Dylan thrust out his hand.“Dylan Pierce.”
The dark-haired man smiled.A genuine smile.He shook Dylan’s hand.Good grip too.“I’m Lucas Fox.”
Brooklyn Foster cleared her throat.She did not look pleased.“If introductions are over, perhaps you could tell me what you’re doing here, Mr.Pierce.”
“Call me Dylan.”He pulled the folded release form out his back pocket and held it up.“I brought the release form for you to sign.”He glanced around the ballroom, frowning.“Does anybody have a pen?I forgot to bring one.”
“I thought we discussed this,” Dr.Foster said in icy tones.“You would make an appointment.That’s how we do things in a society.”
“Yeah, I forgot.Must be amnesia.”He grinned at her.
She glared at him.“Everyone’s ignorance to the contrary, amnesia isnotfunny.”
Beside her, Lucas Fox chuckled.“Come on, Doctor Beautiful.It’s a little funny.”
Dylan broke out in a wide grin.Hell, maybe he liked this guy after all.He knew how to push Brooklyn’s buttons.Dylan had no idea who this guy was, but that didn’t really matter.He always had one question for pretty much everyone he met who seemed the least bit interesting.“So, what do you drive?”
“Tonight, I’m in the Bugatti.”The guy made it seem as if he had a garage full of vehicles.
“Anything you can drive in the mud?”
Lucas Fox’s brow knitted in confusion.“Mud?”
“Yeah.Any off-road vehicles in that garage of yours?Something that can stand some dirt, dust, and dings?Those fancy cars sure won’t.”He’d never had much fascination with expensive sports cars.They went fast, sure, but they were plastic.Like driving around on a plastic rocket.If you so much as bumped something, you were going to total the damn thing.
“Dylan races trucks,” Doctor Brooklyn explained.“He crashed one.I met him in the ER.”
Lucas looked concerned as he met Dylan’s gaze.“Are you all right?”
“No,” Brooklyn cut in.“He’s clearly not.I’m thinking he needs immediate hospitalization.I can’t think of any other reason he’d crash this fundraiser for my signature instead of waiting for theappointment.”
Dylan laughed.He glanced at Lucas.“Doc says I had a concussion, but I’m back to one-hundred percent.So I wanted to put in some track time tomorrow morning.I called the hospital, learned she would be at this posh party, and decided to roll on over and see if she’d sign off on the release forms.”
He held out the paper hopefully even though he still didn’t have a pen.But damn if Brooklyn didn’t look beautiful in makeup and a dress.It was hard to be a gentleman and not openly admire her.He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.Not like his stiffening cock was starting to make him a little uncomfortable.
Lucas Fox was watching him closely.The guy must see him as competition for Brooklyn.Jealous too.Not that Dylan could blame him.
“Off-roading,” Lucas said musingly.
“Yeah.Trophy trucks.Racing.Jumps.Power slides.The whole deal.Around here, the desert is perfect.”
“You must do a lot of walking back through the desert when they break down,” Lucas quipped with a challenging look.
“Well, if you’ve got zero mechanical sense, I suppose that’s a problem,” Dylan shot back.This guy was pretty damned arrogant.Or maybe Dylan had hurt his feelings by ripping on overpriced supercars.“But driving hard is the best way to feel alive.”
“And driving a hundred plus miles per hour across the salt flats in a precision machine like a Bugatti doesn’t qualify?”
Brooklyn cleared her throat.“I can barely breathe with all the macho over here, gentlemen.”
Dylan ignored that one.He knew she didn’t mean it.And he certainly wasn’t a gentleman.As for what Lucas had said, Dylan knew a lot of guys who raced out on the salt flats.Who was he to rag on their good times?“Have you tried that in your Bugatti?”
Lucas Fox hesitated before giving a wry shake of his head.“Never made the time.Not yet.”
“You should definitely try it out.For me, it’s more about racing something I’ve built from the ground up.Testing it.Pushing the limits.But when I take a club vehicle out, it’s no less fun.And racing?Hell, only sex gets your heart pumping faster.”
Brooklyn choked on her sip of champagne, but Lucas only grinned.“How hazardous is off-road racing?”
“It’s safer than skydiving,” Dylan said, not knowing if that was exactly true.
