The Ex (8 page)
“Oh—” I was going to say, ‘Oh, please, I’m not afraid,’ but I wouldn’t let him goad me. “Just drive.”
We had to wait for the go-ahead from the track guys, and I was expecting Neil to just slowly roll off the line, but the engine picked up right away, and with a little wiggle against the alignment of the track, we were off.
“Holy shit!” I gripped the front of my seat on either side of my squeezed together thighs. Neil always obnoxiously accelerated, no matter which car he was driving, but it was usually a teeny speed burst, followed by a swift return to reality and traffic laws. Neither of those things applied here, so we kept going, the car’s engine noises rising from a low, hollow gust to a high, vibrating whine.
I couldn’t turn my head, because it was pinned to the back of my seat by the laws of physics, but I did manage a sideways glance at Neil. His eyes were slightly squinted in concentration, but they sparkled with unchecked glee. His fingers flexed on the wheel to hit the gear paddles, downshifting us into the first turn.
“Oh!” My stomach did a little flutter as we slid around the curve. The car moved like a freaking snake, all slithery and smooth. We took another twist and hit the start of a straightaway, and Neil really gunned it.
“What the fuck!” I panted. “How fast are we going?”
“Right now?” he asked, and I heard the smug grin in his voice. “Only about a hundred and twenty. Ooh, hundred and thirty.”
“A hundred and thirty?” I thought I would faint.
“Well, hundred-sixty, now. Let’s get through the next curve, and we’ll go for fifth gear.” He downshifted, but not as much as I would have for the bend. We whipped through before I could worry, and then through another, and then, he did exactly what he’d threatened to do. He pinned it, shifted up, then up again, and I peeked a look at the digital speedometer.
Oh my god. We were going two-hundred and twenty miles per hour.
I’d never tried cocaine, but I was pretty sure this was what it felt like. I tingled from the bottoms of my feet to every follicle of hair on my scalp. I caught my reflection in the side mirror, and my pupils were dilated. I could see my rapid pulse in them. The adrenaline pushed out from the inside, threatening to burst right through my skin. I pressed my thighs together; my clit throbbed and my pussy clenched in rhythm with my heartbeat. I forced my gaze from Neil’s hands to the fierce green of his eyes as they flicked over the track.
He was loving it. More surprisingly, I was loving it.
My butt lifted out of the seat around the next curve, even though he’d really backed off on the speed to get through it. I’d never been on any roller coaster that had made me feel this out-of-control. By the time we returned to the starting line, I was panting.
“We need to go somewhere,” I gasped as we pulled off the track and rolled toward the garage.
“Are you going to be car sick?” he asked, pulling off his helmet. The concern on his face displayed his complete lack of understanding of the situation.
I got rid of my helmet, unfastened my seatbelt, gripped the front of his sweater, and twisted. “We need to go somewhere to fuck.”
“I—” Neil ducked a vicious nibble attack and steered us away from the very confused looking guy waving us into the garage. “I can’t do anything if you bite my face off, Sophie!”
I leaned back in my seat, writhing. “Hurry.”
“I’m not sure it was a good idea to bring you here,” he said with a surprised laugh. “Am I going to survive?”
“You’re going to fuck me!” I groaned, already pulling off my jacket.
He drove to the back of a mostly empty lot and parked behind an unhitched trailer. Snow bracketed each tire, so it hadn’t moved and wouldn’t, for a while. The second the car stopped, I climbed to straddle his lap. I held his face and kissed him, harder and bolder than I usually would. Even in our vanilla sex, I tended to let him take charge. Not today. I grabbed his hair to jerk his head back and rose over him, reaching between us to paw at his fly.
He twisted his face away from me. “You’re wearing boots, Sophie! This isn’t going to work.”
That knocked some sense into me. I sat back, my face scrunching up into an expression of horny confusion. I still wanted to have sex, but he was right, the boots and jeans would be a hindrance.
Luckily, he followed up with a solution my adrenaline and hormone addled brain wouldn’t have been able to figure out: “We’re going to have to get out.”
I scrambled off his lap as the scissor door opened, and I almost spilled my ass onto the snow-covered pavement. The air was so cold it felt like I would never breathe again. I had enough presence of mind to look around us to make sure we wouldn’t be seen. I don’t think it would have stopped me, though.
Neil stepped up behind me and closed his hand over the back of my neck. He pushed me down on the hood, slapped my ass and growled, “Get those fucking jeans down.”
I reached between my body and the car to pop my button and pull the zipper. Neil grabbed the crotch of the too-tight denim and jerked them down, tearing my panties in the process. His jeans touched the back of my thighs, and I rose up on my toes. I arched my back as he entered me, and a long moan of relief tore from my throat.
“Quiet, sounds carry in the cold,” he warned, breathing heavily. “This has to be fast, or we’ll freeze to death.”
I didn’t need much time, anyway. He pounded into me, and I slipped my hand down my body to rub my clit in rapid circles. My orgasm accelerated at the same rate the Venom had, and there was no holding back, even though my lips were clamped together tight. I gasped and wailed a ragged sound, my toes curling and cramping in my boots.
Neil leaned over me and muffled his groan into my hair, and his cum gushed into me in a warm burst. I wriggled back, until he hissed in discomfort and withdrew.
I straightened and pulled up my jeans and shredded panties. “At least these were already ruined.”
“Sorry, I should have pulled out, but it was far too late by the time I thought of it.” He leaned heavily on the car.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I buttoned up.
“What? Oh, yes. Just…let me get my breath.”
There are times when I forget that Neil is much older than me. Probably because we spend so much time together, and I’ve seen how immature he can be. But, when he had the occasional moment of showing his age, even something as minor as this, I started to panic. I thought about what his mother had said at Emma’s wedding, about how terrible it was to lose her husband. And here I was, letting him tear-ass around a track in a car that would probably disintegrate on impact.
Overcome with irrational anger, I stomped over to the passenger side.
“Sophie?” he wheezed, cautiously zipping his fly.
I didn’t answer him and got inside. I tried to slam the door hard then mentally calculated how much it would cost if I damaged it. It was a good thing scissor doors didn’t slam as easily as regular car doors.
This whole thing was insanity. After all the shit we’d been through, after nearly losing him, he was willing to take this kind of risk? I wanted to tell him that he was never allowed to ever do this kind of asinine thing ever again. Then, I remembered why I’d come along in the first place. I’d wanted to make him happy, because he’d been so unhappy.
Neil got in and hastily pulled the door down. “Darling, if I’d known you’d be that upset, I wouldn’t have torn them.”
“What?” He thought I was upset about my
underwear
. Oh, that would make this so much easier. “I’m not mad about that.”
“You stomped off in such a huff, I thought—”
I shook my head and laughed, and hoped I sounded sincere. I hated lying to Neil, especially when it was something I’d worked on in therapy. But there were lies to cover your ass, and lies to protect the people you loved. My emotional bullshit was my problem, and I wouldn’t make it his.
“I was just cold,” I assured him. “Though, in hindsight, I can see why it would seem that way. I did stomp, but I was trying to get the feeling back in my legs.”
He hesitated between uncertainty and acceptance, but I was relieved when he nodded in amused understanding.
“So, I take it you enjoyed the ride?” he asked with a smirk. “On the track, I mean?”
I quirked my lips at him. “Very funny. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, so much as endured it. It got my adrenaline a-flowin’, but it was a little scary for me. I’m ready to go home.”
“Ah, well.” He looked embarrassed. “I have a bit of bad news for you on that front.”
My eyes went wide. “What? You weren’t planning on doing it again?”
“No, but we do have to take the car back to the garage. The left front wheel wobbled a bit toward the end.” He didn’t make eye contact with me as he put his hand behind my seat to look as he backed up.
“Well, better that then drive home on a bad…” Horrible realization dawned. “We’re going to go back…and they’re going to know what we were doing, aren’t they?”
Neil gave me a please-don’t-start-yelling look. “Well, darling, I’m sure this isn’t the first time anyone has ever…”
He wisely went silent after that.
* * * *
“Do you have a minute, baby?” I asked when he picked up.
“Do
you
have a minute?” he asked. “You’re the one at work.”
“Smart ass.” I motioned to Penny to close my door. She did, and gave me a thumbs up through the window. I lowered my voice and turned away. “I got an email from Emir. I sent it to you.”
“Oh?” Neil brightened, and I hated to squash his hopes.
“He needs to see us, but only for drinks. No sex.” I twisted a lock of my hair around my finger. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
“Maybe he only has time for drinks,” Neil said, though he sounded unsure. “I’m at the computer right now, let me pull it up.”
While he looked, I switched the phone to speaker and flipped to my email.
Sophie,
I regret that I will not have time to spend with you and Neil while I am in New York on this visit. There is a matter I wish to discuss with you, but our usual arrangement would not be appropriate.
The note went on to suggest our assistants coordinate our schedules, but I was hung-up on the not appropriate part.
I heard Neil’s sound of understanding and quickly killed speakerphone.
“What do you think?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.
“I think we’re getting dumped, darling.” His disappointment was evident in his tone. “There’s always a chance that we’re misreading it—”
“He’s our fuck buddy, and he wants to see us and not fuck us. I think that’s pretty clear.” It was a shame. I really liked Emir, and not just the sex. We’d had some good times over the summer when he’d stayed with us for a week. It had been fun to get to know him. I wondered if we would all stay friends.
We set a date for drinks the next night. I chose a sleek blue sheath dress and gold heels, and I kept my hair loose around my shoulders. If we were getting dumped, I wanted to look good.
Neil seemed to have the same idea; despite the size of our closet, we kept colliding with each other and swearing under our breaths as we got ready. He wore a dark gray suit with a crisp white shirt and a powder-blue silk tie with a waffle texture. When he looked over his shoulder at me, he stopped buttoning his silver cufflinks to ask, “You’re wearing gold jewelry? Should I change these?”
“Silver goes with your hair,” I teased. “I don’t know why we’re so tense. We kind of know what to expect coming into this.”
“Look, if he’s ending this thing, I want him to regret it a little bit,” Neil said, checking his hair in the mirror. “Leave a good last impression, so he remembers us fondly.”
“And misses us like crazy.” I stepped up close to him and laid my hand against the lapel of his jacket. “Are you okay, baby?”
“Of course.” He gave me a sad half-smile. “And you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. On the one hand, we don’t know that he’s breaking up with us. On the other hand, I don’t think I’m as emotionally attached to him as you are.”
Neil went very still.
“It’s all good,” I said gently. “I’m not stupid. You guys shared something special in London. He was your first good Dom. If you feel for him the way I feel for you—”
He raised his head and gazed at the ceiling in his usual don’t-be-silly-Sophie expression. “Well, I wouldn’t take it quite that far.”
“But you had a good experience with him. And we had a good time over the summer. I’m not saying that you love him more than you love me, but maybe you have a little crush on him.” I straightened his tie. “I’m not mad. And I’m going to miss him, too.”
We flew into the city and met Emir at a bar in lower Manhattan. He’d selected an actual bar, not a place where we could get dinner, which had only reinforced our suspicions.
When we entered, the hostess took us to a VIP table in the back, an isolated corner booth with ceiling-high dividers to keep our conversation private. Emir waited there already, impeccably dressed as always, and he stood as we approached. His black hair brushed his collar—I liked the messy, curly look on him—and he sported some stubble on his jaw.