Racing Hearts: Curvy Hips and Sexy Lips, #1

By Candi Heart

When mechanic Charlyse Cruise gets invited to the Grand Prix kickoff party of the year, she couldn't believe her luck. Tagging along with her best friend Colton, it wasn't long before billionaire racecar driver and team owner Tyler Dalton, of the billion dollar racing company, Dalton Enterprises spots Charlyse at the party, her voluptuous curves, dark fiery hair, and dimpled smile immediately grabbing his attention. Needing to get to know her better, he willingly drags her away from the party, and soon, the two are inseparable.

 

On impulse, Tyler begs her to accompany him to the big NASCAR race in Vegas, and without a second thought, she hops in his Bugatti and finds herself driving through Texas on their way to the big race happening in a few days. Things seem to heat up and then drastically cool down once they reach the sparkling lights of the city that never sleeps. Once she realizes how short-lived the fun had been, she slinks back home, sad and confused. In the span of just a few, short days, Tyler had done something to her heart and body nobody else had, and she wasn't sure how she was going to move past it, or get him out of her thoughts.

 

How was a girl supposed to move on when she had no idea what she'd done wrong? Finicky billionaires… who has time for them?

 

Racing Hearts is book 1 in the Curvy Hips and Sexy Lips series, and is for readers 18+.

Each BBW romance in the series is a standalone love story with a guaranteed HEA, and can be read in any order. Each book has its own flame rating, depending on the level of heat you'd like. One flame=sweet/closed door love scenes. Four flames=explicit love scenes.
Racing Hearts (4 flames)
Walking Dick (1 flame)
Love Handles (2 flames)
Big Escapes (4 flames)
Sweet Treats (3 flames)
Shutter Release (2 flames)
Unleashed (1 flame)
Hungry Diva (4 flames)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pin House Press, LLC
• Release date: Dec 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386728375

Book preview

Chapter 1

Charlyse

FLAT ON MY BACK UNDER the 1985 Trans Am, I wheeled the creeper closer to the exhaust manifold. Fumbling around blindly for my wrench, I huffed out when I couldn’t locate it on the ground. I could have sworn I had just set it down.

Where the hell is it...? I murmured under my breath. I didn’t want to have to wheel myself out and try to find it. It was hard enough to get in and out from under the car for a girl my size.

Sighing, I gave up and wheeled out, and then stood up and stretched my back and neck. I really needed to convince Dad to get the shop another lift. It would be so much easier to work on these cars with one, but they were all being used at the moment. Trans Ams were very low to the ground as it was. Shaking my head when I spotted the wrench on the ground near my pink, beat-up creeper, I reached down and snatched it up, annoyed.

The hood was popped so I decided I’d go back to the manifold later. The air filter on this thing needed replaced; I would do that while I was standing here. I didn’t understand why someone would buy this old thing and then not want to restore it themselves. I wasn’t even sure whose car this was, anyway. Probably some wealthy collector. It was the type of job we took when we didn’t have actual race cars to work on.

As I was removing the bolts, I heard, Char, you have a phone call! over the loudspeaker. Of course, this caused me to startle, and I whacked my head on the hood.

Dammit! I yelled, rubbing the top of my head.

I stalked to the messy front office and glared at our new receptionist, Allie. She smiled at me and said, Line two.

I looked down at the two-line phone, its beige color mostly black now with grease smudges. I clicked the blinking button and picked up the receiver.

Hello?

Guess what I have in the email box right this minute? came Colton’s excited voice.

I don’t know, I replied, sounding bored. Your STD test results? Please tell me they were negative for herpes.

He snorted. No.

What? It’s positive?

No, bitch, not that. An invitation to the Dalton Enterprise’s pre-season gala at the Dalton Mansion!

My stomach turned over. Dalton Enterprises was the name in racing, and while we had worked on cars for them before, our little mechanic’s shop had never received an invite to their big yearly party. Colton, my best friend, who was more like my brother, ran the administrative side of our shop. He was also a very talented driver and had won quite a few races. He just didn’t like getting his hands dirty.

Wow, I breathed. When is it?

This Saturday night.

Nothing like waiting ’til the last minute, I thought. I also thought it odd we’d gotten an invite at all. But, the company’s patriarch, Jason Dalton, had just passed away, so maybe that had something to do with it. Regardless, I was definitely game.

Sweet, who’s invited?

It’s addressed to Dad and his employees.

Nice. Then I thought about something. "You’re not going to bring her as your plus-one, are you?"

Colton made a scoffing noise. No, not speaking to her.

For now, I said under my breath.

I heard that. Now, when you get off work, go out and get yourself a dress. After you shower, of course.

I laughed. Bye, Colt.

He hung up and I went back to work on the car.

THE REPAIRS TOOK MUCH longer than I had anticipated, and after stripping out of my coveralls and scrubbing my hands, I went into the office to grab my purse. As I was flying out the door, the phone rang.

Allie had long since left, so with a sigh, I picked it up and hit the button. Owen and Sons, can I help you?

Is Owen in? a female voice asked.

I smiled. No, he’s gone for the day. May I take a message?

No, thank you. I’ll call back later.

I grinned as I hung up. My dad and his women. It was too bad he’d never had any sons. He’d inherited the shop from his father, Owen Cruise, Sr., who’d opened it when my dad and uncle were teens. It was all our family had ever known.

As I drove home, I again considered changing careers. I mean, I’d always wanted to work on cars and had been happy when Dad trained me when I was just a young teen. But it wasn’t very ladylike, and sometimes I got called a dyke and other rude things. Especially here in Texas, sometimes people here were asswipes with no filter. Not that I wasn’t used to it, it just got old and made me roll my eyes.

Once I reached my little condo on the northeast side of Austin, I slogged through the door, exhausted, and showered. As excited as I was about the upcoming party this weekend, I was in no mood to go out and shop.

After ordering a pizza, I went online pulled up Google, and typed in party dresses. With my dark auburn hair and medium complexion, I usually looked pretty good in dark-green, so I searched for dresses in that color when a popular clothing company’s website appeared. I was usually leery of ordering clothes online, especially because some of the plus-size stuff varied so much, but I just didn’t have the time or energy to go out and find one.

Spotting a gorgeous emerald-green number, I was happy to see it wasn’t too expensive and they had it in my size. It looked beautiful on the model wearing it on the site, so I added it to my cart and paid an extra twenty bucks to have it arrive by Friday.

Well, that was easy, I thought, chuckling.

Deciding to surf the Internet until my pizza arrived, I began to wonder if my city had gotten onboard with the whole grocery delivery thing. I’d heard of bigger cities offering this service from the local grocery stores, but this was Texas. With a shrug, I said, What the hell, out loud, and typed in grocery delivery.

The first three results were for the top grocery store chains in my area with information about delivery. Yes! I whispered to no one. As I was about to click on the first one, a fourth search result caught my attention:

Curvy Lips and Sexy Lips website offers information on grocery delivery to make your healthy food shopping easier...

Intrigued, I clicked on the link. A colorful website greeted me with a large banner which read: TRY FREE FOR THIRTY DAYS. It promised that if I wasn’t satisfied with the results of the diet plan, I wouldn’t be out any money.

Diet plan? Hmm. I could use a diet plan. Someone or something to tell me what to eat when, because Lord knew I was horrible at cooking and chose to eat out most of the time. As I looked around the site, it had tons of info on exercise routines, gyms, and health food stores in my area, and, of course, customized diet plans. I decided to sign up and see what they could offer me.

When the doorbell rang, I went to answer it. I knew I’d better enjoy the pizza, as I doubt that would be on the website’s diet plan.

Chapter 2

Tyler

"YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN this, Ty. Your father would have taken the deal."

Son of a bitch.

I gritted my teeth. It was a low-blow, but not something I hadn’t come to expect from all the bottom-feeders sleazing around since my father’s untimely death. Idiots like this one were a dime a dozen. Kyle was the eldest son of Evan Smith, a dumb asshole who’d squandered his chances at wealth by fucking over the very people who were ensuring a regular payday. Now he’d sent Kyle to try to gather as many scraps as he could for his fallen empire.

Whatever made this kid think Dalton Enterprises was the right door to knock on for that shit was beyond me, but I’d entertained him for ten agonizing minutes. Business was business, and I told myself to always hear someone out. You never knew; they could have something I never thought would be investment-worthy before. Plus, this was Evan’s kid. Not Evan himself. Could be the kid was cleaner, smarter, and worth the trouble. At least, that had been my original line of thought.

Unfortunately for him, that last, fatal line had told me everything I needed to know about Evan’s heir-apparent. The apple hadn’t even left the branch, let alone fallen from the tree.

Grinning, I made a show of ease, overpowering the poorly asserted lump of muscle Kyle was attempting to flex over what was amounting to be an overly costly dinner for a business deal he didn’t have the intelligence or charisma to seal.

"I’m sure if that were true, Dalton Enterprises would have gotten in bed with your father’s company a long time ago. I might still be a tad green, but dear old Dad’s blood still runs strong my veins. Do yourself a favor, man. Get the fuck outta my sight."

Nothing else needed to be said, and it was clear by the expression coloring Kyle’s face that he now knew he’d said the wrong thing. The exact wrong thing. You want to talk shit about how I’m running Dalton Enterprises? Knock yourself out. Feel the need to criticize the team? Write a book. But no one in their right fucking mind was going to pimp out my old man’s name and memory for money.

I wasn’t running Dalton Enterprises for money. I had more than enough of that. My merch and business model had long since profited me into my own hard-earned independence. I was in this to keep my father’s name clean, plain and simple. As long as I was fit and able, I’d make for damn sure it didn't climb into the cesspool with the snakes—fixing races and unfairly leveraging drivers. Dirty business would kill racing if that particular virus made its way into the sport’s main artery.

I couldn’t and wouldn’t allow that for Dalton Enterprises. Not while I was around to do something about it. My father taught me early on about honor, and it was a lesson I’d taken to the deepest recesses of my heart. I doubted I’d have much of a soul without it. Honor and integrity kept the less-controlled aspects of my character in line. I was grateful for that.

Kyle had the grace to look embarrassed, but there was a small storm of anger brewing in his eyes I could tell he was trying hard to hide. He cleared his throat. I’ve obviously upset you, Tyler. I’ll leave you to your dinner. On me. I’m, uh, sorry for your loss.

Licking his lips nervously, Kyle affixed the middle button of his blazer. Then he took a quick glance around the swanky restaurant before darting his gaze to me again. Giving me a curt nod, he made his way out, quickly and purposefully. I almost felt sorry for the kid. His father was probably going to knock him around a little for fucking this up, but there was nothing to be done about it.

The kid was lucky I didn't knock his ass out. I’d have done it, too, even in the middle of Solomon’s, in the heart of Austin’s famed city tower. It wasn’t the many eyes set around the candlelit tables, picking at insanely decadent entrees and desserts, that had halted my hand. Whispers I didn’t mind. Rumors were even good for business in my line of work. It was the kid himself I’d given the barest pass to. Because I knew men like Evan Smith had known those fucked-up words that had made my blood boil didn't come from