I feel the moment she stops thinking.
Her movements get less precise, more instinctive. Her head tips back, exposing her throat again; her hips roll against my hand in urgent, messy circles. A string of words spills out in Czech—soft consonants, snapped off on her own breath—that I don’t understand but absolutely feel.
“Yeah,” I murmur, half into her jaw, half into the curve of her neck. “That. Don’t hold back. Nobody out here but us.”
She makes a sound somewhere between a whimper and a curse and clenches around my fingers so hard it hurts in the best way. She’s close; anyone who’s ever raced knows that particular edge, that point where you either pull back or commit.
I keep her right there for one more heartbeat, then tip her over it.
Her whole body goes tight, then shudders against me. The first sharp cry tears out of her before she clamps her teeth into my shoulder through the layers, fingers digging into my back. I hold her through it, hand steady, drawing it out, letting her ride every wave until the tension melts out of her muscles and she sags against me, boneless and shaking.
For a few long seconds, the only sound in the cabin is the two of us breathing. Her face is buried in the crook of my neck; my hand is still under her layers, resting where it is, not moving anymore, just there. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my fingertips.
Slowly, carefully, I ease my hand back, smoothing her clothes as best I can in the dark. I don’t let go of her with the other arm.
“You okay?” I ask quietly.
She lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh, almost a sob. “I think I left my brain somewhere down there,” she mutters into my neck. “But yes. I’m okay.”
“Good,” I say, and I mean it in a way I haven’t meant much lately.
She shifts enough to look at me, eyes still dazed, mouth soft. The sight does nothing to help the fact that I am painfully, almost comically hard in my suit. I’m sure she can feel it; there’s no way not to, with her still perched on my lap like this.
Her gaze drops, then flicks back up, and something in it changes. The daze sharpens into intent.
“You’re not,” she says quietly.
“Not what?”
“Okay.” Her lips twitch. “At least one part of you is not okay.”
I huff out a breath that might be a laugh. “It’s a little late for okay down there,” I admit.
She studies me, really studies me, like she’s weighing something. Then her hands slide down my chest, over the zipper of my race suit, and hook into it.
“Maybe I want you to be more than okay,” she says. “After what you just did to me.”
The zipper starts to move, her fingers sure and unhurried on the pull tab. The sound is absurdly loud in the cramped cabin, a small metallic rasp over the howl of the wind.
“Careful,” I say, catching her wrist lightly. “We’re still in a box that occasionally remembers other people exist.”
Her mouth curves. “You said whatever I want,” she reminds me. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
Not even a little.
I let go of her wrist and lace my fingers with hers instead, pressing our joined hands flat against my chest for a second so she can feel how hard my heart is going. “I haven’t,” I say. “I just need to know you’re still here with me and not just…high on adrenaline. You know, the kind you regret after it’s done.”
She looks straight at me, that same unblinking focus she must have in a start gate. “I was scared before,” she says. “Of the wind. Of you. Of myself. Right now, I’m just… greedy.” Her free hand slides down, knuckles brushing the inside of my thigh through the suit. “And very aware that we might not get a moment like this again.”
That hits somewhere deep and raw. For all the circus around my life, the private, honest moments are rare. “Okay,” I murmur. “Then, be greedy.”
She smiles, quick and wild, and goes back to work on the zipper. This time, I don’t stop her. Cold air spills in under the open suit, raising goosebumps along my stomach despite the thermal layer. Her hand follows, palm hot against the thin fabric as she maps the line of muscle like she’s learning a new course by feel.
When her fingers find the hard line straining against the base layer, my hips jerk before I can stop them. Embarrassing, how fast I react to her like I’m a teenager in a lift for the first time, not a man who’s seen more than his share of beds and cabins and dark hallway corners.
“Jesus,” I mutter. My hand finds her hip, fingers flexing there, holding on. “You move like that, and I’m going to embarrass myself long before the rescue team gets here.”
She laughs under her breath, pleased rather than apologetic, and strokes me again, a slow, deliberate glide that makes my vision go white at the edges for a second. There’s nothing fan-girlish about the way she touches me now. No hesitation, no performance. Just intent.
