CHAPTER FORTY CLARKE
Chapter Forty
Clarke
Clarke told himself he’d had to come to her hotel room. She wouldn’t return any of his calls or texts. He drew a deep breath before knocking on the door. When it swung open and Ceci saw him, she quickly made a move to shut it, but he blocked the door with his foot.
“Move your foot, Sir Stick Up His Ass!”
“No. Not until you’ve heard me out.”
“We already said everything there is to say.”
“Maybe you have, but I haven’t. Now open the door.”
“No.”
“If you don’t, I’ll push it open. And I don’t want you on the other side when I do. So, open the fucking door.”
“No.”
“I’m going to count to three and I suggest you move aside, because when I put my weight into it, this door is flying open.”
He waited. No response.
He sighed.
Fuck it.
“One … I mean it, Ceci!”
On two, Clarke lowered his shoulder, and on three, he thrust it forward and went flying into the room, falling to the ground on all fours. He blinked. Boudica was staring back at him.
“Hi, Boudica,” he said, petting the dog who wiggled his butt. “At least somebody’s happy to see me,” he muttered as he stood up and crossed his arms, glaring at Ceci.
She did the same. “You told me to open it, so I did.”
“I meant—” Waving his hand, he huffed. “Never mind. You shouldn’t have opened the door in the first place. Not without asking who it is. I could have been a serial killer. Don’t do that again.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. You may think I drive like a girl, but this girl can take care of herself.”
He marched toward her. “I only said that because I knew you were angry with me. I did it to provoke you, to give you an outlet for that anger. I seem to recall it worked. You slapped me.”
“And what’s my outlet going to be this time?”
“Are you telling me you want to slap me?”
“Why are you here? I said what needed to be said at the hospital.”
“And that’s it? You and I just walk away?”
She didn’t respond.
He moved closer but stopped short of touching her. He wanted so bad to touch her. “I don’t understand why we can’t talk about this. This is one event. It doesn’t say anything about the future. Things can change. I can change.”
“People don’t change and you’re proof of that.
You told me what happened on that mountain, how you let the part of you that didn’t give a damn about anyone else take over.
And right after you told me, you went and did the same thing with Tilney, racing those stupid karts.
You tell me, how is what happened today any different? ”
His heart pounded so hard, his ears were ringing and his temples throbbed.
“Is this how it’s going to be? I open myself up to you in a way I haven’t with anyone else, telling you something that will haunt me the rest of my life, and when you get angry you just throw it back up at me?”
“No,” she said, “because there is no how it’s going to be, there is no going to be.”
The pounding became so violent it felt like it might split the earth beneath his feet.
“So what? You quit? I make one mistake, and that’s it?” He paused, but only for a breath. He was too angry not to say it. “I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. You did the same thing when you quit driving Formula 3. One setback and you give up.”
Those eyes blew wide as though a sudden gray gust had thrown open a window.
Her hand flew up.
Not this time.
He grabbed her wrist.
“I hate you!” she spat.
“Trust me, right now the feeling is mutual!”
“I hate your stiff, starched, stick-up-your-ass button-down shirts!”
He still had hold of her right hand, so she grabbed his shirt with her left and pulled, ripping it open and sending three buttons flying to the floor.
He grabbed her pajama shirt and did the same.
Stepping forward, he forced her to walk backwards until she and her right hand, which he’d lifted above her head, were pinned against the wall.
Watching her chest rise and fall, he felt her shaky breath bathe his skin.
He stared at those gray eyes and wondered why he would even contemplate a life with this woman.
He leaned in.
“I hate that you smell like cinnamon,” she hissed.
“I hate that you never shut up, not even during sex.”
She glared at him and he glared back as he grazed her nipple with his thumb, feeling it stiffen into a cherrystone.
His dick twitched and his breath jerked, becoming jagged like the low throttle of an engine.
He let go of the hand he’d pinned against the wall and pinched the nipple hard, watching her eyes flash and her breath catch.
“Go ahead,” he growled. “Slap me.”
She lowered her arm. Making a fist, she held it against his chest, pushing him with it.
“I hate that you speak Gaelic.”
I hate that my dick is at your command and always looks for any opportunity to salute you. But I’m not going to tell you that.
Instead, he drew in closer. Feeling her breath on his lips, he slipped his arm around her waist but suddenly stopped.
He looked over his shoulder to see Boudica staring at them.
He grabbed her wrist. “Come on.”
She pulled it away. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Not even to the bedroom?”
“That counts as anywhere. So … no.”
“Well, I’m not going to do this with Boudica watching us.”
“You’re not going to do this at all.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“You wanted to just a second ago.”
“Well, now I don’t.”
“You’re acting like a bratty child.”
“Here we go again,” she scoffed. “Do you have some kind of daddy complex? Or are you just looking for an excuse to spank me?”
His thumbs skated back and forth across his fingertips. He felt them vibrate as if they were about to do something, whether he told them to or not.
Leaning into her, he reached around, grabbing both her ass cheeks so tight the tips of his middle finger grazed her asshole. “Don’t. Tempt. Me.” He pulled away and took her hand. “Now, come on.”
“No, I told you I don’t want to.”
“Well, I don’t believe you.”
She shrugged.
“Prove it,” he said.
“What?”
“Prove it.” He leaned in, placing his lips next to her ear. “Put your finger in your pussy and show me.”
“No,” she spat. “I can’t believe Sir Stick Up His Ass would ask me to do such a thing.”
He bit his lip to keep from grinning. “Oh, you can’t, can you?
Well, Sir Stick Up His Ass is about to do it himself.
Unless you stop him.” Glaring at her, he placed his hand on her abdomen, the tip of his pinky finger toying with the waistband of her pajamas.
She didn’t move. In fact, she grew so still for a second, he wondered if she was breathing.
He dipped that pinky finger under the material.
She didn’t take her eyes off his. His hand slid down to that triangle.
He watched her swallow and her breath falter.
When his hand slipped between her thighs, she shut her eyes just before he slid one finger along the lip of her pussy. He didn’t need to go any further.
“Fuck this,” he hissed, his teeth clenched. He picked her up, slung her over his shoulder and marched past Boudica, into the bedroom, slamming the door behind them.
“Why aren’t you fighting me?” he bellowed as he threw her on the bed.
She gazed up at him but said nothing.
He placed his hands on either side of her. “I won’t do this unless you tell me you want me to. Now tell me—do you or do you not … want me to?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
Yes, she does or yes, she doesn’t?
He blinked. “What the fuck does that mean?”
She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him hungrily.
His shoes and clothes were discarded in a flash. As were her pajama bottoms. He crawled up, looming over her and his gaze latched onto hers.
Her eyes flashed. “I hate that even when you say fuck it sounds polite.”
Peering into that gray landscape, he felt something pulling him at the same time he could feel himself drifting.
He blinked and saw her staring up at him—her eyes were glistening and then he realized his were too.
He lowered his head, placing his cheek next to hers, planting soft kisses on her neck.
She opened her legs. He knew she was ready for him.
And he was more than ready for her. He was so thick and so hard, it hurt.
He slipped into her, into that wetness, staring into those gray orbs as he thrust inside her.
If she walks away from me now, sometime in the future, she’ll be with someone else.
The thought of her being like this for someone else was unbearable.
Suddenly her pussy clutched his cock so hard, he nearly choked.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she murmured.
He pushed deeper. And when she tightened her hold, a grunt escaped him like someone had punched him in the gut.
“Of course not,” he groaned, “because according to you, change isn’t possible.”
“That’s right, and because I hate you.”
He pushed in so deep she cried. He thrust his mouth on hers, wanting to ravage it, wanting to ravage her.
Gripping his head, she pulled his hair, the shiver of pain dissolving into the most exquisite pleasure vibrating through him.
“I hate you,” she murmured. Her voice was as ragged as her breath as she wrapped her legs around him, and he thrust deeper and deeper and deeper still. Her hips bucking into his hungry cock.
I hate you. Those three words spiraled around that hold she had on him, pulling him at both ends. And his flesh began to shiver, his limbs and body shake. He felt her arms suddenly clutch him.
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Those three words hung on every cell he felt explode within him. And as he descended into a blissful peace he knew was only temporary, he came to the realization that it was her that had ravaged him.
Afterwards, walking back to his hotel, he tried to find some sliver of hope in the fact that she hadn’t rejected outright his plea that they talk once the season was over.
He’d assured her that Roxanne would honor her side of the deal even though there would be no more dates for the rest of the season. He’d make sure of it.
That much he was certain of. But the rest?
She was right. Neither one of them was ever going to forget what happened today.
He was never going to forget that she’d thrown what happened on that mountain in his face.
She’d never forget that he’d thrown her quitting F3 in hers.
So where would they go from here? Was there anywhere to go?
Was it even possible to move beyond this space in which they now stood?
That night when he dreamed, he saw only her gray eyes and then found himself stuck in a thick dense fog.
He was lost. He didn’t know which direction to turn, didn’t even know which way was north.
Even were he to cry out to her, she wouldn’t hear him.
The air was too thick; any words he uttered would be too weak and too distant to reach her.