10. Chapter 10
10
Chapter 10
FINN
W hen I brake late on the corner, the thought comes, unbidden.
I wonder if she followed through.
I picture her naked on a hotel bed, golden curls a halo in the dimmed lighting, splayed out over the pillow as she throws her head back. Her bare legs pulled up as one hand disappears between her thighs, her neck long and taut and her heartbeat throbbing below her ear. Her mouth opens in a moan, other hand cupping her full breast, the line of flesh at her waist as her full figure twists in ecstasy…
I am losing my mind.
Furiously, I line up for the straight. I need to aim to get the car on the opposite side of the track so that I maximise the corner’s radius and take it at as high as possible speed. I’m still tearing down recklessly. It’s been like this since we pulled away at the start. I love the UK track and its home soil. It does something to you.
On the pull away I clip two cars and concede a position penalty and somewhere ahead Rheese is doing a happy dance. I nearly spin out on the first corner and realise I’m pushing too hard, too fast.
I don’t care.
I am so fucking furious. I know when I push her she will balk, and yet I can’t walk away without trying.
She said she doesn’t mix business with pleasure, and yet I felt her hardened nipples through the fabric of her chest when she pressed up against me.
She said she wouldn’t be here much longer, and yet she wouldn’t have me casually.
I climb on the brakes, harness pulling me back hard, and downshift, the gearbox aiding me in slowing down. The car gives an angry tremor, but I’m already at the apex of the turn and hitting the throttle, balancing the speed with the tyre grip so that the energy doesn’t go to waste. I over steer and the rear of the car gives a wobble before the grip kicks in and I’m tearing down the road.
Erik comes on comms to admonish me.
He is stressed out to capacity. Thirty laps in and I haven’t paid attention to a word he’s said.
“P ten.”
Not for long. Rousseau is up ahead, and I need him to fuck off . At the next corner, I floor it to be by his side and we go wheel to wheel before he slows down to let me pass. He’s not into playing chicken. I guess he has something to live for.
I scoff.
Erik hears it over comms and checks in to make sure the car is okay.
“P nine.”
Two laps later, I’m back at the same corner and this time I’m too out of control. I clip the apex and sparks fly. I hear Erik gasp.
He cautions me again, but he’s getting angry now, too.
We can all be angry together.
I gain three positions and now I’m sixth again and we have five laps remaining. We’re all bunching up trying to fight to climb positions, all except Ollie far up ahead.
It’s now or never.
I come up behind Rheese.
He’s behind Matteo Severini. Matteo is actively blocking him to allow Lorenzo Fontana ahead to battle forth uninterrupted.
Ahead of them are only Jasper de Vries and Ollie Blythe from Velocity.
Matteo and Rheese are really at it and they’re taking up the whole fucking track with their back and forth, side to side.
We’ll approach the complex soon, a series of technical high-speed corners. It would have to be there.
Matteo fucks up. In his effort to keep Rheese at bay, he’s entering the corner at a compromised angle, slightly off the optimal line. With their jostling, they could fuck up my car if we touch for as much as a millisecond. I adjust my own entry angle and opt for a wide. I’m still too fast, but they aren’t focused on me.
As we come out of the corner, they’re still next to each other, tyres huffing up smoke and sparks, and I slingshot out from behind them, using their combined slipstream as the car lurches forward.
I miss them by millimeters. Three cars wide on the straight and I can see the crowd is going nuts.
There isn’t enough room for three cars with the upcoming turn.
Now it’s a game of chicken.
They’re playing chicken with a dead man. I do not give a fuck. I hate myself. I am a piece of human garbage. Because all this week I’ve been thinking that I could ask her out. I could make her believe I’m coming round. That I’d entertain more than just a casual fling.
She’ll give in to me if she thinks I’m doing it her way.
That would make me a lying motherfucker.
Erik’s panicked voice is shouting out over comms, and I don’t care, I can’t fucking deal with this shit anymore.
We are going to crash.
Rheese pulls up first because he’s a pussy, but it gives room for Matteo to follow suit and I gear down for the corner and fly out ahead of them, the car clinging to the road and leaving behind a cloud of smoke.
“P four! P Four!” Erik is shouting. I can hear he’s out of breath.
Lorenzo puts up a fight, but he isn’t willing to risk his car or his life, so he relents after we white knuckle a dangerous turn and he has to hit the gravel to get out of my way.
I pass Jasper de Vries on pure luck. He fucked up his car in a tussle with another driver early in the race and his suspension is shot, so he’s swerving all over the place. At high speed. Crazy motherfucker.
Ollie, far ahead, crosses the finish line.
I follow a couple of seconds after.
I place second.
I can’t hear what Erik is shouting. It’s just a pure bellow of exultation.
I don’t get out of the car; I’m dragged from it. The whole Delta Victor crew has stormed the car and most of them are crying. Jack’s face is red, and he can’t get a word out. Opts for grabbing a fistful of my clothes under my chin and shaking me like a rag doll. Erik grabs me round the neck from behind, practically strangling me. I’m sandwiched between him and Jack and a ton of crew members are raining down congratulatory slaps on me. It’s physical and overwhelming and it takes me right the fuck back to when I could do this.
You did it today.
They drag and shove me over to the steps and I climb them up, incredulity seeping through me.
A fucking podium finish.
My head is absolutely quiet. The silence rings out in waves from my core. I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
Ollie is on the podium, standing in the middle. Like me, his suit is open to the waist and the top half hangs behind him. He is grinning ear to ear and slaps me on the shoulder when I walk past him to step up to second place.
A girl in a very short miniskirt and an Annual Grande Prima shirt steps up to hand me a silver trophy.
The crowd goes absolutely wild below us. Jack’s and Erik’s bellows are all I can hear. They still aren’t forming words.
The crew have their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders in a line and are jumping up and down in tandem.
Announcements must have been made because Ollie grabs my hands, holding the silver trophy and hoists it up into the air. It’s an absolute barrage of noise. Next he lifts his own golden cup and we’re handed bottles of champagne.
I tap mine habitually on the podium and stride towards the edge of the balcony and pop the top over the entire Delta Victor crew below. Their faces are upraised, laughing, getting drenched in champagne.
Ollie, behind me, drenches me. He’s ecstatic. His joy for me is tangible.
As I lower the bottle, my eyes scan the crowds. I pick out Jay’s lanky frame holding the camera, lens pointed towards me. Behind him, Camille has a fist in the air. She’s cheering like crazy, tears streaming down her face, and I know it’s for me. After how I treated her, she’s putting that aside to celebrate this win for me. Her joy is for my joy.
I could love her, I swear it.
* * *
FINN
She doesn’t answer her phone when I call. She won’t answer. I’ll need to make her, if I want her to talk to me.
I know exactly how. It takes me two days.
“Are you insane ?” Camille is practically shouting down the line. “I absolutely cannot accept this.”
She’s furious because I had the Celestia diamond collar sent to her. Via the WebFlix Max team.
“I told you it wasn’t for me.”
The line goes quiet.
“Do you not have anything to say?” I ask, surprised.
“No.”
“Well, if you really don’t want it, why don’t I pick it up?”
She gives a groan of frustration and her address in London. I have another black SUV rental car at my disposal.
The drive down takes an hour and a half, and I take another twenty minutes to find her street in Kensington. Two rows of identical white houses line the street. I take the first parking spot I can get and walk the rest of the way.
The front door is identical to every other door. After I press her flat number, she buzzes me up.
She opens the door before I can knock.
“Tea?” she offers.
A truce.
“Cheers.”
It’s a typical flat share. Two personal styles are clashing in an irregular melody of colour and design. A bookcase takes up an entire wall, and it’s overflowing. There seems to be an abundance of autobiographies, coffee table books, and actual encyclopedias, sprinkled with romance and cooking books. The modern sofa has a Ndebele blanket thrown over one end and on the wall is an array of carved wooden masks. One’s wearing a pair of red heart sunglasses.
I can smell her perfume as she walks towards the kitchen. Her curls are loose and still damp, and she’s wearing a white cashmere sweater over black leggings. Her feet are bare.
In the kitchen she puts the kettle on to boil and takes down two mismatched cups from a cupboard. I can’t remember the last time I stood in a flat this small. The women I meet come to me. I haven’t seen how someone else lives for years.
The cabinets have all been painted yellow, and the fridge is covered in photos and magnets.
Camille and a black woman with Fulani braids smile out from most of them.
“Your roommate?” I ask, taking one off the fridge.
She nods. “Her name is Amy.”
“Where is she?”
“She produces for a local breakfast show and their star has a habit of drinking too much over the weekends. He’s on his last warning and she’s babysitting him.”
She hands me my cup and I follow her back to the sitting room.
Before she sits, she makes her way to the bookcase where she picks up a wooden, velvet-lined box. The Celestia collar is nestled inside. She runs a finger over the giant diamond in the center before closing the lid. She picks it up and makes to hand it over to me.
“Did you try it on?” I ask curiously, taking the wooden box.
She gives an infinitesimal shake of her head.
We’re both thinking about what I said to her.
What was I thinking? I was drunk on the sight of her, the red lips beneath the lace mask. I’ve been drunk on her all week, thinking about her naked on her hotel bed.
Fuck.
I have an erection again. I adjust my jeans and sit back nonchalantly.
“Congratulations on the race,” she says softly, trying to change the subject.
“Thank you.”
“You loved it,” she states. My stomach swoops low.
“I did.”
“What changed?”
I want to tell her it’s because I’m free.
“You found your passion for it again?” she’s guessing. I don’t know what to tell her, so I shrug.
She takes it as confirmation. Her eyes light up. It’s heartbreaking. She sits forward curiously, grey eyes wide and wondrous.
“What changed?” she insists.
Because I am an absolute prick, I know what she wants to hear. But she’ll spot a lie. I have to be as close to the truth as I can be.
“You,” I say, thinking of my fury in the car, my pounding heart as I imagine her fingers dipping into her lush body, coming out wet.
She actually blushes.
She pulls up her bare feet and tucks them below her.
I lean forward and place my cup on the coffee table, the wooden box with the necklace next to it. There is a large coffee book on the table.
“ The Last Keeper ,” I read. “Camille Chauvin.”
I frown. Snatch it up. Page after page of an old man about his duties as a lighthouse keeper, but it’s intoxicating, how she captured him, throughout the four seasons. I page through, engrossed. The last five pages are highly detailed photographs. It’s the old man, from behind, one hand trailing on the rail next to him, the ocean behind. In the first he’s in short shirt sleeves, grey-haired, and tanned a rich brown, the ocean filled with white foamy strips of waves crashing happily.
In the second he’s wearing a knitted wool jumper, the sky overcast, the ocean a murky blue. A single gull hangs suspended in time. In the third, it’s snowing. The ocean is a murky mess of waves and in the distance, storm clouds have gathered with a single slither of lightning arching towards the ocean. In the fourth he’s wearing the jumper again, but t’s a different pair of pants, an open sky. The fourth is just the empty stairway. It’s a sunny day, the gull is perched on the rail, undisturbed.
It wounds me somehow. The empty photo. When I look up at her, her eyes are a stormy ocean. Loss crashes over her.
“Who was he? ”
“I think the question is, does it matter?”
“Yes,” I state immediately.
“Why?” She’s genuinely curious. She knows why it matters to her. She wants to know why it matters to me.
“I don’t know.”
“When you figure it out, will you tell me?”
She takes the book from me, closes it, and hugs it to her chest. “I filmed him for a year.”
“Where?”
“In Brittany, France.”
“A whole year in the same place?”
She smiles. “The next one could be longer.”
“What next one?”
She places the book carefully back on the table, launching into an explanation of her next project, the artisans along the Silk Road, the last ones who know their craft.
“That’s fascinating,” I say earnestly. “Why aren’t you there right now?”
“Dixon asked me to help out with this. With High Velocity . Besides, my proposal hasn’t exactly been picked up yet. I’ll have to fund the filming and then hope I can pitch it after the fact.”
“Won’t WebFlix Max take it on?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You work for WebFlix Max, and you haven’t pitched them?”
“I work for Dixon, who works for WebFlix Max.”
“Camille,” I say. She shivers. “You should pitch them.”
“I don’t know. Let’s just get this done and when Dixon comes back, then I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll fund you.”
“Finn, please. Don’t. ”
I suddenly want nothing more than for her to do this project, to show the world these extraordinary people.
“I already am!” She laughs when I voice it. “I am actively showing the world extraordinary people.”
I frown.
“I mean you , Finn.” She laughs. It’s a gorgeous sound. “What you do is extraordinary. You drivers are literally superhuman. What you do, it’s incredible. It’s a talent as rare as the ones I hope to capture in the future.”
She’s being factual.
This perspective she has of me takes my breath away.
She doesn’t see a man who took a mother from two young kids.
She doesn’t see a kid abandoned by his mother.
She looks at what I do, and she admires it. After how I’ve been treating her.
I can’t bear it a second longer.
I thrust my hand under her calf and drag her towards me. She slides down onto her back and I place my knee between her legs, lowering myself onto her.
She places both hands against my chest, but she isn’t pushing me away.
I pause.
She’s trembling below me. Her breath catches. Her eyes are roving my face, her lips parted.
She is deciding on whether she’s willing to cross that line for me. The one between business and pleasure.
It’s taking everything I have to wait for her to give in to me.
Our breath is mingling between us and with a sigh, she wraps her arms around my neck and pulls herself up to kiss me .
If I was a better man, I wouldn’t ask this of her. I’m a fucking bastard. If I care for her at all, I won’t do this.
If I can just get her out of my system, I can move on.
* * *
CAMILLE
He tastes like fresh water. Sweet and warm. When I bring my lips to his mouth, his are already parted, his tongue pressing up against mine urgently.
My tongue against his is like a sign he’s been waiting for. He lowers his weight on to me, pinning me to the sofa. He’s already hard and pressing up against my thigh.
I can feel the need quiver through him, but he’s slow, thorough. He tangles his fingers into my hair, splaying his fingers over the back of my head and tilts it, deepening the kiss.
He’s kissing me with intention. He knows what he wants and he’s taking it, achingly slowly. Too slowly. His weight on me, his hand in my hair, the tremor running down the hard muscles of his back as I run my hand down his spine.
He’s holding back. Why?
I don’t get to think it over. I edge my palm under his shirt and run my hand over his skin, marveling at the heat. He puts his weight on one elbow, reaches up over his shoulder with his free hand, and tugs his shirt over his head.
I help him pull it free from his head. He looks down at me with black eyes that pierce through me. I can feel my flush crawl over my neck and face.
“Lovely,” he murmurs, dropping his mouth to my neck, and trailing a thin wet streak with the tip of his tongue up to my ear. He plants a kiss behind my ear. Now that I can hear his breathing, I’m squirming. It’s deep and slow and ragged. He’s battling his lust and still in control.
It drives me wild, how obviously he wants me. It makes me feel powerful, beautiful.
I arch up against him, bringing my hands to his shoulders. His right shoulder’s skin is a hard, pitted mess. I drag my fingertips over the bumpy surface, the skin like hard leather, soft to the touch. He pulls back and looks at me.
His eyes dart between my eyes, a frown appearing between his brows.
“I’m sorry.” It bothers him to be touched there for some reason, but when I make to remove my hand he grabs it, presses my palm against the burn scar.
With a sigh, he comes to some kind of conclusion.
There is a slight pause as he resigns himself to it.
I want to know what he’s thinking, but he has no intention of talking. He kisses me again, running a hand down my thigh, hitching up my leg, and switching his weight. He does the same on the other side. He’s positioned right between my legs and pressing up against me through the thin fabric of my leggings. I have both arms wrapped around his neck and he’s kissing me as if I am his very lifeline.
With a swift move, he pushes both hands under my ass and tugs me clean out of my leggings, now bunched up between my knees.
Yes. I shiver at the prospect of having him inside me. He’s urgent now, hitching up my leg to work the fabric over my calf. He’s losing control.
Yes.
I reach between us to undo his jeans, my urgency matching his, the absence of him unbearable. He breaks our kiss, brings his hand to mine immediately, wraps it around my wrists and pulls my hands up above my head. Pins them there.
No. I want to touch him, too. I want to glide my fingers over the hard planes of his stomach and reach for him below and guide him inside me. I squirm, arching up against him.
He groans and returns to removing my leggings. The moment my hands are free, I wrap my fingers around the hem of my sweater to pull it over my head, but again, he stops me.
My bare stomach draws his gaze like a moth to a flame. He aims to place a kiss there, but gives a frustrated groan instead, pulling the hem of my sweater down slowly, covering my tummy.
I’m confused now. Does he not want-
He kisses me like he wants to possess my very soul. He wants me. He just doesn’t want-
With a flourish, he pulls my leggings free of my other leg. I’m naked from the waist down. He doesn’t pause now. He immediately shifts off me and down and lowers his face between my legs.
From below, he wraps his arms around my thighs, his hands gripping my flesh, dipping where his fingers are pressing into my skin.
He’s not fucking around with kisses or teasing licks. He devours me. His mouth is thick and hot as he sucks down gently and his tongue darts out. I get an involuntary tremor in my thighs. He adjusts, does it again, but softer, so it’s pure pleasure, and not so sensitive.
I reach down for him, surprised, and intervening on instinct, but the moment his hot mouth touches me, I stall. I tangle my fingers into his hair, tugging him closer.
The tempo of his tongue increases.
He alternates it with swirling his tongue around my clit and sucking with his tongue pressed flat against me. The soft little sucks drive me wild. I am going to come.
I want him to stop because I want him inside me when I come, but I don’t want him to stop, either.
My fingers in his hair tug him closer still. He can feel it. My thighs pressing against both sides of his face are trembling violently. He digs his fingers deeper into my flesh, presses down harder with his mouth. When men go down on me, there is always a moment right before I come that I want to pull away, because I know that when I start coming, it will be so sensitive, so deliciously sensitive that it hurts, but you need more to ride out your orgasm, to rub out that fucking need. My fingers in his hair tighten. I’m going to come and I will need to push back to just the right pressure to navigate the sensitivity.
He doesn’t let me push him away. He tugs my thighs up and as I come he slows down completely, his mouth hot and deep and slow as wave after wave tumbles over me, my thighs quivering, and he doesn’t stop, he keeps that achingly slow swirl going and going and draws out that last untouchable aching orgasm out of me until I end with a sensitive tremor, and he pulls aways slowly, keeping the warmth of his face there as I can feel myself clench and unclench rhythmically, slowing down, his hot breath on me keeping me in the moment, allowing me to ride it out to full relaxation.
Fuck me.
I love being gone down on. I always have. This, however. He has devoured me thoroughly and all the way up to my own sensitivity and I want it again. He shifts his body and pulls away slowly.
I love this part too. After I come, I’ll be deliciously tight, and when he forces himself in it will tingle all the way up to my throat and I can’t wait to clench around him as I come again.
I reach for him, but he’s pulling away, pressing my thighs together to keep the warmth of his face there.
He’s looking at me with his black eyes and runs the back of his hand across his mouth.
It drives me wild.
I want to kiss him again and taste myself and I want to return the favour. His hands travel slowly towards my knees, pressed together, and he sits up, looking down at me with ravenous regret.
I push up on my elbows.
“I have to go.” He frowns.
“What?”
“I have to leave now .”
He stands up and I can see his dick straining against his jeans, raging for release. He wants me, but he takes a step back, adjusts himself.
“Finn?”
“Camille.” He says it like it’s a wound, a painful thing.
He turns, snatches his shirt off the floor. He pauses to take me in, gives a frustrated grunt and in three big steps he’s at the door and wrenches it open, and when it closes behind him I’m left wondering what the fuck just happened?
***
CAMILL E
I miss the Hungarian race because I’m still in London, on leave. Every minute of every day, I think back to the moment Finn’s warm mouth lowered down on me, the swirl of his tongue, and my heart skips a beat. My skin itches, I’m restless, I can’t sleep, I twist and turn. I dig my fingers into my thighs, and I run my fingertip over my clit, swirl it around, make myself come but it’s quick and harsh and when I’m done, I have that ache of not having finished completely, like there’s a core of pleasure I can’t rub out. It leaves me frustrated, uncomfortable, unsatisfied.
I want to find Finn and drag his face between my legs and make him suck me off like he did, soft and slow and hot and dragging it out so tentatively and so thoroughly that that unsatisfied core of me gets drawn out, smoothed over, pulled free.
I fucking hate him.
He doesn’t answer my messages or my calls. He left the Celestia collar behind. Two days later, the company that delivered it collects it again. Their van is unmarked, their clothes unbranded, and they travel in pairs. I wonder what other items they transport, the values of them.
He should have sent them in the first place.
After days of pure frustration, I want to scream.
I take a day to drive out to see Dixon in the countryside. He welcomes me with enthusiasm, and I join him in a small sunroom off the living room of the farmhouse they’re staying at. His parents join us for a short, friendly chat, and they engage me while Dixon slips away to check on his wife.
Shortly after, he pushes her into the room in a wheelchair. It’s shocking to see how much she has deteriorated. She lost her hair months ago and wears a cheerful bandana over her head. Her eyes are sunken deep into their sockets, her cheeks sharp and hollow. The corners of her mouth are downturned in pain. She reaches a frail hand that Dixon takes firmly, holding it to his chest. I can see her veins through her paper-thin skin. It’s obvious she is the glue holding them together. She soothes them with smiles and lies through her teeth when they ask her how she’s feeling. She won’t last much longer.
They’re pretending that everything is okay. She smiles at me and invites me to dinner.
I decline.
I cannot pretend that everything is fine. I leave shortly after.
Dixon catches up to me as I’m stomping over the gravel towards my car.
“Cam!” I stop and wait for him, but I don’t turn around. Tears are streaming down my face. He touches my shoulder but doesn’t turn me around.
“What do you see?” he asks. His voice is thick.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want to know what you see when you look at her?”
“Why?”
“Because you hear things people don’t say.”
I turn to him then. He’s also crying.
“She’s living for you. She doesn’t fear her own death, but she fears the pain it will cause you.”
With a sob, he rests his head on my shoulder. I wrap my arms around him and hug him tight. Dixon is a large man, quick to anger, faster to forgive. His emotions have always been reserved. To feel his shoulders shake with fear and despair breaks my heart.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“What will I do without her?”
Back at the flat, I’m stewing in my own frustration. I’ve been so caught up in that moment with Finn. I feel selfish and ashamed.
Dixon is trying to say goodbye to a lifetime spent with his wife. Trying to make every banal second count. What was between me and Finn except that moment on the couch, anyway?
Because you hear things people don’t say. That’s what Dixon said today.
The airplane, when he tugged at my hair when I was looking away. And then baited me to anger. When he put me to bed in Monaco, his thumbs skimming my waist when he pulled the dress up and over my head. And then ignored me for weeks. Until he happened to be in the cafe in Vienna. Then he took me dress shopping and let his fingers trail the bridge of my foot, resting on my ankle while he looked up at me with black eyes. Only to bait me again at the ball.
The fucking diamond collar. I frown.
And then last week, here, when he came to fetch it back, and looked at the book.
I lean forward, grab it off the table, page to the last empty shot.
Why does it matter?
He confessed. He confessed he had found his passion for driving again, and it was evident in how he raced. Something was different.
The push and pull between us.
His anguished face when he stopped me from undressing me, from undressing him. His mother’s words a mantra.
You can either have a family or be a race car driver.
Dixon’s wife. How she doesn’t fear death but knows the loss of her will cause her loved one’s pain and grief, the lies she tells to ease their pain.
He lost his nerve when he got into an accident. That’s what everyone thinks.
What if it isn’t that?
I have nothing to offer women.
Nothing except dresses and diamonds and going down on them.
Dixon’s wife tells lies to ease their pain. She is trying to spare them.
Finnegan Brennan is doing the exact same thing.
But he fucks women all the time?
You can either have a family or be a race car driver.
Finnegan Brennan fears causing a loved one pain.
Better to not love anyone at all.