Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
I’m just ending a call with my dad when Lana steps into the bedroom from the shower, her hair damp, body wrapped in a fluffy white towel.
She gives me a shy smile and reaches for one of my tees to throw on, but I grab it before she can, tossing it away and shaking my head.
She rolls her eyes, and I grin at her, then lift a finger to tell her I’ll be off in a minute.
“Yeah, she’ll be there,” I say. “Love you too, bye.” Then I hang up and set my phone aside before sitting up in bed and patting my thighs.
Without another word, Lana smiles and crawls into my lap with a knee on either side of my hips, her hand cupping the side of my neck.
I push her shower-damp hair back behind her ear and smile at her, completely at ease now.
The strange piece of the puzzle that’s been missing is now in place, and she looks so much freer now.
I understand it all now: who she is, why she was hiding parts of herself, and what she was hiding. It all makes sense. I should have known my girl was even bigger and badder than I ever anticipated.
“Who was that?” she asks, shifting the towel to cover herself a bit more. I slide a hand up her thigh, resting it right below where the towel ends.
“My dad,” I tell her. “Making sure we had tickets and invites into the box for the race and after-parties.”
“After-parties, huh?” I nod, smiling despite the nervous pit in my stomach.
“Yeah. There’s always a big party after for the sponsors and VIPs. Everyone will be there—drivers, owners, etcetera.”
“Hmm. Sounds... interesting,” she says, not impressed, and it makes me smile. Other women would be excited to be around the glitz and glam, but not my Lana.
“It’s a bore, but Demi said you need to mingle as much as you can. You’ll have plenty of people to try to interrogate. It’s going to be weird, though, going back as a spectator,” I say.
“Have you been back since…?” I shake my head before she has to finish the sentence. I haven’t been back to Indy since I was suspended, partly because of embarrassment, and partly because I’m afraid it might impact me negatively. With Lana, though, I’m hoping I can keep the negative emotions at bay.
“No, this will be my first race since I was suspended.” Something changes on her face, turning to regret and guilt.
“We can find another way, Rome. Really. I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to.” She bites her lip, and I lift a hand, tugging it out from between her teeth with my thumb, then gently rubbing over the bruised flesh.
“Lana, I want to end this. It’s been haunting me for too long. Plus, it will be fun to show you a bit more of my life.” I smile, pushing hair behind her shoulder. “The last time was pretty memorable.”
“Mmm,” she hums, her lips tipping up. “So I’m the girlfriend who is going to clean up your image, huh?” Now it’s my turn to feel guilty, remembering how it came out all wrong earlier. I shake my head quickly, sliding my hand up the back of her neck into her hair to pull her closer.
“No. You’re the gorgeous girlfriend I’m desperate to show off,” I say, pressing my lips to hers.
“You’re the intelligent, fascinating, wildly talented girlfriend who I desperately want to rub in the face of every asshole who will be there so they can drool over you with utter jealousy, knowing they’ll never get a taste.
” I shift back a bit to catch a glimpse at her face and catch the slightly dazed look in her eyes.
“When I spoke earlier, it came out wrong. I’m not with you to clean up my image.
I just meant that showing up to something I wouldn’t normally want to go to alone would be strange, but if it seemed like it was part of my already existing campaign to prove to the board that I’m reformed, it wouldn’t seem too out of character.
” She shakes her head, placing her hand on my cheek.
“I didn’t think you had an ulterior motive, Rome. Not at all. Plus, even if that was the case, I have no leg to stand on,” she says, her eyes dimming a bit. I furrow my brow and push her hair back behind her ears.
“What do you mean?”
“Our entire relationship, I’ve been lying to you, keeping some of the most important information hidden for weeks. It would be normal to be annoyed by that, to hold it against me even just a little.” I lift her chin, forcing her to look up at me.
“Okay, let’s get this straight once and for all: I don’t hold you having to keep things from me against you.
It’s out of your control. It’s not like you were hiding anything to deceive me, or…
” Her head tips as if to say, well, kind of, but I shake my head, running my thumb over her full bottom lip.
“It’s not the same, and you know it. I don’t hold it against you.
It’s a part of your job, and you have contracts in place that make it hard to talk about everything.
” I learned today that even for assignments that are long over, Lana won’t always be able to tell me all the details.
I quickly realized that if she stays in this line of work, it will always be between us.
“If I had to do something for my job, if I had to take an interview or fly off for a race, you wouldn’t hold it against me, right?
Hell, you were willing to keep our relationship a secret so that it wouldn’t impact my image. ”
“That’s different,” she says.
“No, it’s not. It just feels different because you’re the one in the hot seat. You’d do it for me. It’s not any different the other way around.” She looks at me for long moments before her shoulders drop, her face softens, and a breath leaves her lips.
“So you don’t hate me for lying to you?” she asks, her voice soft and nervous.
She’s gorgeous always, but this is my favorite version of Lana—when she’s soft, open, and honest. And now, for the first time, it seems her guard is completely down.
I’ve gotten close a few times, but never had her like this, fully free.
“That’s been weighing on you, hasn’t it?” I ask, pushing her hair back. The towel is holding on by the tiniest fold above her breasts, but I’m happy for it right now. We need to have this conversation without any distractions.
“I mean… a little.” I turn her toward me, cupping her face in my hands.
“Did you get into this with the intention of flirting with me and convincing me to fall for your charms to pull out my deepest, darkest secrets?”
“You know, we have a Maven who does that,” she says with a grin.
“Her name is Josie, and we call her the maneater.” My eyes widen with that, and she laughs.
“She’s very cool and super hot and can convince a man to give her his banking info by fluttering her lashes.
It’s wild to watch.” I blink, a bit unsettled by that fact, but she laughs and shakes her head.
“But no, flirting has never been my personal skill. I’m just good at… blending in. That’s my specialty.”
“Oh, Lana, baby, you could never blend in,” I murmur. “But what I meant is, if you got involved with me as a part of your mission, we might need to have a different conversation. But that’s not the case, right?” She shakes her head quickly and confidently.
“No, not at all. In fact, I tried to avoid you for a bit, to keep my distance, because I didn’t want to blur that line.”
“Because you were so terribly attracted to me?” I ask with a cocky smile that always makes her grin. She rolls her eyes but smiles all the same.
“Something like that.”
“So, who knows about this, about the Mavens?” She lifts a shoulder and shakes her head.
“No one, really.” I furrow my brows in surprise.
“No one? What about your brothers?”
“No, god. They’d never be able to keep their traps shut about it. They think I worked a remote job doing online customer service.”
“You? Customer service? You’d be terrible at that.” Her eyes narrow, a playfulness entering and telling me we’re finally past the heavy stuff. My hands shift, sliding up her thigh, ending right where the towel does.
“Excuse me, I would be great at customer service. I am a people pleaser after all.” I let out a loud laugh.
“Maybe before you met me. I think that went out the window once you realized how fun it is to argue with people.” My hand slides up and down her thigh rhythmically, and her hips shift almost imperceptibly, but I notice all the same.
I’m desperately and irrevocably attuned to every shift in Lana’s body. “But you do love to please me.”
“I do,” she breathes, reaching between us to where I’m already hardening beneath the loose shorts I’m wearing. “I kind of want to please you right now.” I grin then, even if her hand on my dick has my mind short-circuiting a bit.
“Is that right?” I ask. My hand slides up under the towel to cup her breast. Her tits are always so sensitive, and I fucking love it. Her breath hitches when my thumb brushes over her tight nipple, and she licks her lips.
“Yeah,” she says, proving it by pulling my cock out of my shorts and stroking me.
I tug the towel off her and throw it aside.
Her hips shift up my body, lining her slit along the bottom of my shaft as she slides her arms around my neck, fingers burying into the back of my hair, and dipping her head to kiss me.
It’s slow and deep, languorous, as if we have all the time in the world.
Her hips shift and rock, sliding along my cock in slow strokes.
My fingers dig into her hips, guiding gently, but letting her take what she wants from me.
I’m painfully hard in moments, and she groans as her clit grinds along the head of my cock.
Each pass, she seems more and more wet, coating me with her.
“You’re so gorgeous,” I rasp out when her head falls to my neck, unable to keep kissing through her panting breaths. “So fucking gorgeous, so fucking sweet.”
“So yours?” she asks, and I pull her head back with my grip on her hair, making her look at me.
“Always, Lana. Every version of you is mine. The sweet one, the sassy one who fights me, the one who kicks my ass on the dirt. The spy, the little sister, the friend. All of it. I want every version of you, because they all make up my favorite person in the world.” Her eyes shimmer, and I press my lips to her cheek.
“You said you’ve never fit in anywhere, not without changing yourself, but you’ll always fit in here. ”
“Rome,” she whispers, voice heavy.
“I know, Lana,” I say in answer.
“I—” she starts, but cuts off, moving instead. Always on the same wavelength, I reach between us, taking my cock in hand as her hips lift before lining the head up with her entrance. She slides down, and we both groan.
“Perfect every time,” I rasp as she rises and falls slowly.
“You’re perfect for me, too,” she whimpers as she moves her hips.
“I know, baby,” I breathe. My hands cup her ass, helping her lift and sink onto me, feeling the way she tightens around my cock. Her nails dig into my chest, her breathing ragged.
“Everything about you, every new tidbit I learn, I fall a little bit more,” I murmur, the words spilling without a conscious thought. Her eyes move to mine and her lips part, but neither of us mentions how close it sounds to a different kind of confession altogether.
I don’t think I’m ready to confess something like that, something so big, and after an already heavy day. I don’t think she is either, even if it’s swelling in my chest. She’s still worried about how I might see her, the way the truth might change things, and only time will ease that.
But I’ve been falling for Lana for a long time and today didn’t change that in the least.
“Rome,” she whimpers. I lift my hips, pushing in deeper as she sinks while coasting a hand up her back and threading my fingers through her hair, gripping her tight before pulling her lips to mine.
We don’t have the time or energy to talk about feelings or the future for the rest of the night.