Revved (41 page)

He closes the distance between us. Sliding his warm hands up my arms, he cups my shoulders. “You’re worried about tomorrow’s race?”

“A little.”
So much I can barely breathe.
I can’t look into his face, fearing that he’ll see the truth in my eyes.

Taking my face in his hands, he tilts my head back, making me look at him. “It’s gonna be fine.” He drives the point with a solid stare. “I’ve driven this circuit tons of times.
I’m
gonna be fine.” He presses his reassuring soft lips to mine.

I feel a swell of tears. Swallowing them back, I wrap my arms around his neck, holding him.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” I murmur against his mouth.

He pulls back. “You didn’t. The cold empty space in bed where you should be was what woke me. I don’t like reaching out and you not being there.”

“I’m sorry. Go back to bed. You need your rest for tomorrow. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“No, what I need is you.” His hands slide down my back. Lifting my slip with rough fingers, his palms cup my bare bottom as he takes my mouth again, firmer this time.

I know what he wants. I want it, too. I always want him. More so lately with a desperation, fearing that each time I do have him might be the last.

Carrick’s body presses mine against the glass. As the kiss deepens, I feel his erection against my stomach, sending lightning bolts of desire shooting through me.

Breaking from my mouth, he pulls my slip off my body. Pressing me back up against the glass, it’s cold and unforgiving against my skin. He brushes his thumb over my nipple, making me gasp into his mouth.

After kissing his way down my jaw, my neck, and my chest, he presses a kiss to each breast before lowering to his knees. Staring up at me in the dark, he slides his hand under my thigh. Lifting it, he places it on his shoulder. Parting me with his fingers, he presses his mouth to me.

My fingers sink into his hair on a gasp as his hot tongue laps at me. I look down at him, his head between my legs pleasuring me, my hips rocking against his mouth.

I love him. So much it hurts. And I can’t tell him. Because if I do, it makes it real, and if I lose him…

It’s all becoming too much to bear.

I close my eyes against the fear and love and confusion, and I focus on the way he’s making me feel right now. The escape to heaven he’s offering me.

Then, his tongue touches me in just the right way, and I shatter around his mouth.

Wordlessly, he gets to his feet. My fingers pull on the drawstring on his pajama pants. I push them down his hips, letting them drop to the floor.

He steps out of them, kicking them aside. Lifting my leg, he hooks it over his hip. Then, dipping his hips slightly, he thrusts up inside me.

“Carrick…” I moan, my hands gripping his upper arms as my head falls back against the glass.

Eyes on me, he kisses me, almost desperately, tangling his tongue with mine, as he takes me there, up against the glass where anyone could see us.

The sex is intense and deep…so very deep. We don’t speak. In the dark surrounding us, the only sound is our ragged breaths.

I’m shaking by the time I reach my second orgasm, my body tightening firmly around his.

Then, my name is growling from his lips as he pumps into me, filling me with all he has.

He rests his forehead to mine, panting, his breath touching and mixing with my own. “There isn’t a single moment in my future where I don’t see you in it.” His words are whispered, his fingers threading into my hair.

I’m choked by emotion, unable to speak.

And if I could speak, what would I say? Don’t bank your life with me. Yes, I want that, too, but I don’t see it like you do. I fight for it daily, but ultimately, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stay.

I can’t.

So, like the coward I am, I say nothing and conceal my weakness. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I bury my face into him.

Lifting my legs, Carrick brings them around his waist, and he carries me back to bed.

Gently laying me down on the mattress, still inside me, he rests his head on my chest, and that’s where he stays for the rest of the night.

“
I SHOULD BE DOWN THERE
, doing last-minute checks.”

“Babe, relax, Ben and Robbie have got it. The car’s fine. She’s more than ready. You’re more use to me here.” He wraps his arms around my waist from behind. Chin resting on my shoulder, he stares out the window in front of us. “I like having you here with me before a race. You’re my new pre-race ritual.”

That should make me feel warm and safe, but it doesn’t. Nothing can penetrate the wall of fear that’s built up inside me.

I’ve been riding on nerves all day, nerves that I’ve been fighting to conceal from Carrick. I don’t want to put his focus off. I don’t want him worrying about me. I want him focused on his race.

I haven’t been able to eat all day. I hardly slept last night. After Carrick carried me to bed, I just lay there, watching him, as he slept on me. As I ran my fingers through his hair, my body was stiff from the weight of him, but I couldn’t move because I didn’t want to. I was scared that it could be my last night with him, and I needed him as close to me as possible. I needed to hold him.

I’m so scared that this race is going to take him from me.

I know I’m being irrational. But I can’t help it. It feels beyond my control now.

I wish I were different. Wish that I were stronger for him.

When did things get so bad for me?

The moment I fell in love with him.

My fear just keeps escalating, growing like a monster. And I just keep having the insistent urge to tell him to not go out there. To stay here with me forever. To never leave.

Each race has just gotten worse than the one before, and I wonder when it’s going to reach its peak and if that peak will be manageable. Right now, it’s barely feeling tolerable.

I feel like I’m on the edge of a cliff, staring down at the rocky bottom, with no choice but to fall.

“Babe…talk to me.”

My mind jolts back to him. “About?” I try to keep my voice even, light.

“About why your body is locked up tight even though I’m wrapped around you.”

I turn my head, looking at him. “I’m just a little nervous…about the race.”

“I’ve told you, there’s nothing to be nervous about. You’ve seen me race a hundred times before.”

“Not exactly a hundred times. And you weren’t the most important person in my life then.” The words fall from my lips. It was the wrong thing to say but the right thing to say for so many differing reasons.

His eyes fill with warmth and everything he feels for me, which I know is a lot. I just don’t know exactly how much.

Carrick hasn’t said that he loves me.

Even though I want him to love me, a part of me—the cowardly part—doesn’t want him to. If he did, it would make everything so much harder.

“You know that goes both ways, right? You’re at the top of my list…not that it’s a long list. Well, actually, there’s only you and my dad on it.”

He grins, turning me in his arms to face him. I brush my thumb over the curve of his smile, and he bites down playfully on it.

“I like that you worry about me, but you do remember who I am, right? Carrick Ryan, best driver in the world. I’ve got this racing shit down pat, babe. I’m going to do this race, and then we’ll celebrate my win in bed where I’m going to fuck you six ways from Sunday.”

I force a smile
.
“Only six ways?”

“There’s my girl.” He brushes his lips over mine. “God, I fucking adore you, Andressa.”

And I love you, Carrick.

There’s a knock at the door before I can reply.

“Time.” Ben’s head pops around the door.

“Coming.” Carrick gives me another kiss.

I can taste his pre-ritual race Galaxy chocolate on his tongue, and for some reason, it chokes tears in my throat, bringing that desperation rising in me again.

Curling my fingers into his racing overalls, I press harder to his mouth, needing more from him.

Giving me what I want, his arms come around me, crushing me to his body. He kisses me almost like it’s the first and last time he ever will.

Please come back to me.

Breaking off, panting, his eyes alight with desire. He presses his lips to my forehead, humming the words over my skin, “Fucking adore you, babe.”

Sliding his hand into mine, he grabs his helmet off the side, and we leave his room together, following Ben downstairs to the garage.

Carrick pulls his balaclava and helmet on. He winks at me before pulling the visor down. Then, he climbs in the cockpit. Ben straps him in. The steering wheel is fitted.

He’s ready to go.

Come back.

His head turns to me just before it’s time for him to pull out for the tire warm-up. He taps two fingers to his helmet, and then he pulls out of the garage and onto the tracks.

And I step back to watch him on the screens.

I’m driving myself insane. I can’t talk to anyone. A few times, Petra and Ben have tried to make conversation with me about the race, but my stare always stays fixed on the screens, my mouth mumbling back one-word responses.

My eyes are dry and sore because I’m so afraid to blink in case I miss something.

I can’t miss a thing.

Carrick’s been driving well…really well. But he hasn’t come in for a tire change yet, and that’s starting to bother me. He’s going to need a change soon. He’s been riding the car hard.

He’s on a straight at the moment, fast approaching a corner. A backmarker is in front of him, and I know Carrick is getting frustrated, wanting to pass. I can see it in the aggressive movement of his car. I don’t need to be on the control desk to know that he’s cursing the other driver to hell. I can hear Owen’s voice from here, telling him to take it easy.

I flick a worried glance in Owen’s direction, but my eyes go straight back to the screens, scanning for the circuit marshal with his blue flag to tell the backmarker to let Carrick pass.

I see the flag come up.
Thank God.

They’re almost on the corner when the flag comes up, and I expect the backmarker to slow down, pull back, to let Carrick pass.

But he’s not slowing.

Did he not see the flag?

Then, I see it happen in the split second before it does.

The other driver, in his arrogance, doesn’t slow enough for the turn. His back wheels spin out just as Carrick is cutting past to outbreak him. The backmarker’s rear-end tails out, straight into the path of Carrick’s car. It hits the front, sending Carrick’s car spinning out across the track and slamming into a wall.

No!

The scream gets caught in my throat.

I want to run, go to him, but I’m frozen in place. My eyes are wide with fear, my hands covering my mouth, as I desperately search the screens for a sign that he’s moving in the cockpit. I can see the debris of his car littering the track, and the marshal is scrambling the wall to get to him.

There’s silence all around. Apart from Owen. I can hear his frantic voice, checking for Carrick, asking him to respond that he’s okay.

My heart is beating so hard that it’s painful.