Chapter 20
Max
He, along with Edwin, has been trying to convince me to go out to a party even though I have a qualifying tomorrow.
Frustrated as I might be with their insistence, I can’t blame them.
Every other year up until now, I had no problem going out the night before qualifying, sometimes even the evening before a race.
I convinced myself that partying didn’t hamper my performance.
Maybe it was more than that.
Perhaps I unconsciously allowed myself to get in my own way. None of that is important right now.
“I have plans,” I say before thinking.
“Plans? Right.” James drags out the word. “Is it with that blonde from—”
“No,” I cut him off. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m in Miami to work. I have qualifying tomorrow and a sprint race on Saturday.” Our Miami Grand Prix is stacked.
“Since when have you—”
“I have to go,” I tell him while checking the time.
A frown mars my face when I see I only have five minutes before the time I told Annalise to be here.
“Yeah, right,” James says before I disconnect the call.
Though I know no messages have come through, I navigate to my texts to make sure she hasn’t sent me anything. Then I recall that I’ve never actually given Annalise my phone number. I don’t know if she has it.
“Fool,” I curse myself for that oversight.
A beat later, there’s a knock at the door. I don’t even check the peephole before I open. My smile drops when I see that it’s the room service I ordered and not Annalise. I should be pleased that the food arrived before she did.
After directing the hotel staff to the dining area, I watch as they set the places on the glass table and place the roast duck and vegetables in a cream sauce at the center.
“Thank you.” I tell the staffer before he disappears behind the door.
It’s now five minutes after seven.
“She’s late,” I mumble at the same time my thumb scrolls through my contacts, pulling up her phone number. She might not have my number, but I have hers.
Me: You’re late.
I don’t know how many seconds tick by as I stare at the screen, waiting for her reply. My chest tightens when it finally comes.
Princess: Who is this?
Through narrowed lenses I type out:
Me: Had plans with somebody else tonight at seven o’clock, did you?
That telltale ellipses pops up on the screen then disappears then pops up again. I wonder what she’s writing, then erasing and replying again. Annalise chooses her words carefully.
Most of the time.
My mind drifts back to Japan. When she called me the most technically skilled driver on the grid. She wasn’t lying when she’d said it. The look in her eyes held a fierce mixture of exasperation, vulnerability, and guilt.
That last one, I surmised, is because she felt the strain of telling her brother’s biggest rival that he might just be better than him.
This thought has me grinning when another text comes through.
Princess: I never agreed to meet you for dinner.
My smile grows.
Me: That’s not how I remember it.
Princess: You obviously have an unreliable memory. Besides, I’m working.
Me: I’m working as well. Yet, I’m able to find time in my busy schedule to make time for you.
I read my words over after I hit send and realize how true they are. Race weekend is often a blur. ironically, time only slows down once I’m behind the wheel of my car. A haze of bullshit interviews, playing face for the camera, and partying all thrown in with some racing on the track.
Not right now, though.
Princess: You should be resting for qualifying tomorrow.
Her concern sends a little thrill through me.
Me: I have to eat first. And I don’t plan on eating alone.
Another long pause of appearing and disappearing ellipses fills the span of time after that last text.
Me: Dinner is getting cold. Meet me in my room in five minutes or I can give my favorite teammate a call and ask what he thinks of our joint venture with Liam’s company as proposed to me by his sister this afternoon.
As soon as I send the text, I place my phone face down on the coffee table. The threat is a slight risk, but if I understand Annalise the way I think I do, it’s a bet I’m willing to make.
Sure enough, mid-pace, less than five minutes later there’s a loud banging on my hotel door.
“Who the hell do you think you’re threatening?” she demands the moment I pull the door open.
I stare down into her fuming hazel eyes, reddened cheeks, and pushed out lips and have to suppress the stirring happening beneath my waist.
“You’re late,” I respond.
Her eyes narrow to slits. I step aside for her to come in.
“I didn’t come here to have dinner with you,” she insists while brushing past me and entering my hotel room.
“No?”
“No.” She spins on me. “I came to tell you that number one, you do not threaten me. We both know my brother wouldn’t believe anything you told him about me anyway. Number two,” her voice grows in volume when I part my lips to reply, “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”
Folding my arms across my chest, I widen my stance and lean my head slightly. “What am I doing?”
My lips quirks at the dramatic way she rolls her eyes and tosses her hands up in frustration. She’s so damn cute. Sexy too, dressed in the sleeveless blue and white jumper that has a little peek-a-boo action happening at the midriff.
It’s different from the navy skirt and light-colored silk blouse she’d worn earlier at the meeting with Liam and his partner, but the same outfit she’d worn throughout the afternoon.
“You’re trying to use me to get to my brother.”
I step closer, dropping my arms.
“Am I?”
“It’s obvious,” she says, her voice lowering slightly. “You’ll do whatever it takes to get inside of his head to improve your chances of winning on the track.”
“And you think I’d use you to do that?”
She gestures around the room. “Yes.”
“That’s impossible,” I say, moving even closer.
Her eyelids flutter as if she can’t believe what I’ve just said. “Why would it be impossible?”
“Because when I look at you, Annalise, there’s no part of me that even thinks about your brother.”
Her mouth parts.
“Can’t even remember his name.”
Her mouth closes as she bites her bottom lip while her eyes fall to my lips.
“What is it again? Timothy? Trevor?”
Her eyes remain glued to my mouth.
“Something with a T—” My comment is cut off when her lips finally collide with mine.
Annalise initiates the kiss, pulling my head to her with her hands clutching my shoulders, but I’m the one who takes over. I wrap one arm around her waist and pull her flush against my body. She feels better than I ever imagined, and heaven help me, I’ve spent plenty of hours imagining.
Her tiny moans and mewls send my arousal into overdrive. All of the blood in my body goes straight to my cock. I know she can feel it pressing against her stomach, but she doesn’t pull away.
And that turns me on even more. She’s as into this as I am.
That is, until she pulls away, panting.
My gaze dips to the heaving of her chest, and I dart my tongue across my lower lip, wishing it was her skin.
“I … only did that … to shut you up,” she says in between gasps.
My smile spreads. “You should try to shut me up more often.”
When she presses her lips together, I can tell it's done to suppress a mix of a smile and a frustrated purse of her mouth. The move mirrors the tension combined with uncertainty and desire in her eyes.
The third emotion I choose to grab onto. It’s my lifeline in the wake of her lack of certainty and confusion of being here with me.
She wants to be here while also not wanting to want to be here. But I can’t let her leave. I’ve waited long enough to spend alone time with her, to have her to myself, her sole focus on me and only me.
“Another way to get me to stop talking,” I suggest, and then wave to the food on the dining table. “You haven’t eaten dinner, I assume.”
“Don’t assume,” she counters, even as her eyes wander over to the table.
“You’ve spent the day running around, haven’t you?” My slightly scolding tone surprises me.
“It’s race weekend,” she says by way of an answer. “You’re busier than I am.”
I shrug. “All I do is sit in a car, press a pedal, and hope it stays on the track.”
She rolls her eyes while a smirk plays on her lips. “You’re so full of it,” she mumbles.
“And you need to eat.” I take her by the arm and guide her to a chair. I’m satisfied when she doesn’t pull away even as I allow my fingers to linger on her skin.
“Duck?” She eyes the meal when I remove the lid from the platter.
“You never answered when I asked if there was anything that you didn’t eat. And last year at the post season gala you thoroughly enjoyed the duck that was served for dinner.”
It’s not until the ensuing silence once I’ve plated Annalise’s food and placed it in front of her that I pause to find her staring at me.
“What?”
“You were watching me?”
I swallow, dropping my gaze to my own plate.
“I’ve always watched you,” I admit more to myself than to her.
I’ve replayed the years in my mind repeatedly over the past couple of months. There was rarely an event, race, or photoshoot where she was in attendance that I didn’t find my attention on her in one way or another.
“You do like duck, don’t you?” I ask when she simply continues to stare.
“I do.” I watch her as she cuts into a slice of the meat on her plate and then brings it to her mouth. Her eyelids droop, and her lips push out a—clear sign that she’s enjoying it.
Satisfied, I finally take a bite from my own plate.
We eat in relative silence, sneaking looks across the table at one another. Not so much sneaking on my part. I blatantly watch her eat because this is the first time that I get to watch her without consideration for who else is around.
My gaze lands on the freckle on her left eyebrow and lingers there.
“You’re being creepy.” She squirms in her chair then points at my plate with her fork. “You’ve barely touched your food.”
“I’m not that hungry.” I don’t take my eyes off of her.
“You need your energy for tomorrow.”
In the minutes she’s been in my room, I came close to forgetting where the hell I am and why I’m here.
“Your practice laps today looked good,” she comments.
“Were you watching me?”
The question earns me another eye roll. “Everyone in the Amato garage was watching you. It’s kind of our job.”
I don’t bother reminding her that it’s not quite her job. Mainly because I don’t want to bring up the source of her conflict in being here with me, and because I don’t want her thinking about anyone but me right now. Selfish bastard that I am.
“Then you’ll be watching tomorrow, won’t you?”
“I’ll be there,” she answers noncommittally.
“Will you be cheering for me?”
“Now why would I do that?”
“Because you should want to cheer for the most technically skilled driver on the grid.”
Annalise lowers her fork and knife to her plate. “You’re not going to get over that, are you?”
Chuckling, I wipe my mouth, even though I’ve barely eaten, as she’s pointed out.
“No, I don’t think I ever will.” That’s the plain truth. I’ve relived her words every day for weeks now and I never tire of them.
“I’ll be watching all of the drivers like anyone who’s a true fan of the sport.”
I’m not satisfied with that answer.
“And what do I have to do for you to watch and root for only me?”
She rolls her eyes skyward. My gaze trails down the scope of her neck to the hint of exposed cleavage there. A vision of my hands laid over her skin, exploring, touching, teasing runs through my mind.
“Nothing,” she says, looking me in the eye. “Because it’ll never happen.”
Challenge accepted.
“I think I can change your mind.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Stubborn, are you?” I ask with a lifted brow.
“Once my mind is made up about something it stays made up.”
“That so? Well, when I have a gut feeling about something I’m rarely wrong.”
Her eyes narrow on me. “You don’t have a gut feeling about me.”
“Don’t I?”
“No. You have a … desire to one up my br—”
“Don’t,” I say sharply. “We don’t need to mention anyone or anything that exists outside of this room right now. Here, it’s just you and me.”
Her lips part, and I think she’s going to say something absurd like ‘there is no you and me.’
However, she abruptly shuts her mouth, looking away from me. I wonder what she’d been about to say. Even if I wouldn’t have liked the words, I still wanted to hear them. Simply because I want to hear everything she has to say.
“I should go.”
Almost everything.
Those three words aren’t necessarily welcome.
“You need to get your rest,” she adds. The tone of her voice is genuine.
I know she’s right. I do need to rest for tomorrow, but I also know I’ll be up half of the night with thoughts of her filling my mind.
Instead of telling her that, I rise from my chair, circling the table to help her out of her seat.
“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow?”
Her eyes drop to my lips as we stand chest to chest.
“You have a team dinner tomorrow.”
I forgot all about that.
“And I have dinner with my family on Saturday night,” she cuts me off before I can ask. “Sunday I fly home right after the race.”
Home.
A slow grin makes its way to my face.
We live in the same building. Until now, I haven’t spent much time in the condo because between all of my travel for work, it took a while for my interior designer and I to come to an agreement on the right look for each room.
“Home it is,” I say.
Her eyes widen. “No, that wasn’t an invitation to ask me for dinner at home. This,” she waves a hand between our bodies, “was only a one-time thing.”
“I thought you weren’t a liar,” I say right before lowering my mouth to hers.
My kiss replaced her reply which she doesn’t shy away from. This kiss is just as good as the one we shared earlier. And miles better than that encounter in Japan.
A sneaking suspicion enters the back of my mind, the moment Annalise’s hands wrap around my shoulders and find their way to the back of my head.
This is just the first of many dinners and stolen kisses that I plan to share with her.