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 ca
se 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.
Please be okay, baby. Please.
Then, I see Carrick’s hand move. Yanking off the steering wheel, he throws it out of the car.
He’s okay. Thank God he’s okay.
There’s a collective exhalation of relief.
I’m relieved. Beyond relieved. But still, I can’t breathe.
Why can’t I breathe?
Because he could have died. That crash could have killed him. One wrong hit—that’s all it takes, and he’s dead.
Just like my dad.
“Thank God he’s okay. I was worried there for a second.” Petra is beside me, exhaling her relief, her arm around my waist.
I didn’t even know she was here.
“Hey, you okay?” she asks me.
I blankly stare back at her. I try to move my lips, but nothing’s working as it should. All I can do is nod my mute head.
He could have died. He was lucky this time.
But what about next time?
I move my eyes back to the screen. Carrick’s out of the car now, walking back to the pits. He looks angry. He’ll be mad and frustrated at coming out of the race.
He’s okay. He’s coming back.
But still, I can’t breathe.
Why can’t I breathe?
Because he could be dead right now. Just like your dad. He could have died in that car.
My head starts to spin. My vision blurring. My heart pounding. Blood roaring in my ears. The tips of my fingers tingling.
Panic slides her ugly hands around my throat and squeezes.
I have to get out of here. I can’t do this.
Stumbling away from Petra, I mumble something incoherent. I hear her call after me, but I can’t stop.
I break out of the garage and into the empty hallway, gasping for air.
I can’t breathe.
I see a water fountain and stumble toward it. Running the cold water, I put my mouth to it, wetting my dry lips. Breaths still burning my throat, my chest heaving, I lean my weighted body against the fountain, and I place my wrist under the running water—a trick I read about to help try to calm a racing pulse in the midst of a panic attack.
It takes for what feels like forever for me to maintain some form of control. For the blackness to clear from my vision.
But I’m still not right. My mind is still restless with fear. I’m still agitated.
All I can think and see are the what-ifs.
What if his car had hit the wall at the wrong angle? Instead of walking, he would have been carried out of there.
What if the gas tank had ruptured on impact? What if the car had caught fire? He wouldn’t have even had the chance to be carried out of there because he would be…
Jesus. My vision blurs again. I rub roughly at my eyes.
I can’t do this anymore.
I can’t keep feeling like this. I can’t go there again. I can’t lose someone I love in that way.
And Carrick deserves better than me. Better than I can give him.
Any normal girlfriend would have been running toward him, needing to feel him and touch him to know that he’s okay.
Not like me—running away, hiding out in the hallway, having a panic attack—because it’s all too much to deal with.
He deserves so much more. I’m not strong enough to be with him. I’m broken.
His dad was right. I should leave him now while the damage is minimal. I should have left him weeks ago. I should never have let it get this far.
I was just fooling myself, thinking I could do this.
Because I can’t.
As I turn from the fountain, I see Carrick’s vending machine filled with his chocolate. It sets off an intense crushing pain in my heart.
“Andressa?”
Closing my eyes on the sound of Carrick’s voice, I take a deep breath before opening them and turning to face him.
He looks confused. Pissed off. But scared. It’s there in his eyes, a tiny flicker of fear and uncertainty.
“What are you doing out here? I was looking for you.”
“Are you okay?” I ask, my voice shaking.
“I’m fine.” He brushes my words off with impatience. “What I’m not fine about is getting back from the track and you not being there.”
“I-I’m sorry.” My lips tremble.
“What’s going on, babe? Are you okay?” He takes a step toward me.
Instead of staying put or moving toward him, I take a step back. And he understands instantly. I see it clearly in the show of dismay that passes over his face.
“Andressa…what’s going on?” His voice wavers.
“I-I just…I don’t think I can do this anymore.” The words leave me in a breathless rush.
“You can’t do…what anymore?” His words are carefully spoken. Almost like he’s afraid to say them for fear of what will come.
I take a deep breath. “This.” I gesture a helpless hand between us.
“Babe, if this is about the accident…it was just a bump.”
“It wasn’t just a fucking bump!” The words rip from my throat. “You could have died out there!”
“Bullshit. It was minor. I’ve had worse. I’m here, Andressa, and I’m fine.”
He tries to placate me with his hands and words as he attempts to move closer to me, but I ward him off, moving further away.
He doesn’t like that. It’s clearly written all over his face in lines of deep frustration. But I can’t absorb anything of him. All I’m attuned to are my own fears right now.
It’s almost like it’s not really me standing here, thinking and saying these things. It’s like I’ve stepped out of my body, handed it over to someone else, and I’m staring back at myself in abstract horror, unable to stop myself from destroying the best thing I’ve ever had. Because all that matters right now is stopping the fear and panic, willing to do anything to make the noise in my head stop, make the debilitating and crushing panic stop, even if that means wrecking everything.
Him. Me. Us.
Tears start
running down my face. “You’re fine now, but what about the next time? One wrong hit. That’s all it takes, and then you’re gone—forever. I thought I could do this…but I can’t. I’m sorry.” My head is shaking, and I’m stepping backward, farther away from him.
In this moment, I just need to get away. I can’t see past the fear. I’m blinded by it. And right now, I will do anything to stop feeling this way.
Turning mid-stride, I start walking away. But he grabs my arm from behind, pulling me back to him.
There’s fire and ire and hurt in his eyes. “That’s it?” he growls. “You say you can’t do this anymore, and then you just fucking walk away?”
My mind is reeling. I feel trapped, cornered like a wild animal. And like a wild animal, I’ll do what’s necessary to get away even if it means hurting the one person who doesn’t deserve to be hurt by me.
“Yes, that’s exactly how it is! I told you that I can’t do this anymore! I tried, and it’s not working. Now, let me go.” I tug at my arm, but his hold is too strong, and it’s like he doesn’t even feel me.
“I can’t fucking believe this…all this time together…I…” He pauses, taking a ragged, painful-sounding breath. Then, his eyes meet mine, holding me with such a power I can’t even begin to explain. “Jesus…Andressa, is this really happening? Are you really…leaving me?”
Deep breath…
“Yes. I am.”
The look on his face…I never want to see that look on anyone’s face ever again. I think I’m actually witnessing heartbreak in this moment, and I hate myself for it. Abhorrently hate myself.
He drops my arm like I’ve just scolded him.
“I’m sorry…” My voice breaks, tears running over my lips into my mouth. My eyes lower with shame and the pain of my own heart breaking. I turn and start walking away again.
“Andressa! You can’t just leave like this! You can’t leave me!” The panic in his voice is palpable.
It slices over my skin like the razor blades of pain I deserve, burrowing deep inside, splintering into my bones, crucifying me.
I keep my lips pressed together. If I part them, I’m afraid I’ll weaken and turn back to him and take it all back. So, I continue walking away from the only man I’ve ever loved.