Page 10 of Downforce

I reach my motor home in the Paddock a few moments later. Unless someone is dying, my motor home is off-limits during the Grand Prix race weekend pandemonium. It’s my sanctuary, my place to reset. The Equis team know this.

Weak,the insidious voice sneers.Gutless. Chicken.

Fists bunched, I stop at the bottom step, bend over and, hands planted on my knees, scream at the ground.

It helps. I think.

No, it doesn’t.It’s my voice in my head this time. My thoughts.Going back to the meeting, looking Charlotte in the eyes, telling her what you’re feeling—that is what you need to?—

Someone grabs my upper arm and yanks me around to face them, and all the heat vanishes from the world.

Charlotte glares at me, rage and indignation and confusion warring on her beautiful face. “What thefuckis your problem, Laurant?”

I stare at her. Devour the serious lines of her eyebrows, the perfection of her wide eyes, the upturned tilt of her nose, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks. How can it be? To feel so much for someone I barely know?

“Well?” she snarls, releasing my arm and taking a step back, crossing her arms over her breasts. “What’s the excuse? Too full of yourself to acknowledge when someone knows something you?—”

“I’m not worthy of you,” I state.

She blinks. Frowns. Opens her mouth and closes it again. Her frown deepens, and my heart aches. I want to kiss it away.

“What?” She shakes her head, taking another step back. “What?”

“I mistreated when you joined Equis,” I say, a heavy thickness in my throat. “I disrespected you. I ignored you.”

“Yes.” She narrows her eyes at me. “You did. Thanks for that, by the way.”

The sharpness in her reply cuts, and I drag my hands through my hair, puffing out a choppy breath. I’m failing at this. At what I’m trying to say. There’s an ache in my chest. No, in myheart. “I’m not worthy of you, Charlotte,” I repeat. “You are incredible.”

Her lips part, and her frown disappears, replaced with an emotion I wish I could understand. But how can I? Thanks to my father, I’ve spent my life concerned only with myself, un…unopened? Is that the word? No, closed off to everyone else. Protecting myself even as I grew more isolated from connection.

Her frown returns, and she shakes her head again. “I don’t… What are you saying?”

Another sigh escapes me. English isn’t my first language, and I’m struggling to articulate what I want to say. “The second I saw you, Charlotte, punching into the bag with my face on it, things…shifted.”

She opens her mouth, but I hold up my finger. “I wanted you,” I continue. “On a physical level. More than I’ve ever wanted anyone. Or anything. I thought it was just lust, until I listened to you,reallylistened to you, in the meeting, and I saw everything you are. You’re not just an object to lust after. You’re smart and passionate and committed.” I swallow, my mouth dry. “Everything I am not.”

Her forehead furrows, and she takes a step toward me. “Anton…”

“I realised,” I say, “listening to you in the meeting, that I am everything my father said I was—a failure who got lucky.” My shoulders slump, and here I am, at the crux of my anguish. “I don’t deserve to be in the same space as you.”

Her frown deepens. “Anton…” she repeats, her voice a husky whisper. “What the hell am I meant to do with that?”

I shrug, even though what I want to say is,please, give me a chance.

“Perhaps,” she says, closing the distance between us again, her gaze holding my motionless, “I could do this?”

Her fingertips trace up my jaw, over my temples, and as I suck in a sharp breath, she draws my head down to hers.

“If it’s okay with you?” she whispers, her lips brushing mine.

For an answer, I slide my hands around her waist, pull her to my body and kiss her.

She moans into my mouth, the sound igniting an urgency in me I’ve never experienced before. Tearing my lips from hers, I gaze down into her eyes. “Come inside with me, chérie,” I say.

Lips curling, she lets out a lowhmmand tightens her fists in my hand. “So we can talk racing tactics?”

My cock throbs and I press my forehead to hers, my own lips stretching into a smile I know is part filthy, part elated. “So I can make you come over and over and over.”

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