“He’s my dad, you know.” I blink the moisture back and I swallow the bile in my throat, rubbing my lower lip with my thumb. “My mother calls once a year. She’s emotionally unavailable, I guess. She was never satisfied with what he did, always wanted more, never showed even an ounce of gratitude for everything he tried to do to please her. I guess I resent her for that. For hurting my dad.”
“And you.”
“Mm?”
“For hurting you,” he says, staring deeply into me.
“Oh, yeah, maybe.” I shrug, surprised that he thinks this immediately. That his immediate concern was me. “I don’t know why I always think that her hurting my brothers and dad hurts worse. Me? I can take it.” I shake my head. I glance out the window. “My dad’s my everything.”
Silence.
I lift my head. “Maybe you think it’s childish but …”
“I don’t think it’s childish.”
“Oh.” I stare at him.
“You care about your family,” he says, smoothing his thumb along my brow.
“I’m sorry, it’s just … I’m sometimes too much a pleaser. And with you it’s worse.” My eyes go round when I realize what I said. “It’s just that I care, for some reason, what you think of me.”
He smiles in bemusement, and I smile and duck my face to hide my blush, then I scowl at him because he is driving me crazy.
He chuckles, then softly, admiringly, “Come here, crasher.”
I go to his seat and Racer slides his arms around me.
“I get hugged all the time, I’ve been a very loved girl,” I inform him, but even then, for some reason, I’m still letting him envelop me in his.
And oh god.
It feels like heaven.
I’m enveloped by him all of a sudden. It’s probably the best hug of my life.
I can smell his soap on his shirt and skin.
“How am I doing?” he gruffs in my ear.
“Poorly. A little tighter,” I say greedily.
He tightens his hold and pushes my hair back and stares into my face. “This tight? Hmm?” There is a way that he holds me, a little tighter than my dad and brother, more possessively. I meet his gaze and close my eyes and inhale his neck, and we just hug then, his chin in my hair and his hand wrapped around my hair.
Drake walks in, and I jerk back in surprise, so fast Racer slowly lowers his arms in puzzlement.
“Hey,” Drake says, eyeing me.
Racer looks at him levelly. “Hey,” he answers, looking at him directly. Almost challengingly. I remain mute.
Drake just stares, and I stand up.
“It’s past lunchtime. The food should be here soon,” I tell them both, as if I hadn’t just been caught snuggling up with our driver.
I hurry outside and absently trail my fingers along my arms across the places that tingle after Racer’s arms were possessively around me.
Racer
“So your dad, Remington Tate? Is he glad you’re racing?” Lana’s father asks me as we sit in a set of tables around the tents, lunching on chicken-and-spinach wraps that Lana ordered from a Shanghai food delivery service.
I sip on my Gatorade, having finished two wraps already while the rest of them seem to still be working on their first.
“My mom doesn’t like the risk I take. My dad always wanted me to be a fighter like he was,” I explain. I don’t tell them that my dad doesn’t trust me behind the wheel of a car knowing I’m BP1. That he’s concerned I might lose control, or not make the wisest choices.
He doesn’t get that cars make me feel better. Keep my brain sharp.
“I used to race little go-karts when I was young,” Mr. Heyworth says with a reminiscent look on his face. “I stopped when I married. My wife …” he smiles a regretful smile, “let’s just say she didn’t want my attention on anything that could detract from my attention to her. I set my dreams aside. She left, and I decided it was time to chase my dreams before it was really too late.” He lifts his water bottle in a toast. “You’ve got what it takes, kid.”
I lift my Gatorade. “Thanks, sir.”
His phone rings, and he tosses his wrap away, and I watch Lana follow him to the chair with a heavy sensation in my chest, a frown on my face. She didn’t say what he had, but she looked completely wrecked about it.
“Tate. You stare at my sister far, far longer than I’m comfortable with,” Drake drawls.
“Look away.” I shoot him a look and smirk.
“Hands off. You hear?”
I meet his determined gaze, then I realize this is going to have to get settled the old way. I stand. “I’ll fight you for her.” I start to roll up the sleeves of my white undershirt.
“Huh?”
“You heard me. I’ll fight you for her.”
“Jesus, you’re insane. Hands off, Lana, buddy.”
“Not that easy, Drake. Can’t.”
“Why the fuck can’t you, Tate.”
“I’m going to marry your sister.” I give him a meaningful look, and he narrows his eyes.
“You’re insane.” He laughs, then narrows his eyes. “She’s been hurt before. She doesn’t want to go through that again.”
“Guys! We have a sponsor!” Lana comes over, flushed and excited, her whole body trembling.
“That’s great, Lainie baby,” Clay says, amused as he glances at both me and Drake.
She looks at me then, and her smile falters, and her cheeks flush even more.
“They love you,” she tells me, and I see her dad walk up behind her, beaming as she explains, “We’ll have more budget now. Better tires.”
I nod at that, my chest doing shit at the sight of her so happy. “What do you want me to do?” I ask.
“Keep it going. And wear this—they sent a package!”
She slides a cap with a logo of a sports company on my head, and I grab her hips and tilt my head down to her as she examines the way it looks on my head.
“Yep. You’ll have to do,” she says. “The dimple makes it look even better.”
She laughs, and I feel my dimple deepen even more as our eyes lock.
Her smile falters as her eyes lock on mine, and I force myself to release her hips when I actually want to grab her ass and pull her closer. She turns me the hell on, and I don’t think she’ll ever know how much. Seeing her happy drives me insane. I want to urge her closer, want to open her mouth with mine, tasting her smile, soft and slow.
I can’t.
I force my arms down at my sides, tightening my jaw as I try to suppress the testosterone in my body. Goes ape-shit when she’s near.
“Only reason I’ll wear one is if you wear one too,” I say, to be difficult.
“What, why?” She scowls as I take off my cap and try it on her face.
“You look cute with it.”
She flushes, pulling out another cap from a bag and setting it back on me.
“Okay. But it’s you they want, champ. Wear that on our next podium, okay?”
“Our first-place podium,” I gruff out.
Her smile widens even more, and her eyes gleam with hope. “Yep.”
I shift the cap and make as if I’m going to kiss her, but instead I whisper, “Come to my room tonight.”
Her eyes widen, and before she can even seem to think about it, she smiles a little wider and licks her lips in nervousness and gives me a nod of consent. My dick jerks, and I can barely keep it in my pants.
That afternoon, as we’re heading out of the track, her brothers slap my back.
“Boy, that was some great performance out there. I nearly had a heart attack,” her father says.
“No!” Lana says, her eyes wide. “Daddy. No.”
She seems to realize her reaction and looks at me, then lowers her face and just smiles, breathing fast from the excitement.
I curl my hands at my sides, heading down the walkway by the track.
“An illegal street racer. Really, Lainie?” I hear Clark yell as he steps ou
t of his tent.
I pass him and bump my shoulder hard against his.
“Hey,” he calls.
“Motherfucker,” I growl at him.
I shoot him an eat-shit grin and keep walking, feeling his fury behind me.
It’s on.
Lana
I’m going to his room.
It’s a big deal, but I’m telling myself it’s not.
I’m downplaying it.
Because I don’t dare admit to myself that I want what I want.
I’m not in Florida anymore.
My family is in this hotel, just like his was.
We could bump into them.
But Daddy is asleep after dinner. And my brothers just stepped off on their floor. They’re too high on the win to think of anything else.
So am I.
Higher than high.
I think Racer Tate is higher than high from it too.
The air around us crackles and burns as we step off on our floor. I tell myself I’ll just kiss him for five minutes. One goodnight kiss just because I’m on cloud nine and I need to get down from there. But being with him doesn’t get me down.
Quite the opposite.
And yet here I am, a little bit like a junkie who cannot save herself, no matter what. All because he said he wanted to be alone with me tonight … and because I want that too.
Have wanted that since St. Petersburg—
A shiver of anticipation runs through me as he slides the key into the slot and holds the door open, and I know I really shouldn’t be here, but at the same time I cannot turn back. Something happened, something is happening—every second we look at each other, every breath he and I take.
I walk inside.
He narrows his eyes and looks at me. He towers over me, his hair a little rumpled from the breeze out on the track, and he runs his hand over it as I look at him questioningly.
“I want you. I’m not going to lie. I want you in that bed with me tonight.”
I swallow thickly, laughing and shaking my head.
He laughs too and reaches out, pulling me closer. “You’re not going to spend the night with me, Lana?”
“No,” I breathe as I lean on the shut door. “I just wanted to spend some time with you.”
His eyes darken, and he exhales a sound of frustration. “Go out on a drive with me.”
“Where?”
He touches my cheek, and my reaction is so visceral, so strong, that I arch and moan softly, pressing closer as I whisper his name.
And in that name is the real reason that I’m here.
And in that name is all the pent-up feelings I’ve tried to lock away ever since that night in St. Petersburg where I brought him with me to my hotel.
And then Racer is scraping his thumb along my lip as if he means to destroy it. He scrapes his thumb along my mouth, side to side. And Racer is leaning his dark head. And Racer is pressing his lips to mine as if I’m the petal of a rose and any brush of wind would break it off.
I lose all semblance of control and rationale. I don’t know what’s going on, all I know is suddenly my hands are curving along the back of his neck, and my whole body is trembling beneath the sensual, seductive, barely there graze of his lips.
He eases back to look at me with blue, blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, half-mast over his sleepy-looking eyes.
And then he ducks his dark head again, and his tongue flicks out. He touches the tip against mine, rubbing, back and forth, and his taste swarms me. Cinnamon bubble gum and guy.
Kissing me slow and deep. Lips moving. Tongues stroking, tasting. His fingers bite into my waist as he murmurs that he wants me.
His voice thick as he strokes his hand down my sides, working open my buttons as he sets his forehead on mine and watches my reactions.
“My whole life I’ve guarded against addictions. Driving was my one addiction. Never smoked, don’t drink except socially, eat right, but you, Lana. You’re an addiction I can’t say no to. Don’t want to say no to. If I don’t have you beneath me now I’m going implode on myself.”
I pull his T-shirt up to his neck, and my fingers run along the velvety muscles of his chest, hard and smooth; my lips follow to suck on his nipple. A sound very much like a growl runs up his throat, rumbling against my hair.
The air burns between us. His hands push my racing-team T-shirt off and over my head, leaving me in my bra and jeans. My nails rake along his back as his hungry mouth runs all over my body. My breasts, my stomach, my neck, my mouth. I undulate and press him closer, needing more but afraid to voice it.
He circles his tongue along the tip of my breast, suckling gently. Oh wow. My nipples are always so sensitive when he’s around, but the feel of his warm mouth on them debilitates me. The pull of his mouth causes me to gasp and my whole body to squeeze pleasurably. I’m so wet I can smell myself, and when I see his nostrils flare, I feel myself blush because I know Racer can probably smell me too.
He holds me by the waist, he unzips my jeans and shoves his hand into my panties, then he plays with my wet flesh and I jerk and thrust my hips out—begging for it, begging for him.
He eases one finger inside me.
He moves it slowly in, and slowly out, repeating the motion, watching as I arch up, fighting not to go off too soon, the pleasure too intense. His eyes are like blue lightning pinning me down, his finger-thrusts filling me so much with desire that I cannot take any second more. I start to convulse.
My nails sink into his scalp, a cry leaves me, and he smothers it with his mouth, pumping his finger deeper and harder to keep me there—at the pinnacle of pleasure. His hand moves faster, harder, my own hips recklessly, haphazardly trying to meet his hand-thrusts and keep him touching me forever. Every atom and cell in my body shivering for him, craving him, wanting him, needing him.
My breath sounds raspy when I ask him, “Do you sleep with women after you and she, well after—”
“No. Usually I call them an Uber and send them home.”
“I don’t need an Uber so I’ll head to my room …”
He snatches my wrist. “Stay,” he rasps, his gaze hungry and possessive.
I exhale and ease back to his side. “If I stay I may lose control again.”
“Why is that wrong?”
“Because …” I flush. My eyes run over him and I can barely keep my hands at my sides. Because I really want to touch him, taste him. I want to run my fingers over that gorgeous chest, look at him without a stitch of clothing on in ways that I didn’t dare look at him when he stripped at the pool.
“I’m about hanging on by a thread myself,” he husks, gaze heavy-lidded as he keeps staring down at me.
“Really?” I breathe. Surprised that he seemed to read my mind.
He nods somberly, his eyes twinkling before they become engulfed in some dark lustfulness.
“Do you want to touch me. Huh,” he prods, reaching out to tug me closer.
My heart turns over in my chest while the rest of my body clutches wantonly as he guides me to the bed. “I … yes.”
At the edge of the bed, I see him tug his shirt over his head in one easy jerk of his hand, then he unzips and strips his jeans.
I’m staring—wide-eyed—and salivating as he pulls the sheets off the bed, then pulls me down on the bed with him, and something is growing and growing under the sheets, and before I know it the whole damn bed sheet is tented.
Racer grins, his eyes predatory as he wraps one arm around me, locking my chest to his chest.
He sets his forehead on mine and guides my hand to his cock. “Here.” He groans as he drags the tip of his nose along my temple with a rumbling sound as he guides my hand under the sheets, to the very warmest hardest part of his being. “It wants your touch.”
Oh god. He’s so big.
So smooth.
So HARD.
My hand runs over him tremulously, and he exhales roughly through his nostrils as he watches my expression of awe. “God, baby, thos
e little fingers feel good on me.”
He smiles down at me, and my throat is tight with desire as I bite down on my lips and I start to flutter my fingers more greedily over his thick length.
He’s huge, so thick he pulsates under my touch. I can feel the thick veins on his cock and the way the crown is fully stretched and swollen. I couldn’t wrap my fist around him if I tried, he’s too thick, so I just envelop what I can and skim my hand up his hard length, up and down, up and down, my body tightening with wanting when little drops of arousal start to seep out of the tip of his cock.
His face is raw with need, his forehead still on mine as he scans my face and brushes my hair back. “You’re driving me crazy,” he rasps, rocking his hips up to my hand, the pre-cum wetting my fingertips as I brush them over the top of his cock.
I’m breathing hard, and he’s breathing harder, grabbing my face to hold me still as he begins to kiss me like crazy, tongue thrusting into my mouth, swerving side to side to taste every nook and cranny, rubbing to arouse my own to fierce and thirsty action.
I move my fingers faster, addicted to the way he’s kissing me—the hunger there, the way his hips roll up commandingly to my hand, the way his tongue mates with mine, and the way his cock keeps pulsing in my hand and obviously wanting more of my touch.
He reaches down to grab my hand, squeezing it around his cock, and murmurs, “Do you want to taste me too, huh. You want to taste me?”
As I start to breathe out yes he picks up a drop of cum from the tip of his cock and slides his thumb into my mouth, where I taste him.
I’ve never tasted a guy, and there is something about his taste that makes my pussy water.
“You like that,” he rasps, slipping his hands back into my hair to kiss me deep, with his taste in my mouth, as I keep moving my fingers over his cock.
“I want to feel you when you come,” I admit, breathless as I keep moving my hand, craving to see him—see that he has a reaction to me, that he loves me touching him the way I go crazy when he touches me.
He goes off almost instantly, shooting off so hard I feel a splat of cum fall on my chin and jaw, more coming out as I keep trying to squeeze and work my fingers, his cock jerking powerfully as he shoots off another eight times.