Fast & Wet

by Kat Ransom

  It’s not that I blame her for leaving Stan. That was the correct thing to do. But allowing me to be born, since she hates me so much, the product of what I am—then hating me for it my whole life—isn’t okay.

  Leaving a child alone with Stan when she’d finally found a backbone was not the correct thing to do.

  Her part in the last six years without Emily was most definitely not the correct fucking thing to do.

  She thought old Stan was going to be a Formula 1 driver, but she hitched her wagon to an abusive prick who didn’t have the talent or dedication to make it. He ended up being successful in sub-prime mortgages where he could prey on people in other seedy ways, but she was gone by then.

  Fuck the both of them.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it before the race,” Emily sees my frustration and, in the blink of an eye, she puts her hand on mine on top of the table.

  Like an autonomic body reflex, muscle memory, my fingers wrap around her's, and she gives me a little smile.

  This is how it all started, isn’t it?

  At first, I just thought she was this smart, gorgeous girl—she intrigued me, challenged me. She was the first girl who said no to me, wouldn’t go out with me, told me to ‘piss off,’ if I remember correctly.

  Then we disappeared within each other, saved the other every night, every weekend.

  Before she can pull back from me again or overanalyze it, I pull her hand to my mouth and softly kiss her fingers. I stand up from the table and throw my hat back on, “Ready?”

  Don’t think, Em, just feel.

  “Yep,” she stands and joins me, and we walk to the garage together. She’s quiet like I knew she would be. She’s thinking about the tiny kiss on her hand, and I can practically see the questions and comments swirling above her head, like a comic book character. But I won’t push her.

  Inside the garage, I pull up my race suit as the crew hustles to get every last-minute detail finalized. Emily grabs a headset off the wall, and Dante grabs me to head out onto the track for the national anthem.

  My mind is anywhere else as I stand on the track under the sun listening to a big guy in a tuxedo sing while a woman next to him plays a violin. I can still feel Emily’s skin against my lips, and I have to stifle the twitching in my dick when I think about running my lips all over the rest of her body.

  Don’t be the asshole with a hard-on lined up in front of cameras while the national anthem plays.

  The musical torture ends, and all the drivers head back to their garages. Dante is still in a pissy mood about the last race, not that I blame him. All the championship race points we’ve earned have been compromised this season, he’s just much more of a hot-head than I am about it.

  Liam hands me my helmet in the garage. In bold reds and deep blues, the colors of Hungary, I like its design this race. The reds remind me of the paprika I know Emily wants to pick up before we leave.

  I give the helmet a once over, even though I know what I’m looking for is there. It’s always there, hidden somewhere. I flip it around in my hands and find the initials hidden inside the swirl of a flour de lis, EW. Then I can put it on my head and strap it down.

  As I tighten the chin strap, I see Emily out of the corner of my eye in the back. She’s biting her fingernails again and watching me from behind her computer station.

  Flipping my visor up, I walk to her. She drops her hand from her mouth and peers up at me from her stool. If I didn’t have this helmet on, I don’t know that I’d be able to stop myself from taking her head in my hands and kissing the hell out of her.

  She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, and I raise my eyebrow at her. I’m going to have a fucking hard-on in the car now, no getting around it. She knows what I want, though.

  “Good luck, have fun, go fast,” she smiles, her cheeks glowing a soft shade of rose.

  “Go fast, today?” I smile at her addition to the pre-race commentary she started, not that she can see me grinning like an idiot under my helmet.

  “As professional advice from your engineer, yes. Go fast,” she nods.

  Go fast. I’m going to go so fucking slow, baby. So torturously slow when I finally get my mouth on you.

  “Duly noted,” I wink and turn around.

  With my back turned, I have to adjust myself in my race suit before I step into the car, and I hear her snicker behind me.

  Just you wait, Emily Walker.

  I’m sweating my balls off after the race. My fire suit is stuck to my skin, and my hair is soaked. Hungary never used to be this hot. Fuck all those people who deny climate change.

  “Drink,” Liam hands me another water bottle that he’s thrown a nasty electrolyte tablet into.

  “I am, christ,” I mumble around the water bottle.

  “You lost four kilos, drink more,” he stands, watching me like a nun waiting to smack me with a ruler. “And one beer tonight, that’s it,” he folds his arms across his chest.

  He’s like an Australian schoolmarm, this guy.

  I roll my eyes at him, but I’ll do what he says, unlike Dante, who lives to terrorize his physio. I don’t particularly enjoy working out for hours every day with Liam barking at me, but now that I know how much my girl likes abs, I may be listening to Liam a little more than usual.

  Plus, he’s been taking good care of her like I asked, keeping her hydrated and giving her melatonin and other shit to help with the jet lag.

  We start walking back to the motorhome, and I unzip my race suit down to my waist, these fireproof things are unbearably hot.

  Mila, my PA, jogs to catch up to us and hands me my cell phone and starts rattling off all the updates she has for me. No press to do, which is good, we can get out of here earlier.

  Mila’s in her mid-thirties, and I thought she was going to quit the time a tabloid published a rumor that we were sleeping together, but she had Imperium threaten to sue the publisher, instead. She’s a tough German lady like that.

  “Reservations all set? I ask her.

  “They normally don’t take reservations, but they cleared the top floor for you.”

  Excellent. Mila gets shit done. I don’t know how she pulls some of this stuff off, but she never lets me down.

  “Change her plane ticket home tomorrow?”

  “Why do you ask?” She snips at me in her thick accent, “You know better.”

  “Just checking, calm yourself,” I tease her and put an arm around her shoulder. She shrieks and throws my sweaty hook off.

  Inside the motorhome, it’s buzzing with the crew already starting to break gear down and pack up. Most of them will head straight to Belgium to set up for the next race.

  It takes me a few minutes to find Emily, fiddling with the coffee machine, as usual. Girl’s got a caffeine addiction if I’ve ever seen one.

  “Hey,” I step up beside her as she’s attempting to froth milk.

  She turns her head, and her eyes widen and travel from my head down to my waist. The milk steamer is still hissing and blowing, though her mug has wandered off it, so I flip the switch off.

  “Sorry, I’m gross,” I look down at myself, my white fire suit stuck to me, sweat dripping from my head.

  I see her throat constrict as she swallows hard. “What’s up?” She asks, her voice cracking.

  Emily Walker, are you turned on right now?

  “Emily, Emily,” I hear someone call in a French accent. The very tone of this guy’s voice is smarmy.

  I look up, and that cockblocker Olivier is rushing across the lobby of the motorhome.

  “Ugh,” Emily groans, “he gives me the creeps.”

  “There you are, mon cher,” Olivier butts right in and invades her personal space despite the visible cringe on her face and the clear step she takes away from him.

  I see the way he looks at her, she’s gorgeous. I can’t blame him there. But a real man would back off, listen when her body language says ‘nope,’ not try to intimidate her. But before I can step in, E
mily’s inner badass comes out.

  “Olivier, I need that information from you,” she starts in on him immediately.

  “Yes, of course. I’m trying to get it for you. You know how scientists can be,” he chuckles.

  I watch Emily’s head jerk back, and her eyes scowl.

  Fuck, this guy can’t get out of his own way to save his life. His charming rich guy in a five-thousand-dollar suit act may work with most chicks, but Emily is not most women.

  “Would you like to have a drink with me this evening, Emily? We can discuss it then.”

  Oh, hell, no.

  “She has plans,” I bark, and I know I sound like some kind of alpha asshole, but enough is enough.

  Emily’s head tilts toward me then snaps back to Olivier. “I have plans,” she agrees.

  Good girl, baby.

  “Oh, I see. Another time, then. Perhaps in Brussels,” he suggests.

  “Sure,” she mutters, utterly unimpressed with his bullshit.

  God, I love this woman.

  We both watch Olivier slink away and get lost amongst all the people piling into the motorhome.

  “What are these plans? My flight leaves in a few hours,” she takes a sip of the coffee still in her hand.

  “Not anymore, your flight leaves tomorrow morning now.”

  Her eyebrows raise, and she looks at me for clarification, skepticism whipping around her, but I can see the curiosity burning equally as bright.

  “You need paprika and dinner at Belvarosi Disznotoros, first.” I’m sure I butcher the pronunciation, but she gets it.

  “From Parts Unknown,” her eyes widen.

  I nod and grin at her, see the excitement on her face.

  “Cole…” she puts her coffee down and drops her head, and I know she’s overthought things again.

  More likely, she’s doing the smart thing and staying the hell away from me, but I can’t do it anymore.

  I need her.

  “We can bring Dante or Liam, Mila, anyone you want, if you’re not comfortable,” I tell her. I really don’t want any of them around, but if that’s what it takes, then so be it.

  She looks around the room, and her wheels turn for a second while the pit in my stomach expands and wraps itself up into a knot.

  “No, that’s okay. We can go.”

  That quick, my gut unravels, and I stand a few inches taller. “I need to shower and change and then we can go. Is your luggage here, or do you need to go back to the hotel first?” I ask and scan her black Imperium polo and tight little green shorts.

  “I need to change?” She looks down at herself.

  “I can bring security if you’d rather not.”

  “Oh,” she shakes her head, “I forgot that you’re a famous person,” she says, and I notice a faint trace of redness creep up her neck. “My suitcase is here, I can change.”

  I don’t remember the last time anyone said anything like that to me.

  It’s been years since I was just a guy talking to a gorgeous woman and not Cole Ballentine, the Formula 1 driver. It would feel like going home if home was a concept I ever knew.

  I let her know that Mila will take her luggage back to her hotel room, which has been extended for one more night, and I’ll meet her in twenty minutes.

  I am taking my girl out on a date for the first time in six years.

  “You want to take a scooter?” I ask again when she points at one of the little Vespas in the parking lot instead of the Ferrari I’ve been using this weekend.

  “It’s so European.”

  She’s officially the first woman I’ve ever met who is not impressed with a Ferrari and wants to take a beat to hell Vespa scooter on a date instead.

  The marshals drive these things around the track, and the one she’s pointing at is scuffed, dinged, and looks like it’s been run over by a garbage truck. They leave the keys in them because no one would even bother to steal one.

  And it’s pink.

  “Oooookay,” I shake my head. “I need to grab you a helmet then.”

  “Why, are you going to let me get hurt?” She hops on the back of the tiny scooter and sasses me. I can’t help but wonder if there’s more to that question than meets the eye, too.

  “No,” I will absolutely not let her get hurt.

  And I’m not going to interrupt the fun, flirty thing she has going on right now and read more into her question. So I throw my leg over the tiny pink scooter and feel the suspension sag with both of us on it. It probably can’t exceed thirty miles an hour, anyway, piece of shit.

  As soon I sit down and feel her against me, her legs covered in tight, white capri pants, the scooter is the last thing on my mind. I do go slow and avoid every pothole on my way into Budapest, though.

  Her long hair is whipping around us, and when she tries to tie it up, she leans against me for support, and it’s fucking heaven.

  True to her word, Mila has had the restaurant block off its small upstairs loft eating area. I was expecting the place to be fancy but should have known better. It’s cafeteria-style and cost about ten bucks US. It’s perfect.

  After the staff takes a few selfies with me and has me sign something for their wall, Emily orders a schnitzel the size of a surfboard, and I carry it all upstairs on trays for us.

  Emily puts away nearly the whole damn plate, and I finish off what she left because Liam isn’t here to scold me, and this shit is good. She has a couple of beers, and I stick to my one, not so much for Liam, but because now I’m driving her around on the ridiculous pink thing parked on the sidewalk out front.

  It’s dark by the time we thank our hosts and step out. With my hat down, we stroll through downtown Budapest relatively unbothered, save one or two people who recognize me and want photos. Emily doesn’t seem to mind.

  We make our way to the Danube, and stroll along the shore, watch the city lights twinkle on the Pest side of the river, take in the parliament building on the Buda side. Past the Shoes on the Danube memorial, the crowd thins out, and it’s just us ambling in the dark, talking, and laughing.

  She tells me about Klara and updates me on Makenna. I tell her stories about all the trouble Dante and I have gotten into over the years. We find paprika at a street vendor, and I stuff it into my pocket for her. At some point, our hands brush together while we’re walking. Her pinky finger links with mine, and I’m not letting it go for anything in the world.

  She stops to take a panoramic river photo, and I let her walk a few paces ahead. I take out my own phone and snap some pictures of her. She’s so beautiful, the twinkling city lights dancing in her eyes and her hair blowing around in the breeze.

  All these years, I never stopped loving her, not for a second. It was always her.

  “What are you doing?” She turns and finds me taking photos of her while I lean up against a lantern post.

  “Nothing,” I grin.

  “Let me see,” she reaches for the phone, and I hold it up high out of her hands as she wiggles. Trying to grab it, she puts her hand on my chest for balance and leans against me.

  I feel like the world stops turning, it’s just her and me along the river, a soft glow of light illuminating her face. My hand with the phone drops to my side, and she looks up at me to see why I’ve suddenly quit teasing her.

  Our eyes meet for the briefest of seconds. Without conscious thought, my phone falls to the sidewalk, and my fingers are in Emily's hair, pulling her to me. I bend and press my lips to hers, so soft and full.

  Her hands wrap around my neck, and she stands on her tiptoes to reach me, leaning into me as I prop myself against the lantern post behind me. Our mouths smash together in symphony. The taste of her floods my memories and washes over me as my tongue runs along her bottom lip. She opens for me, her tongue dancing with mine as the inferno builds.

  My hand on her neck, I trace her jaw with my thumb and angle her head to kiss her deeper. Her fingers run through my hair, and she lets out a soft whimper that makes me want to devour he
r, combine my cells with hers, and fuse our two bodies into one.

  It’s like my heart remembers how to beat again.

  As her tongue chases mine, I feel her desperation, her need matching my own. Her body rocks into me, and I can feel her hard nipples against my chest, and I spread my palm across her perfect ass and pull her into me harder.

  She moans into my mouth at the feel of how goddamn hard I am for her. Curvy hips swivel and rotate into mine with sweet torture.

  I wrap my fist around her long hair twice and tug her head back so I can finally get my lips on her long, smooth neck that’s been in my head all day long. Kissing and licking from her collarbone to her earlobe, taking it between my teeth and nipping gently, I want to devour this woman.

  “Cole,” she pants before her lips are on me again, her hands a panicked frenzy clawing at the base of my neck, through my hair, then they’re up the back of my shirt, and I hiss as she digs her nails into my skin.

  She wants me as much as I want her. This is her body language saying ‘yes, yes, yes.’

  “Fuck, Em, my gorgeous girl,” I moan and slip my knee between her legs. She doesn’t hesitate to push her core into my thigh as she pants and continues to clench at any flesh she can reach. She’s fucking on fire, and it’s been so much pent up longing, so many years of need building between us.

  We’re both volcanos that have been simmering and heating up below the surface before the whole mountain top blows up and sends molten lava into the clouds.

  My tongue swirls with hers when I worry I’m being too rough with my fists tangled in her hair. But then she sucks in my bottom lip, drags her teeth over it hard, and the taste of copper hits me.

  Jesus Christ, this girl. I’m gonna blow in my pants for the first time in my adult life, at this rate.

  “Oh my god, I bit you,” she takes half a step back, puts a hand to my lip, and sees a tiny flash of red on her fingers.

  “Mmm-hmm,” I moan and push her hair behind her ears.

  Unfortunately, her little act of vampirism brings her back into the moment, reminds her that this is happening, and she takes another half step away. There’s a flash of fear and panic in her eyes.