Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)
Julie Ann Walker
To my big sister, Dana.
When I was younger, I thought being known as “Little Dana” was a curse. I wanted people to see me not as your mini-me, but as myself. Now I realize being “Little Dana” was a blessing. It gave me big shoes to fill and made me always strive to be better, do better, and reach higher. That drive has served me well in life. Thank you for that!
All great things are simple, and can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
—Winston Churchill
Prologue
Georgetown Campus
Washington, DC
Eight years ago…
“Hey, little ne?a. Where are you going in such a hurry, eh?”
Abigail Thompson’s heart took flight at the sound of Carlos’s smooth baritone calling from directly behind her. She spun around, bracing herself for the impact of his laser-black eyes and that oh-so-tempting dimple in his left cheek. But the stupid sidewalk chose that moment to go all wonky, like the floor of a fun house. And instead of the graceful pirouette she’d planned, she ended up tripping over her own two feet. Down fell her books, her purse, and her enrollment papers as she lurched sideways toward the curb.
“Son of a biscuit!” she yelled as her ankle rolled over the lip of the sucker. But no matter how she pinwheeled her arms like a cartoon character, there was no stopping her momentum.
Honk! A car horn blared. Errrrrttt! A set of brakes squealed. Her entire body flashed hot and cold in the early autumn air, the hair on her head standing stick-straight as she squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the bone-breaking blow. But she was saved from becoming a hood ornament by the grace of God—Hallelujah! Amen!—and Carlos’s quick reflexes. He snagged her wrist in a firm grip, deftly yanking her out of oncoming traffic and into his arms.
And speaking of the grace of God…
Heaven, that’s what she was now in. With her face pressed against his solid chest and the heady smell of soap and…man filling her nose, that was the only way to describe it.
Well, if she was splitting hairs, nirvana, paradise, or wonderland probably worked, too.
Your body is a wonderland… When John Mayer penned those words, he had to be talking about Carlos, right? Because the dude was flat-out ssssmokin’! Adonis come to life. Er…Carlos, that is. Not John Mayer. Though, in all fairness, Johnny Boy was sort of cute, too. But she digressed. Because it didn’t really matter which term she used—heaven, nirvana, paradise, or wonderland—since it all came down to the simple fact that from one second to the next, her distress was replaced with desire, her terror with tension. Sexual tension.
And it was delicious!
Unfortunately, it lasted for all of about two seconds. Gah! Because Carlos gripped her shoulders to hold her at arm’s length—much to the lament of her rapacious nineteen-year-old libido.
And, yes, she fully realized how irrational it was to be cursing the fact that she’d only been given two seconds to revel in his arms when she should be thanking her lucky stars she hadn’t ended up as roadkill. But there you go. Because the man had been making her think and act irrationally since the first moment she laid eyes on him, standing there on the sidewalk by the South Gatehouse. He’d had his arm looped through Rosa’s, his twin sister and Abby’s new—at the time—premed academic advisor, and pow! His swarthy, exotic beauty had hit her like…well, like that sedan had nearly hit her.
That had been a year ago. And since then, she’d come to love Rosa like family. As for Carlos? Well, she wouldn’t say she loved him like family, but she certainly felt something for him. Something her Bio 101 textbook had called a biological imperative, i.e., the overwhelming and intrinsic compulsion to mate. Or, in layman’s terms, the need to Get. It. On.
“Jesús Cristo!” he cursed now, dragging her away from her heated thoughts. “Are you okay, chamaca?”
Okay? Well, a few seconds ago, snuggled against him, she’d been better than okay. She’d been great! But now he’d gone and called her chamaca—which Rosa said was slang for “little girl”—driving home for the bazillionth time that he viewed her less in terms of a willing bed partner and more in terms of a pesky kid sister. So now it was safe to say she was pretty far from okay.
“I’m fine,” she lied, bending to grab her dropped belongings, slapping her hand down on the sheaf of enrollment papers when they caught the wind and threatened to blow into the street. “Thanks for that save, by the way. A bad case of road rash would have seriously put a damper on my day.”
“Not a problem.” He squatted next to her, helping her stack her books. She couldn’t help but notice how tan his hands were compared to hers. Just imagine how we might look together naked, his warm brown skin contrasting against my paleness? Her knees weakened at the thought. And gah again! “Especially considering I was the one who startled you into tripping.”
“No. That wasn’t your fault. I’m just clumsy,” she assured him, leaving off whenever you’re around from the end of the sentence.
“Hmm. Are you sure it’s not all that sangria you guzzled last night at the drama club’s little fiesta? Hangovers can be a bitch.”
“You were there?” She found that hard to believe. Not only had it been mostly underclassmen at the party, but it also seemed impossible she could have missed him. When Carlos Soto entered a room—or, in the case of last night’s party, an abandoned warehouse—everyone knew. He just had a way, a…presence about him that seemed to command attention.