WE’VE GONE TOO FAR
FRANKIE
I don’t know if it’s stress or pent-up fear releasing or just some form of PTSD leftover from my mom’s death, but suddenly, I am in love with Billy James. At least it feels that way, and I’m drowning too hard and fast to fight it. I’ve been fighting for control all fucking day, when all I wanted to do was cry and scream, so now… I give into my feelings. Including the ones for him.
I kiss him hard and deep, and he kisses me right back. I know this is truly a form of self-sabotage. We aren’t on the same page. He doesn’t like me likethat. Hell, he doesn’t like anyone like that. I am not just playing with fire as I slip my hands under his shirt, I am dancing in the middle of an inferno. I sniff back the last of my tears, his warm skin and hard muscle under my fingertips, calming me. “I just can’t believe she survived that. I thought… when I felt the ground shake and saw that fire…”
“I know. I thought she was gone too and my heart was breaking for you,” he whispers as his lips move from mine, and he pulls me tighter to him. Smoothing my hair and cupping the back of my head with one of his big, strong hands. “But the car and most of the protective gear did their jobs, and she’s okay. You’ll be okay too, love.”
“I’m not so sure about that…” I confess and tilt my head up. His eyes are clear and sure. Billy James is so damn sure of everything. And I’m only sure of one thing right now… I need him. My hands slide down his bare back to his ass.
“Tell me what you need,” he whispers, his voice like sandpaper, gritty and raw.
“You, Billy. I need you,” I admit and kiss the column of his neck, savoring the feeling of his skin against my lips, across my tongue, and his scent all around me.
“You said no quickies,” Billy murmurs.
“I don’t want quick,” I confess and look up at his beautiful face. “I need you to make love to me.”
The words are… a lot. Too much. I know this. I crossed a line. But he doesn’t stop or correct me. Instead, as I hold tighter to his firm butt, he dips his head to find my lips again and starts to unbutton my white jeans.
I push thoughts of boundaries and right and wrong out of my head and start undressing him too. Before long, my bare ass is resting on the edge of the thick marble vanity and he’s between my legs, naked, driving into me in long, slow strokes. We’re holding each other tightly, desperately, our mouths are colliding, and our tongues are dancing, and we’re making noises that are raw and uninhibited. He’s gentle with his mouth but rough with his hands as he buries them in my hair and tugs, and it’s got all my nerve endings on fire.
“I want to give you everything, Frankie,” he pants against my neck, and that’s all it takes to for my orgasm to rip through me.
He comes at some point, but I’m already too gone to really notice. I hope it was as good for him as it was for me. I think it was judging by the way he collapses on me, breathing heavy, as he curls his head into my neck. We stay like that until there’s a knock on the door and then he reluctantly peels away from me, pausing to hold my face gently in his hands and press his lips to my forehead before grabbing a towel off the rack and covering himself. “I’m going to answer the door, and I want you to take a long, relaxing steam shower okay?”
I can’t find a reason to argue, so I do what he says. A couple minutes later, Billy joins me in the cavernous, marble shower and washes my hair and my back, and then I push him back on the bench and ride him. We don’t have a discussion about the fact he’s condom-less but we aren’t being reckless. I have an IUD, and I know he’s clean and safe. The company does complete physicals on him every three months, and I get those now. But the moment goes unspoken, twice now. That deepens the trust between us, which further deepens the connection we don’t admit we have.
I feel drunk by the time I get out of the shower. It’s all the stress, trauma releasing, and giving myself to a man, in every emotional and physical way, for the first time. Billy wraps me in the extra bathrobe that must have been delivered with the meal he ordered. We sit at the bottom of the bed crossed legged, facing each other, and eat the club sandwich and drink the fizzy water he also had delivered. I’m famished, and I realize I haven’t eaten a thing today. I have no idea what time it is, but the sun is long gone. Billy watches me eat with a smirk. “You should put this on the ‘Gram.”
“Only douches call it the ‘Gram. And no one wants to see me devouring a sandwich,” I say after I swallow down another big bite. “I’ve never promoted a diet or meal supplement company. I don’t promote anything that makes money off a negative self-image. I won’t even promote shape wear. Turned down a huge deal.”
“I know. I just meant that you look cute ripping into that thing like a wild animal,” Billy replies. I laugh and try not to choke on the fizzy water I just sipped.
“I haven’t eaten all day,” I admit. “I’ve been too…”
“Busy avoiding an emotional crash landing?” Billy says bluntly but in the softest possible way. I nod, and his smirk slips into something softer and more compassionate but just as sexy. “I’ve been there, remember? I was in the paddock when my father died. I watched the crash right in front of me with his team while they screamed and gasped around me. His Team Principal kept trying to pull me away from the monitors, like averting my eyes would erase the memory of what I already saw. What I knew. I knew he was dead in my heart before any doctor or hospital declared it.”
I remember his father’s deadly crash. I wasn’t there, but I have watched the footage on internet clips. His dad’s front tire blew out unexpectedly, and he spun into the barriers. That likely did not kill him, but another driver hit the debris from the crash and spun out too. He careened into Tommy James’ car, flipping over it and landing on top of him. There were no halo bars back then to protect the driver’s head space, and despite the helmet, Tommy James suffered life-ending head trauma and a snapped spinal cord.
“I can’t imagine having that memory.” I reach across the small space between us and take his hand in mine.
He squeezes. “I think you can imagine what it felt like now.”
I nod slowly with the sick realization and try to fight the tears that want to flood my eyes. “Lucia would have been dead six different ways if she’d had that same crash just five years ago …”
He squeezes my hand again and cups my face with his other one. “Hey. Do not dwell on what might have happened because it didn’t. She’s here, and she’s great and will race again.”
“Yeah.” That realization is cold comfort. “Right now, all that means to me is that it could happen again.”
Billy’s face flickers with something dark. Hard. I instantly regret saying that even if it’s the truth. He doesn’t give me a chance to mull over that odd expression of his because suddenly the trademark casual grin is back. “You need rest. It’s been a day.”
“I need to handle business,” I sigh and swallow the last of my fizzy water to wash down the end of my half of the sandwich. “I have to touch base with Rocco and watch the qualifying footage. And I should probably touch base with my dad.”
I yawn, long and hard. He moves the room service cart across the room as I stand up to get changed back into my street clothes. I hate that this is ending, this bubble I’m in with him right now. I know when I walk out that door, it’s over. All of this. It has to be right? We’ve gone too far as it is.
I walk toward the bathroom where my clothes are still in a heap next to his race gear. My drunken, euphoric feeling is wearing off big-time, and I’m into the beginning of an emotional hangover. Billy circles my waist from behind. His lips brush the side of my neck and I shiver. “Billy…”
“Reality will be there waiting for you in the morning,” he whispers. “You don’t need to rush off and find it.”
He’s right but he’s also wrong. Just like this thing between us. I am so drained, emotionally and otherwise, so I give in. I let him turn me in his arms and start to untie my robe, and I let his kiss take me away to a land where all that matters is this. Him. Us.
I know I’ll regret it later, but I don’t care.
