Chapter Four
Lai
Tonight, I was going to let chaos consume me. Maybe it was Al’s turn to bail me out for once–not that I was stupid enough to get caught. There was a difference between recklessness and incompetence, and I had always taken pride in knowing where that line was.
One night of surrendering to my element instead of pretending I was above it. Fuck it, right? One night.
The road unspooled ahead of Ghost and me, black and gleaming. The manor had disappeared behind us miles ago.
I should have felt trapped.
I did not.
“Where are we going?” I asked. I didn’t particularly care, but I hated the silence between us. I was not used to trusting something so fully, especially not a car I had driven once and then spent weeks avoiding like a coward.
“I know a few places,” Ghost answered, his hand on his own wheel, his voice rolling through the cabin all gravel and old Southern drawl.
For the first time, I got to study him properly.
The shadow that wore a man’s shape. The broad shoulders.
The angle of a jaw, strong and old-fashioned, like a soldier dragged out of a sepia-toned war photograph.
The pale eyes that kept flicking toward me, quick and searching, trying to read a reaction.
He kept revving his engine, handling the twisting roads with obscene skill, taking corners harder than necessary, letting the tires bite and complain.
He was showing off. I was amused but deliberately held a straight face, giving him almost nothing in return.
The roar of the engine, the burning rubber, the surge of speed; it did impress me, but not in the way he wanted.
Speed alone was not enough to make me gasp and clutch at the dashboard like some trembling passenger princess.
No. I was far more curious about the shadow controlling the metal beast. I wanted to know where he began and the car ended.
Whether the hand on the wheel felt what the tires felt.
Whether the engine’s growl was just as much his voice as his low Southern drawl.
I noted with some amusement the moment his confidence began to crack.
The speed climbed higher. The corners sharpened.
His glances lingered longer. He wanted a reaction: a widened eye, a curse, a hand gripping the door—some proof that all that horsepower, all that old American muscle, had gotten beneath my skin.
A proud thing like Ghost did not like being unimpressive.
I braced one hand lightly against the dashboard as he took another bend too fast.
“Stop,” I whispered. “Find somewhere to park.”
The brakes screeched as his few tons of metal came to a stop on the side of the road, gravel spitting from beneath the tires. The engine kept rumbling, restless and confused, like a horse pulled short before a jump.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Then I unbuckled my seatbelt and shifted across the cabin, moving from the passenger seat and into Ghost’s lap before either of us had the wisdom to reconsider.
“Ghost,” I whispered. His hands hovered near my waist as if touching me might require permission, his darkness between my legs shifting, struggling to keep solid shape.
“Look at me.” I held Ghost by his chin, forcing him to look down at me. “I know what you are doing.”
“You do?”
The stiffness in him was almost endearing. I knew his type. Gods help me, I knew that type far too well. Another old soldier, too eager to please, too eager to serve.
“You don’t have to.” I smiled, my fingers trying to study the features obstructed by the darkness that reflected no light. All I could see were his pale eyes, but my fingers navigated the car’s high cheekbones, the strong jawline. I wondered who gave him that form. Who saw him this way?
“I’m not going to change my mind about you. I’m not going to give you up. You don’t have to fuck me into keeping you. You have nothing to prove.”
Ghost leaned into me, the shimmering shadow of his body gently melting into my chest. I could feel him against my ribs, my lungs struggling to take a full breath as his being melded into my flesh.
I thought he might take me up on my lifeboat offer until his hand brushed against the back of my neck, his fingers slipping against my scalp, slow and deliberate, gathering a handful of my hair.
The grip was light at first, almost a question.
Then he tightened it enough to tilt my head back, and his mouth found mine.
The kiss was not gentle, and he pulled back far too soon. “No.”
I blinked.
“No?” I echoed, thrown by the firmness in his tone. I had been so sure I had him. I knew his type. Military. Loyal. Proud. Desperate. Men like that were always so easy to control.
“I might not have much to prove,” Ghost said, and there was the drawl again, low and dangerous. “But you still do.”
Before I could answer, he lifted me.
The movement was effortless. One moment I was straddling him; the next, I was shoved back against the seat, the warm leather catching me as darkness surged around my body.
I choked on pure indignation, ready to unleash a tirade.
I had nothing to prove. I was everything I ever wanted to be. Rich, successful, powerful.
Then his mouth found mine again, and my thoughts scattered at the corporal kiss that invaded my senses.
It wasn’t just a kiss. It was deeper, more intense than anything I could compare it to.
The shadow barely felt physical, but the kiss carried more than the soft lips and playful tongue.
There was speed, strength- that raw power that I had never appreciated until that very moment.
The kiss deepened, and the cabin seemed to shrink until there was nothing beyond the leather beneath me, the night outside, and Ghost.
Within moments, it became too much. I pulled away, gasping. The cool air sobered me only slightly.
“What–” I swallowed, trying to gather enough dignity to form a sentence. My heart hammered in my chest. “What do you mean?”
Ghost leaned over me, a wicked smirk stretching across those shadowed features.
“You need to prove you can handle me, little Hellcat.”
Goddamn it.
I nearly purred. Me! Actually losing control, betrayed by my own body. I was ashamed of how much the pet name affected me. One moment I was in control, and the next, I was almost moaning for him to call me that again.
Ghost’s hand closed around my thigh and pulled me closer.
I let him.
“Let’s find out if I can, then,” I said, because if I was losing control, I would at least have the decency to make it sound intentional.
I unbuttoned my shirt with hands that were not as steady as I would have liked. My fingers slipped lower, fighting with the stubborn gold latch of my belt. The moment it unclipped, Ghost moved like he had been waiting for the sound.
The leather beneath me was warm.
His mouth was at my neck.
His lips dragged over my skin, trailing kisses up toward my jaw, each one making it harder to remember why I pretended I wasn’t dying for him to touch me.
By the time his mouth found mine again, we were sharing breath.
His tongue clashed against my own, and the engine answered beneath us with a low, pleased growl that vibrated through the seat and straight into my bones.
I was beginning to doubt my previous confidence; handling implied control, and I was not controlling a damn thing. I was a mess beneath him. My body arched, shifting, asking before my pride could stop it. Kisses were not enough. His weight against me was not enough.
I wanted more.
The realization was humiliating. The wanting was worse.
“Please,” I breathed.
Then again, because apparently I had no self-respect left to salvage, “Please.”
Me. Begging. The thought alone was preposterous, but thinking had become difficult under the circumstances.
I was no better than Al.
The laugh that escaped me broke into a moan as Ghost pressed closer.
It took me a few moments to finally suck in a breath as my body stiffened against him.
I looked down at the shadow pushing my thighs apart, holding me still as he sank his dark cock deep inside me.
My body gave no resistance, barely registering the intrusion.
I couldn’t even comprehend the sensation, full far beyond what my body could take.
Ghost and I were connected on a deeper level, his hips sinking into mine, shadow melting into flesh.
Ghost had found every hollow place inside me, every silence, every locked room, every part of myself I had starved in the name of control, and filled it with heat, motion, and the thunder of an engine.
I threw my head back, fingers digging into his broad shoulders. He leaned over me, and it felt like being crushed beneath a thousand pounds of steel.
It should have been unbearable.
It was.
It was also magnificent.
Each breath I took was forced back out of me by the rhythm of him.
My body tightened around him, pinned against warm leather, the scent of gasoline and old vinyl and night air turning dizzyingly sweet.
Ghost moved with steady confidence. He wasn’t desperate to impress; he knew me like he knew the road, naturally and effortlessly, reading my gasps and moans like a map.
Is that what Al meant when he said he belonged in Fox?
The thought came uninvited and absurd.
Then Ghost shifted, and my back arched hard enough to make the leather creak.
Yes.
Gods, yes.
I understood.
Because soon, movement alone was not enough. I wanted more. I wanted speed. I wanted to smell gasoline as if it were in my blood. I wanted the wind rolling over my frame, my tires biting into the road.
For those few moments, Ghost and I were one.
There was no clean division between his pleasure and mine. His engine purred, and I felt it low in my stomach. My pulse raced, and the dash lights seemed to throb in time with it. His metal frame shuddered around me while my human body trembled beneath him.
He leaned in closer, and my hands traced his features. My eyes could never see them properly in the shimmering shadow his form took, but now, as he was leaning against me, I could touch each muscle, the chiseled jaw, the slicked-back curls.
“Ghost,” I whispered between breaths, and his engine growled in response. I felt it too, the desperate drink of gasoline, the burn and the surge, the rising pressure inside him that matched the pressure building in me until I could not tell which of us was closer to breaking.
In the end, I didn’t even know whether it was Ghost’s climax or my own.
My human body was trembling in an orgasm, and his metal frame was shuddering.
I thought it was me screaming, but all I heard was the engine.
My feet slipped from the dash, and I reached for the pedals in the footwell.
I pushed the gas all the way to the floor as my body tensed, my cock spilling between the friction of our bodies.
The RPMs climbed, and I saw Ghost’s throat glow like dragon’s fire, threatening to scorch and scald and burn me alive.
I knew that feeling all too well. One more second and all Hell would break loose.
I eased off the gas, my body limp against the leather as a different heat flooded me, pumping me full and spilling over the tops of my thighs.
The roar dropped.
The world came back in pieces.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
There was nothing elegant to say. Nothing clever.
I stared up at him, chest heaving, heart still hammering, and felt the last of the tension drain out of me like fuel burning clean through an engine.
Gods, I needed that.