“Wow.” She seems genuinely stunned. “One day, she was going about her life as usual, and next thing she knows, she’s met one of the most amazing men I have ever known.” She smiles and taps the screen where I suppose my forehead is. “Show her the kind of good trouble you can stir, sir.”
“Reese …” I begin, and she stops before leaving.
“I should tell her. Right?”
She hesitates.
“I’m lying to her. The whole team.”
“Don’t tell her until you feel she’s ready. Sometimes it’s a lot.”
I’m silent, restless.
“It’s recent for you,” Reese says. “You’ll learn to manage it, figure out what triggers you, you will cope like your father. You’ll come to terms with it, and if she’s even half as worthy as she sounds, she’ll be ready at some point.”
“I want her to be ready now,” I growl, and she just laughs and we hang up.
I pace my room, glancing at the time and realizing it’s way past her bedtime. I picture her sleeping in bed all sweet and warm, and I want her to get used to sleeping with me by her side.
Exhaling restlessly, I grab my tennis shoes, my phone, and my earbuds and head out for a run, wanting to give her space even when every atom and cell in my body screams for me to make her mine once and for all.
Patience, I hear my father say. Rome wasn’t built in a day … and nobody said it was easy to fall in love with a Tate.
Lana
We travel for the next two days, organizing the transport of the team and the cars before we fly to Spain. I sit between Dad and Racer. They’re talking cars.
I’m trying not to notice the way he smells and how many times his elbow and mine bump on the armrest. He seems to know I’m on edge because I jump every time they connect.
He smiles at me, and the smile melts me. I see him pull out his earbuds and connect them to his phone, then unlock it and hand it over.
I don’t know why, but I feel as if I’m peering into his soul as I scroll through his playlist, seeing songs like Walk by Kwabs and True Hardstyler by DJ Zealot.
It feels intimate, especially when I see him keep chatting with my dad but turning his phone around to peer in and see what I’m listening to: Battle Scars by Lupe Fiasco and Guy Sebastian.
At the hotel we check into our rooms. I tell myself I can act grown up about what happened. He’s the hottest guy I’ve ever beheld and girls are panting over him left and right, so he must do this all the time. No need to worry.
Either way, as soon as my brothers dump their pile of clothes to get cleaned in my room, I bathe and change and decide to go and knock on Racer’s door, and I ask him if he has any clothes or requisites.
“No,” he says, frowning at me thoughtfully.
He also bathed and changed, and is wearing comfortable torn jeans and a soft-looking grey T-shirt that licks his body just right.
“Someone should take care of you for a change,” he gruffs out all of a sudden.
I start. “No, it’s … it’s my job.”
“Someone should take care of you for a change.”
No one’s ever said that to me. I exhale, and try to focus on my job and wait there to see if he needs anything.
Racer just frowns.
“Where are you going in that?”
I run my hands down my dress.
“Nowhere. Here.” Shit. Was it too much to change into a dress before coming over here?
“No. Not here,” he says, lips curving as his gaze scans over me. He pushes himself off the doorframe and into his room. “Let’s take you somewhere.”
“Why.”
He stops in the middle of the room to shoot me a get-serious look. “Because you look gorgeous and I want to look at you.”
I melt a little but then jerk at that. “No, I told you, I’m supposed to be sure you behave.”
He gets his keys and wallet and returns in the sexiest walk I’ve ever seen, confident, sleek and lithe. “I can behave at a club.”
“I don’t think so.”
He takes my hand and shuts his door and drags me down the hall.
“Racer,” I groan. “You said you’d behave.”
“I said I could, not that I would. Can you?” He chucks my chin, a devilish sparkle in his eye.
“I don’t know,” I say.
He laughs, then says, pressing the elevator down arrow, “Come on. I’ll drive.”
I tug my hand free but remain standing by his side, crossing my arms over my chest to hide my suddenly very erect and tingling nipples. “Bummer. I really wanted the wheel.”
“Be a good girl, and I might give you a lesson,” he says with a wink that lifts my toes up from the ground.
My nipples are overreacting even more. “I don’t need a lesson, I can drive just fine.”
He shoots me a look, and I shoot him one back as we board and head down to his rental.
I should’ve known it would be a very cool sports car.
The guy rented a blue Porsche, with cream seats, and convertible, to boot. I know the salary we’ve offered him isn’t much and it leaves me wondering just how much money this guy made speed racing.
My brothers rarely will take me out to explore, but it turns out Racer doesn’t have such qualms. We end up in one of the city’s hottest clubs, a two-floor nightclub with pop music on one floor, and rap music on the next—and a gorgeous terrace upstairs that we have yet to discover.
We snag a booth at the far end, where we can listen to music, drink, and talk, and though the booth accommodates about five, Racer is sitting pretty close to me—his arm stretched out along the back of my seat as he sips on a prepared tomato juice (a glass of whiskey the waiter brought by mistake sitting untouched beside it), and I’m too engrossed talking to him to remember I’ve got a shot of tequila waiting on the table too.
“So your dad’s a fighter?”
He nods, smiling a little as he looks at me. The flashing strobe lights above dance across his features, and is it really fair for any man in the world to be this hot and perfect?
No.
I don’t think so.
Plus his dimple is out in full bloom. It’s difficult not to be rendered helplessly enchanted by it.
“Why do you smile like that?” I scowl as if he’s having no effect on me.
He runs his thumb along the bridge of my nose. “Because you’re cute.”
“Don’t patronize me.” I laugh, squirming as he lowers his hand back to the armrest. “Why didn’t you become a fighter?”
“I don’t like it enough. Not like he does.” He shakes his head, eyeing me. “It’s just a hobby to me. A way to blow off steam.”
“Are your parents together?”
“Almost thirty years together. My dad’s in his early fifties. Never looked at another woman after he met my mom.”
I can tell he cares about his family, and it makes me yearn for my parents to still be together, for me to still have a home—with a mother in it, a father, and love to go around.
“And you, Lana?” He lowers his arm and shifts forward, his expression focused.
“My mom left us about … five years ago. It was the worst year of my life. A few months after she left, David …” I exhale, shaking my head. “My dad was very sad for some time. When he decided to move to Europe and start a Formula One team, I don’t think either my brothers or I blinked twice. To me it felt like I had nothing left in Ohio.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Me too.” I glance at my drink, and suddenly feel the need to toss it back.
“Do you think it will be like that for you?” I ask as I set it down. “A marriage like your parents have?”
“I didn’t used to believe that was possible.” A waiter brings me a new glass of tequila, and Racer waits until he leaves before he continues—running his knuckles down my jaw. “Now I just wonder if it’ll be the same for her like it was for my mom.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mom loves my dad. She’s crazy about him actually. She gets every part of him. Even the shit no one else would get or love about him. That’s pretty rare.”
“You don’t think that someone could feel like this for you?”
“I used to think there was no way that would happen for me, so why try?” He smirks and lifts his drink as if toasting to that, then takes a long gulp, looks at me, and sets his glass back down. “Now I know when it feels this right for you, you better be sure you make her see it’s just as right for her.”
“Why do you think no one could feel like that for you!” I’m nearly affronted by the mere idea.
“Because loving me is a curse?”
“What? Why would loving you be a curse?”
He’s silent, looking at me with that mischievous smile dancing on his lips. “You’re the one who should be most concerned, crasher. Trust me, I’m better from afar.” He shakes his head, that mischievous gleam still in his eyes. “No one can break your heart as hard as I’ll be able to break it. No one could possibly ruin your life the way I can.” His voice is a warning, but there is tenderness there, almost amusement—as if even when he’s issuing a warning, he knows that I won’t listen.
“No, you’re not. You’re better from up close,” I contradict, and his eyes flash when he hears the conviction in my voice, then he grabs my face and leans down, his eyes blazing into me.
“You’re so fucking adorable. I want you in my pocket, so you go everywhere with me and nothing can harm you.” He curls his hand around my nape, smiling into me as he presses his forehead to mine.
“That would be so very wrong,” I part groan, part laugh.
“I’m never wrong, Lana. Ever.” He shakes his head playfully. “Not about anything. And not about you.”
I laugh, feeling giddy and maybe like one shot of tequila plus a little bit of Racer is already enough to take me to the stratosphere, but I reach for my drink and I push it back.
I want to tip my face up and kiss him. I want him to kiss me. I don’t want anything else in the world but this right now. But he seems incredibly agitated. Fiercely intense.
Something about his protectiveness, his blatant possessiveness, turns me on.
He takes a strand of my hair, pushes it behind my ear, and leans forward. He offers me his glass of whiskey, and I take it, downing a long gulp. He laughs when I do that, then scowls and takes it away. “Be careful,” he warns.
I lick my lips as he draws his glass away, then I lean over, pressing my lips to him. “Racer,” I groan.
I hold my breath as I ease back, and his gaze holds mine in a deadlock.
His nose is flaring, his eyes brilliant as he watches me.
He slides an arm around me and reels me in a little closer. He reaches out, and electricity runs down my spine so hard that I almost arch up against him. He smiles, setting his hands on my waist. They’re so wide and big that I feel a little bit smaller, a little bit like the whole world just reduced to one person. Him.
I lick my lips, unable to take my eyes off him as he starts moving me—moving with me. He lowers his head and I feel his nose sort of nuzzling the top part of my ear. A tremor begins from that sensitive place where his lips are, down my neck, my spine, my legs, to my very toes.
He draws back with this wicked smile, and in his eyes, I can see the blatant heat. It’s as if he wants me to know it. That he’s a man and he’s hungry and he’s not one bit concerned about the fact that he might just be hungry for … me.
Might have been talking … about me.
Everything inside me throbs.
I sort of swallow back any protest because I’m sort of going willingly, my eyes holding his as I crash into him, my lips sort of falling on his dimple.
He groans, turning his head to press a peck to my lips, his tongue sliding out to lick the seam of my lips.
I shiver, licking him back.
“You don’t drink at all?” I breathe.
“I’ve got other vices. Like cars. And you.”
I start to pant a little harder, something I thought would be impossible. He looks at my face, then he sees something there. Lust? Desire? Need? Desperation?
Eyes darkening on me as if he’s marking his territory with a look alone, he’s suddenly pressing me back against the wall as he reaches between my legs and cups me over my flowy skirt. I rock my hips, gasping when he squeezes me a little.
Something flickers in his eyes as if he realizes what’s going on with me.
He cages me in with one arm and leans his shoulder forward, easing his erection between my thighs as he cups me between my legs.
I can’t formulate a single thought or pull in a single decent breath. It’s just Racer all over me—his face and his eyes so close I feel like I’m drowning in a sea somewhere in Tahiti. His arm sliding between our bodies, his fingertip feathering over my wet sex, under the little dress I wore just for him to see me in something other than jeans and a T-shirt, and my whole body shaking in wanting.
I pull in a breath and slide my arm up his hand and along the back of his neck, while Racer watches me through those thick lashes, murmuring as he shakes his head, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing, “You’re so damned gorgeous, Lana.”
I quiver so hard that I want to raise my walls, know that it’s best if I probably headed back to the hotel and just went to bed. But instead I sit here, sick and tired of being wary and on defense against men all the time. So that they don’t hurt me. So that my brothers and father don’t feel disappointed in me. So that I can keep my head on racing and that’s it.
Suddenly I just want to feel. Only that. Just feel.
Feel him.
He lowers his other arm from the backrest and places it on my hips, drawing me a little closer as his lips curve like a devil’s promise.
A fire churns inside me.
I’m aware of others glancing in our direction, Racer tugging me a little closer to him. And there, in his gaze is a fire churning, too, like the fire churning inside of me.
I lean my head and smell him, nuzzling my nose to his shirt.
He uses his nose to nudge my head up, and then his mouth.
His.
Mouth.
It’s covering mine. Pressing and opening mine. And every inch of me awakens when he slips his tongue in my mouth, grabbing me by the back of the thighs and drawing me over his lap as he kisses me, slow and lazy and yet with such hunger and fever that I feel already taken and we’re not even naked yet.
I groan.
He eases back in concern, as if concerned he kissed me too hard.
I can barely open my eyes, I’m so in lust with this guy.
He takes me in. And his expression slips, and instead of indifference or arrogance, his expression reveals the rawness of his need as he caresses me over my panties again.
It does something to me, seeing that he wants me like this.
He slides his hand along the edge of my panties, then eases his fingers through, touching my folds—easing his finger inside me until I feel myself grip him so hard that the pleasure nearly wrecks me.
“Tell me you want my tongue right here,” he rasps against my cheek as he strokes his fingers along my opening.
I picture him naked, moving over me, and cup the back of his head as I press a kiss to his jaw, telling him without words.
He strokes his knuckles down my jaw, his voice thick with emotion. “You’re right to be afraid of me.”
He slides his hand from my hip to my face and holds my face within it, his thumb on one cheek, the finger of his other hand inside me as he’s forcing me to meet his stormy blue gaze.
“I can be a lot to handle sometimes, but do you know how much I want you, Lana? How good I want to make you feel? How often I think of you?”
His eyes, bright and blue, watch my face as he eases one finger inside me and dips his thumb into my mouth. I can’t remember ever feeling this hot, ever feeling as if I’m on a track going 1000 mph and abo
ut to burst through a finish line marked with a wall of flames.
I feel myself blush at my own thoughts and how fast this has been escalating.
He leans his head, and kisses me hard now, one of his hands so big it’s framing my face with his thumb on one side, and his four fingers on the other, as he tongues me, quite hard and so erotically that as he strokes me under my panties, I come like a rocket, gasping against his mouth. Shuddering between him in the booth, completely undone by his touch.
He growls softly as he eases back, and he tugs my panties back into place and helps me straighten, all the while watching me.
“I …” I brush a sweaty tendril of hair back, feeling awkward now that it’s over. “I got carried away again …”
His eyes gleam raw. “Don’t make excuses. Tell me you want this. That you feel this.”
He’s looking intense—his blue gaze really piercing. I swallow and don’t know that I have the courage to admit it, because what will it gain me? Really?
“I needed that, so thank you,” I say with a little grateful smile, as far as I could let myself admit.
He smiles too, then reaches out to tug my dress back down. “Spend the night with me, Lana,” he rasps, nuzzling my face.
“I’m not sure either of us would rest, and you need to rest.”
“That’s not what I need.” He smirks as he eases back.
How I want to kiss him again, kiss the smile on his gorgeous face, grab his face and kiss him all night. In his bed, feel his arms around me, no clothes between us. Feel his hardness against me—no jeans, no underwear, nothing but his sex and mine.
I feel myself blush and think of what it would be like to spend the whole night with him, in his arms, having my way with him … letting him have his dirty, sexy way with me.
“We’d better go,” I breathe, jumping to my feet and watching him slowly come to his and set a couple bills on the table.
He opens the door of the car for me, and as he’s strapping the seatbelt around me, our eyes are holding, his intent and glimmering as if he knows what I really want and am not voicing.
“I want this, but … the team. My brothers and my dad, and …” I don’t even know how to explain it.