded from my mouth. If my back weren't wedged between the car and his half naked body, I would have stepped away. I wondered when he was going to move. Maybe I didn't want him to move.

He didn't budge, just stood there with that sexy half smile and those glittering dark eyes.

So I gawked at his face, rapt, as his eyes roamed mine. What was he doing? Dear God. Was he thinking of kissing me? It seemed like we were in the seconds before a kiss.

That's when I heard the noise. It was the unmistakable rapid-fire clicking of a camera shutter, and Dante's head whipped toward the open garage door. Mine did too, in time to see a photographer with a press pass around his neck lower his telephoto lens and shoot us a wicked grin.