Fearless

by Katie Golding

  Damn, dude. Lucky me.

  I took him all the way into my mouth, a sputtered gasp coming from somewhere above me and a moan tearing its way up my throat. I took Billy deeper, swirling my tongue around his head and learning the taste and feel of him. The thickness, the richness, the strength and tenderness, and all the ways he was sensitive and special and uniquely made to be mine. All the things I’d given up searching for and had accepted I’d never have for myself. Until he came along.

  “Taryn, you’re gonna… Jesus…”

  I grasped Billy’s hips and sucked and kissed, exactly as I’d fantasized about doing since I’d first met him and he’d totally swept me off my feet, right up to the moment he came down my throat, his hand light on my hair and his voice spitting curse words and moans until my name was godlike with the way he revered me. It still didn’t come close to how I felt about him.

  When he’d spilled all he had, I stood with the taste of him flooding my senses, pushing my leathers from my body but not having time to deal with the rest of my clothes. Billy launched from the door and swept me up in his arms, hugging me into him like I was salvation made existent. He pressed kisses to my shoulder over my T-shirt, against my neck, his hands shedding my panties as he stumbled us toward the bed.

  I hit first, crashing backward as Billy tumbled down on top of me, both of us laughing as he struggled to squirm the rest of the way out of his boots and jeans. But he ditched them quick, luxuriously kissing his way up my legs.

  I tore my hands through my hair, gasping with need and fucking ruined from the sight of his suntanned shoulders spreading my thighs wider apart. His thumb touched me first, just a press against me before his head dipped, and holy hell, that was his tongue.

  Fucking finally.

  I melted into my bed, my palm cupping the back of Billy’s head as I rolled my hips and rode every tingle, every flame, every lick of pleasure until I was transported to the heaven that hurts so good, shaking and coming as he sank a long finger into me and sipped stronger at my clit, stealing a second orgasm I hadn’t noticed he’d been crafting all along.

  The power in it broke me, my back abandoning the grace of the bed as I cried out too loud for the busy paddock outside my RV, but it was too late to take it back. And Billy wasn’t letting up, his palm on my belly entrapping me to take his endless gifts as he curled his finger deeper into me, moaning fire-hot kisses over my body and calling forth climax after climax until I was teary-eyed and pushing him away, pulling him hurriedly up to me.

  I kissed him desperately as his body settled between my legs, and it was the purest weight, his bare skin soft against my thighs and his rough hands bunching in my shirt and palming my breasts over my bra. But he didn’t rush to take off the rest of my clothes, and the significance behind it nearly wrecked me.

  How much this was about being together and not about looks or ego or any of it. Just the simple need in his heart of hearts to be with me every way he physically could, as close as he ever could be, and me with him in return.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered, his breath a silky slip of air across my lips before his tongue took another ravenous taste of me. “Please.”

  I nodded as he pulled back, and I missed him every moment, Billy moving quickly to get a condom from his bag. He tore it with care, then fitted it around himself with a practiced slip of his fist that made my mouth water for him all over again. But the rest of me was still jealous from before and eager to enjoy his body in all the ways I could convince him to give it to me.

  Billy wasn’t in a hurry, though. He grinned as he stalked his way back up my body, stopping to kiss me here and bite me there, teasing my legs with flicks of his tongue and tasting all the innocuous inches of me. It was the most magnificent torture, and I was trembling insatiably when he finally settled against me, drawing my leg around his hip.

  I clawed at his lower back, tugging his hips forward and growling with impatience when I felt the first brush of him against me. Billy moaned darkly, his lips cascading from my cheek to my temple. “I really missed you,” he said. Then inch by thick, delicious inch, he sank himself hopelessly into me.

  I don’t know if he’d realized: I’d sunk for him long before.

  Chapter 9

  Billy King—Present Day

  I take another breath and adjust my grip on the ax, sweating in the bitter December cold under cloudy, stormy skies and staring down the block of wood with my name on it. I grit my teeth, then swing, the force splitting the wood shocking its way up my arm, down my side, through my bad knee, and straight into my ankle.

  Goddamn, that hurt.

  “Hush now,” Mason coos to the goat in his lap, not helping me stack up another block because he’s too busy making kissy faces. He redips the purple and glittery hoof polish brush in the bottle, then goes back to painting the goat’s hooves as I prepare myself for another swing. “So explain this to me again,” he says. “I’m not braking right?”

  He wanted to go out riding this afternoon, but I made up some extra chores that I said needed to get done. The truth is, I tried to ride my bike this morning, looking for the sweet release of open blacktop and a growling engine to clear my thoughts. But with the pain in my ankle being as bad as it is, I can’t even shift gears at this point.

  That’s a bad way for a motorcycle racer to be.

  I wipe the sweat off my brow, my shirt hanging open, but it’s not really helping cool me down anymore. I take my stance. “Nope. You’re going too early.” Swing, crack, ow—this is killing me, but no way am I letting Mason know that. I do my best to keep the pain out of my voice, though he doesn’t think a thing of me being breathless. “You do fine how you are, but if you wanna start making some moves, you’re gonna have to get some Lorelai-sized balls.”

  “I got balls,” he whines, looking to the goat snuggled in his arm. “Don’t I? Of course I do, darling.” He makes more kissy faces before he goes back to painting its hooves.

  For the sake of our quiet afternoon, I let that go and grab another block of wood from the small pile I have left. “Not like Lorelai.”

  Mason scoffs. “That woman races like she’s got a death wish.”

  “Yep. She wins, too.” I grit my jaw and swing again, groaning out another breath when I’m done and resting on my ax, because I don’t know if I could stay standing otherwise. “Probably gonna get moved up at the end of next year if there’s any justice about it. So you better get ready to have her all over your ass, or she’s gonna kick yours.”

  What’s really probably gonna happen is my teammate, Francesco, will retire after putting it off for the last three years, and Yaalon will promote Lorelai as my “teammate slash mentee.” But I’m not saying that to my brother.

  Mason makes a face as I stack a block, then take another moment to rest and catch my breath. It’s pretty much pointless with the way my arms are burning, my lungs on fire from the cold, and every time I swing this damn ax, it feels like I’m gonna break my ankle even worse.

  Can’t fucking believe I can’t shift gears. The hell am I gonna do?

  I use my shirt to wipe my face, eyeing the wood pile. Five more after this one, and I can do five. Though I haven’t the first clue how I’m gonna explain it to my father once he realizes I’ve blown my career for good. At least his favorite son, Mason, will still have both of his.

  I take my stance, adjusting my grip and preparing to swing.

  “The hell are you doing?”

  My head pops up at Taryn’s voice, finding her inside the fence to my backyard and looking royally pissed the fuck off. She’s wearing spandex pants and a workout jacket that isn’t nearly warm enough for the wind. But her hair isn’t up, which means she’s on her way to the gym and not coming back from it.

  My pulse spikes above the treetops, and when I look at Mason, he’s very subtly closing the bottle of hoof polish.

  We b
oth look to Taryn. “Nothin’,” we say together.

  She starts storming toward us, and I straighten, swallowing, unsure what to do with the ax in my hand. Damn, she’s pretty today. Since when does she wear makeup to go work out?

  Mason mutters under his breath, “Told you that rock on the porch was a better idea than leaving the X-ray in the mailbox.”

  “Shut up,” I growl back.

  The goat bleats and jumps off his lap, but my brother’s still sitting in the dirt, his eyes getting bigger the closer Taryn gets.

  “Drunk already,” she spits at him, and I mentally upgrade her mood to the one that comes with the warning label: Words may be bitter, also highly regrettable. Take with a grain of salt. Flush with water if in pain. Do not operate heavy machinery.

  Mason’s face explodes with indignation. “Am not!”

  Taryn swipes the ax from my hand, her eyes furious and yanking my stomach straight up into my throat. Then she swings.

  “Oh shit!” I dive toward my brother, Mason screaming his head off as I tackle him into the ground.

  “Jackass!” Taryn yells, wood clanking around the pile I’d stacked. “You’re gonna hurt yourself even worse, screwing around like that!”

  I uncover my head and peek over my shoulder, Mason shoving me off him. But I can’t do more than roll away and lay on the ground beside my brother, starting to smile in shock as Taryn goes berserk: stacking up the rest of the wood pile, then starting to chop it all. And she isn’t playing around, either.

  Mason slips out his phone next to me, videoing the whole thing.

  “In all my life”—swing, crack—“I have never seen”—swing, crack—“two brothers”—swing, crack—“who are so damn hot”—swing, crack—“and so goddamn reckless!”—swing, crack!

  Neither Mason nor I move until long after Taryn’s done: breathing hard and all our firewood split, the ax hanging lifeless in her hands. God, she’s amazing. Guess she doesn’t have to go to the gym now. Not that I’m saying it while she’s hanging onto that ax and clearly is damn good at using it.

  “That,” Mason drawls, putting away his phone, “was uh-maz-ing. World Star, Taryn. World Star.”

  She glares at him, then points the ax in his direction: a harbinger of death with a big ol’ score to settle, and his smart mouth just loves to play chicken with an ass whupping. “In case you somehow weren’t aware of the mess you’ve caused, your brother now has a broken ankle. And I don’t know what the hell your problem is, letting him chop all this wood by himself when it’s probably killing him to do it and it sure isn’t helping him get better!” She’s well into dog-whistle octaves by the time she’s done, and she throws down the ax, disgust all over her face. “But who am I kidding, Mason. It’s you.”

  “Hey,” I pipe up before I think better of it. “Back off.”

  I get the full brunt of her attitude, her pointing finger drilling me deeper into the dirt until I’m probably due to pay my half of the worms’ rent. “You? You’re coming with me.”

  I swallow and look at my brother, who looks just as low as I feel. I reach out and lay a hand on Mason’s arm, but he shakes me off. “It’s all right. Go on.” He jerks his chin toward Taryn, then gets up, dusting himself off.

  Taryn crosses her arms, jutting out her hip so he can’t walk away. He turns and offers me a hand, helping me up.

  As soon as I get my feet under me, I pull him close, trying to keep my voice between us. “Hey, you know this isn’t your fault, right?”

  Taryn scoffs behind him, and I scowl at her over his shoulder. She grits her jaw and looks away, and I look back to Mason. He’s nodding, but his eyes are still downcast.

  “I make my own choices. And I’ll pay for them.”

  “Okay,” he mutters.

  “Yeah, okay,” Taryn mocks. “Except maybe if he didn’t put you in the position to make those choices, we wouldn’t have such a problem.”

  I look at her, something cold spreading through me where it’s usually so warm. “Still was my choice. Mine.”

  She nods. “Damn straight. And that’s why we’re broken up. Let’s go.”

  I clap Mason on the back, sending him off and making a mental note to think up something fun for us to do later. Once I’m done dealing with whatever the hell this is about.

  “You, um, you need any help getting to the truck?” Taryn asks a lot more nicely after Mason is gone.

  I stare her down. “Nope.”

  She sighs and shakes her head like she gets to be frustrated with me after she showed up here, yelled at us, and ruined Mason’s whole day. When he wasn’t even drinking, matter of fact.

  Whatever.

  I don’t say anything else to her on our way out of the backyard, heading to her truck parked next to mine under the oak tree. Which is so completely unfair. I’m mad at her now, and the sight does something in me to turn down the volume on it. So I think hard over Mason’s guilty face as I climb in the passenger side, shutting the door and propping my elbow on the window. Flick at my nose to get out the smell of her, but in her truck, I’m drowning in it.

  Taryn doesn’t start the engine right away, sitting in the driver’s seat and staring out the windshield, her hands in her lap. “Did Adam take the X-ray?” she says quietly.

  My brow furrows as I look at her, wondering what question she’s really asking and how I’m supposed to answer. “Yeah. Me and Mason went over there.”

  “That’s good,” she says. “It’s good that you did that.” She looks over at me, guilt swimming in her eyes, but I’m not sure why. “Did he talk to you about it? What it means?”

  Unfortunately. He said it should take me four to eight weeks to heal. If I stay off it. But it’s been nearly four weeks already, and it isn’t any closer to getting better. Probably because I haven’t been staying off it. “Yeah.”

  “All right, then.” Taryn doesn’t say anything else as she starts her truck and backs out, taking care not to hit the covered flower beds while she turns around, then starts pulling out of my driveway.

  I look into the back seat to see if I can get clued into what’s going on, but all that’s there is her hat, first aid kit, and her gym bag. “Where are we going anyway?”

  “Work out.” She glances at me, then to the road, checking her mirrors more than she needs and her hands at a perfect ten and two. Why’s she nervous? “You left some stuff at my house, so I packed some clothes and shoes in my bag for you.”

  Well, how about that.

  Packed “some” of my stuff, not “all” of my stuff. I haven’t gotten a breakup box from her yet or a gimme-back list. It’s been a week since I left that X-ray on her porch, and I was starting to worry I blew that apology, too. Never been so happy to be wrong, and I can’t stop wondering if it’s worth the risk to try teasing a smile out of her.

  She’s calmed down plenty, currently in the perfect middle ground of being irritated just enough to still be cute as hell as she’s riding my ass. Which she loves to do, and I can’t seem to get enough of. “You didn’t burn enough calories chopping all that wood for me?”

  She levels a look my way. “This isn’t for me. It’s for you. Because you’re not gonna ask for help, your brother’s too selfish to offer it, Frank and Yaalon can’t know about any of this, and you need to stay in shape for the circuit. Furthermore—”

  Furthermore? How long has she been practicing this little speech?

  “—I am more than qualified to provide your physical therapy and monitor your workouts so you don’t hurt yourself even worse, so consider it part of my…uh, Hippocratic oath.”

  I face her a little more, incredibly touched by what she’s doing when she hates me right now, insults to my brother aside. “You took an oath to be a hypocrite?”

  She slams her palm on the steering wheel. “Hippocratic! And for the sake of our conversation, sure, why no
t.”

  I crack up laughing, loving that she’s lying just to have an excuse to give me shit. She reaches over and swats at my arm, and it’s so hard not to grab her hand and press a kiss to her palm like I would’ve done not that long ago. But I lost that privilege.

  “Ridiculous,” Taryn mutters, glaring out her windshield the rest of the drive to Hargrove Ranch.

  I just chew on my thumbnail, trying not to stare at her and telling my rising hopes to sit their giddy asses right back down.

  She’s still angry and working through it. But she’s been thinking about me, worrying about me, cared enough to come yell at me. And she still isn’t talking to me like I’m a press agent or someone from her church. So I’m gonna do the only thing I can: hang onto this roller coaster and pray I make it to the end.

  Once Taryn parks her truck at Hargrove Ranch, it’s a short walk up to the small warehouse, converted into a home gym for Lorelai. But since Frank manages the three of us and Lorelai and Taryn are besties now, we all get to use it whenever we want.

  I hike Taryn’s gym bag farther up my shoulder, pulling open the door and letting her head in before me. “Thanks,” she mumbles, either from habit or because she means it. I’m hoping it’s the second one. “Hey, girl.”

  “Hey—oh hell no!” Lorelai stops her treadmill when she sees me, hopping down and striding in our direction, her finger pointed toward the door. “He can get right the hell out.”

  “Lor”—Taryn glances between me and her friend—“it’s okay. He’s with me.”

  My eyebrow arches at that but not before Lorelai’s hit the roof. “You forgave him? After he—”

  “I know what he did.” Taryn holds up her hand, and I would’ve rather waited outside for this little spat. “And we’re not back together.”

  Awesome.

  Lorelai crosses her arms and stares me down, and I shift Taryn’s bag on my shoulder, more uncomfortable than I’m strictly okay with. She knows enough information to fully tank my racing contract—and my whole career—if she wants. It would open up a big ol’ spot on the Yaalon team for her taking, too. But Taryn swore that Lorelai wouldn’t tell, and there isn’t anything I can do about it now. I can’t make her unknow what I did.