three times to clear the lump from my throat.
“How about racing a Lambo up the coast, right next to the beach? Would that be a fun birthday present? We can get pancakes after, and I'll buy you some ugly boy clothes to hide your pretty figure.”
“Perv.” I stick out my tongue and put my foot on his chest, shoving him back a few inches as he laughs. “But okay. Anything is better than going back to that awkward tension between Monica and Cody.”
Tobias holds out his hand and helps me down from the horse. Good thing, too, because there's a security guard coming our way.
“Time to bail, brother,” Tobias says, and Micah nods, sliding off the end of the horse and following after us. We run the rest of the way to the exit, and I end up at the driver's side door of Tobias' canary yellow Lamborghini Aventador. Holy. Mother. Of. Shit.
I'd lose my virginity on this car.
The thought makes me flush as Tobias hands out the keys, grinning stupidly at me.
“Okay, what are the rules for this little shindig? Micah?” He glances over at his twin who's leaning against the side of his matching yellow Lambo with his arms crossed over his chest, his red-orange hair falling across his brow. His eyes are still dark and contemplative as he watches us.
“She gets until we hit the access road to warm up, but that's it. Then we line up at the gate, and you can call start. Winner is the first one to get to the peak.”
“What does the winner get?” I ask, my heart racing. This is seriously dangerous stuff we're talking about doing. I shouldn't even be agreeing to this, but my heart is racing, and I suddenly find that I can't think about anything else. I feel alive in a way I haven't since we moved.
“How about if I win …” Micah starts, pushing off the car and moving toward me. He takes my chin in his fingers and smirks, lending him this cruel edge that I've never seen in his brother. “I get a kiss.” My cheeks flush bright red, and I slap his hand away while he laughs. Meanwhile, Tobias is looking furiously between us. “What do you want on your end?”
“You are not getting a kiss,” I grumble, but then when I think about it … about Micah pushing me up against the side of his yellow sports car, sliding his fingers into my hair, and pulling me in close … it doesn't sound half-bad. Actually, it sounds like heaven. He smirks at me, clearly not impressed with my feeble protests. “Okay, fine, you can have a kiss if you win”—when you win is more like it because I don't know shit about racing cars—“but if I win, I want to know everything about Jenica. Everything.”
Micah and Tobias glance at each other, but I guess they're as aware as I am about my chances of actually winning this, so they both shrug before turning back to me.
“Deal,” they say, and then Micah swaggers back to his own car as Tobias opens the driver's side door for me.
“My lady, your chariot awaits,” he says as I grin and slide onto the sumptuous black leather seat. Just before he closes the door, he leans down, smelling like sweet and tart cherries and cedar, and puts his lips up close to my ear. “Happy birthday, Charlotte.”
Tobias stands up, closes the door, and moves around to the passenger side while I try—and fail—to get my thundering heart under control again.
That … is the best birthday present I've ever had.
The road we're racing on is an old access road to the state park. There's a locked gate that Micah has no problem picking, letting it swing open with a creak of rusty hinges. On our right is the bay, glittering under a nearly full moon. On the left is a mountain, dotted with trees and climbing up into the night sky.
There's a guardrail on the beach side, and Tobias has promised me we'll be the only traffic on this road.
“When Micah and I race here, we cap the speed at ninety. No faster than that, no exceptions.” Tobias leans back against the driver's side door, watching me from the shadows inside the car. “Do you have any questions?”
I shake my head.
“You gave me a pretty good tutorial on the way over here. Plus, I'm dying to just let loose for a minute.” Dad would fucking kill me—and rightfully