Slipstream

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

For the rest of the night, I never get farther than three steps from Arthur’s side. He takes care of me. It’s really the only description for how he never lets my glass of flavored soda water get empty, and finds ways to draw me into every conversation he has, telling everyone who remotely asks how good I am at videography. “A natural,” he gushes to a stranger whose name I missed. “It’s like, she isn’t making ‘content.’ She makes art that people watch. She thinks about how things should look—the composition of things.” He gives me a sly smile. “She makes me look better than I deserve.”

“That’s high praise,” I say. “And higher-than-average self-awareness.”

He gives a loud laugh, and I don’t even worry about everyone looking over—does it matter when they’re watching because I’ve made him this incandescently happy? “See? So quick.” Arthur rakes a hand through his salt-waved hair and shakes his head, making the other guys laugh. “Smartest woman in the world, and she’s mine.”

It doesn’t feel like an act. I feel like his—like I belong here—by the time we meander to the seaside bed-and-breakfast flanking the beach. It isn’t the Ignition-mandated lodging, though Delaney swears up and down that it’s better if we crash “incognito.” She’s three sheets to the wind, held upright solely by Sarah and Cameron. Regardless, we trust her. I would follow blackout-drunk Delaney into war.

Once we’re inside the coastal grandma house, the three of them disappear, on a mission to get Delaney into bed. The tiny old woman behind the makeshift concierge counter smiles when she sees them off, then goes back to murmuring as she looks for two more open rooms. At least, I assume that’s what Arthur asked for in Dutch. After a minute, she clicks her tongue and replies in an apologetic tone.

Arthur asks what sounds like a question.

She says a short answer.

He slowly turns to me. “She says almost all of the other rooms are full and they don’t have two available. But”—my heart drops to the floor; I know where this is going—“they have a larger suite with two twin beds. Would that be all right to split?”

Oh. “That’s… fine.”

We make our way up, silently walking side by side. The second the sweet old lady lets us into our room, I go straight to a paisley armchair and get to work undoing my sand-filled sneakers, having learned today why people buy and wear sandals. Also, why walking on sand is in itself a workout. My legs are exhausted.

There’s a muffled inhale. Arthur is by the doorway, a faint blush on his face as he politely stares at one of the two beds.

“I’m not…” I start, then stop. “I’m just taking my shoes off.”

He clears his throat. “I knew that.”

“Used to women getting undressed the second you’re alone with them?”

Very funny. Excellent joke for me to make at this exact moment. Arthur doesn’t reply as he strides over to where I’m seated and kneels down. “Let me help. Lift your leg?”

He’s still in his beach clothes, a faded shirt and loose jeans, and would you look at that, here’s a new and highly specific kink I’ll hide from all future partners: shoe-untying. Shifting, I angle my knee so Arthur can get to my expertly knotted sneakers. It isn’t a good angle. Or maybe it’s an amazing one for him—I keep one hand on the chair and the other on the traitorous hem of my dress, which is determined to give Arthur a show.

He gets one knot picked apart, then laughs softly.

I can’t ask him what’s funny.

He helps me get the other one off, then goes to sit on the bed, the mattress squeaking beneath his weight. “So much better,” I sigh, stretching my legs out in front of myself like a satisfied cat. Because I am. Satisfied. Definitely ignoring his glance at my bare legs.

We’re quiet for a beat. Then Arthur asks, “You want to shower first, or should I?”

My satisfaction dies. Evading nudity at the literal nude beach, only to be covered in sand and thrown into a single room with Arthur is the definition of irony. “Could… could you? If you, if that’s—”

He saves me with a “For sure,” and then he’s back up, patting his thighs, and gone into the bathroom. After I hear the lock click, I regain some semblance of cognition. “I’ll shower in the morning!” I mumble-yell, counting on the thinness of the ancient Dutch walls to carry my voice. “Since my clothes are already sandy and… yeah.”

Another beat. “Okay,” he says, and yes, the walls are paper- thin. With crystal clarity, I hear the squeaky hiss of the shower being turned on, and my imagination blasts me with a high-definition image of exactly what must be happening with Arthur, water, shower, naked. Jolted, I go to my bag and grab my shirt and shorts from earlier. Clothes. More layers will protect me. Being in cargo shorts when Arthur returns—damp and hopefully dressed and smelling like soap and sex and clean man—will keep me from asking why he referred to me as his girlfriend all night.

Angling my arm around my shoulder, I find the small metal zipper at the top of my dress and start to tug it down.

Only… the dress doesn’t unzip.

Thirty seconds of mad finger-scrambling, zipper-tugging, and shoulder-contorting pass. A pause. Another three minutes without any progress. The metal 1960s zipper is glued in place. I’m going to die in this dress, or rip myself out of it. These are my only options.

Very aware that the shower is still running—for now—I go to the full-length mirror to survey the situation. The bright orange dress fits like a glove around my chest and hips, which I’d considered a positive omen for tonight and now feels like a sign I’d missed regarding my impending doom. No sleeves, which is nice. I’m not wearing a bra because again, bad omen, and also, no need. I give the front of the dress a yank, hoping that might dislodge the metal in the back.

Nope. The dress is now twisted toward my arm, and I let out a frustrated groan.

Moments later, the room goes silent.

The shower has turned off.

No. He didn’t hear that. He… “Everything okay?” says Arthur, since he’s kind and the walls are cardboard and he’s a caretaker, this is what he does. My soda water threatens to come back up.

“Totally fine!” I yell back. “Just—would it be all right if you slept in there?”

Big, tall-person footsteps. “No, don’t come out,” I panic. “It’s, I’m… sort of stuck in the vintage dress Sarah brought me, which was so cute and sweet, and it has pockets, and I probably won’t die from asphyxiation so—go to sleep in there if… if you don’t mind.”

Silence.

Then, “You can’t say you’re choking, then tell me to sleep in the bath.”

“I said I would live.”

“Graywood.”

“Bianco.”

We’re both thinking through how Arthur is going to word this, since I’m sure as hell not asking. “Can I… come out?” he lands on. “To help.”

Help undress me. Damn it, this dress should’ve stayed in its own era. This isn’t the free-wheeling sixties anymore, at least not between me and the last person on the planet who should see me topless. Because remember? No bra.

“Lilah,” he says, “if you don’t reply, I’m going to assume you’ve passed out and come carry you to the hospital.”

Fantastic, another new and highly specific fetish nobody else could ever fulfill besides a professional athlete. “Nope, let me just…” I cross my arms, then uncross them, then add in a quieter voice, as shy as I feel, “Um, okay. Come out?”

I bunny-hop closer to the bed in surprise, because Arthur comes power-walking out of the bathroom, his hair wet, shirt and jeans on, eyes sweeping over every possible threat until they land on me. “Hi,” I start. “It’s just in the back if you—”

“Yup, got it,” he cuts me off. “Turn around.”

I obey his command, happy to hide how red I’ve turned from seeing him freshly showered, a whole new side of him that seems vulnerable and intimate and cozy. When his hand strokes up the small of my back, searching for the top of the zipper, I inhale embarrassingly loud.

“Easy,” he murmurs, his voice constricted. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I’m going to go quick.”

Death to vintage clothing. The front of the dress presses tightly against my chest as he manages to get his fingers around the tiny metal zipper. He gives it an experimental tug and… nothing. “Damn,” he whispers, and the irritation in his voice is torture. Talk to me like that. Let me annoy you.

He touches his palm against the curve of my lower back, says “One second,” then steps away. There are some fumbling drawer-searching noises behind me, then a satisfied hum. When Arthur’s back, he slides his hand all the way around my hip, gripping me tight.

“I’m going to do something now, but you can’t move, okay?”

“Okay.”

He holds me still as a snip fills the breathless room.

Then he holds me tighter, as my body tenses with the realization that Arthur is cutting me out of Sarah’s dress with hotel scissors.

His fingertips graze the curve of my hip bone, curling just around it, his thumb locking me into place from the other side. I fit right into the crook of his hand. Imagine that.

The scissors catch after two more snips—and there’s the whisper of a blade sliding down fabric. Arthur stops at where my bra would’ve been latched around my back… then restarts, evidently realizing that there’s nothing beneath the dress that he should avoid cutting.

“Better?” he asks, halfway down.

Worse than ever. “Totally. You’re saving my life.”

He laughs tightly. “Never heard that one before.”

Change the topic, change the topic. “Was I… really loud?”

“Hmm?” He sounds distracted.

“When I was trying to unzip myself and you stopped the shower.” These are the facts. I shouldn’t be blushing deeper from asking about them. “I just want to make sure if I do, um, shower tonight, I don’t keep you awake or anything. Showering.”

As in, I’m jumping into the coldest water possible the second I’m free. “Oh, no.” The scissors reach the top of my underwear, and it could be my imagination, but is his hand drawing me closer to him? “I was curious is all.”

“About?”

“I wanted to know what made you moan like that.”

I’m not going to die in this dress. I am dead. “Sorry,” I whisper. “Sorry, oh, shit, that’s—I did not mean to make you think I was doing that .”

His knuckle brushes over my tailbone. “I know,” he murmurs. “You’re secretive.”

Pause. Rewind.

He thought I was touching myself. Discreetly.

And he… stopped what he was doing to ask me about it.

He’s joking. This is how men joke when they’re famously good in bed and the global sports conglomerate knows it. That, or he was offended that I was ruining the sanctity of our only-one-bedroom situation. Because I’m not going to pretend like Arthur could never be attracted to me—he just also knows me, and that usually does it for people. This summer has showcased the gross, jealous, hyper-competitive sides that I typically stuff down, giving him a front-row seat for my envy and secrets.

More importantly, any connection between us is fake for him. After tonight, we’ll go back to our regular plot: documentary and deniability. Then, in a matter of weeks, I’ll be cast out of his dream world with a scarlet letter and the film footage of a lifetime, while he lines up a new career in Italy. Our lives will return to polar opposites, media and muse, reality and freedom.

Arthur isn’t normal. I won’t run into him while buying toothpaste, or see him dating a friend of a friend in a few years. Once I leave Ignition, we’re done.

“Are you finished back there?” I lick my lips. Arthur’s fingers haven’t moved in minutes.

He doesn’t answer. Just keeps me in his hand, like the putty that I am.

“Arthur?”

“Yeah, sorry.” Cold air nips along my spine. He’s stepping back, and I grab the front of the dress before it slips down. “Go shower.”

There isn’t room in his statement for argument. I nod quickly as I turn toward him. Then I’m not nodding.

His face is red, his pupils dilated. He looks like he just drove for twenty-four hours straight, a faint sheen of sweat gathered along his cheekbones and brow, the rest of him a mess. Breathing too hard and looking away and embarrassed. And the only possible reason is me, my cursed dress, and the pair of sewing scissors he’s got gripped in his hands. I don’t need to debate it. It’s right there.

Arthur is attracted to me.

The whole world tilts. Straighter or sideways, I don’t know. But suddenly, my life is different, and I feel like we’ve jumped into another timeline, where every second ticking down to September sings he wants me, he wants me, he wants me.

“Thanks,” I say. “Again. For this.”

Arthur sets the scissors on a side table. “Sure.”

His voice is thick. I really should be walking away. But—he wants me. He wants me . “It was nice of you.”

“Anytime.”

“Really, though.” He’s looking at me now, my eyes, my lips, the hand clutching my dress. “You’re… nice.”

Ever so slowly, Arthur folds his arms, his back straightening as curiosity flickers across his sloped mouth. “I am?”

“I guess. Sometimes.”

To my delight and fear, Arthur takes one solid step toward me. “You guess,” he repeats.

“Yeah. And tall. You’re probably too tall to be driving those cars.”

He frowns, silent, and taps his thumb on the outside of his forearm. I’ve never seen him think this hard about anything—I’m used to off-the-cuff brilliance. It’s possible I misread this, though I don’t know how this time. He’s flustered. Not moving, either. His dark hazel eyes have a hungry, honeyed haze I’ve only seen when he’s talking about driving. He’s looking at me like I’m something he wants to win, a prize right outside his reach.

I’m just about to leave when he says, “Have you changed your mind?”

My breath catches. “About what?”

He thinks for another second, a forever second, an end-of-a-race second, then practically grits out, “If two people can dislike each other and still be attracted to one another.”

Sparks scatter across my rib cage, glittery and bright. That’s what he’d told me back in Texas. What I’d laughed at. What I’d assumed he was only saying to educate me on the finer points of heterosexuality and team gossip. He… isn’t implying that he’d wanted me then , back when we could barely tolerate being in the same room. This is Arthur, and he moves fast, and he flirts brazenly, and there are so many reasons we shouldn’t do this that a new wave of stress fizzes in my throat.

If we only had three months together, why would he wait for me to figure him out?

“I… I…” I take a breath.

Slowly, so slowly, Arthur reaches over and traces his fingertips up my bare arm. Centimeter by centimeter, like I’m skittish, like he refuses to frighten me off. “It’s okay. You can say it. Nothing needs to happen.”

And there’s my answer: He’s wanted to wait for me. I feel the ghost of all of his past touches, too, his ankle against mine at David Bowie Night, his fingers studying my scar on the plane. Sunblock, the clinic, waking up against him. We haven’t spoken about any of it, and I’ve been convinced it was because he didn’t care, that he’d be the type to chase someone recklessly. Now I see the other side of the story—a man who’s patient, quiet, and more careful than anyone knows. If I hide from the world because I can’t handle being seen, then Arthur hides who he is.

But I know him now, I know him too well, and that’s why I say, “I think I feel differently now.”

Despite how good he is and how deeply I believe he’d let me act like this never happened, Arthur’s eyes widen. “You think you could be attracted to me?”

“No. I think I don’t dislike you.”

“Lilah,” he says, pained. It’s a punched-out, desperate version of my name. Li-lah. It makes me feel insane, or very, very sane, and both options are terrifying.

“But we can’t do anything about that, right? We shouldn’t. It’s almost September. I’m making a documentary about you.” A breath. “The movie is going to end, one way or another.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

“But it does. This only works if we don’t cross this line. Because the second the team finds out about us, or thinks they do, this explodes and—and then you have to go to Italy and I’ll go to D.C. and we don’t see each other again and that’s good, because we’re catastrophic enough to cost F1 millions when we’re only pretending so… it’s good.”

He lets out an almost silent sigh. “You don’t have to go.”

“But—”

“ Don’t go,” Arthur says, firm. “Stay with me. Let me show you what good looks like.”

I’m shivering, plunged into cold water. “But you said you don’t date.”

“I’m dating you.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“Yes, I am. To me? I am.” His face is fire, starved for oxygen, running toward the open air. “Can I show you?”

I blink. “What?”

“Can I kiss you?” he asks softly.

“Can you,” I repeat, shocked.

“May I,” he corrects, desperate enough to take my accidental grammar lesson in stride. “Just say yes. And I will.”

When I squeeze my eyes closed, I imagine the five lights atop the racetrack, and how each one falls to the dark at the same time in melodramatic surrender. And why shouldn’t they? It feels good to watch those bright red lights go out, to be a part of something meticulously cinematic. Humans love knowing the moment something is happening. Not after the fact, right then. Here is the start of something big , those five lights say. Don’t blink. Don’t even breathe. This is it.

“Yes,” I say. “You can—”

Arthur doesn’t let me finish the sentence because then, he kisses me. Deeply, like he’s getting to know the shape of my mouth. The angles, the curves and straight shots of the track, plunging me into a future I can’t control or see or edit. I’m here, right now. This is it.

And all those kisses I’ve had before? Those feel like trial runs for whatever this is. I trace the slit of his mouth with my tongue, and Arthur’s chest stiffens with surprise beneath my palms, his rumbling groan vibrating between us as he deepens the kiss. He tastes like toothpaste and sunshine and something else entirely, primal and stomach-twisting. Promising.

Then I’ve got my arms around his shoulders and his hands are on my neck, and when his knee slides between my legs, I open up to him with a breathless sigh I had no idea my throat was capable of making. Arthur twists his fingers into my hair and tips my head back so he can run his lips across my neck. “ Pretty ,” he says. “You make such pretty little noises for me.”

His teeth graze the tender skin of my throat, making me whimper, and I push back against his hips with mine in retaliation.

“Oh, so that’s how this is going to be.” His hot laugh spills across my collarbone. “You like to be on top? Me too.”

“Guess we’ll just have to fight about it,” I manage to say in a mostly stable voice. I slip my hand down the front of his wrinkled shirt and tease my fingers over the curve of his hipbone. Arthur’s hips stutter, wet lips parting as he angles toward my hand.

“Nope.” I laugh as I move my fingers to the outside of his thigh. “Not so fast, King.”

Heat shimmers in his eyes, his jaw ticking like he can’t believe I’m not just touching him, or he’s trying to figure out which parts of this are a game to me. I don’t know where the line is, either; if I want to sleep with him tonight or if I just want to drive this man to the edge and watch him tip over.

Either way, he seems as into whatever this is as I am—so I follow the fire. “Have you ever been with a woman who’s been with other women?” I say.

The muscle in his jaw bounces at that. “No. Not that I… not that I know of.”

“Now you have.” Pulling a page from his book, I lean up on my toes and whisper as close to his ear as I can get. “It isn’t just about penetration for me. I like everything else more.”

My past experience was a topic that Max hated discussing. He always found a way to downplay that I’d fully dated a woman since, in his eyes, that was my college phase , and now I was with him, so who cared?

Me. I cared. He did, too, since ten minutes in our thin, squeaky bed didn’t thrill me to my core. I tried to tell him that it wouldn’t thrill any woman, heterosexual or not, but he got so tangled up in his own insecurity that he shut down the conversation altogether. And I cared about him so much that I let his shame of me leak into me, taking his guilt and making it mine.

If Arthur is going to run—or shut me down for being myself—I need to know now, before he’s seen me at my most vulnerable.

Thoughts swirl in his clouded gaze as he pushes me back against the wall. But he doesn’t look upset or uncomfortable. There’s a raw desperation in the way he studies me before kissing me again, almost… almost like he can’t believe I shared something this personal with him. He kisses me like I just told him the meaning of life: hard, thankful, shaky fingers winding in the cut fabric at the back of my dress.

“Down,” I gasp between breaths. “Push it off.”

He groans, momentarily irritated by the lack of kissing, before he realizes I’m giving him permission to get me naked. “ Everything else ,” he murmurs as he jerks the dress down to my waist. “God, you’re going to ruin me. I’ll never want anyone else.”

“Fine with me—”

I’m cut off by his hand grabbing my breast. He kneads it, teasing flinty sparks of pleasure with every touch. “Don’t think I’ll let you destroy me without taking you down with me. I’ll get you back, princess.”

“Nope.”

He scrapes his fingernails over my nipple. “Baby.”

“No.”

Smirking, Arthur rolls my nipple between his fingertips. Not fair. I grab the collar of his shirt. “Princess behavior,” he laughs as I huff through trying to lift it off his massive neck and shoulders.

“You’d like that, me all pliant and bratty.”

“I hate to break this to you, but—”

“I’m not bratty.”

“Just pliant?”

“To be decided.”

I get his shirt off and start on his pants. When my fingers accidentally brush the part of him I’ve been careful until now to avoid, Arthur grabs my wrist and stops me. “No.”

My heart misses a step. “No?”

“You said everything else.” There’s a challenge in his eyes. “I want you to watch me. I want to see how long you last just watching me.”

His boldness makes heat settle into the damp place between my legs. This isn’t exactly what I meant by other activities, but I’m not going to complain. “Deal.”

I start to take off my glasses, but Arthur stops me, keeping my wrist locked in an iron grip by his hip. “Leave them on. Need you to be you,” he groans—and my stomach flutters at how quickly he takes himself into his own hand, his pants only halfway off. There isn’t any hesitation, no asking why I’d want to do something so weird . It was his idea in the first place.

That’s what makes me breathless as he runs his large palm over the tip of himself, wetness gleaming in the warm lighting. He wants this.

He’s this turned on by my gaze.

So I let myself look. I don’t mask my lips pressing together from the sight of his tan hand running down the length of his cock, the skin there paler and flushed. When he spits into his hand and moans from the added wetness, I don’t hide that I’m squirming, thighs rubbing together.

“You’re not going to give in, right?” he breathes out. His words are punctuated by his own movements, and God, the slick sounds and his undone voice make me want to fall apart.

I press back against the wall. “No.”

“You can wait?”

“Definitely.”

“Good girl.” His mouth twitches, and he pumps faster. “Eyes on my cock, sweetheart. Watch me come for you.”

Sweetheart. Why is the most basic American term of endearment what makes me tug our linked hands toward my hips and grind his balled fist over the front of my underwear? Arthur’s eyes darken, and he hisses out a breath, but he doesn’t stop. Only slows and leans his forehead down against mine, warm and slick with sweat, his stifled gasps caught between us. His two fingers press exactly where I want them to through my soaked underwear, and I drag my lower lip between my teeth, biting hard.

“You can come first, it’s okay,” I whisper.

“No.” He fists the base of his cock. “Not when I’m gonna win.”

I want to laugh. Of course he’s able to focus on an imaginary prize in a made-up competition. Or maybe this is just his way of making sure I get off, too. It doesn’t matter; my thoughts scatter as he brings me closer, close, there. Trembling, I wrap my hands around his thick forearm for stability.

“Now?” he murmurs.

I nod wordlessly. Arthur exhales, and whatever lightning storm was flickering below my waist before gets swept away by the punctured gasp he makes at touching the tip of himself again. I pull his arm against my chest as I sink under, as if I need to get him as close to me as possible. And maybe I do. I’ve never had anyone of any gender take me apart with this much precision and mental foreplay. Nobody.

He’s going to ruin me for everyone else, too.

“Fuck, Lilah,” Arthur pants, and I know he’s following me over the edge, because after that it’s all Italian. I kiss his arm, the closest thing to me, and listen to the aftermath. His breathing, his soft noises, his heartbeat. No, that’s mine, pounding in my ears.

His fingers slow where they’re slotted against me, then drop to grip my thigh. “Are you okay?”

I nod. He’s not asking because my glasses are foggy and I’m having trouble staying upright. “Are you?”

There’s a muffled sound above my ear, Arthur pressing his lips against the crown of my head. I don’t totally hear what he says, but it sounds suspiciously like perfect.