Revolution: A Driven World Novel (The Driven World)

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

“We’re similar though when it comes to things like this,” my friend confessed, giving me a grin. “We just kind of go and go because we have something to prove, and we forget that we are enough.”

  My brow scrunched. I knew what I had to prove. I had to prove I was good enough for this sport. Good enough to deserve a spot on the track. Good enough to deserve him.

  But the question was, what did she? “What do you have to prove?”

  “Now that”—she pointed a finger at me—“I would definitely need some whiskey in this cup to talk about.”

  I glanced at the clock, realizing we’d been sitting there for almost two hours. “Then it looks like we’ll have to do dinner and drinks next,” I told her blithely. “So, barring any compulsive overtime, when are you off next week?”

  She laughed. “Fine. But I’m expecting some juicy details with those drinks, too.”

  “Juicy or gory—at this point, I think any interaction between Garret and me could go either way,” I warned as we stood from the table.

  “I don’t believe that,” Gwen told me warmly. “You’re Kacey Snyder, and I can see how you want him—it’s the same kind of want that jeopardizes a biochem midterm and possibly graduating on time. And you don’t give up on that kind of want.”

  My smile held its own as we said our goodbyes, Gwen promising to check her schedule and get back to me about dinner. But as soon as she left, her ability to stave off my worries went with her.

  The thing was, I might not give up on what I wanted, but when what I wanted was another living, breathing—brooding—thing, what I did wasn’t the only thing that mattered.

  And even if I didn’t give up, it couldn’t stop him from walking away.

  Kacey

  AFTER BRUNCH, I STAYED DOWNTOWN for a little longer, getting some shopping in before wandering around historic Charlotte and thankfully, managed to keep a low profile. But even though I kept myself busy before heading back to the garage, my mind was waiting for an explanation.

  Partially from him. Partially from myself.

  An explanation for why I’d revealed so much. Gave so much. And wanted so much more.

  ‘And you don’t give up on that kind of want.’

  Gwen’s parting words followed me like a shadow, subtle but present, because she wasn’t wrong. Wanting him was risky. Dangerous. And certainly not a safe bet.

  But I’d had a taste.

  And, like racing, one taste was all I needed to know I needed him.

  He’d created something in my body… in my heart… I hadn’t felt before and was afraid I’d never feel again.

  And now, after devouring a few slices of pizza, I was sitting downstairs in the garage, the plastic folding chair creating a permanent indentation in my ass for how long I’d been waiting, when I heard a truck pull up.

  “Garret?” I called, wincing as I pulled myself off the plastic chair I’d curled into.

  I took one hesitant step forward before tousled red waves and ravaged eyes blew through the door and into the sunset-shadowed shop like a hurting hurricane. He halted when he saw me, pain swirling over his features.

  “What happened?” I blurted, approaching him. It was almost impossible to swallow over the lump in my throat. “Where’d you go?”

  Deep down, I knew the answer. But I needed a safe way to start this conversation.

  “Hospital,” he said, his voice low and hoarse with exhaustion. “It was a bad morning.”

  Oh, Claire. “Is she…”

  “Still smilin’.” I breathed a sigh of relief though his expression lacked any semblance of hope.

  “Good.” I folded my arms, instinctively knowing my moment in the composed eye of the storm had passed.

  “Kacey,” he groaned my name. “Last night was a mistake.”

  I jerked as if he’d struck me. Even though the pit of my stomach feared those words were coming, I wrote it off as irrational—as impossible. As impossible as the idea of me being a woman meant I didn’t deserve a place on the track.

  “I canna do this,” he went on.

  “Can’t or won’t?” I prodded sharply, wounded by the sudden loss of something I’d just realized how desperately I needed.

  “Does it matter?” he growled, taking a step toward me. “It was a mistake and one I canna repeat.”

  “Which part, Garret? The part where you reassured me I was worth something or the part where you fucked me like I was worth everything?” Bitterness burned from the back of my throat up to my eyes.

  “Dammit, lass—”

  “Don’t call me that!” I hated how the word evoked a reaction in my body that would be left unfulfilled.

  “I meant what I said.” He glared at me. “Just like I mean now that it’s not goin’ ta happen again, and that’s the end of it.”

  He stalked angrily by me into the back room, jamming on the light switch.

  “No, that’s not the end of it.” I followed him stubbornly. I had a right to know why. “Why was it a mistake? What happened?”

  I didn’t give up on what I wanted.

  His knuckles whitened where they held onto the countertop, dark eyes flickering angrily at me. But his restraint would always be admirable compared to mine, and his silence won out over my pain.

  “Or am I the mistake?” That one would hurt. Him and myself. Good. Hurting seemed the only way we reached each other, and when we did, those moments felt like healing before they were ripped away.

  “Christ, Kacey—”

  “Because you can say it if I am,” I cut him off. “I’m used to being the mistake. The outlier. The thing no one saw coming and no one knows how to deal with—the thing no one wants to deal with. The thing that doesn’t belong—”

  “Goddammit!” he roared and rounded on me, backing me into the wall of the room.

  His fist pounded into the concrete just a few inches from my head, but instead of flinching, my eyes narrowed on his.

  I wasn’t afraid of him.

  I could never be afraid of the man who’d taken on three larger, drunk assholes to defend me.

  And I couldn’t stop my body from responding with a rush of desire at the familiar savage lust which tormented his gaze.

  “Ye want to know what happened?” he growled, his face inches from mine. “I wasna there this mornin’. I wasna there for Claire when she needed me. And I wasna there because I was too busy wantin’ ta bury my cock back inside ye and never leave. Because I was too selfish-like, wantin’ to fuck ye until I forgot about everythin’ except the feel of ye wrapped around me… under me…. Too selfish fer wanting somethin’ all fer myself.”

  Heat flooded my cheeks, the sequence of events suddenly linked together with painful rationality.

  “I-I’m sorry, Garret,” I replied, tipping my chin up to better search his eyes as his body moved flush against mine. Fire against fire. Abrasive against stubborn. “But it was just a small mistake… to oversleep.”

  My heart thudded frantically in my chest like prey trying to escape its hunter. Too bad it was locked in a constricting cage that I carried and openly offered to him knowing the dangers—knowing I was risking everything.

  “It doesna matter how big or small the mistake is. I canna risk it. I canna risk even small things. She’s the only thing that matters, and a small mistake could mean important minutes—seconds. Moments that I need ta be there fer her in case somethin’ happens. I owe her everythin’.”

  His harsh breaths invaded the space while air stalled painfully in my chest.

  The love he had for Claire was palpable. It was in every molecule. In every choice. Even from only this moment, I knew it invaded every last inch, every darkened corner of his life… of his soul…. And I couldn’t fault him.

  I’d only met her, chatted with her for a single morning, and that alone was enough to make me want to do anything to help her; I couldn’t imagine what he went through as her uncle—as the closest person to her father, a father she would never know.

  My throat
tightened. “And what about you?” I whispered, my nipples tightening even harder with each breath that dragged them across his chest. “What do you owe yourself? What do you want?”

  Pain slashed violently across his features. “Nothing,” he snapped, as though it were obvious.

  My hands, pinned at my sides, slid up to his chest, absorbing the hiss that dripped from his mouth before I pressed, “Not even me?”

  It wasn’t pathetic. It was honest.

  “‘Course I want ye, lass. Christ, ye feel this?” He ground his hips into me, the wall against my back less hard and less painful as the stone-like ridge of his cock. “I think my body’d trade the air in my lungs for a single moment in your sweet cunt. But wantin’ ye has nothing to do with havin’ ye. Just like wantin’ to be seen as a driver doesna change the fact yer a woman.”

  He wasn’t gentle when he ripped the Band-Aid off, fresh air burning into the wound of my professional predicament that now mirrored the travesty in my heart.

  His forehead dropped to mine, knowing he needed to stay away but too weary to do so.

  My body was hot and desperate. I felt it shifting into a singular focus, like when I was on the track. Nothing else mattered. Not the other people. Not the other drivers. Not the weather conditions. Only going faster.

  And now, only having him.

  Tipping my face forward, my nose brushed against his, his low groan soaking into the small space between us as I gently pressed my lips to his.

  “Tell me why,” I demanded, dragging my lips over his with each word like he had done to me.

  “Because I’m everythin’ ye want from this world and everythin’ ye hate about it. Ye want it all from me, my touch, my cock, my future—all things I should be able to give ye… all things ye deserve—but the world doesna work that way. I canna give ‘em to you any more than racin’ can treat ya like any other driver. There’s somethin’ different about ye, Kacey. Somethin’ fierce that requires more than either of us have to give.”

  I shuddered, pulling myself tighter to him, our breaths crashing into one.

  “And if I don’t want more?” I swallowed over the lump in my throat, sliding my hands up to bury into the thick curls at the base of his scalp. “If I just want you?”

  I shuddered, my hips rolling involuntarily against his, rubbing myself along his length to ease the ache in my clit.

  The cords in his neck rippled with tension, his jaw flexing with matched timing.

  “Ye don’t, lass,” he warned. “And even if ye do, it won’t be fer long. You’ll want more, Kacey—you’ll need more. More than I can give. And ye deserve it. Christ, ye deserve to have it… it just canna be with me.”

  Air suctioned down deep in my lungs as he stepped back, all the heat rushing from my skin to make room for the impossible ache he’d left behind.

  “I see.”

  It was a lie.

  I didn’t see.

  The only thing I saw was a man I wanted... a man who wanted me—painfully so, judging by the bulge in the front of his pants... and who was walking away. Walking over to the engine stand about to get back to work—like it wasn’t killing him to do so.

  “I’m sorry, Kacey,” he rasped with a low voice, and the sincerity in it hurt. More than hurt. Killed.

  It was one thing for him to be cruel to push me away. But this… when he looked as though he was pushing a piece of himself away to do so… it created a tornado of turmoil in my stomach I didn’t know how to quell.

  I stood silent—patient—as he reached for the wrench on the table and began to take the block apart.

  And then I felt it—the reckless, revolutionary part inside me that couldn’t stop pushing forward, that wouldn’t stop fighting for what I wanted. And that wouldn’t stop until he saw he was wrong to shut me out.

  I didn’t lack restraint, I thought as my hand drifted toward my waist. I wasn’t impulsive.

  It was all about perspective.

  For me, at two-hundred miles per hour, the world slowed down. In that cockpit, I was in a trance where everything I did… every decision I made… was distinct. Unhurried. Methodic.

  Four hours. Two hundred laps. Five hundred miles. Racing was a long game that moved at lightning speed.

  And this—whatever it was that churned powerfully between us—was no different.

  A long game. One that throttled forward with jarring, explosive moments.

  Garret’s gaze sharpened, watching my fingers delve under the waist of my sweats. Heat suffused through my skin, knowing what my body craved. Knowing it was going to find release. Knowing he would be watching.

  “What are ye doin’?” he rasped harshly.

  My hand paused, halfway buried in my sweatpants.

  Like a bull, his nostrils flared, his eyes glaring daggers at me. But I didn’t back down. I knew what I was doing—what I needed. And I knew that it would be like waving a red flag in front of his face. But I didn’t care.

  He could leave the room if he wanted.

  My hand slid lower, delving beyond the seam of my underwear.

  He didn’t have to watch.

  “You said I deserved to have what I want.” I shuddered, my fingers reaching the top of my slit, already feeling the heat seeping from my body because of him. “And if I can’t be with you, then this is what I need.”

  “Bloody Christ, ye canna—”

  My lips parted with an aching moan as my fingers swirled the bud of my clit—a moan that cut off his curse and halted his actions as he stared at me. Absorbed. Entranced.

  “Kacey…”

  Now, he was the one begging me.

  The question of whether he was going to walk out—to leave me alone in the engine room while I pleasured myself—was forgotten as he stood with his mouth agape.

  The room felt like it held a furnace for how quickly my body began to heat. Air thickened and stuck to the insides of my lungs with pleasure-coated weight.

  I’d never done something like this—something this exhibitionist before.

  But a stupor of sexual tension, dripping with anger and the need for release, lured me forward down a one-way path.

  My fingers rubbed over my clit, demanding release from the pressure built up inside me. Demanding the one who caused it be a tortured bystander.

  Biting my lip, I looked to Garret, anger driving him to attempt to continue working on the engine, lust making his moments disjointed and unfocused.

  “I willna touch ye,” he growled like that would make me stop and leave.

  Sparks of pleasure washed over me, hearing in his voice just how much he wanted to.

  My only response was a moan, desperate and needy from my lips.

  Soon, my eyes drifted shut, imagining it was his fingers rubbing over me, sliding through the wet desire that soaked my sex. Imagining that there was nothing keeping us apart.

  “I willna.” He grunted. “Touch ye.”

  The words became a chant, though I wasn’t sure if the purpose was to continually remind me or to forcibly stay himself.

  Either way, it drove my pleasure higher. Vivid memories of last night. Of his hands and mouth on my body. Of his cock buried inside me.

  I dipped a finger inside my pussy, feeling the muscles vibrate as my orgasm approached.

  Garret’s ragged exhales soon turned into melodic groans. He might not be touching me, but those groans were. Their intensity. Their vibration. Their depth.

  He fucked me with those groans. And the way they grew hungrier and more ragged told me he knew it, too.

  “Garret.” I unsteadily inhaled his name, my eyes springing open as the coil of pleasure inside me tightened inescapably.

  But it was his last groan—the last groan I heard—that sounded awfully like “Come” that sent me over the edge with a cry.

  The wrench in his hand fell to the floor, a loud clang that affected neither of us as I shuddered against the wall and he panted, holding the engine block to stop himself from charging me.


  A shudder conquered the length of my body, parting my lips, air pressing in and out in a quick, unsteady rhythm.

  It wasn’t the same.

  It wasn’t even close to last night.

  Like driving a regular car compared to a race car, the orgasm washing through my cells wasn’t even in the same realm as the ones I’d felt with him.

  But it would have to be enough.

  I gasped at the solid shackle that clamped around my wrist, yanking it away from my sex and sending the elastic waist of my pants snapping gently against my quivering stomach.

  “Ye shouldna tempt an Irishman like that, lass,” he warned with a low drawl.

  “Tempt you with what?” I breathed, catching the way the light flickered off the glistening tips of my fingers. “You said you didn’t want me.”

  His growl echoed like an engine revving in the small space.

  “Ye make me lose my mind, lass,” he rasped. “I canna stop from wantin’ ye, but I hafta—and ye hafta let me.” He pulled my hand toward his face—toward his mouth; his gaze drilled desire into mine. But it was desire that would be left knotted. “So, I’m goin’ ta take what ye made for me, and then yer goin’ to walk out of here and no’ tempt me like that again.”

  I gasped as his lips closed over my fingers, sucking the slick desire from them like the sweetest lollipop. The slow drag of his tongue sent a rush of heat down to my pussy, and like the flip of a switch, the torture tables had turned.

  “And if I don’t?”

  He looked at me from underneath hooded lids, his teeth sinking into the base of my two fingers to the point that bordered on no longer being gentle. Goosebumps raced along my spine as he dragged his bite up my fingers, scraping his punishment into my skin.

  “If ye don’t, then Voigt can find someone else to build his car.”

  It felt like all the air vacated the room at his threat.

  I wanted to challenge him. My chest expanded with the words to do so. But the stone-cold pain flagrant in his eyes stopped me.

  He would do it.

  Regardless of the contract—regardless of the consequences.

  He’d find some other way to pay for Claire’s treatment rather than risk my being a distraction.