Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(69)

Ana has no idea. She slips her arm through mine as the attendant tightens her seat belt, and looks at the topmost cars. The ride spins around slowly as it loads up, bringing us up to the top after maybe a minute.

She looks down.

"Is this the whole ride?"

"No way." I grin at her.

Then it starts, building up more and more speed. The look on her face is priceless. As it goes around faster and faster, the cars tilt out, until she can look straight down at the ground and hold on to me for dear life. Her grip tightens as it reaches maximum speed.

The ride may only last two minutes, but it feels like half an hour. By the time we step off, she's giggling again.

"I want to do more."

I bought enough tickets to go all day.

I'm saving the best for last. Next I lead her to the bumper cars, and we get in line.

"Have you ever driven before? Do you know how?"

She shakes her head to both.

Oh, this is going to be good.

As we wait our turn, she looks at the little cars with their rings of rubber around the edges.

"Why are they called bumper cars?" she asks nervously.

"Pretty much why you think," I tell her, smirking.

The cars are at random spots all around the ring. She shuffles on the slick rubber, holding my hand. I almost pull her into one of the double-sized cars with me, but I drop her in one of the single ones instead, and take the nearest one for myself.

I give her a thumbs-up, and she awkwardly returns the gesture.

"Pedal on the right makes it go," I tell her just as the electric hum starts up.

She surges forward crazily, spinning out as she pushes the accelerator all the way in. Grinning, I start off more controlled and clip her read end, sending her spinning wildly.

Ana wrestles with her steering wheel. From the corner of my eye I see her speed up, and then she rams right into my rear end. The world turns madly as the bumper car bounces off the big tires lining the track, and I have to wrestle it around to get going again, bumping into random people.

She learns fast. She's cruising around the track in a circle, clipping people out of the way so she doesn't go spinning off from the impacts. I make a tight turn and try to hit her, but someone else bangs into me and I miss.

Before I even realize what happened, she rams into me from behind and sends me bouncing into the corner. She brings her bumper car alongside mine, leans over, and plants a kiss on my cheek.

Then she floors it.

Oh no you don't.

I wrestle the car loose and charge after her, ignoring the other riders, bumping them out of the way when I can. Ana has gone a full turn of the track unbumped, and she's picking up a lot of speed.

Of course. I weigh twice as much as she does. She's a lot lighter.

I swing out and then into the turns, trying gain some speed. Ana is getting good at this, but I'm a veteran. I get close enough to tap her back bumper, but it's not enough to throw her off.

My opportunity comes. She knocks another driver out of the way, and the impact slows her down. I hit hard on her front corner and send her spinning out, into the tires. Her car bounces off, and she returns it to the track just as fast, a big grin on her face, and now she's coming for me.

I can't outrun her. She rear-ends me again, and I have to wrestle the wheel to keep going straight and make the next turn. She falls back and then hits me again, trying to send me off-balance, spinning out.

She's faster than I am, but not so much faster she can hit hard and knock me out of the way. I take the lead of the cars in the circuit.

Then another driver hits her, and she cries out as she goes spinning out of the track.

Poor form, bumper-car-ing another man’s girlfriend.

It's some kid. I come around the turn hard and send him spinning off with a bump.

The cars start to slow down, losing their momentum after the power is cut. As soon as mine comes to a stop, I rush over to Ana and offer her a hand out of her car.

She's shaky on her feet, giggling. She stumbles a little as I lead her off the track.

"Can we sit for a moment?"

"Sure. Want some cotton candy?"

"I do not know what that is. Yes."

I laugh and run up to buy her some, and bring it back to eat it while we sit. She ends up with pink spun sugar stuck to her face, trying to lick it off with her little, pink tongue. I do the gentlemanly thing and kiss her, hard, the taste of the candy mingling with the taste of Ana.

"Get a room, you two," a passing park attendant says.

I almost flip him off, but Ana actually looks tempted.

"We're not done," I tell her. "Come on."

"What are you going to do to me next?" she says, one eyebrow raised.

"I can think of a few things."

She giggles.

I want to etch this into my brain. When she smiles, she's so pretty. She has this lopsided kind of smile, always pulling to the right a little. A little snaggletooth makes her grin just a bit imperfect, and it makes it all the more real, all the more beautiful. Unable to help myself, I reach up and snatch her glasses away. I want to see those eyes of her. Mismatched and beautiful.

Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her. She melts against me, and I feel her smile as our lips meet.

"Haunted house," I tell her.

She actually gasps.

"It's just a ride. Come on."