The stale light of the hotel was too bright above us, buzzing with anticipation. I wanted his hands back on me, needed them on me. His eyes darkened like storm clouds rolling in, and before I could blink, he grabbed my hand and pulled me through the quiet hallway, past the art and the velvet chairs and the hushed staff pretending not to notice. Neither of us said a word. It was reckless, and I was completely breathless at the look of him so enthralled with me. I could barely keep up with the thud of my heart. We were falling now, right off the cliff.
In the elevator, he was still looking at me like he was trying to memorize this version of me—the tipsy, sparkling, unguarded one. I giggled as I tripped out of the elevator on our shared floor and his arms enveloped my waist, steadying me immediately. He was laughing too. I should have stopped it. I should have pushed him away. But the headiness of kissing him had stripped my armor clean off, and under it, I was raw with want.
“This is a bad idea,” I admitted, once we were in his room. The soft click of the door filtered through the otherwise silence of his hotel room. I was standing in the entryway and that was the final moment we could go back, pretend it never happened, stop it before we went too far.You don’t want that,my head argued with me.
“I know,” he agreed.
“Tomorrow, I’ll hate you for this.”
He smiled like he’d already accepted it. “You hate me already.”
I let out a sound—half laugh, half sigh.
And then I said it. The words that tipped everything off the edge.
“Fuck it.”
His hands were on my waist, then sliding up my back, then tugging the zipper of my dress with careful fingers. The fabric slipped down my arms, pooling at my feet. I should have been embarrassed. I was not. His eyes trailed over me like he was seeing something sacred.
When he touched me again, it was reverent. Like he was there to worship me, savor every touch, every minute. I felt the heat gather, my pulse quickening. And I was pushing him back, onto the cool sheets and climbing on top of him. He let me take control, let me tease him, kissing down his neck and chest, unbuttoning his own shirt as I went. He pulled us up, me still straddling him, my legs on either side of his waist, pressed all the way into him. I pushed off his shirt the rest of the way. His mess of brown wavy hair was disheveled in that post-race way, and I ran my hands through it, tugging and being rewarded with a moan. I’d never be able to look at his post-race hair the same again. I’d think of this moment. How it was my hands that made a mess of him, how his hands felt feverishly running over me.
While all drivers were in peak athletic form, and I’d seen drivers shirtless—I’d even seen Matteo shirtless—but nothing prepared me for this version of him under the dull night lights outside the hotel making the dark room glow slightly. I probably was drooling. I was only brought back to reality by a hand slowly caressing my cheek, and pushing back into my hair, before he tugged me to him. He began exploring with his hands as he kissed me deeply, more harshly that time. Exactly how I craved it. One roll of his thumb over a peaked nipple had my eyes fluttering closed, a gasp on my lips. Then his lips left mine and he was looking at me with that same heaviness.
“You are so beautiful.” His voice was edged and strained, like he was begging. My entire body heated. His chest was rising and falling, matching the same ragged breath that I had. He peppered kisses from the curve of my lips, my nose, my cheeks,to behind my ear then down my neck, and I felt the mix of laugh and groan escape me. He mapped me like a racetrack he had studied a thousand times and still found new ways to take the corners. I arched into him, needing the friction, needing our bodies to meld together and to forget everything but the feeling of his skin against mine. Of his name on my lips, soft and ruined.
When we were tangled in the sheets, sweat cooling on our bodies and the world gone quiet, he brushed a strand of hair from my forehead and pressed the softest kiss to my temple.
It was the gentleness that undid me—more than anything. And when I finally drifted to sleep, I didn’t think about what this would mean tomorrow.
4
MATTEO
The first thing I noticed was the smell of a familiar perfume.
It was faint now, like it had faded into my sheets and my skin, but I’d know it anywhere. Something floral, expensive, but not too sweet. Likeher. Sharp edges and a hidden softness you only get if she lets you close enough. Something I’d noticed from afar because Nicola would never let me that close. I relentlessly flirted with her any chance I could because I craved any response from her, irritation included. I was addicted to her eye rolls, the pointed finger, and counting how many times she would mutterFuck offin any given day to me. Despite her being the most off-limits person I could be interested in, it didn’t stop me. Nicola was the boss’s daughter. Not just the boss, the boss’s boss. Mr. Moretti of Moretti Racing himself. I would be a fucking idiot to try anything, but I couldn’t help it; I was drawn to her over and over again no matter the absolute havoc she would wreck on my heart.
I kept my eyes closed for a second longer, wanting to stay in the dream. Inhaling the dream, the perfume,her. I cracked open my eyes, sun gleaming in through the haphazardly closedcurtains in my hotel room. I wracked my brain for the ending of the night. The gala was a huge success, flashes of Nicola in that sinful black dress, my hands on her waist. Then flashes of a bare waist, of skin touching skin, of lips and alcohol. I sucked in a breath, feeling weight in the bed other than my own, the mattress dipping next to me.How drunk did I get?
It was a slow movement as I looked over to see who was in my bed. Long dark brown hair and that damn perfume.
Fuck.
Nicola Moretti was in my bed.
It was still early—the kind of soft light that makes everything feel quieter than it should. She was curled on her side, facing away, hair a mess across my pillow. The sheets barely covered her back, and all I could see was the curve of her shoulder, the dip of her spine. My fingers twitched.
Last night flashed through me like a match struck too close to dry skin. The hallway. The car. The way she saidFuck itlike she was saying yes to more than just one night. The way she kissed me like she hated herself for wanting it—and maybe hated me more for making her feel it.
I shifted, pulling my arm back, slow and careful. Like she might wake up and punch me in the throat for daring to still be here. But she didn’t move. Her breathing was steady, soft.
She looked…peaceful like this. Unburdened.
Not like the Nicola I knew—the sharp, sarcastic, high-heel-wearing ice queen who’d been rolling her eyes at me since she walked into the paddock on the first day of the season. She looked at me like I was an insect then. She still did. Except last night she looked at me like I was something else entirely.
My chest tightened.
This would be chalked up to a bad decision. A mistake we’d both laugh off and pretend didn’t mean anything.
