Racer

  I look at him—and I realize he’s more important than my dream, than my dad’s dream and my brothers’ dream. Than anything.

  I text back, Start looking for a replacement.

  And shut my phone off.

  I see he opened his eyes and was eyeing my profile.

  I look back at him “You’ll be well soon and driving your car, heading off somewhere, you and I. I’ll play some music on your stereo … we can play some now.”

  He just looks at me in silence as I search for one.

  “Have you heard this one?” I show him Favorite Record and smile teasingly.

  He drinks me in for a long, achingly wild heartbeat, and I smile at him wider, but my smile trembles on my face when he says nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  His eyes scan me quietly, his expression intense and fierce as I slide one earbud into his ear and play the music. I don’t know why this song is the one I play, but I want him to remember the good times, I want to take him to a place away from here. Away where he’s just … himself. So Fall Out Boy is singing and even with the upbeat song, the memories of being anywhere else with him but here make my chest hurt. I just desperately want my boy back.

  Racer

  I’m in fucking hell.

  Trying to cheer me up, sweetly and innocently. Smiling at me, trying her damn best to get me out of the dark. She looks fucking incredible. Like a wet dream. The only thing worth looking at in this shitty room. The moonlight touches her skin and she looks like a damn angel, an angel sent for me.

  A wave of despair punches me in the gut when I think of how she stood there, looking at me in this damn bed. Helpless and fucked up. Fuck.

  I could hardly look her in the eye.

  Too fucking afraid that what I saw there would finish breaking me.

  She looked at me at the door and I almost glanced backward to see who she was staring at with all that concern in her eyes.

  She was looking at me.

  My girl was looking at me.

  All fucked up as bad as I can be.

  And Lana Heyworth the girl I love was staring straight at me with a look no woman has ever given me before.

  Yeah because I just don’t deserve her. I just don’t think I deserve her at all.

  Why does it feel like she was fucking made for me, if I was made wrong for her? I was made so fucking wrong I can’t even keep my shit straight.

  I want to rip my fucking heart out because I hurt her.

  I said I didn’t need her.

  It gutted me to say it.

  To know it cut her deep and that I did it because I’m too proud to admit that I do. Because I’m too proud to want her to see me like this.

  I didn’t say more, was afraid to say more.

  I look at her now, in my arms, her eyes closed as the music playing stopped and the only sounds are her even breathing and the beeping of the IV monitor.

  I loosen the hold of my arm; so she can leave. So she can get as far and fast away from me as possible.

  She sighs in her sleep and snuggles closer to my chest, inhaling me and mumbling one word sleepily, with all the affection you can ever hear in a woman’s voice. In your woman’s voice. Like the word means something to her. She murmurs, Racer.

  Lana

  I wake up to feel him watching me. I stir awake and start when I realize where we are, sitting upright in the bed.

  Racer’s quiet as he looks at me. I’m startled to see the nurses come and go.

  I stand and whisper, “I should go to the bathroom,” and when he gives me the barest smile and opens the bed sheet for me to slide out, I smile nervously and hurry inside, despaired when I realize I look a mess. I try to fix my hair, use some of the toothpaste on the sink to wash my teeth with my finger, rub it all over my mouth and tongue, then I wash it off and wash my face. I pull my hair back—trying to look as least shitty as possible.

  I exit the bathroom and Racer is standing by the window—a glimpse of his gorgeous ass peeking at me through the parting of his robe.

  I see the RT tattoo on his butt and shiver inside as he turns—eyeing me quietly again.

  I want to run into his arms and beg him to tell me it’s going to be okay. Because if Racer says it, I will believe it. Because he’s my hero and I admire him, trust him, aside from the fact that I also want and have fallen head-over-heels bat-shit crazy in love with him.

  “You okay,” he asks me as I stand there, trembling.

  I bite down on my lip and nod. “Yes.” The fact that he asks if I’m okay nearly wrecks me.

  “I want you to eat something,” he gruffs out.

  “I’ll grab something from outside,” I assure.

  I step out of the room and tell his dad I’m going to get something to eat. He’s out there in the waiting room and simply nods and heads over to visit with him while I do.

  When I come back, Racer is pacing the room.

  “… she never comes back I’m going to rip this fucking roof off …”

  He stops growling at his dad when he looks at me, his eyes widening.

  His dad smiles as he drinks him in. “I’ll go to the hotel, take a shower. Be back to check on you later,” he says, smiling as he slaps Racer’s back.

  I meet Racer’s blue, blue gaze, noticing his hair is standing up more crazily than before, as if he was raking his fingers through it. “What’s up. Did you think I’d leave?” I ask, confused.

  He curls his fingers into his hands and the muscle in his jaw starts working again.

  “I’m spending the night here tonight,” I say, then I flush when I realize how much I’m invading his space and already did last night. “But I want you to be comfortable. I’ll take the chair,” I explain as I head to the chair.

  I cross the room, feeling his blue eyes watching me.

  “Lana.”

  My stomach twists as the rough word reaches me and sort of wraps itself around my stomach and my heart, and I turn as I lift my head. His voice is raspy and textured.

  “Come back here.” He motions to the bed.

  “I want you to be comfortable.”

  He grits his teeth in frustration, then pulls off his IV, and my eyes widen as he starts jamming his fingers into the beeping machine, trying to quiet it with a frown.

  Finally the machine quiets, and he walks over and I’m on my feet, wide-eyed.

  “What are you doing.”

  “You can come, or I can carry you,” he says plainly.

  He tugs me forward, and I can’t breathe because I don’t understand why this gesture undoes me so much. I don’t understand why I want to cry but, afraid he’s not going to lie here with me as he leads me with his warm, firm grip on my hand to the bed, I tug him down with me.

  Racer doesn’t seem to have been intent on leaving. He lifts the cover and slides his long, toned, muscular legs inside.

  He slides his arm around me and I’m so desperate to touch him, to know that he is real, that I did not imagine a guy that has wanted me more than anything, that has taught me how to care for a guy again, that I press closer.

  Suddenly Racer slides his hand under the covers and says, in my ear, “Take these off. I just want to feel you.” His eyes are brilliant in the darkened room, and I don’t need to be asked twice. I reach beneath the covers and flip open my jean button, and before I can take them off, Racer moves the sheet back and pulls them off me. He pulls them off me and then discards them, our bare legs touching under the covers.

  I exhale a shuddering breath when he runs his hands along my skin.

  “That shirt long enough to cover you when someone comes in?” His deep voice makes my skin pebble as he whispers the possessive question into my ear.

  I’m melting and aching all over. “Yes.”

  He looks at me with those blue eyes and I buzz inside as he slides his hands over me, just looking at me in the dark with something fierce and intense in his eyes.

  He sets his hand on my stomach and leans his head and smells me
. I stroke his hair when he wraps his arm around me and just sets his face between my breasts, growling softly before he settles down. He shuts his eyes, kissing my stomach.

  “Oh, goodness, that bed isn’t made for two.” I start at the voice of a middle-aged nurse.

  “I think we need to give the patient his space,” the nurse tells me chidingly.

  I’m instantly making to move out of the bed when he grabs my wrist to halt me.

  “I need her here.”

  The nurse was busy changing the med packets, but she pauses at that and looks at Racer after the raspy whisper.

  Gruffly he repeats, “I need her here. She’s my medicine.”

  She smiles. “Young love,” she whispers as she fixes the machine and hooks him back up. “Enjoy it while it’s young,” she says laughingly.

  We’re both sitting on the bed now, and I turn to meet his intense gaze as he leans back on the bed and slowly reaches out and draws me to his chest.

  Whereas yesterday when I came, he wouldn’t look at me. Now it’s like he cannot stop. His blue eyes drink me in in silence, and I drink him in while all my body clutches with yearning for this guy.

  “You have no idea how hard it is for me for you to see me like this. I’ve never wanted anything less in my life,” he gruffs out.

  A muscle in his jaw twitches uncomfortably, his eyes dark and tormented when he looks at me.

  “Don’t hide from me. Both the good things and the bad,” I plead.

  His blue eyes seem sad, as if his whole life force is turned off. “I didn’t want to give you the bad.”

  “I want it. I want all of you,” I blurt out.

  Those dark, sleek eyebrows of his shoot upward at that comment, and then his eyes begin to glow as if something about that lit up his fire.

  “I’m not scared of this as much as I’m scared of what you make me feel, Racer,” I whisper painfully. “I’m scared of the way it feels to be with you, everything so acute and alive and thinking I wouldn’t bear to one day live without you. When David died it hurt too much and I never wanted that again, but I never thought I could feel it again a thousand times more intense until you. Guys didn’t even draw my eye that much but you. Like I was meant for you, Racer.”

  I pause to get my breath.

  “That day you told me that I … loved you … I was crying because I have never felt this intensely for anyone. And I don’t know if I can be all you need.” I catch my breath on a gush of emotion. “I want you, your whole being, your entire you. Even this.”

  He shuts his eyes and puts his forehead on mine, his arms like steel around me as he exhales.

  He starts to growl as he clutches me tighter, whispering in my ear, “You have no idea what you’re asking for,” he warns.

  “I do. I do, and I WANT it. I want you.” I clutch his jaw and am so desperate for him to know how much I mean it, cuddle him. Smell him. Let my body say what I haven’t said in words, that I love him, so much, so much I’d stay here with him forever if that were the only way I’d get to be with him.

  I cup his strong jaw and look into his tortured blue eyes. “Are you okay. What are you thinking?”

  “What I’m thinking stays in my head,” he says, frowning determinedly. “I get sucked into this goddamned vortex, and I need to remind myself it’s just perception. Just in my head. You’re what’s real. This.”

  He cradles my skull in his palms and presses me to his chest. I can hear his heartbeat. Strong and steady. His muscles feel lax, his blue eyes shadowed and his energy subdued, but his arms are still his arms. He is still him. And I’m even weaker against him, determined to be strong for him and at the same time, I’m completely vulnerable to him.

  “I love you.” I wipe my tear as I start to cry.

  His strong, large body seems to jolt and tighten at that, and his embrace tightens around me as he drops his head and growls in my neck, “God. Don’t say that. Don’t tell me this now.”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t want to hear it.”

  He releases me and drags a hand over his face, his fingers trembling. “You don’t, crasher. You don’t. You can do so much fucking better than me.”

  “You’re it.”

  “I’m no good,” he hisses. “I’m no fucking good for you. I’m as fucked up as it gets … look fucking around you, Lana. Is this really what you want?”

  I stare at him squarely in the face. Never surer.

  “I love you, Racer Tate. YOU.”

  His eyes flash, and his nostrils flare as if he’s fighting to stay in control as he looks at my face like I’m not even real. Like he’s imagining me.

  He reaches out and drags his thumb along my jaw, his voice achingly tender and pained. He shakes his head warningly. “Don’t say it because I can’t take it if it’s not true. If you leave me. If you get sick of me. Stop loving me. Don’t give me hope only to take it away one day because it’ll push me over the edge and make me insane.”

  “I won’t ever take it away, it’s yours. I’m yours.”

  He growls and yanks me to his chest, pressing my skull to his chest as he leans his head and kisses the top of my head. “Baby. My sweet girl,” he whispers out on a hiss, shutting his eyes as he lovingly nuzzles my face.

  “My strong, fast boy,” I whisper as I feel him wipe another tear from the corner of my eye.

  I wipe a small drop at the very edge of his and my whole being shudders.

  He growls softly as he leans his head and pecks my lips. Just once. Easy first. I catch my breath. He eases back, looking at me again. He leans again. Pecks them again, this time on the side of my mouth. I thrum all over. He turns his head, his lips grazing another peck on the other side of my lips. I groan softly, and his eyelids lift, and his eyes are heavy and fixed on me as if nothing else exists but this. He shuts them up again as he parts my mouth, and when he teases his tongue into my mouth, I feel like detonating from the feeling of love and hunger it brings. A feeling I’m only too familiar with now that Racer, this guy, my guy, has introduced me to it.

  I start to kiss him with everything I have. Racer soon takes my kiss and makes it hotter, wilder, longer.

  He jams his hands deeper into my hair, and my fingers slide around his shoulders to clutch the back of his neck. I feel his body start buzzing again, that relentless unyielding unbending force inside of Racer Tate coming back up.

  He rolls me to my back, spreads me down on the bed and kisses my mouth as if he wants to fuck my body in the same way his tongue fucks my own, and I sense the way his strength and hunger keep returning, as if his fire is slowly blazing strong again. A fire that promises to soon be back to the Racer Tate inferno.

  Lana

  “Hey. Crasher.” I feel someone brush my hair back in such a delicious way that I smile in my sleep and shift in the bed. Damn. This bed is really uncomfortable. Where am I … mmm, it smells nice around here. It smells like Racer’s smell under my pillow. “Let’s go,” I hear the sexy male voice speak again.

  “Whaaa—” I shake my head and start to come fully awake as I glance around the hospital room—then spot him at the side of the bed.

  “Let’s go. We’ve got qualifying.”

  “No!” I gasp. “You’re more important—”

  “This is important to me. To us. Let’s go.”

  I blink, and staring back at me fully dressed and shaved is …

  Racer.

  Racer Tate.

  Not Racer 2.0, not Racer 3.0, not Racer—1. Just. Racer.

  MY Racer.

  Blue eyes sharp and clear, energy once again buzzing and buzzing around me.

  I think my knees may, or may not, work as he helps me up to my feet. I stop by his hospital bathroom to clean up before exiting to see him winking goodbye to a middle-aged nurse as she mentions a follow-up call with his doctor from St. Pete as she hands him copies of his discharge papers and his prescription.

  He stashes them in his back pocket and I follow him outside to say goodbye to his dad
.

  He slaps his dad’s hand. “Thanks for coming,” Racer tells his dad as they shake hands, and as they do, Racer drops his voice. “Dad, I’m—”

  “Don’t.” His dad stops him. “I get it. You don’t owe me anything.”

  Their gazes hold for a second—near identical, both men so similar I’m almost dizzy by the resemblance. “Thanks for coming,” Racer finally says, sounding humbled and grateful.

  His dad pulls him into his embrace. “I love you,” he says. “Be well.”

  “I love you too. Be well, Dad.”

  I’m lingering back, giving them their moment, before I feel Racer reach behind him to seize my hand and draw me up to his side so I can say goodbye to his dad too. His dad is heading back to Seattle, and he promises to meet us in the U.S. for the U.S. leg of the Grand Prix tour soon.

  I climb into Racer’s car, and he turns on the motor and drives out of the parking lot, setting his hand on my thigh as we head back to the hotel for his gear. I exhale, close my eyes, the wind in my hair at dawn, squeezing his hand and rubbing my thumbs along his hard palm, caressing him. I open my eyes and he’s drinking me in like a starved man.

  “Thank you …” His voice is raspy with emotion. “For being here,” he specifies the last.

  “I’ll always be here,” I whisper.

  The sudden unexpected sight of his naughty, sexy-as-sin dimple makes my knees weak, and when he turns on the music, I feel like the happiest woman on the planet.

  “Think they’ll be okay with me coming back? Your family.” He runs his eyes questioningly over me, a familiar gleam of determination sparking up in his eyes.

  I smile hopefully. “We’ll find out soon.”

  “I’m not sure how fast I can be, crasher, the meds slow me down.” He shifts gears, clenching his jaw as he stares out at the road. “That’s why I wasn’t taking my pills in the first place.”

  “I’m sure the best driver in the world could figure it out, and last I heard, you were running for the title,” I encourage.

  And he grins, his whole face lighting up, as if my words just lit a fire in his hungry, driven, sexy soul and he just wants to prove to me that he’s definitely got that in him and more.