Iris
Desire sharpens instinct. Fear only makes you hesitate.
Cupid’s Run doesn’t belong to fools.
It used to belong to my father.
I never say his name out loud. Inviting his memory into this space is like letting a ghost slip through the cracks.
But he’s here—in every revving motor, every route map, every set of eyes that glints with fear and greed.
He taught me everything I know; how to tune an engine by ear, how to read a driver’s nerves by the way their hands shake on the wheel, how to smell when a car is about to fail.
The race has never been about speed. It’s about control. About trust. About how far someone will go when the road disappears beneath them, and all that’s left is instinct and desire and fear tangled together at one hundred and fifty miles an hour.
My father used to say that love and racing share the same flaw.
You think you’re in control—until you’re not.
He built Cupid’s Run twenty years ago, back when it was still just a rumor passed between street crews and chop shops. Seven races. Seven nights. No mercy. He said Valentine’s Day deserved blood because love always demands it in the end.
The city worshipped him for it—until it killed him.
He died three years ago on the Palmetto Expressway. They wrote it off as a blown brake line, a miscalculation. I know better. I saw the car’s skeleton afterward—welds ground down, a cut where no cut should be. It was sabotage.
Murder.
And when he died, they came for me. I was twenty-two, still draining oil pans in his garage, still raw from grief. They gave me a choice: inherit Cupid’s Run—or let my father’s debts swallow me alive.
Under my father’s Chevelle, the wrench is loose in my hand. Focused on the car, I pretend as if the world hasn’t been tilted on its axis just three days before.
The garage door rattles halfway up, then stops—the old metal groaning like it knows something is wrong.
I hear the click of expensive heels hitting concrete followed by more footsteps.
As I roll out from under the car, Otto’s protective voice cuts through the bay.
“Shop’s closed. Unless you’re here to fix something you broke.”
Standing up, I take note of the three sharp-dressed people standing in front of me and recognize them immediately. I’ve seen them at other races in the past, having hushed discussions with my father.
Tempest Holdings. The shell corporation who makes sure all payouts are performed as expected after each race.
The kind of people who don’t need to raise their voices because they’re used to people listening.
Before I can approach them, Otto steps in front of me.
“You all lost?”
A woman in a crisp navy blue pants suit eyes me.
“Iris Cross,” she says.
“There’s nothing you need to say to her.” Otto’s voice is clipped and annoyed.
The second man to her right, crosses his huge arms over his chest and tilts his head.
“We’re here for assets, old man. Move.”
Assets.
The word hits like a fist to the sternum.
The woman sighs, “Your loyalty is noted. It’s also irrelevant.”
She gestures to the third man who produces a thin folder and sets it on my father’s old workbench.
“This is what your father left behind,” she says.
Otto scoffs. “That’s bullshit. He ran clean.”
“No,” she replies calmly. “He ran ambitious.”
I step around Otto before he can stop me. My chest feels hollow.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Your father promised payouts he couldn’t guarantee. Winners who never got paid. Syndicates who were told to wait. Debts that compounded.”
“He always paid,” I scoff.
The woman continues, unbothered. “Cupid’s Run escalated under your father. He wrote checks his body couldn’t cash.”
Otto explodes. “Well he’s dead now. The debts are null.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not how this works,” the woman says.
My knees lock. The concrete floor suddenly feels unsteady beneath my feet.
“And now,” she continues, “the ledger is open.”
“You want money,” I say.
She smiles. “We want continuity.”
Otto’s eyes grow wide with realization. “You’re out of your damn minds if you think—”
“You’ll uphold Cupid’s Run,” the woman says, turning to me. “But maybe, ensure payment unlike dear ol’ dad.”
“And if I don’t?” I ask.
One of the men lean forward, with a gleam in his eye. “Then we settle your father’s debts with you.”
Otto moves again, fast. “You touch her and I swear—”
The woman lifts a hand. Otto freezes, breathing hard.
“Otto,” she smiles. “We’re accountants. Just doing our job.”
She meets my eyes.
“Run the circuit,” she says softly, “or Miami will eat you alive.”
The garage feels smaller now, like the walls are closing in.
I think of my father’s hands guiding mine on an engine block, of his voice telling me I was made to be behind the wheel of a race car.
I lift my chin.
“How long?” I ask.
Her smile returns. Satisfied.
“As long as the engines keep turning.”
With that she turns on her heel, and they leave the way they came—quiet, unhurried, certain.
I took the keys, though every fiber of my being hated it. They thought I would be easier to control than him. They were wrong.
I learned every shortcut, memorized every timing pattern, tracked every alley that might save a racer’s life—or end it.
I mastered smiling while men threatened me, flirting while they bared their knives.
I quietly proved I held the maps, the kill switch, and the power to decide who lived and who died.
Now the last engine fades in the distance, and Ronan steps forward.
His boots fall heavy against the concrete, and for an instant the world stills.
Up close, he smells of sweat and gasoline.
His eyes hold a raw hunger that stirs a matching ache inside me.
He stops just before our bodies touch, his gaze dropping to my grease-stained hands.
I wait.
Slowly his arm wraps around my waist, fingers warm and assertive, pulling me toward him as though gravity just remembered I exist.
His breath warms my neck.
“You sounded convincing,” he murmurs near my ear. “Almost like you believe your own damn rules.”
I lean into him, feeling the hard line of his chest beneath my forearm. “Someone has to,” I whisper. “But they’re not my fucking rules.”
“It turns me on watching you run things.” His thumb presses into my hip, gentle and possessive. “Which one do you think dies first?”
I close my eyes, hating the tightness of my chest. “That’s not funny.”
“No,” he agrees softly. “But it’s tradition.”
I force my gaze onto his, willing my heart to settle. “Seven races,” I whisper, more to myself than to him. “Seven nights.”
He leans lower, lips brushing my temple. “And every night,” he promises, husky against my skin, “I’ll come back to you.”
Heat flares under my ribs, and I hate that my body answers him. I hate that my pulse lurches toward him.
Every time he gets behind that wheel, I risk my entire world crumbling because I was stupid enough to fall for a man like him.
“Don’t do this,” I say, head resting against his chest.
“Do what?”
“Make me complicit.”
He tips my head up with a fingertip, those dark eyes boring into mine. “You’ve been complicit since the moment you stayed.”
He’s right. That realization settles like a stone in my gut, heavier than any threat.
With a sudden tug, he pulls me onto his lap inside the Camaro, my legs reverse straddling him tightly in the small space.
The door shuts, sealing us away from the world with the car’s low ceilings and polished leather.
The cockpit is stripped of everything but the essentials: a steel roll cage, an oversized tachometer, a racing shifter aching for the next gear.
The interior smells like amber and new rubber. If this car could speak, it would snarl. It’s an animal, just like Ronan.
He buries his nose into my neck, breathing me in as though committing me to memory.
His fingers dig into my hip, bruising as he drags me forward against the hard ridge in his jeans.
“Ronan,” I gasp, the name swallowed by the engine’s growl beneath us.
“Yes?” His voice is pure sin.
My pulse hammers as I glance at the fogged window, condensation dripping down the glass like sweat.
“Someone will see us.”
His hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back to expose my throat.
“Good. Let them watch you fall apart on my fingers.”
His teeth scrape along my jaw, not gentle. “Now spread your fucking legs.”
The V8 throbs beneath us, each vibration shooting straight to my clit. I’m already soaking through my underwear when he tears open my black jeans, the zipper surrendering with a violent hiss. The sound makes my pussy clench with anticipation.
“Ronan—”
“Don’t.” His hand wraps around my throat, pressing firmly.
“You don’t get to talk. You just get to take what I give you.”
My lace panties are his next victim—he doesn’t bother pulling them aside, just tears them off completely, the fabric giving way with a satisfying snap.
“Fuck, look at you.” His fingers slide through my folds, spreading my wetness. “You want to make a mess on these seats, don’t you?”
“Y-Yes—”
He plunges two fingers inside without warning, no build-up, no gentleness. Just a brutal thrust that has me crying out, my back arching into his chest. The intrusion is sudden and perfect, filling me exactly how I need.
“That’s better.” His grip on my throat tightens slightly. “Now shut up and let me feel this tight little cunt squeeze my fingers.”
He curls them forward with precision, finding that spot deep inside that makes my body jolt forward. Then he starts to fuck me with them—hard, fast, relentless. Each thrust punches the air from my lungs.
“Ronan, please—”
“Please what?” He adds a third finger, stretching me wider, making me whimper. “You want to come?”
His thumb finds my clit, pressing and circling with the same brutal efficiency. I’m shaking now, thighs trembling, hands scrambling for the steering wheel as he works me over.
“Look at the window,” he commands, his voice rough in my ear. “Look at how fogged up it is. Everyone knows what we’re doing here. Everyone knows I’m finger-fucking you until you scream.”
The thought makes me clench around him, my pussy tightening as heat floods through me.
“That’s it.” His fingers pump faster, harder, the wet sounds filling the confined space. “I can feel you getting close. Feel how your cunt is trying to milk my fingers. You’re going to come so fucking hard for me.”
I’m panting now, desperate, riding his hand as he fucks me with three fingers while his thumb destroys my clit. The pressure builds, squeezing tight in my core until I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but feel.
“Come,” he growls against my neck. “Come on my fingers right fucking now.”
I shatter.
My orgasm rips through me like an explosion, my pussy clamping down on his fingers as I cry out—loud enough that anyone outside would definitely hear. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down, just keeps fingering me through it until I’m writhing, oversensitive, nearly sobbing from the intensity.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, finally easing his fingers out of me. They’re soaked, glistening with my cum. He brings them to my mouth. “Taste yourself. Taste what I did to you.”
I part my lips and he pushes his fingers inside, making me taste my own arousal—musky and sweet and completely filthy. I suck them clean while he watches, his breathing ragged against my ear.
When he finally withdraws them, I slump back against his chest, boneless and spent. His heartbeat hammers against my spine, matching the pulse still throbbing between my thighs.
“That’s how you come for me,” he says, satisfaction thick in his voice. “Every fucking time.”
“I needed that. Thank you.”
He chuckles, “I figured you did after tonight.”
His rough hands grab the sides of my jeans and help me shimmy into them, button missing.
I’ll replace that later. Thanks, Ro.
The minutes pass and the thunder in his chest quiets against my back, my own lungs finally remembering their rhythm. He locks me in place with those mechanic’s arms, scarred knuckles resting just below my ribs.
There’s my gentle giant.
“One week,” he whispers. “Then it’s over.”
I don’t ask what “over” means. I shouldn’t.
Because Cupid’s Run never truly ends.
It only takes—and this year, I have a terrible feeling it’s coming for all of us.