The Princess and the Prix

by Nell Stark

  Thalia’s expression softened. “I’m relieved to hear you say that.”

  “Relieved?” Of all Thalia’s possible responses, she hadn’t expected relief. “Why is that?”

  Her confusion only increased when Thalia also blushed. “Because if you had said yes, I would’ve known you just wanted to use me for experience.”

  “I was under the impression that you like casual, no-strings sex,” Alix said, determined to call a spade a spade.

  “Usually, yes,” Thalia said, seeming increasingly uncomfortable. “When I’m sure of what the other person wants and expects.”

  “And you think I would want or expect more than that?” Alix’s frustration was mounting again. Just because she’d never had sex before, she wasn’t allowed to want it for its own sake? Did Thalia expect her to be pining away? Suddenly wanting space between them, Alix took a step backward. Thalia raised her hands in a pleading gesture.

  “Hang on a second, okay? You’re misinterpreting what I’m saying. I didn’t just meet you at a club or at the track. We know each other. We work together. Anything that happens between us is going to be more than casual.”

  More than casual. The words pleased her more than she wanted to admit. Allowing herself to be pulled back into Thalia’s orbit, Alix decided that she rather liked it when Thalia was a little off-kilter. “Is that a roundabout way of saying that you care about me?”

  When panic was the first emotion to flash across Thalia’s face, Alix felt the keen slice of disappointment. But then Thalia cupped her cheek, and her thumb ghosted across Alix’s lips, and Alix couldn’t help but lean into the gentle touch.

  “I do care about you. But I’m not at a point in my life where I want to make promises.”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “What are you asking for?”

  As Alix thought through how to word her answer, Thalia’s hands skimmed over her rib cage—up and down, up and down. “That’s distracting,” she said.

  “Is it?” Thalia asked disingenuously.

  Teasing. Thalia was teasing her. And she liked it. Narrowing her eyes, Alix silently vowed not to turn into a puddle every time Thalia touched her. She had more backbone than that.

  “It would appear that we’re attracted to each other,” she began.

  “You think?”

  Alix touched two fingertips to Thalia’s mouth, and her eyes went dark again. “Don’t interrupt me. I’d like to explore…this”—she gestured to the space between them—“slowly and without any strings attached. How does that sound to you?”

  Thalia’s smile seemed genuine. “Good. Really good.” And tugging Alix closer, she bent to claim another kiss.

  Alix gave herself up to it, fully relaxing against Thalia’s body for the first time. Heat upon softness, the kiss went on and on, as the warm breeze sighed around them and the yacht rocked gently beneath their feet.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As Thalia crossed the line just before the third qualifying session expired, she knew her time had been good. She also knew she could do even better. The more fuel she burned off, the lighter and faster her car became. This last lap would be her best one yet.

  “Excellent work, Thalia,” Carl’s voice sounded in her ear. “You’re P5 at the moment.”

  She spared a nanosecond for celebration—if she could hold on to it, fifth place would tie her highest qualifying result this season—before focusing on taking the St. Devote turn as efficiently as possible in order to carry every ounce of possible speed up the hill to the casino. As she accelerated along Beau Rivage, her peripheral vision registered the flicker of sunlight on the ocean to her right. In the next instant, her lips were burning—not parched with thirst, but aching in memory of the kisses she and Alix had shared on the yacht.

  No. She bit down hard on her lower lip, willing the pain to restore her concentration. She could not lose focus—not here, not now. Not when she had the opportunity to reach even higher than P5.

  As she accelerated through Casino Square’s wide corner, Thalia steeled herself for the one-two punch that was Mirabeau and Le Portier. Gravity would paralyze her lungs for several seconds, and she took a long, deep breath in anticipation of touching the brake.

  Suddenly, her earpiece crackled back into life at the same instant that the LED on top of her steering wheel glowed yellow. “Yellow flag, Thalia. Yellow flag.”

  “No! Goddamn it!” A yellow flag meant there was some sort of incident up ahead. Qualifying was over. Her flying lap would remain unfinished, and she would have to be content with P5.

  Braking heavily, she coasted into Mirabeau, alert for debris or people. With a flick of her thumb, she turned on her mic. “What happened?”

  And then she saw it: one of the Ferrari cars on the escape road, slowly backing toward the track. Rage hijacked her vision, tingeing the world red. She would have bet every penny to her name that that car belonged to Terrence, and that he had staged the emergency to put a stop to her lap.

  “Terrence went off the course,” Carl said. “Locked up, we think.”

  As she headed into the tunnel, Thalia double-checked that her mic was off and then shouted every vulgarity she could think of. None of the breathing rhythms or mental exercises she had learned in that ridiculous anger management workshop held any appeal. All she could think about was how much she wanted to hit him again. Seething, she took a long pull of her energy drink, wishing it were a whiskey.

  Emerging from the tunnel was always tricky, and because of her low speed, she had been inside it longer than normal. Blinking fiercely, she negotiated the chicane mostly from memory. But in forcing her to concentrate, the shift from shadow to sunlight had the unexpected consequence of temporarily dulling her anger enough to allow reason a voice.

  Terrence might have had a legitimate emergency. As much as she didn’t think that was true, discounting the possibility would be a mistake. And even if he had been malicious, this time she had to be the “bigger” person. She certainly couldn’t hit him again, or call him names, or curse at him. Somehow, she had to rein in her emotions enough to encounter him without incident, and to answer the media’s inevitable questions without going off the deep end.

  As she rounded the sharp Tabac turn and made for Piscine, the bay unfurled to her left, crowded with yachts that flashed brilliantly beneath the sun. Alix. Alix would help to keep her calm yet honest, wouldn’t she? Alix had seen her at her worst but had been willing to forgive.

  Thalia turned into the pit lane and pulled up before her garage, shifting the engine into neutral as the mechanics covered the car’s tires and pushed her inside. She leapt out as soon as the car was stationary. Instantly, Alistair and her team of engineers converged on her position, trepidation evident on their faces.

  “You’re confirmed at P5,” Carl said.

  “The race stewards know you were on track for a better time,” Alistair added. “They’re going to investigate Terrence’s actions.”

  “They won’t find him guilty.” Thalia wrestled off her HANS and looked between them. “I get it. You’re afraid I’m going to do something crazy, like in Italy.”

  “In a word: yes.” Alistair never minded standing up to her.

  “I’m not planning on it. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  Alistair didn’t seem convinced. “I know the media will want to speak with you, but I’d prefer to issue a statement that you’re waiting on the stewards’ decision.”

  Thalia had promised to play nicely, but she wasn’t going to let them take her voice away. “Compromise: I’ll be available briefly to the media to say exactly that. And no more.” She met Alistair’s eyes, trying to project an aura of competence despite being amped up on anger and adrenaline.

  Alistair held her gaze for a long moment. “Fine,” he said quietly. “But don’t fuck this up.” His matter-of-fact tone was far more effective as a threat than blustering or shouting would have been.

  “How did Peter do?” she asked into the s
ilence.

  “P2,” he said from behind her.

  She turned to find him mopping his face with a towel. He tossed it over his shoulder and gave her a one-armed hug, but didn’t say anything. She loved that about Peter. He didn’t sugarcoat things or rattle off meaningless platitudes. He was just there, solid and sympathetic and consistently excellent on the track.

  “Congratulations,” she said, hoping he could hear her sincerity.

  He moved off, and she paid a quick visit to the restroom in an attempt to tidy up her appearance. She braced herself against the small sink to stretch the aching muscles of her neck. Resentment churned sluggishly in her chest, and beneath it, the anger she had to find a way of containing. She didn’t want to be obsessed with Terrence’s actions. She didn’t want to care that the stewards were going to rule this, too, a “racing incident.”

  Thinking back to Monza reminded her of Alix, and the lecture she had delivered—in a nightclub, of all places. Thalia had been so infuriated by her then, but also, if she were being honest, intrigued. And now she had the memories of Alix’s kisses to supplement that lecture. The press would try to rile her up, but if she kept Alix in mind, she might be able to remember why it was so important not to rise to their bait. Qualifying was over. At this point, focusing on anything other than tomorrow would be a mistake.

  She closed her eyes and tried to visualize how it must feel to win the Monaco Grand Prix, with hordes of fans spilling out into the streets to offer their congratulations. It was the crown jewel of Formula One—the race everyone wanted most. She wasn’t out of contention. Anything could happen tomorrow. Barring some major catastrophe, the show would go on. And she needed to move on with it.

  When she emerged, one of their interns guided her to the front of the garage where a few members of the press corps were interviewing Peter. He was laughing with them as she approached, and she soon learned why: he was trying to conduct the session in French. As she watched him endure the reporters’ good-natured teasing about his grammar, Thalia couldn’t help but be jealous of his rapport with them. Was it too late to build that kind of relationship with the media? Had she been too antagonistic for too long?

  They caught sight of her then, and the tenor of the conversation changed. As she took her place beside Peter, their inquiries turned to the incident involving Terrence at Mirabeau. She stayed true to her word, answering each question tersely with variations on the same theme: she was waiting for the race stewards to sort it out. But just as she had expected, the more she toed the party line, the more incendiary the reporters’ questions became.

  “Do you think Terrence is singling you out?”

  “How did you feel when you saw the yellow flag after making such good time in the first sector?”

  “Do you believe Terrence is a misogynist?”

  As she stalwartly stuck to her guns, she caught sight of Alix standing off to the side, Claude just behind her. When their eyes met, Alix raised one hand in acknowledgment. Thalia wondered what she was trying to communicate. A simple hello? Or a warning not to say or do something she would regret?

  Her mind sought momentary refuge from the tension of the moment by flashing back to the way Alix had responded to her kisses. Her unfeigned eagerness had made their time together one of the most arousing experiences of her life. She didn’t want to be here, pretending to be rational and patient. She wanted to return to the moment they had shared beneath the sunset, when Alix had relaxed in her arms. The memory alone made her ache with wanting.

  “If you could speak with the stewards right now, what would you say?” a reporter called, shattering her pleasant thoughts.

  Once she had delivered yet another non-answer, the team’s PR head mercifully intervened, informing the media that the drivers needed to get their rest. Thalia tried to make light conversation with Peter on their way back inside by asking him about Courtney and Bryce. As she had known it would, that sent him into an exuberant narrative about their trip to Monaco’s Oceanographic Museum, which included a world-renowned aquarium.

  During the debriefing session with Alistair and the engineers that followed, Thalia could barely concentrate. She always felt restless after qualifying, but this was more than adrenaline and anticipation. The longer she thought about Terrence’s maneuver, the more convinced she was that it had been completely intentional. By the time Alistair delivered his parting words, she felt as though her brain was on fire.

  She had to find a way to gain some measure of calm, or she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, and that would be disastrous. Spending time with Alix was the first thought that leapt into her head, but that was a bad idea. She knew herself well enough to recognize that in her present state, she was far too volatile. It had been easy to take things slowly earlier in the week, but she had no reserves of patience to fall back on today.

  *

  Alix found Thalia in the Meridien’s gym, dancing around a heavy punching bag. She wore only a black sports bra and mesh shorts, and the skin of her midriff glistened with sweat under the neon lights. The onslaught of Alix’s visceral response forced her to brace one hand against the wall. She wanted to dip her tongue into the troughs between Thalia’s abdominal muscles—to taste her skin and be rewarded by the low moan she hadn’t heard for two interminable days.

  It should have been easy for Alix to question her own line of thinking. It should at the very least have been possible to listen to the nagging, parental voices in her head and walk away from a relationship conceived by and in “sin.” But it wasn’t possible. Alix didn’t want to question her instincts, and she certainly didn’t believe in “sin” the way Christianity defined it. Homosexuality occurred naturally in the animal world, and human beings were animals like any other.

  Of course, her parents would probably find a way to turn that logic on its head. Religion preferred to think of humanity as special—created pure and sacrosanct in the image of a divine entity. Whereas Alix preferred to think of humanity as a product of evolution, in which case they shared plenty of traits with the rest of the animal kingdom.

  “Hi,” she called, mostly to distract herself from her swirling thoughts. Or so she justified it.

  Thalia took a long step back from the swinging bag and met her gaze. “Alix.”

  “I may not understand all the racing details,” Alix said carefully, “but I know enough to understand that what happened today was unfair.”

  Thalia’s eyes closed briefly before she reached out to steady the bag. “Yeah. It was.”

  “Do you want to explain it to me?” Alix thought that maybe if Thalia talked about what had happened, she would be able to start to work through her frustration.

  “No.” Thalia swiftly crossed the space between them. “I don’t.”

  And then Thalia was kissing her, both hands on her hips as she pushed Alix slowly backward until the wall was there to support her. The kiss was confident and possessive and thorough, and Alix instinctually threaded her arms around Thalia’s neck. One of Thalia’s hands trailed up along her side in a caress that made her shiver and press even closer.

  “You feel incredible,” Thalia whispered, shifting her focus to Alix’s neck. Her lips were as gentle as a butterfly’s wings, and Alix felt her body begin to melt. The way Thalia touched her—at once reverently and hungrily—was intoxicating in a way she had already begun to crave. Never had she experienced desire so acutely, and with such urgency.

  This was too dangerous, Alix thought dimly, even as Thalia pressed gentle kisses across her collarbone. Anyone might walk in at any moment, and Claude would have to enter with them.

  “What’s wrong?” Thalia whispered. “You just got really tense.”

  “I’m worried about getting interrupted.” She hated to admit it.

  With a groan, Thalia pulled away, bracing herself against the wall with her hands on either side of Alix’s head. “I’m sorry. I got carried away.”

  “I don’t want you to be sorry.” Now that they were no l
onger touching, Alix felt bereft.

  “No?” Thalia leaned in closer, testing the assertion.

  “No. I love when—” She caught herself. “I very much enjoy how you touch me.”

  Thalia kissed one corner of her mouth. “I want to invite you to my room,” she whispered.

  “You want to?” It was a battle for Alix to keep her voice steady. “Or you are inviting me?”

  “I’m down here beating up a punching bag because I’m angry and frustrated and can’t sit still.” Her voice was low and intense. “I’ve never had much patience to begin with, but when I’m like this, I have next to none.”

  Realization dawned. “And you’re afraid you’ll lose control if we’re really alone?”

  She nodded. “I’m afraid I’ll push you too hard, too fast.”

  “Will you stop if I ask you to?”

  “Of course,” Thalia said quickly. “But what happens if, in the moment, I can make you not want to stop?”

  “Arrogant, aren’t you?” Alix fired back in an effort to disguise the effect Thalia was having on her. That Thalia wanted her enough to fear losing control was a heady proposition, but it also gave her pause. “We don’t have much time before the dinner tonight, but I would like to spend it with you. So what if we institute some rules of engagement?”

  A smile tugged at the corners of Thalia’s mouth. “Like…no touching below the belt?”

  Alix laughed. “That’s perfect, actually. Because I’d like to give you a neck and shoulder massage to help you relax.”

  “That sounds heavenly.” Seeming more relaxed already, she stepped back so Alix was no longer pressed against the wall. “In that case, would you like to come up to my room?”

  “Yes,” Alix said, and accepted her outstretched hand.

  Thalia parted from her at the door to the gym before she had to initiate the separation herself. When she faced Claude, she couldn’t tell whether he had seen anything, nor was she any closer to deciding whether he could be trusted.