“Need to grab that hat for Dave’s daughter.I promised her a visor.”
“You’re like Father Christmas.”
“I’d like to think of myself as more handsome than that.”
He found what he was looking for—a tinted race visor, still in its packaging—and tucked it under his arm.Then he turned and looked at me leaning against his doorframe in his driver’s room.
“What?”I said.
“Nothing.Just… this.You, here.”
“Don’t get used to it.If anyone from Rennen catches me in the Hermes garage, I’ll be explaining it to Felix until I’m forty.”
Henri crossed the room toward me.“Then we should probably stop standing here.”
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved toward the hallway.
Henri set the visor down on the massage table without looking at it.His eyes stayed on me—dark, intent, the careful composure from the track walk dissolving.
“We should go,” I whispered.
“Say it like you mean it.”
I couldn’t.Not with him standing this close—not with the lock turned and the corridor silent and his hand finding my hip like it belonged there.I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him against me, my back pressing flat against the doorframe.
His mouth found mine—harder this time, nothing slow about it.His fingers dug into my waist, and I gasped, arching into him.I bit his lower lip and felt the groan travel through his chest into mine.
He picked me up like I weighed nothing, my legs wrapping around him as he carried me to the massage table.My back hit the padded surface, and he leaned over me, one hand braced beside my head, the other sliding under the hem of my shirt, his palm hot against bare skin.
“Door’s locked?”I breathed.
“Door’s locked.”
His mouth traced down my jaw, my neck, my collarbone.I pulled at his shirt, and he helped me get it over his head, tossing it somewhere behind him.My fingers mapped the landscape of him—the hard ridges of muscle, the scar on his shoulder from a childhood karting crash, the rapid drumbeat of his heart under my palm.
He tugged at the hem of my top, and I sat up enough to let him pull it free.The air was cool against my skin for half a second before his body covered mine again, warm and solid and everywhere.
His hand slid up my ribs, thumb brushing the underside of my bra, and I sucked in a breath that sounded embarrassingly desperate.He paused.Looked up at me.
“Lily.”
“Don’t you dare ask me if I’m sure again—”
He kissed me before I could finish.His fingers found the clasp at my back and made quick work of it, and then there was nothing between us but skin and the faint green glow of the exit sign bleeding under the door.
I pulled at his belt.He helped, kicking his jeans off the edge of the table.My shorts followed, his hands hooking under the waistband and dragging them down my legs with a slow deliberateness that made me want him even more.
When he came back up, he pressed his forehead to mine.Both of us breathing hard.Both of us still.
“Hi,” he whispered.
I laughed, shaky and breathless.“Hi.”
His hand cupped my face, thumb stroking my cheekbone.When I got up, I motioned for Henri to sit on his driver’s-room sofa, which he did eagerly.I pressed a finger to his lips.Then I replaced it with my mouth with a single kiss before turning my attention elsewhere.
“Oh,mon cœur—” he started as I began kissing down his body.
