Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (9 page)

At first, I was too stunned. I couldn’t even respond, and then I realized this was a pity kiss. He was trying to give me what I wanted, but it wasn’t what
he
wanted, so I pushed against him. He was a great deal stronger than me, so it didn’t do much good, but I struggled, nonetheless. I finally broke free of his kiss, "Stop it!" I had meant to sound angry, but his kiss had only served as a reminder of what could have been. I just couldn’t hold it together any longer. I began to cry and lost all strength in my legs. I collapsed against him in tears sobbing out, "please… stop…" He held me by my waist, held me so close to his body that the pain cut me in two, and I cried "I don’t want you like this… you don’t
want
this… you’re engaged." He kissed my tears and held me tight as I cried what I had left in me.

When I had no more tears to give, he picked me up and carried me into my room. He lowered me to my bed and walked to the door that led to the hallway.
Thank God
, he was leaving. I couldn’t handle anymore. I turned on my side, scooted to the edge farthest from everything that had just happened, and curled back up into my tiny, safe, little ball. I was hoping, in my exhaustion, that some form of sleep would claim me. The sound of the door closing made a tear that I didn’t think I had left in me, slide down my cheek. It was over finally over.

When I felt the bed sag a little, I turned to see Seth climb into bed next to me. I was too drained to be startled, too drained to fight when he wrapped his arms around my waist. He pulled me closer to him, brushing my hair back away from my face. Before I could ask what he was doing, he kissed my forehead, then my cheeks, then placed a quick, soft kiss on my lips. All I could do was look at him. I felt so defeated, so lifeless.

He kissed my cheek again then made his way down my neck. I tried not to enjoy it, but I had wanted this for so long that I couldn’t stop part of me from being in heaven. I didn’t have the energy or will power to push him away again physically. My final attempt was to make him see reason. I whispered, "You don’t want to do this," and was not surprised at how exhausted and insignificantly small my voice sounded. He returned his attention to my lips and kissed me with so much passion, I was overwhelmed into kissing him back. He broke contact with my lips long enough to allow me to catch my breath before launching a new attack on my mouth.

In one of those moments where I was trying to catch my breath, he put his hands on my cheeks and held my face until I looked up at him. He looked down at me for a few moments until he had my complete attention. Passion overwhelmed his eyes, along with a little need, if I wanted to delude myself. Then, quite clearly and with a fierce force that almost knocked into me, he said, "Like… hell… I don’t."

As if to illustrate his point, he kissed me again, but he was in no way gentle. His leg draped over my lower body, and I could definitely feel that he wanted this. His desire pushed mine to the top of my list of current concerns, and I gave into making love with him.

He ran his hands down my body until they reached the edge of my nightgown, then he pulled it roughly up and over my head. He pulled away from kissing me long enough to look down at me with clear admiration in his eyes then continued to run his hands all over my body. I pulled his t-shirt off of him, and the feeling of my skin meeting his kicked us both into overdrive.

All my memories of my first time with Seth, his gentleness and the tenderness of it all, I had cherished each moment, but this was different. This was frantic and hungry. He roughly pulled off his jeans, which was no small feat considering I was busy clinging to him, eliciting deep, sexy moans from him for kissing, sucking, and biting his neck. He managed, though, to also pull off his boxers in the blink of an eye as I reached down to feel him. He was so strong, so solid, I felt like Jello in his arms. When he practically ripped my panties off my body, I somehow managed to shove him back and climb up on his lap. Touching, rubbing, our bodies melted together. It was amazing, and I just couldn’t get enough of him. Clearly, neither could he, because his fingers bit into my hips. I was able to still my hands from touching his muscular upper body, but I just couldn’t stop myself from moving against him.

"Lexie…" he choked out, staring brightly into my eyes. "I can’t… wait… I need you, baby… now… please now."

I smirked, remembering the roles had been reversed our first time. Ever so slowly, I guided him into me despite his attempts to rush my movements. I did my best to tease him, to make him wait longer, but after only a few seconds, I couldn’t hold back any more and found myself throwing my head back and begging, "Seth."

He obviously understood my plea because he powerfully flipped us over without even leaving me. If I had thought we had been wild and frantic before, it was nothing when compared with the pace we set now. A crack of lightning flashed so brightly and loudly that I swear it hit the house, but it only served to increase the adrenaline pumping through my veins. My eyes were locked with his, my arms hanging on to him for dear life, my nails digging into his shoulders. We collided together again and again until we were both panting the other’s name and crying out louder than the thunder rolling just above us. The world could have ended in that moment and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference to me.

Seth brought his lips back to mine in what I expected to be a gentle little kiss, but was surprised to still feel tension and, if I wasn’t mistaken, fear behind the passionate kiss. When he pulled back, his eyes were misty, and his arms tightened around me. I looked at him questioningly wondering if something was wrong. His jaw clenched as he seemed to fight for his words, "Don’t… leave me."

Wow
, I thought in amazement,
we’ve come full circle haven’t we?
"Hey," I reached up to put my hands on his face, "isn’t that my line?" I smiled tenderly at him and felt most of the tension drain from his body.

He smirked down at me, "Actually, your words were ‘stay with me.’"

The smile fell from my face to be replaced with shock. The fact that he remembered my words so perfectly confused me.

As if reading my mind, he said, "I remember every single second of that night as I’m sure I’ll remember every single second of this one as."

I tried to make sense of what he was telling me, but I just couldn’t grasp the idea. When he rolled onto his back and pulled me into his arms, rubbing my back, I tried to keep processing this information, but his warmth lulled me quickly to sleep.

A few hours later, I awoke to Seth tenderly kissing my face and playing with my hair. I opened my eyes looking up at him. I was happy to be waking up in his arms after making love. We lost this moment the first time around.

He shook his head, and I was wondering what he was thinking about when he said, "All those times I imagined what you had grown up to look like…" he didn’t finish his sentence, but ran his hand under the covers and down my body continuing to shake his head. "You are such a beautiful woman."

"Not a cute little kid sister?" his hand cut across my flat stomach and over to grasp my right side, pulling me closer into him. He kissed me again, feather-light and with soft passion.

He whispered against my lips, "I could stay away from you…" he paused to kiss me lightly again, "if I convinced myself"… more kisses that drove me insane… "that you were a kid… and my sister… but you are clearly neither." With that final statement, his tongue shoved its way past my lips and into my mouth, leaving me groaning with pleasure.

We made love again, but this time, more slowly, enjoying each other. I didn’t want the night to end. The thunder was rolling above us, and we were as intertwined as two bodies could be. It was perfect. I felt so content to fall asleep in his arms that I could have died a happy woman, right then and there.

When I woke up the next day, my eyes weren’t nearly as puffy as I thought they would be, but that might have had something to do with the fact that it was two o’clock in the afternoon. My whole body still felt heavy from the emotional drain of last night, but not tired. I looked over to realize that Seth wasn’t beside me. A terrible feeling of dread began to take over as my heart remembered everything that had happened last night and started associating it with what had happened four years ago. That nagging "I told you so" voice rang out in my head,
he regrets what he did last night, he left you again, you were stupid to think he actually wanted you
.

I looked around the room—looked for anything that would tell me that it wasn’t happening all over again. My eyes settled on my suitcase and the piece of paper attached to it that read, "UNPACK THIS!"

He wants me to stay
. Unable to hold back the ridiculous grin that took over my face, I hopped cheerfully out of bed and headed for the bathroom. After a very long and very hot shower, I had calmed my absurd grin down to a soft smile.

Sad to say, I had a remedy for puffy eyes in my everyday makeup case (I had needed it far too much in my life). I finished making my head presentable and was going to unpack my suitcase, as instructed (I was grinning goofily about that again), when I said ‘to heck with it’ and just pulled out a pair of jean shorts and a tank top. I just couldn’t wait any longer to see Seth again. I knew Desmond would be home, so I tried my hardest to control my giddiness as I walked downstairs and into the dining room.

To my disappointment, Desmond was the only one in there. "Where is everyone?" I tried to sound casual.

Desmond was flipping through a magazine while he ate a sandwich. "Oh, look who decided to wake up. Had a few too many last night, huh?" He smiled when I stuck my tongue out at him, and then he continued, "Wyatt and Seth are at the shop. Seth told me to tell you, specifically, that he would see you at dinner. He said I should make sure you don’t go anywhere. What’s that about?"

Eek! Lying was never ever one of my strong suits. Everyone could always read exactly what I was thinking or trying not to think of, right on my face. I decided it was best to stick to a portion of the truth. "I was thinking about going back to California to visit Chelsea."

"And why is that? You don’t like it here?" the corners of his mouth turned down the way they always did when he was upset. I knew he didn’t want me to leave again, he told me often enough how much he missed me, and I missed him too.

"Well, you guys all have your lives here. You’re always doing something with the race car. You’re at a race, at the shop, at a business meeting about the race car, or out of town. It gets kind of lonely." That was certainly as honest as I could get without blurting out the whole truth.

"That’s why I thought it was great that you and Brad were getting along so well together. He could keep you company."

"I don’t want Brad." Once again, I was dangerously close to blurting out the truth, I had to slow down and watch my words, "
you
are my family, and I don’t get to see you very much. The same goes for Wyatt and Seth. Brad isn’t my family and, to be honest, I’m not going to see him anymore." Maybe he would break it off with Brad for me, they were friends after all.

"Hmm, Brad mentioned things weren’t quite right between you."

"There just isn’t that spark. He’s fun and nice and a great kisser, but I don’t love him, and don’t think I could grow to love him, not like that."

"You need to tell
him
that."

"I know. I’ll call him in a bit." I walked into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich.

Desmond appeared in the doorway, "You can come with us, you know?" When I looked at him with my eyebrows drawn together in clear confusion, he continued, "To the races and to the shop, probably not to the business meetings, but you could ride with us, then go shopping or something while we meet?" He stepped into the kitchen with a hopeful little smile on his face. "That way, you wouldn’t be alone here. We could even give you one of the scrapped cars to mess with when you’re bored. You used to really enjoy that before you left for college."

I failed to mention that while I really did enjoy tinkering around on the cars, my main reason for doing it had always been the desire to be close to Seth. I had avoided even looking at an engine the past four years, for fear that it would remind me of Seth, so it wasn’t likely I would remember anything about engines. Still, it sounded like a lot more fun than sitting around thinking about Seth. It would, at least, put me in close proximity to him and allow me to spend more time with Desmond.

"Okay, let’s give it a shot."

Desmond’s genuine smile made me really happy. He wanted me to stick around. He was always such a loving brother. I always pitied those poor sisters with brothers who threatened them and were mean to them. While Desmond and I had plenty of arguments, we loved each other and never let our anger go beyond a good door slamming match. Our arguments were always stupid, though, and our mother used to tease us about never being able to stay angry with the other sibling. I think the longest we ever stayed angry was a couple hours.

Unfortunately, that argument was about Seth and why I wouldn’t stop hovering over him when he came over. That was before our mother died, though. We rarely fought after she passed away. The realization that we would, eventually, be fighting over the same thing all over again, depressed me. It wasn’t something I looked forward to, but I certainly wasn’t willing to give Seth up either, if he continued to want me, that is.

"What’s with the sad face? Finish eating, then go change into something less revealing." He added a scrupulously raised eyebrow at my short jean shorts, "and I’ll take you down to the shop for a tour."

I smiled then, realizing that this would be fun, and that I would be in the same building with Seth. Shoving the last few morsels into my mouth, I hurried upstairs to change. Clothes went flying as I tried on several things. I just had no idea what was appropriate. I finally opted to copy Desmond’s attire and threw on a pair of blue jeans that hugged my curves, some white Converse sneakers and a white cotton peasant-style blouse.