“If I promise to stay in my room tomorrow,” she asked slowly, “do you promise to be careful out there? No extra risks, no proving-a-point bullshit. Just you and the bike and whatever clean race you can get.”
He almost laughed at the way she mirrored his terms. Almost.
“I’ll do everything I can to bring her home in one piece,” he said. “And me with her. That’s already the plan.”
Her throat worked. “Okay.”
“Okay, you’ll stay inside,” he pressed, needing to hear it.
“Okay.” She nodded once. “I’ll stay inside. Hotel room, door locked. No balcony, no boardwalk. I’ll draw from memory and the TV feed. I’ll text you when I’m in and when I’m tempted to break the rules, so you can tell me not to.”
Relief hit him so hard he had to close his eyes for a second. He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d been wound until that knot loosened.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
When he opened his eyes, she was watching him with a softness that punched through his ribs.
“Don’t thank me like I did you a favor,” she said. “I’m doing it because you’re right. And because I don’t really want to find out what happens when cheaters feel cornered.”
He lifted his hand from the trailer, hesitated only a heartbeat, then cupped her cheek.
Her skin was warm from the sun, softer than he’d imagined the first time he’d watched her on that balcony. She leaned into his touch without seeming to realize it, her eyes fluttering closed for a second.
He didn’t plan the kiss.
One second, he was looking at her, at the worry in the set of her mouth and the stubborn tilt of her chin; the next, he was leaning in, driven by an impulse as old and simple as breathing.
Their mouths met in a collision of pent-up fear and something sweeter. Her hand shot out, fingers catching his T-shirt at the shoulder, holding on.
He kept it slow at first, letting her feel his intent, not just his adrenaline. The brush of his lips over hers, the taste of coffee and salt, and the faint citrus of whatever soap the hotel stocked. She made a small sound in the back of her throat that went straight through his chest and settled somewhere beneath his sternum.
Her lips parted on a breath. He deepened the kiss, angling his head, letting his hand slide back into her hair. It was still damp from her shower, curls catching against his fingers. His other hand found her hip, thumb stroking the curve there through soft denim.
She came up on her toes without breaking contact, closing the last inches between them. The sketchbook pressed into his chest between them, edges digging in. He didn’t care. Her fingers tightened in his shirt, anchoring herself.
The noise of the pits faded to a dull roar. For a heartbeat, there was only the two of them, the scrape of his stubble against her skin, the tiny hitch in her breathing when he licked gently into her mouth, the way she answered with her own tentative stroke that had his knees threatening to buckle.
He pulled back slowly before he forgot where they were entirely. Her eyes opened, pupils wide, cheeks flushed with something that had nothing to do with the sun.
“Wow,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said, equally shaken. “That about covers it.”
She let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so unsteady. “You picked one hell of a moment.”
“I’ve been trying to pick a good one for a while,” he admitted. “Turns out there isn’t a good time to kiss the woman who makes your heartbeat jump when there’s a race and a cheating scandal hanging over your head.”
Her mouth curved. “You could’ve led with that, you know. ‘Hey Bree, I’m terrified the Red Dragons might kill you, also I really want to kiss you.’”
“Yeah, I’m not putting that on a greeting card.”
She leaned her forehead briefly against his chest, drawing in his scent like she was memorizing it. When she straightened, some of the panic had settled into something more solid.
“I meant what I said,” she told him. “I’ll stay in tomorrow. I’ll lock the door, keep my head down, pretend the outside world doesn’t exist until you knock.”
His gut tightened in a different way at that image. “Careful. You keep talking about me coming to your room like that, and I’m not going to be able to think about apexes.”
A slow, shy smile touched her mouth. “Maybe you can think about it as a reward for not dying.”
