by Alice Ward
“You ready?” Brody’s voice piped into my ear, startling me so much that I would’ve jumped clear through the roof had I not been strapped in.
“Y-yeah,” I said, my voice breaking.
Shit. Brody was no dummy. He had to know I was feeling shitty. He’d been through his own life-altering crash. And yet when he had his arm back, he’d gotten right back into it, and was now starting to practice for his own races. He’d been raring to go, if only he had the chance.
I had the chance to get back into it. My parents had risked everything for this. Brody and my pit crew were behind me. Locke had been willing to risk his reputation to let me race.
I had to do this.
I had a lot riding on this, and I couldn’t let them down.
“Start her up.”
I started to press the ignition button but stopped. Took another breath. Then this time, I started it. It roared to life, humming underneath me, and where usually I loved that sound, now, it made me shudder.
Calm, Emma. Calm.
I wheeled out slow, so slow onto the oval, the lights above blaring onto me, making me think of the Pocono lights that had twisted in my vision during the crash.
“You’re on,” he said, once I reached the starting line. “Show us what you’ve got.”
I hesitated a second, two, before pressing on the gas pedal. When I did, all I could hear was my ragged breathing in my ears, fogging up the shield of my helmet. I blinked as sweat poured into my eyes. The banking was too much for me. I felt like I was in the constant state of being about to flip over. I hugged the inside during the first turn, taking it too slow and cautious, because the outside barrier seemed too close, even though I knew it was only in my head. Next, the center of the track didn’t seem very comfortable either. I sailed to the middle, feeling the cabin of the car closing in on me.
What was wrong with me?
“Hey, dude, my grandmother can drive faster than that,” Brody said in my ear. “Punch it.”
He was right. I’d barely broken a hundred. Fixing myself hard in the seat, I shifted gears and pressed hard on the gas. The g-force pressed me back into the seat, but only for a few seconds. At the curve, I lifted my foot off the accelerator, slowing drastically as I leaned into the thirty-one-degree curve.
My heart was pounding in my chest, my fingers trembling on the wheel. Sweat popped out on my brow as it became harder and harder to breathe.
I’d done fine in the simulator… but here? In real life?
I couldn’t deny it.
I was terrified.
If I couldn’t handle this, how would I ever handle an oval choked with my competitors, each one gunning for first?
As I headed back into the straightaway, my helmet felt too tight, and my fire suit felt like it was made of fire, searing my skin and cooking me from the inside out. I started to pant, which soon turned into hyperventilation. I couldn’t catch my breath. Slowing the car as I headed for pit road, I ripped off the chin strap to the helmet and pulled it off, then started fanning air into my face.
Moving at a crawl, I was ready to tell Brody that I was done for today. I almost didn’t see the white, nondescript Camry that pulled to my left. Only when I’d stopped and lowered the window net did I notice the silhouette in the driver’s seat.
Locke.
And suddenly, I could breathe again.
He winked at me, then tore off, heading around the oval.
I smiled. Oh, hell no. I was not going to let a pretty-boy beat me.
Taking a deep breath, I reaffixed the window net, and put my helmet back on, then waited for Locke to make his first lap. As he approached me again, I gunned it. And this time, as the g-force pressed me into the seat, I was grinning.
“That’s it, that’s it,” Brody said in my ear. “Get it going, keep it going, looking real good!”
“Nice ass,” Locke said, his Camry behind me.
I laughed and felt the fear melt away. I could do this. More than that, I would do this. Because I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t just my fight. I had Locke and my brother, my crew, at my back.
For the next hour, I soared around the track, weaving back and forth with Locke, testing my reaction time, my speed, getting more and more comfortable. By the time I was done, the adrenaline was surging through my veins.
When I got back to pit road, I pulled off my helmet and ran to Locke’s car, where he was just stepping out. God, he looked sexy in his fire suit, that russet hair all messy, breathless from our ride. I jumped into his arms, and he kissed me, running his hands up and down my back. “Thank you,” I whispered in his ear. “Thank you so much.”
“I’ve never been so happy to lose.” He kissed the tip of my nose, my cheek, my chin. “You were amazing out there. So amazing, I got you a gift.”
I held up my wrist. “Still got the last one you gave me.”
“This one is better,” he teased with a cryptic smile.
I held out my palm.
“Patience. It’s at my apartment.”
Afterward, we went right back to his apartment, still fueled by adrenaline. I felt like everything in my life was finally falling into place. He popped open two beers from the fridge because we were thirsty as hell after that workout, but we didn’t even drink them. I followed him into the kitchen, and we started to undress each other, even before the condensation had begun to appear on the bottles.
“Well, you win this round,” I said when I was naked, and I, too interested in exploring all the muscles of his incredible chest, hadn’t yet gotten to undoing the button of his jeans.
He laughed softly as he kissed me. “What do I win?”
I motioned over myself. “Everything you see here.”
He gazed at me hungrily, then picked me up and laid me down on the couch, in a room overlooking Daytona’s pristine shoreline.
Then he covered me with his body. I moaned and arched into his touch, lifting my pelvis. I rubbed my clit shamelessly against his thigh, feeling the rough material of his jeans and wanting us closer. His mouth found mine, and I sucked at his tongue, writhing against him. I wanted him so badly I was trembling everywhere. I wrapped my legs around his waist, tore my mouth from his, and begged, “Please.”
He stood up, unbuckled his belt, and unzipped his fly. When he was naked, I pushed him down on the sofa and straddled his lap, trapping his thick erection between my pussy and his stomach. He groaned and threw his head back as I slid my slick flesh over the length of him, grinding myself into his hardness. God, this felt so good.
But I wanted even more. I grasped his shaft, guiding him into me. “You don’t mess around, do you?” he said with a chuckle as he happily obliged.
“Nope.” I held his cock upright, lifted myself atop it, and came down hard on him, velvety and hot.
“Damn,” he growled as I clenched my muscles around him. The fit was incredibly tight, like we’d been made for each other. I loved riding him this way, loved how his hands were free to touch me, exploring my ass, my back, my breasts. “You feel so good.”
This, being on top of him, seeing the look of pure, hot desire in his heavily lidded eyes… I felt powerful. His hands pressed against my hips, urging me to move, and I did. I braced my palms on his broad chest and found the right rhythm, and he went along with it, falling back on the pillows. He just watched me, enjoying the show, very happy to let me have my way with him.
He flexed with me, pulsing, exerting such pressure against my G-spot that all I wanted to do was stay impaled on him forever. He leaned forward, taking a nipple in his mouth as I rode him, increasing my pleasure until I exploded, the orgasm shuddering through me.
Holding me close to him, he turned us until I was on my back, my legs automatically circling his hips, changing the angle. My breath caught in my lungs and seemed trapped there as he filled me, inch by inch. Then he pulled out and started the slow, beautiful, sensual claiming all over again.
“Please. Don’t stop.”
Pinning me hard
to the cushion, he pumped into me with long, slow strokes. “Never, Emma. I’ll never stop loving you like this.”
Pulling his beloved face down to mine, I kissed him as I held on for dear life, clutching at him, lifting my hips to meet his thrusts. The raw scrape of his shaft over my sensitive tissues was a primal, intimate caress. Crying out his name, I shoved my hands into his hair and bit his lower lip as a second climax rippled through me in intense, electrifying bursts.
He came too, roaring out my name as he thrust harder and faster before shuddering his release into my body, his lips on my neck.
I held him there, wrapped around him, listening to him breathe.
“I love you,” I whispered.
He kissed the shell of my ear, still holding tight to me. “I love you too, Emma James.”
He slowly pulled out of me and laid back on the couch, then coaxed me against him, the pleasant, cooling sweat of our bodies fusing us together. I nuzzled into the crook of his arm, thinking I could get very comfortable with this.
Thinking, damn, this was pretty much perfect.
And then he sat up, reached into the briefcase he had sat on the floor, pulling out a box wrapped with a red bow.
It was the exact same size as the last two presents he’d given me.
I raised an eyebrow, suspicious.
“Go on,” he said.
I pulled the end of the ribbon, then slid off the lid. I was greeted with bright yellow and black stripes. Bumblebee stripes.
I pulled them out to find the tiniest pair of yellow and black striped panties I’d ever seen.
He was grinning at me. “I figured since they were the key to your winning the races, you should get ones that matched your outfit. Just remember to wear them inside out.”
I held them over his face, tickling his nose with them. “As long as you’re the one to take them off me, afterward.”
EPILOGUE
Locke
Eight Months Later…
I settled into my seat at ISM and cracked open a bottle of beer, then downed half of it as I watched the cars lining up at the starting line.
“How is she doing?” Laura asked me, sitting next to me with a salad from the buffet. She popped open a water and leaned forward, watching as they were given the signal to start their engines.
“You know her. She’s cool as a cucumber,” I said with a shrug.
This was her home, after all. We’d gotten in a week earlier, and she’d shown me the sights. Her old home in Wintersburg. The dirt track. We’d had lunch at the Tin Top. She’d been right. There was a lot of dirt around here. But the second she got here, I felt like this was her race. Her time to shine. She’d been in over fifty races by now, and she’d been closing in on a win every time.
Laura laughed as she looked at me. “Glad she’s doing well. Wish I could say the same for you.”
I should have been a pro at watching these races by now, but even now, my palms were sweaty, and I couldn’t focus. Ridiculous considering I got to sit up here in the AC with a selection of craft beers and a full buffet while she worked her ass off.
But this time, I was even more nervous than usual for her. Emma had only been getting better and more focused with every race and had been flirting with first place for the past few races. She’d been pole and come in second at her first race of the season, the Daytona 500. Yes, she’d actually qualified this year; not only qualified but smoked most of her competition. I’d endured the biggest tantrum from her about that one because she’d been so close. She’d gone to fifth in Atlanta, but in Vegas, she’d placed third.
And now, here we were, at ISM in Phoenix. Her home.
“She wants this so bad,” I murmured.
She was so damn close, it was maddening. But she had her doubts. The last time she’d been here, in November, I’d been out of the country introducing CageFree to China, and she’d pulled a disappointing twenty-third out of forty drivers. She said she should’ve done better since this was the track she’d practically been brought up on, but nerves had gotten to her. The ISM Cup was the top of her bucket list.
Well… after me.
“You ever think just wanting something so much makes it harder to get?” she’d asked me the night after the race during a phone call when there were several time zones separating us.
And maybe it had. Maybe she’d wanted it so badly that it wasn’t possible.
I wasn’t giving up hope. “Okay, girl,” I murmured, leaning toward the oval. “Three hundred and twelve laps. You’ve got this.”
“Well, she’s in good shape,” Laura said. “It’s all over the news how she broke the ISM record with her qualifying lap.”
Yeah, that was all over the news. Now, my name was barely mentioned, except in relation to my sponsorship activities. Our “couplehood” was old news, though pictures of us strolling the beach hand in hand would sometimes show up on People’s website, whenever it was a slow news day. Now, most of the attention was rightfully put on Emma, the athlete, and the way she’d been tearing up the track this year.
I couldn’t have been prouder.
“Okay, so,” Laura said, whipping out her briefcase. “I have the contracts for our Hits Like a Girl campaign, all signed by Martha West, our newest property. They just need your John Hancock.”
Below, the cars were dragging off on their first lap, behind the pace car. She handed me a pen, and I absently signed on the dotted line for Martha, the impressive United States female boxing champion from New England. “You’re in Boston next week to shoot those?”
She nodded. “Of course, since you’ll be in… where is she going to be next week?”
“California.” I’d taken over as Emma’s one-person entourage, going with her to every race. Laura hadn’t complained. I thought she preferred doing all of this herself, and I’d just been a nuisance most of the time. Once upon a time, I’d been very anal about ensuring every one of our ads was perfect but loosening the reins had not only been freeing, it gave all the people who worked under me more of a sense of accomplishment. And the quality of the ads hadn’t suffered. Our Shred Like a Girl ads, ones I hadn’t done a thing for except sign the contract, had won three ADDY awards this year for advertising excellence.
Of course, my favorite would always be the Drive Like a Girl ads. I’d even had a wall-size reproduction of the first one made, the one where she’s standing on the track, in front of the oval in her fire suit, holding her helmet, her hair blowing in her face, and I’d hung it in my bedroom.
Emma had laughed at it and said, “God, that will give me nightmares.”
“She should do well in California,” Laura said, stuffing the contract back into her briefcase. “Did you see the Sports Illustrated write-up about her?”
I nodded. I had. I would’ve framed that too, if she’d let me. It went on about her career, her wins, her hopes, and treated her like a real, substantial force in the racing world. No fluff about how she handled racing with PMS or that questioned how she ever thought a woman could perform as well as men. They just knew she could. The photo of her hadn’t bared her tits; it looked full-on, hardcore, like our ads. And the title of the piece?
Breaking records and barriers: Emma James is on track to be one of the best drivers in the Cup series… male or female.
She was getting her due now. Getting the respect.
The race continued, and maybe I’d regressed, just knowing how much she wanted this because I could barely take my eyes away from the track. I wanted to know what she was thinking in that head of hers, so I pulled on the headset and listened to the chatter.
A spotter was giving her direction as she swerved around a little skirmish going on between two cars in the middle of the pack. “Easy, easy. Okay, pull left. Left. Got it. That’s it. Gun it, gun it… go!”
And she was out from that mess as she sailed toward the front of the track. The crew whooped. It was clear sailing from then on, and she killed the first stage, winning it with no other competition
even close. “Whoooooooo!” I heard her scream. “That felt good!”
I smiled. She hadn’t won a stage before. She sounded strong, powerful.
“Keep it going!” Brody shouted at her.
Seventy-five laps down, two hundred and thirty-seven to go, I realized, doing the calculations in my head as I rubbed the stubble on my jaw. I hadn’t shaved since Saturday, I’d found it to be my superstitious thing. When I didn’t shave on race day, Emma did better.
Obviously, it was working now. She looked incredible.
Beneath me, the crowd cheered. She’d gotten quite the cheering section in the past year, with more and more people buying her 77 merchandise and wanting to follow in her footsteps. No, there’d been plenty of other women who’d raced, but women seemed to identify more with Emma. Maybe because she wasn’t afraid to show her girly side.
She could be tough and sweet. And Emma loved her fans. I’d often come into her trailer to find her hosting a gaggle of little girls who wanted to be just like her, telling them, “It’s okay to be sweet and want to kick a little butt too.” She’d even gone along with me on the off-season, talking to schools as part of the Cage Foundation’s anti-bullying campaigns.
“You should eat something,” Laura nudged me when she’d finished her salad. Two cars had spun off the raceway, and the caution flag had come out. Emma had drifted back to sixth, doing a back and forth with Chase Elliott that seemed like an all-out war. Laura pointed at the buffet. “Did you even have lunch?”
I shook my head, thinking it wasn’t possible to eat anything at a time like this. But right then, my stomach rumbled.
I took off the headphones, hopped from my stool and got a plate, backing into the room so I wouldn’t miss anything. I filled it up with mostly healthy choices but added a few chicken fingers and fries on the side. I came back just as the green flag came out.
Laura studied my plate. “I remember the days when you’d never touch that stuff. Are they long gone?”
I shook my head, and I washed down a fry with a beer. “Moderation. I can eat shit during a race. Super—”
“Superstition. I got it,” she nodded, laughing. “You’re crazy as Emma is with those superstitions, you know that?”