by Shey Stahl
You are the light that pulls the boy in me from anonymity and gives me a true purpose in a life of vulnerability and frustration. I wonder, looking at you in the purest form if I could have been a better husband or father. I wonder if you know how much I love you. I think the world of you.
Without you, all the trophies and titles in the world mean nothing. In the blinding spotlight my life has created, it’s you who brings me back.
Our life is measured in moments. Moments that test us, challenge us, and moments that make us fall to our fucking knees, begging and pleading for all we're worth for just one more moment.
With you, I don’t want to ever be out of moments. I want to feel my heated cheek against your skin as the word stay is spoken. I want to watch your eyes light up when I vow forever. I want to watch you hold three precious angels. I want to laugh with you, cry with you, and be one with you. Forever one heart and one soul.
I’ll never let you go.
~You are where my heart belongs
Jameson
When I finished, I burst into tears, clutching the letter to my chest, much like I did that damn photograph I had taken from the magazine. Which, by the way, was inside the same box with the letter, wrinkled edges, and everything. I remembered sitting on that bathroom floor and tearing it from the magazine.
Gasping, I gently took the worn paper in my hand. It seemed so crazy to think it was from six years earlier when it felt like yesterday.
Harness – The safety belt system worn by a driver.
“What are you doing?”
“You said you needed to be rescued. Are you coming or not?” Sway asked breathlessly. “The food is getting cold.”
“You brought food?”
“Well, yeah. I was hungry.”
“I haven’t climbed out my window in years,” I admitted, climbing out nonetheless. After falling about five feet, I landed on my ass with Sway standing over me laughing.
“Smooth, Riley. Real smooth,”
I glared at her as she brushed grass and dirt from my tux. “I should have changed.”
Sway glanced in my direction.
“Nah, you look good.” She winked. “Keep it on.”
That was when I finally looked at Sway’s appearance. While she looked beautiful as always, I had to laugh at her attire. She had on a black tutu over her jeans. “What’s with the tutu?”
“It’s prom, isn’t it?” Her brow furrowed like I was stupid for asking. “This is my dress.”
I shook my head. It fit her personality perfectly. She wasn’t the type of girl to go for the gown. She was simplicity.
A few minutes later, we were sitting inside Emma’s tree house eating Chinese food. I could always count on Sway to bail me out of situations. I laughed to myself at the thought of Chelsea looking for me at the dance, but I was almost certain she’d find someone to dance with. There were times where I felt bad for the way I treated Chelsea, but I was also well aware of the guys she flirted with and did God knows what with when I was out of town. I wasn’t stupid. We’d used each other.
In the distance, we watched as Tommy picked up Emma for the dance. They were going as friends, but that didn’t stop me from threatening to cut off his balls if he tried anything.
Mom fussed endlessly over her dress while we laughed. I knew damn well I’d catch hell from mom over this but, like always, I didn’t care.
As I took a bite of my egg roll, I noticed Sway gazing at Mom and Emma talking.
Unbuttoning the top buttons of my shirt, I attempted to get more comfortable.
“Do you miss her?” I asked softly, leaning into her shoulder.
“Miss who?” I knew she knew who I was referring to but was stalling. She fidgeted with the ruffles on her tutu.
“Your mom?”
Sway was silent for a long moment eating her noodles before sighing and leaning back on the wooden floor of the tree house. Setting down my food, I lay next to her.
“I miss her,” she mused, nodding once. “I don’t remember much about her. I wish I did… I feel like I constantly forget memories that I wish I wouldn’t.”
“What do you remember?”
We had talked about Rachel every now and then, but it wasn’t a typical conversation. Sway was a happy-go-lucky type of girl, and that was what I loved about her. It was refreshing. She’d rather have good memories than bad, and she’d rather laugh than cry.
“I still remember what she smelled like.” I watched her face closely as a tear slid down her cheek. “Bananas and coconut. It was a perfume she had I assume, but I’ll never forget it.”
“I’m sorry.” I reached for her hand taking it in mine, intertwining our fingers together. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No.” She wiped tears away. “I miss her. It’s okay to talk about it. With you, I can talk about it.”
“Come here.” I pulled her into my arms trying to comfort her in any way I could.
Though I had an idea of the pain, I had no idea how much living without her mom hurt her. Other than my Uncle Lane dying when I was nine, we hadn’t lost anyone in our family. My grandparents were still alive and, aside from my mom’s parents who had died in a car accident on New Year’s Eve when she was seven, I’d never had to deal with this kind of loss.
My mom did, and I think that was why she and Sway got along so well. She understood what Sway was going through.
“Thanks for not going to the dance,” she told me after a good ten minutes of silence.
“No problem.” I chuckled against her shoulder. “Do you know what would make this night fun?”
“I could use some entertainment.” She turned in my arms. “What did you have in mind?”
“Refilling Emma’s lotions with glue again and cutting holes in Spencer’s underwear.” I stood to help her up. “Our usual madness.”
“Sounds like fun.”
Laughing at the memory, I smiled when Sway came downstairs that night. We’d just gotten back from Knoxville Speedway the night before and set to leave a few days later for Sauk Rapids, but I was taking Sway on a date. Just the two of us.
Setting her small black bag on the table, she eyed me carefully. It kind of scared me. She looked… upset?
“What?”
“I want to have sex on the hood of your car. I got dressed up in a dress, shaved my legs. I want to be wooed like we used to.”
Wooed? Immediately I thought of Key West when we had sex in an alley. So did my dick.
“Okay.” I stood before her, my body fully in line with hers. “Let’s do it. Right now. Car's in the garage.”
“I mean…” And then I realized quickly where this was going and shook my head. “…I mean your Mustang,” she stuttered out, biting down on her lower lip.
The color drained from my face. No one touched that car. Hell, I only drove it a couple times a year, and it wasn’t even worth it because I spent the entire time making sure nothing touched it. This 1969 Shelby Mustang GT500 was a rare original. I hadn’t touched anything on it, still had almost everything original aside from a custom paint job. I bought it when I was sixteen. A few speeding tickets later, I sold it to my dad, and then once I signed with a NASCAR team, I bought it back from him.
“Sway… anything but that,” I finally said, feeling my face heat now. I knew she was going to cry.
“Fine,” she huffed. “Whatever. Just take me out then.” Reaching for her bag, we headed to the garage to my Aston Martin, the car I thought she’d been talking about. Hell, I didn’t even keep the Mustang here at the house because of my irresponsible shithead of a son.
Once we were in the car and on our way to the restaurant, Sway wouldn’t even look at me. She was pissed, and she was going to make sure I knew it.
“Look, honey.” I placed my hand on her thigh. “You know I love you, and I would do anything for you, but this is where I have to draw the line.” It was true, I would do anything to make my wife happy, but having sex on the hood of my Mustang was the one th
ing I just couldn’t do.
“It’s fine,” she clipped, pushing my hand off her thigh. “I’m just glad to know where I stand with you.”
The hell? “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Turning to me, a look of distaste crossed her face. “What I mean is I’m glad I know where I stand. Your love for your car rates higher than your love for me. It’s okay. I understand. I’m only your wife after all. The woman who birthed your three children and all.”
She was good, I’d give her that, but there was no way I was going to back down on this. Not a fucking chance.
When we finally pulled into the restaurant, Sway still wouldn’t talk to me and to be honest, it was starting to fucking piss me off.
Once we were seated and had ordered our food, I decided that two could play at this game.
“You know, I could say the same to you,” I told her, taking a drink of my beer.
Sway finally looked up from her phone that she had been using to distract herself from talking to me. “Oh yeah? How do you figure?”
Leaning forward, I placed my elbows on the table locking my hands together as I stared directly into her eyes. “Well, by the way you’re behaving, you’re basically telling me that having sex on the Mustang is more important to you than my feelings.”
Sitting back in my chair, never losing eye contact, I felt pretty good about the fact that I had turned this around on her when she just burst out laughing. Fucking laughing.
“What the hell is so funny?”
“You. You’re what’s so funny.” Slowly, she took a drink of her own beer raising it to her lips and then setting it softly down on the table before eyeing me carefully. “Seriously, Jameson? You expect me to believe your precious feelings are hurt because I asked you to fuck me on the hood of your precious Mustang. Give me a break. That’s laughable.”
I didn’t like where this was going.
“I have feelings, you know. I’m not just some sex machine you can tell to fuck you anywhere you want.” It was a lie and she fucking knew it. Usually, she mentioned the word sex and my pants were coming off. So naturally, my reply made her laugh harder. I had to admit it was a stupid statement, but she was pushing my buttons.
After like five fucking minutes, Sway finally calmed down and wiped the tears from her laughter off her cheeks. She took a deep breath settling back into her chair.
“Stop laughing at me,” I grumbled, sulking in my defeat.
“I know how much you love that car. I really do, but with everything going on and the surgery coming up I just thought maybe we could do something different, reckless even like we used to when we were younger,” she said, her eyes holding emotions I didn’t know were there. “We had so much fun back then, and I just thought it would be incredibly hot to have my dirty heathen fuck his pit lizard on a car almost as sexy as he is… that’s all.”
She had me there.
Raising my eyes from hers, I searched the restaurant. “Where’s that damn waitress so we can get the check?”
“Really?” She watched me with wide-eyed excitement.
“Yeah, really.” I nodded to the door. “Now let’s go before I change my mind.”
I’d never seen Sway move so fast in heels. The way she squealed as she jumped out of her chair and grabbed my hand to pull me outside was fucking adorable. I couldn’t help laughing at her eagerness, but also wanting to kick myself for ever thinking I wouldn’t give her what she wanted. Sway was more important than anything else in this life and if it took fucking her on the hood of my Mustang to prove it to her, then that was exactly what I was going to do.
“WHERE THE HELL are we going? Are we even in Mooresville still?”
“Close your eyes. I don’t want anyone knowing where this is in case you somehow tell Casten.”
Sighing, she closed her eyes. “I won’t tell him.”
“Uh-huh.”
And then she stared at me as we pulled up to the building, completely ignoring my request for her not to look. “You’re being dramatic.”
She had no idea. I kept this car in a warehouse I owned, with a security code only I knew.
I had to keep the car someplace safe since my youngest son took it upon himself to destroy my vehicles. He’d caught not two, but three of my cars on fire and managed to land one in our pool.
The warehouse was in an industrial park outside Mooresville with about three other buildings and a body shop across the street.
Once inside, I flipped on the light and leaned into the wall as Sway walked past me to the car.
“Fuck me, Jameson,” she moaned. “I need you inside of me, now.”
I certainly wasn’t going to deny her, but fuck, seeing her beg for a little was hot.
“What do you mean, inside you?” I grinned. Fuck yeah, I was gonna make her beg a little. I was about to have sex with her on a car worth roughly a million dollars. It would require some convincing.
“What I mean is”—she stepped out of her dress leaving it a mess on the floor in front of me and placed her hands carefully on the hood of the car, glancing back at me over her shoulder—“I need to be align bored. And if you’re not willing to do it, well then…” Her right hand made a lazy path of her hips and between her legs. “…maybe I’ll just have to do it myself, and you can watch me. But I sure would like your camshaft doing the work.”
Okay, well as hot as that would be to see her getting herself off, I didn’t like my wife satisfying her need herself. It was my job.
But I played it cool. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head.
“What you mean is you don’t know if you can handle it, right?”
Sway sprawled herself out on the hood, much like the night I fucked her on the hood of my race car and sprint car a few years back.
I wanted to tease her a little, why not, right?
Stepping toward her, I took my time removing my shirt and then unbuttoned my pants but left them open in the front. When I reached her, I let my pants slide down and stepped out of them.
Shaking her hips, she ground herself back against my erection when I stepped forward. I growled gutturally as the angle set my already raw nerves ablaze.
Spreading her legs apart a little more, I positioned myself at her entrance and then pushed forward, not waiting. “You were saying something about not being able to handle it?”
“Nothing. I was saying nothing!” She screamed, her voice shaking with each hard thrust I delivered. Spreading my legs out a little further, I gained the leverage needed and leaned in to rest my weight against her back, pressing her body into the cool metal hood.
“Is this what you wanted, honey?” I hissed between thrusts. “Do you like being fucked on the hood of a car?”
She moaned in approval, saying nothing in reply, her eyes drifting closed as my left hand remained latched tightly to her hips.
“Yes,” she moaned. “I needed this so badly.” She cried out once more as I fisted my hand in her hair. Her pleasure, so stunning, was almost too much to watch, but I did. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it even if I wanted to.
Just when she thought this would be a standard “let’s get this done because you might scratch the paint,” I showed her a different side and pushed the remote to the stereo hooked up to my phone. “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails blared through the warehouse as I twisted her hair around my hand and yanked backward.
“Now….” Her head snapped back, not hard, but enough I had her attention as I bit down on the nape of her neck. “I hope you’re ready for some press forging.”
The breath expelled from her lungs in a gasp, and she giggled. “Hot fucking damn.”
Turning her around so I could see all of her, I wanted to climb up there with her, much like the night on the hood of my race car, but with the possibility of denting the hood, I refrained.
She noticed my hesitation to get up there with her and raised an eyebrow. “Really, Jameson?”
So I go
t on the hood. If I was going to woo her, I had to take one for the team.
Settling between her legs, my right hand reached for her left knee to draw it up my hip. “How about this?” My hips pushed forward, giving her one hard thrust.
The thrust scooted her further up the hood, her head falling back against the metal with a thump.
There was no more talking after that. Once I hooked my hand on the hood, I gave her what she needed. She wanted this hard and fast, and fuck, I wanted that too.
“I love you,” I told her, my voice husky.
She moaned against me. “Thank you, for this.” Eagerly, she kissed my shoulder and then my neck. “I love you so much.” With each thrust inside her, she fell apart in my hands; her body bare for me to take what I wanted, her beauty as blinding as the sun.
Gasping, her eyes rolled back as I pulled her leg up around my waist higher. “I fucking love you so much.”
Our movements turned frantic. Arms, hands and legs flailing around, my knees aching as I searched for angles and our need. As we rocked against each other, the hood creaked with each thrust. Clutching at me, her nails dug into my skin, slipping over my shoulders, moaning and tossing her head back and forth against the hood.
Sway moaned and with one last thrust, I was done, just as the song was coming to an end. The relief and euphoria poured through me in waves as an animalistic growl rang throughout the warehouse, echoing off the walls.
Not sure how much time went by, but eventually we released each other. When I looked at Sway, her eyes were closed, her hands running through my hair.
“Is that what you wanted?” I murmured eventually.
“Exactly what I wanted.” She chuckled.
I tried like hell to enjoy that moment with her afterward, but I couldn’t help myself and my poor car.
“We can get up. It’s not like I need a post-race victory lap or anything.”
“Oh, thank fuck.” I jumped off the hood and hauled her off it too, inspecting every inch for damage.
