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.”
“High stakes,” he said, and it came out more intimate than he’d intended.
She sobered. “You’ll be careful.”
“I will,” he promised. “And if anything feels off, if you hear or see anything weird from your window, you call me. Or Brian. Or Colby. In that order.”
She rolled her eyes lightly. “Yes, Sergeant.”
Somewhere beyond the trailer, Brian shouted his name. A bike revved, the note familiar; Julie clearing her throat.
Duty called.
Hank brushed his thumb over Bree’s lower lip once, unable to help himself. “I’ve got to get back.”
“I know.” She angled her face into his hand for one more second. “Go do your thing. Break physics in a legal way.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “I’ll try.”
He stepped back reluctantly, already feeling the absence of her warmth. “Text me when you’re in your room tonight. I’ll sleep better.”
“You sleep,” she said. “I’ll be the one chewing my nails.”
“I’ll text you too,” he amended. “We can chew together.”
She smiled, small and real. “Deal.”
He watched her walk away toward the hotel entrance until she disappeared past the line of trailers. Only then did he turn back toward his pit.
Brian was waiting with a torque wrench in hand, eyebrows raised.
“Everything okay?” Brian asked. “You were MIA for a minute.”
Hank glanced once toward the gap where he’d last seen Bree, then back at his crew chief, his friend.
