Henley Rose and a hot car go together like peaches and cream, like fine Scotch and a long, dirty night. Which means working with her was like walking into the Garden of Eden every single day. It was a test of willpower because the woman could craft a car as if it were an erotic dance.

Not a striptease.

Not an in-your-face pelvis thrust.

But a beautiful fucking ballet of a woman seducing a machine. Those hands, the way she wielded tools, the intensity in her focus—it was sensual, and it was sinful, and it was this man’s fantasy made flesh.

Imagine what it was like working with her for one, hard-on year.

I mean, hard year.

I survived the challenge because she had talent to spare. And I never treated her differently because she was a woman, or because I thought about her naked an obscene amount of the time. I treated her like anyone else—specifically, all the people I work with who I never ever imagine in anything less than full-on Siberian winter garb, complete with the thermals and Michelin Man coat.

“Black heart still intact.” I tap my sternum. “Same model as before.”

“I’d have thought you’d get an upgrade by now. Faulty parts and all.”

“No recall needed on the ticker. It works just fine in this cruel bastard,” I say, reminding her of the words she’d uttered the day she stormed out.

She arches a brow. “Shame. You should have let me replace it. I’m good at making all sorts of clunkers run better.”

Jesus Christ. She still takes no prisoners. “I’ve no doubt you have all the tools to fix anything, and if you couldn’t find the right one, you’d use a blowtorch.”

She adopts an expression of indignation. “There’s nothing wrong with using a blowtorch,” she says, taking extra time on the first syllable.

How the hell did I ever last with this woman? Before I can even fashion a comeback, she taps her toe against the tire on Wagner’s car. “I see you still like to make your cars with big, manly wheels.”

I roll my eyes then make a give it to me now motion with my hands. “All right, Henley. Deliver the punchline.”

She bats her lashes. “What punchline?”

“Big? Manly? You’re going to say it’s some sort of compensation thing going on. That’s what you always said about the guys who wanted the biggest cars with the biggest wheels.”

She smirks. “Was I wrong in my assessment?”

I laugh. “I don’t know. I didn’t check to see how that added up for them.”

“Nor did I. My focus was always on the work.”

“As well it should have been.”

“That’s what you taught me.”

“I’m glad you learned that lesson.”

“I learned so many lessons from you.”

I take a deep breath and change directions. “What was up with the badass tiger comment out of nowhere? Couldn’t you just wait till I was done to say hello?”

She winks. “C’mon. I was just having fun.”

“Fun? More like trying to get involved in everything.”

She feigns shock and dances her fingertips along the hood of Wagner’s car. “I was merely being helpful and trying to land you a client. Don’t you remember? I was always trying to help you.”

I park my hands on my hips. “Why do I feel like you’re here more to taunt me than to deliver generous humanitarian aid?”

She clasps a hand to her chest. Her ample chest. “Taunt? Me? I was just excited to say hello to my former mentor. Forgive me for my exuberance,” she says, in a too-sweet tone. “How are you these days?”

“I can’t complain.” I don’t know what to make of her, and I don’t know that I want to let her in. “What about you? It’s been a while.”

“Five years. Three weeks. And two days. But who’s counting?”

“Sounds like you are.”

She shrugs as if it’s no big deal, then pops up on the hood and parks her sweet ass on Wagner’s car. Wagner won’t care. He likes pretty ladies, especially when they’re on his prized ride. The problem is he’ll probably want to bang Henley when he returns from signing autographs, and that’s not going to fucking happen on my watch.

Not that I have any control over who she’s banging. But I’ll do everything I can to make sure it’s not a client of mine who gets his hands on her.

“What brings you to this neck of the woods?” Last I heard from her she’d gone back home to Northern California to work with a rival builder there.

She points her thumb in the general direction of Clint Savage, a burly, bearded, foul-mouthed motherfucker who kills it with some of the hottest custom rides on the planet. “I’m just booth bitching at Savage Rides,” Henley says.

“Yeah?” That surprises me, but I don’t let on. Henley had never been just a pretty set of legs and tits at a show. She was under the hood, working on the engine, getting her hands dirty.

She nods and smiles. “He has me pose on top of the cars. We clean up like that.” She snaps her fingers.

“Is that so?”

She runs her eyes up and down my body. Checks out the tribal bands on my biceps. Lingers on my chest. Well, my T-shirt. I’m not some ass who parades shirtless at a car show. I save that for when I drive with the top down. No, seriously. Do I look like a douche? I don’t drive shirtless, either.

She straightens her spine and hops off the car. “No.” That’s all she says, but that one word comes out exactly like “No, you idiot.”

I sigh. She still fucking hates me. “What are you doing here, then?”

She narrows her eyes. “You think you’re the only game in town? I run a shop now in New York.”

I didn’t keep tabs on her when she walked away in a cloud of black smoke, and I figured it was best for me not to stalk her. I needed to stay away from the kind of temptation she brought to work every day. “Good for you.”

She sets one hand on her hip and stares at me defiantly. “You really thought I was a booth babe?”

“You said you were here as one.”

She huffs. “You never thought much of me, did you?”

You don’t want to know the half of it. You don’t want to know how much I thought of you and how much of it was vastly inappropriate.

“Henley,” I say, keeping my tone measured, “you were the most talented apprentice I ever worked with. I thought the world of your skills, and you know it.”

She sneers, and then she pokes me. She stabs her index finger against my chest, her red-polished nail scratching me and instantly stirring up not-safe-for-work fantasies of her nails down my chest then my back.

“Actions speak louder than words. And yours made it clear you never thought I was good enough,” she says.

I let my gaze drift away from her eyes, down to her neck, then to her shoulder. She follows my path, then I say, “I see you haven’t had that chip removed yet from your shoulder. I know a doctor who can take care of that for you.”

Her eyebrows shoot into her hairline, but her voice is even. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll be sure to think of you first when I’m ready to take it off, seeing as you’re the reason I have one in the first place.”

Let me revise my assessment. A sexy chip on a fuck-hot shoulder. “Glad to know you’re finally giving me credit for something.”

She rolls her eyes. “I gave you all the credit, and you gave me nada.” She curls her thumb and forefinger into an O. “Zilch. Zero.”

“Don’t forget ‘goose-egg.’ Wouldn’t want you to leave out another way to describe how I robbed you of all opportunity.”

She purses her lips and shakes her head. “I don’t know why I came over here to talk to you.”

“That’s a fascinating question. One I’d love to know the answer to.”

“I don’t know. Call me crazy. But I thought maybe we could have a civilized chat.”

I laugh sharply. “You did? That’s why you inserted yourself into a conversation with a potential client with your tiger comment?”

“It was supposed to be funny.” For once, her tone sounds hurt, as if I’ve wounded her. “You used to tease me when I got all worked up about something. You called me ‘tiger.’”

The memory smashes back into me—the first instance I called her that. She was pissed at herself over a struggle with a transmission tunnel that nicked her left hand, and I’d said, “Easy, tiger,” before I moved in and helped her, showing her how to do it without slicing her finger off. She thanked me in the sweetest voice, and then I put a Band-Aid on the cut.

I say nothing, maybe because I’m still lingering on the way she whispered her thank you that day five years ago.

Right now, though? She shrugs in an I-give-up gesture. “See you later, Max.”

This woman was the most fiery, spirited person I’ve ever worked with, but I can’t let her get under my skin, or make me want to put Band-Aids on her when she can damn well do it herself. I need a new approach, especially if we’re running in the same circles.

She turns to go, but I grab her arm. “Wait.” My voice is gentler now. “Tell me what you’re up to these days.”

“Building cars.”

“I figured that much from what you said. What’s your specialty?”

The corner of her lips curves up in a smile as she moves closer—so damn close I can smell her sweet breath, and I’m half wondering how she smells so good at four in the afternoon, like cinnamon candy. But then, that was one of her many talents. Smelling good, looking good, working hard. “The kind of car I would have made with you if you’d have let me,” she says and steps one inch closer. So close I could kiss her cinnamon lips. “They’re called . . . the best.”

She spins on a heel and walks away.

I should call out after her. I should try harder to smooth over the past. But I’m better off letting her go. She’s far too dangerous, even though a part of me likes playing with fire.

That part of me needs to stay the fuck away from a woman like her.