The Driven Series

by Bromberg, K.

  Confusion flickers over his face momentarily before he leans forward and cups the side of my face, thumb brushing over my bottom lip still swollen from his kiss. The depth of emotion in his eyes causes a lump to form in my throat because I know I’m responsible for them. The man who never thought he could feel, now feels in spades.

  And this should be humorous: him with his pants half down and me in lace and leather sitting on a blanket in the dark in the middle of an empty racetrack. But it’s not. It’s perfect. It’s us.

  It’s perfectly imperfect.

  “Happy anniversary,” I whisper.

  “Happy anniversary.” He leans forward and kisses me tenderly. Our lips linger against each other’s and I feel his mouth spread into a smile. “I can’t believe you gave me the only checkered flag I’ve never claimed for our first anniversary.” The awe in his voice warms my heart and makes all of the trouble I went through to do this worth it, a thousand times over.

  “I had to make it memorable. Moments like this only happen once in a lifetime.”

  “Everything with you is memorable,” he says winning my heart all over again, “because you’re my once in a lifetime.”

  10 Years Later

  THE VIBRATION OF THE MOTOR rumbles in my chest long before the car slings into turn four. I track the car, my eyes glued to it as he fights traffic on his second to last lap, and I wonder if it will always be this way. If I’ll always be a nervous wreck when he’s out there.

  Definitely. Without a doubt.

  I hear him shift gears as he enters into turn two, the only turn I can’t see from my place in the box along pit row, so I turn to look at the monitor in front of me. I hear the announcer growing frantic as the end of the race nears, and I don’t fight my pride or smile.

  “Donavan’s flying through turn three. One more to go and he’s claiming the checkered flag here today, race fans, as well as taking the lead in the current points standings. Traffic moves aside as he enters turn four and now Donavan’s on the homestretch with no one even challenging him.” His excitement is contagious as I look up from the screen to watch the car fly toward the start/finish line.

  And even though the outcome is unfolding in front of me, my rising anxiety won’t be soothed until I can wrap my arms around him again.

  “And it’s Donavan across first! Donavan takes the checkered flag here today at the Indy Lights Grand Prix, ladies and gentleman! Another one in the bag for this talented driver I know we’ll see so much more of in victory lane.”

  The box around me buzzes with excitement, but I don’t even stop to chat because my headset’s off and I’m jogging down the stairs. Everyone knows the drill by now, so I’m not worried about who’s with whom or where we’ll meet up again. I fight through the crowd just in time to see his car slowly enter the black and white checkered staging area of victory lane.

  My body vibrates with excitement, and my heart is in my throat as I see the crew descend around him, reaching their hands into the open capsule of the car and squeeze his shoulders or pat the top of his helmet in congratulations. I stand back letting them have their team moment, anxious to congratulate him myself.

  I see the steering wheel get passed out, and then I watch as he unfolds his body from the car. Hands help steady him as he climbs out and finds his legs after sitting for the past five hours.

  The crew steps back as one man approaches. This has been the good luck routine for the past year. Love swells as I watch the man I fall in love with more and more every single day step forward and start to help unbuckle his helmet.

  The media pushes their way around me to get closer, but I remain rooted and watch the moment that chokes me up every single time I see it. A moment that will never lose its impact.

  The helmet and white balaclava comes off in one smooth stroke, allowing me to see Zander’s eyes sparkle with the same pride and excitement I feel over his win. Colton takes his helmet from him and grabs our son in a quick embrace packed full of so many emotions. And I know what Colton is saying to him. The same thing he’s told him countless times over the years. “I’m proud of you, son. I love you.” These are the words he wants him to never forget, or ever be ashamed to say. I swallow the lump in my throat as Colton ruffles Zander’s sweat-soaked hair and then steps back to let him have his moment in the sun.

  Colton gets lost in the crowd as Becks steps forward and slings an arm around Zander to praise him before the media descends around them.

  I stand in the crowd of people around me and wait, knowing he’ll find me. It takes only minutes before I feel his hands slide around my waist and pull me back against him, my softness to his steel, at the same time I feel his mouth against my ear.

  “Zander did good today, huh?” The rasp of his voice has me closing my eyes momentarily and wondering how over ten years later that sound can still get to me. Can still cause every feeling to flood back like the first night we met.

  I angle my head sideways, his stubble tickling my skin as I move my mouth closer to his ear so he can hear me above the announcers and craziness around us. “He gets better with each race,” I tell him as I press a kiss to the underside of his jaw and hold it there for a moment. “He has a great teacher,” I say, my lips pressed against his skin. “It’s your turn to take the checkered flag now.” I lift my head up just in time to catch him raise an eyebrow and flash a roguish smirk, and I know he’s most definitely not thinking about his race next week. I can’t help the laugh that falls from my lips. “On the track, Ace! You already claimed this one!”

  “Damn straight I did.” He laughs before pressing another chaste kiss to the side of my head, leaving his lips there momentarily before murmuring, “I gotta get back to the team. See you in a bit?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Tell everyone dinner’s at six-thirty sharp tomorrow, okay?”

  “Yep,” he says as he turns me around in his arms to face him and then looks at me for a beat with that soft smile I love. The years have been kind to him, a few more lines around his eyes perhaps, but he still has the same Adonis-like looks that stop my heart.

  He leans forward and presses a kiss to my lips, and it takes everything I have to not sink a little farther into it, into him. Because even after all this time, I simply can’t get enough of him.

  Like everything else about me, he senses my need for him and I can feel his smile on his lips before he brushes one last kiss against mine. He leans forward and whispers into my ear, “There’ll be plenty of that later.”

  “Whatever happened to when I want, where I want, huh, Ace?” I challenge him.

  I love the carefree sound that falls from his lips as he throws his head back in a full-bodied laugh. He shakes his head and just looks at me, his eyes darting over to a meeting room over my shoulder. “I believe I already proved that theory earlier this morning, Mrs. Donavan.” His words cause the ache he’d sated earlier on the desk in that room to come back with a vengeance. He trails a finger down my cheek. “I’ll be more than happy to prove that point to you again a little later tonight though.”

  “Oh no worries.” I smirk. “Your point was more than proven.”

  “Baby, this point was most definitely more than proven,” he murmurs suggestively as he splays his hand across my lower back and pulls me hard against him so I can feel every single inch of that point pressed against my lower belly. All I can do is breathe out as every part of my body craves him again. “Fuck, I love you,” he says, pressing a chaste kiss to my lips before winking at me and walking back toward Zander and the race team.

  And all I can do is watch his back as he walks away—strong shoulders, head held high, and still sexy as hell. I shake my head, reminded of when all those years ago as he walked away from me in a race suit. How he called out my name, found the courage to tell me he raced me, and changed more than just our lives, forever.

  THE HOUSE IS BUZZING WITH noise like a goddamn beehive.

  Just how Ry likes it. Though fuck if I know why, because it’s filled with hi
gh powered testosterone, overtaking her tiny bit of estrogen.

  I glance out on the patio as I walk down the stairs to see Shane talking to Connor about how he’s doing with his new job, his arm around his wife and a bottle of beer to his lips.

  All of the boys are here for our once a month family dinner as Ry calls it, even though some of the boys—shit, men now—are starting families of their own.

  “Hey, Shane,” I call out to him through the open pocket doors. “I have a few more beers in here if you want them,” I tease and he snorts and rolls his eyes in response.

  “No thanks. I’m good with just one,” he says, holding the bottle up to me in a mock toast with a wide smirk. I laugh, the memory of him green and hungover making me smile.

  I walk through the hallway and take it all in. Aiden in his UCLA baseball jersey fresh from practice shooting the shit with Zander in his board shorts and backwards baseball hat, a relaxed grin on his face. Scooter sitting on the deck outside playing with Spiderman figurines with Shane’s two year old son. Shit.

  The sight makes me feel like I’m older than dirt.

  Everyone’s here but Kyle and Ricky. I feel sorry as fuck for the freshman girls at Stanford those two are currently unleashing their charm on. Or maybe it’s their own type of voodoo. The women don’t stand a chance against them. Hearts are gonna be breaking.

  Fuck ’em and chuck ’em.

  Thinking of those two has the old term hitting me like a ton of bricks as the memories of that first night flash back. I don’t even fight my smile as I think of the hearts I used to break … damn I was good—until a certain wavy haired vixen crashed into my damn life, grabbed hold, and never let go. Defiance and curves and my world got turned upside down when I opened up that damn storage closet.

  And thank Christ for that.

  My fucking Rylee.

  And then I hear her voice in the kitchen, and my feet head toward her without a second thought. I clear the doorway and every ounce of love I never thought I could have, never thought a possibility, fucking sucker punches me like it does every goddamn time I see them like this.

  Pots are boiling on the stove, the microwave is dinging, and the Goo Goo Dolls are playing overhead, but I don’t notice any of that because my eyes are fixed on the sight before me, my heart beating like a damn freight train. They’re sitting cross-legged on the floor, knees touching, giggling uncontrollably over some shared secret, flour coating their hair and faces, and complete adoration reflected back at one another.

  I stand there and watch them, my soul aching in the best fucking way possible at how I’m the luckiest son of a bitch on the face of the earth. I’ve been to Hell and back, but it was worth every goddamn second for what I feel right now … feelings that aren’t so fucking foreign any more.

  The ones I can’t imagine living a lifetime without.

  The giggles stop as a pair of green eyes look up at me from beneath dark lashes, freckles on his scrunched nose dusted with flour, and a lopsided smirk on his lips. He just looks at me, gauging if I’m going to get upset at the mess he obviously played a part in.

  Then violet eyes look up at me, that soft smile, on those lips I love, directed straight at me. And I silently marvel at how that simple smile gets me every fucking time, no matter how many years have passed. It has me wanting to pull her into my arms, share all my secrets, and fuck her senseless simultaneously.

  Her voodoo powers still in full fucking effect.

  And fuck if I’d want it any other way.

  I fight the smile creeping onto my lips because I’m the biggest fucking softie when it comes to him—a fact I deny regularly—and try to act tough. “What’s going on here?” I ask, stepping into the room as Rylee pats her hands together and a plume of flour flies into the air like a dust cloud around her, causing them to erupt into another fit of giggles.

  I walk over to them, flour coating the soles of my bare feet, and squat down beside them. My eyes dart back and forth over them before I reach out and place a dot of flour on his nose with my finger. “Looks like you guys made quite a mess,” I say, trying to play the part of disciplinarian but failing miserably.

  “Well thanks, Captain Obvious!” he giggles at me, sarcasm in full swing.

  “Ace Thomas!” Ry reprimands our son, but his words have already knocked me on my ass.

  I look at him, search his face over and over, studying it like a fucking road map to see if he has any clue, any goddamn inkling what he’s just said to me, but there’s nothing looking back at me but mischievous green eyes and a heart-breaking smile. My spitting image.

  “Hey?”

  That telephone-sex rasp of a voice pulls me back from flashes of plastic helicopters, superhero Band-aids covering an index finger, and the sound of thwacking. Thoughts I don’t really remember but that seem clear as fucking day somehow. I shake my head and try to clear out the confusion before I look over to her. “Yeah?”

  “You okay?” She reaches out, touches my cheek, and stares at me.

  And then he starts giggling, breaking the thoughts holding me hostage. He points to the flour she’s now transferred to my own cheek. “What?” I growl in a monster voice, causing the almost six year old to squeal like a little girl as my fingers reach out to tickle him.

  “You’re a flour monster too now!” he says between panted breaths as he tries to squirm away from me.

  Our tickle fest lasts for a few more seconds as I let him escape, chase him, and then hug him. And he wiggles for a bit more before I feel his arms slide around my neck and hold on tight.

  Those tiny arms pack the biggest punch of all because they hold everything I am in their fucking hands. I take a moment and breathe him in—little boy, flour, and a bit of Ry’s vanilla all mixed in one—and close my eyes.

  I guess it was in the cards after all.

  Fuck me running.

  He saved me.

  Then. And now.

  Just like his mother did.

  I feel her hand on my back, feel her lips press against my shoulder, and open my eyes to look at her—my whole fucking alphabet—and smile.

  “I think our flour monster here needs to take a quick bath before dinner,” she says.

  “Nah.” I reach up to ruffle his hair, flour flying again. “Nothing a cannonball in the pool won’t wash off, right, Ace?”

  He shouts out a “Woohoo!” and gives me a high five before running out of the kitchen at full speed. I watch him run and jump into the pool, Zander yelping as the splash soaks him.

  “He’s got you wrapped around his little finger,” she says as she walks over to the sink to wash the flour from her hands.

  “And you don’t?” I ask with a shake of my head as I walk up behind her and slide my arms around her waist, pulling her back into me. And fuck if that ass of hers pressed against my dick doesn’t make me ache to take her, throw her over my shoulder, and haul her upstairs right now.

  I press a kiss to that spot beneath her neck, and even after all this time, her body responds instantly to me. Goose bumps appear on her exposed skin, her breath hitches and the fucking sigh that turns me on, as if her hands are wrapping around my dick, falls from her lips. And if her beautiful body doesn’t turn me hard as fucking steel, her responsiveness does without a fucking hesitation.

  That and how much I know she loves me, faults and all.

  How in the fuck did I get so lucky?

  I shake my head as all of the shit that’s happened in my life flashes through my mind. I chuckle, the things that hit me the hardest—that mean the most—all started with a damn storage closet and this defiant-as-fuck woman in my arms who called me to the carpet, grabbed me by the balls, and told me our outcome was non-negotiable.

  And fuck me, we’ve still got a lifetime left for her to call all the shots she wants because my balls are still nestled exactly where they’re supposed to be, right in her hands.

  “What are you laughing about?” she asks.

  “Just thinking of the loo
k on your face when you found out I’d won the auction,” I tell her, the memory clear as fucking day. “You were so pissed.”

  “What woman wouldn’t have been when you came off as arrogant as you did?” She snorts out a laugh and then sighs softly.

  And the sigh alone makes my dick start to get hard.

  “Arrogant? Me? Never,” I tell her.

  “Whatever! I know you fixed that auction, Ace.”

  And I laugh. God, I love this woman. Ten years later and still feisty as fuck.

  “Baby, that answer I’ll hold on to forever,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to the back of her head.

  “That’s not possible,” she whispers, looking up to press a kiss to the underside of my jaw, “because you’ll be busy holding on to me.”

  Fuckin’ A straight I will.

  I squeeze her a little tighter, not wanting to let her go just yet because, fuck, what racer doesn’t want to hold on to their checkered flag a little longer?

  At least I know mine waves only for me.

  My kryptonite.

  My alphabet, motherfucking A to Z.

  My fucking Rylee.

  “RY?” I CALL HER NAME the minute I clear the top of the stairs. The little note she left me on the counter is in my hand. “Your nothing-but-sheets date night starts now,” it reads. Curiosity rules my thoughts and fuels my actions.

  Well, that and the image of her naked and waiting for me. My day’s been for shit though, so I’m not going to push my luck and expect a miracle like that to turn it around. But a man can sure as fuck hope.

  SoMo is playing as I walk onto the upper patio of the house where our original nothing-but-sheets date took place a long-ass time ago. Sweet Christ. My feet falter when I find Rylee. She’s leaning back on the chaise lounge, dressed in some kind of black lacey thing that I don’t pay much attention to because it’s see-through enough for me to tell she’s naked as sin beneath it. Her hair is piled on top of her head, her lips are bare, and her knees are spread so her feet are on either side of the chair. And I’m distracted momentarily—my eyes searching for a glimpse of the something more between those thighs of hers—before realizing sky-high heels complete the outfit.