4. Jax #2
I shift my weight, trying to adjust without being obvious, but there's no hiding this. My jeans are too tight, and she's too fucking perfect, and I'm about to embarrass myself in front of Gideon and God and everyone.
Don't look down. Don't look at my crotch. Please.
"Perfect timing." Gideon's voice booms over the noise. He waves them over with the confidence of someone who owns the room. "Jax, I want you to meet Sterling Black and his lovely companion. Sterling, this is Jax Ryder, one of my former students. Best natural driver I ever trained."
Sterling extends his hand, and I have to force myself to take it. His grip is firm, confident, with manicured nails that have never seen real work. His green eyes assess me with the kind of calculation that makes my skin crawl.
Something's off about him.
"Ace, the legendary wheelman," he says, voice smooth as aged whiskey. "I've heard impressive things about your reputation."
"Yeah? Like what exactly?" The words tumble out too fast, my volume control still broken. "Because honestly, half the stories floating around are complete bullshit, and the other half—well, those are the ones that'll get me arrested, so let's stick with the bullshit ones, right?"
But I'm not looking at him. I can't. Because she's right there, close enough to touch, close enough to smell, close enough to see the pulse jumping in her throat.
Look at me. Please look at me.
"And this is Mira Knight," Sterling adds, his hand sliding possessively to her lower back.
Mira.
The name burns into my brain like a brand. Mira Knight. It fits her—elegant and dangerous, sophisticated and sharp.
She extends her hand, and I take it like a drowning man reaching for salvation. The second our skin connects, sensation explodes through every nerve ending. Her grip is firm, confident, with calluses on her palm that don't match the socialite image. Dangerous hands wrapped in deceptive refinement.
Fighter's hands. Killer's hands. Perfect hands.
"Mr. Ryder." Her voice carries that hint of Russian accent that sets my blood on fire. "Such a pleasure to meet you."
"The pleasure's all mine." My voice drops two octaves without permission, coming out rough and hungry. "Completely mine. Like, if pleasure was a commodity, I'd corner the market. I'd be the pleasure monopoly. Which sounds wrong now that I say it out loud, but—"
Shut up. Stop talking. You're ruining everything.
Her thumb brushes across my knuckles as she releases my hand, the contact lasting half a second longer than polite. The slight catch in her breathing tells me she felt it too—that current between us that makes the air crackle.
She felt it. She definitely felt it.
"Fifty grand on the McLaren!"
The bet explodes out of me like a sneeze, desperate energy with nowhere else to go. I practically throw the money at the nearest bookie, needing to do something—anything—with my hands before I reach for her.
Showing off. Pathetic. Can't help it.
My earpiece buzzes in my pocket. I can imagine Cole's message: "Five bets in fifteen minutes. You're out of control."
Mira's eyebrow arches slightly, a perfect curve that makes me want to trace it with my tongue. "That's quite a wager."
"I like living dangerously." I hold her gaze, letting her see exactly how affected I am. Let her see the hunger, the desperation, the barely controlled need to push her against the nearest wall. "The bigger the risk, the better the reward, right?"
Please be my reward.
"Or the more spectacular the crash," Sterling interjects, and I have to physically stop myself from punching him in his perfect teeth.
Get your fucking hand off her.
On the screens, the McLaren screams into the first turn at impossible speed.
For a second, it looks like it might make it.
Then the rear breaks loose, the car spinning like a top, collecting two others in a shower of carbon fiber and broken dreams. Fifty thousand dollars evaporates in eight seconds of destruction.
Don't care. Worth it to try to impress her.
"Tough break," Sterling says with false sympathy that makes me want to feed him his own tie.
"Easy come, easy go." I force a shrug, though my stomach clenches—not at the loss of money, but at the proof of how far gone I am. "That's racing for you. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you set money on fire for fun."
But I'm not watching the screens. I'm tracking the way Mira's tongue darts out to wet her lips, quick and pink and devastating.
The way her fingers trail along her thigh, following the line of that dangerous slit.
The way she hasn't looked at Sterling once since we were introduced, her attention locked on me like a targeting system.
She's hunting me. Let her catch me.
"Import clients wanted something special tonight," Gideon explains, seemingly oblivious to the tension crackling between us like a live wire. "Multiple venues, different race formats. Should be quite a show."
"Fascinating," Sterling drawls, though he sounds bored. His phone buzzes, and he pulls it out with the kind of casual irritation that comes from being too important for interruptions.
His face hardens as he reads whatever's on the screen. "Shit. Emergency." He's already moving, already dismissing us from his attention. "Driver will take you home," he tells Mira without looking at her.
Yes. Leave. Now.
"Actually, I'd like to stay for the races." Her voice stays neutral, but I catch the slight curve of her lips, the hint of victory in her eyes. "If that's acceptable?"
Sterling's already halfway to the exit, his mind clearly on whatever crisis is pulling him away. "Fine. Don't wait up."
And then he's gone, swallowed by the crowd like he was never here.
Thank fucking God.
Gideon claps his hands, the sound cutting through the noise. "Transport to the container yard in ten minutes! Participants only in the first venue! Spectators can follow on the feeds in the spectator area!"
The crowd begins dispersing, people moving toward different exits, different purposes. Gideon gets pulled away by someone with a clipboard and a panicked expression, leaving us standing there.
Alone.
Say something. Don't fuck this up.
Mira turns to me, and her complete attention makes the world tilt sideways. Without Sterling's presence, she seems to expand, taking up more space, becoming more dangerous.
"I suppose I'll have to watch from the spectator area." She steps closer, close enough that her perfume floods my senses. It's something expensive with an undertone of gunpowder and secrets. "Try not to crash, Mr. Ryder. It would be such a waste."
Closer. Need her closer.
"Jax," I correct, my voice cracking like I'm going through puberty again. "Call me Jax."
She reaches up, straightens my collar with fingers that burn through the fabric. The gesture is intimate, possessive, a claim she's making in front of everyone.
Touch me again. Please.
"Jax." She says my name like she's tasting it, rolling it around her mouth to see how it feels. "Don't disappoint me."
"I never disappoint," I say, then immediately want to take it back. "I mean, sometimes I disappoint. Actually, I disappoint a lot. My parents, my team, probably God—"
Stop. Talking. Now.
Her laugh is low and dangerous, like velvet wrapped around a blade. "I like men who disappoint. They try so much harder to make up for it."
She walks away, every step calculated to destroy me. The crowd parts for her like she's royalty or danger or both. I watch until she disappears through the VIP exit, heading for wherever spectators go to watch men risk their lives for money and glory.
Gone. But not for long.
I stand there for a full ten seconds, trying to remember how to breathe, trying to process what just happened.
My phone buzzes. Text from Cole: "Your heart rate is 170. What the fuck is happening?"
Another from Asher: "Fuck the money, but your head needs to be on what Roman found, not whatever's making you stroke out."
Roman. Right. The mission.
I grab the nearest glass of champagne from a passing server and down it in one go. The crystal is delicate, expensive, and it cracks in my grip—a hairline fracture spreading from where my thumb presses too hard.
Just like my self-control.
Another text, this one from Remy: "Whatever you're about to do, don't. Remember why we're here."
Roman's dead. But she's alive. So fucking alive.
I force myself to think about Roman. His last message before going dark mentioned Lynch's races. Something about clients that didn't feel right. Something worth investigating alone, without backup, because he didn't want to risk the team if his suspicions were wrong.
His suspicions got him killed.
Focus. Mission. Roman. Not her. Not Mira.
The transport convoy is loading outside. Modified vans and SUVs with blacked-out windows, ready to ferry racers to the container yard. I should be thinking about Roman. About his investigation. About why Gideon's operation was worth dying for.
But I'm thinking about that dress, that laugh, and the way she looked at me like she knew exactly what kind of damage she was doing.
She knows. And she likes it.
I climb into one of the vans, squeezing between other drivers who smell like cigarettes and bad decisions.
"Container yard's gonna be brutal tonight," someone says. "Heard they made the course tighter."
"Good," I hear myself respond. "I like it tight."
Someone laughs. Someone else starts talking about tire pressure and optimal drift angles.
But I'm not listening. I'm spinning my keys again, faster now, the rhythm matching my racing heartbeat.
Mira Knight. I'm so fucked.
The warehouse disappears behind us as we head toward the port, toward the container yard, toward whatever comes next.
My hands are still shaking, but it's not from the gambling anymore.
It's from her.