Page 42 of Red Flag
“You touching yourself?” he asked, his voice full of grit. When I didn’t respond, he pressed, “Don’t lie.”
“Through my knickers,” I sighed, closing my eyes, picturing my fingers as his.
“Why?” he grunted. “Take them off.”
“I want you to touch me,” my drunken mouth admitted. “I don’t want it to be me.”
“Fuck,” he muttered and the swear in his voice made my fingers work harder. Just taking the edge off the relief I needed. “Fuck, I want that too. What I want to do to you, Livid… I wish I was in England. I’d take those panties off.”
I wanted him to. I wanted him so badly.
I stopped.
I wanted himtoo badly.
Shit.
“I’m really drunk,” I confessed. Not exactly a lie. “You are too, right?”
There was silence on his side of the phone. Then, “Yeah.”
“We shouldn’t— I’m just a horny drunk. It’s been an emotional week.”
“Right, yeah,” he agreed, voice muffled. “It’s late here. I’ll talk to you when you’re back tomorrow.”
“Night, Armas.”
“Night, Olivia.”
Chapter 11
The thirteen-hour journey from Heathrow to Doha, then Doha to Indira Gandhi Airport, then to the hotel, went by excruciatingly slowly when all I could do was hang my head in shame at the night before.
Even whenLucapicked me up from the airport, I couldn’t help but cringe when he brought up his teammate. I dismissed myself and slept deeply until my alarm went off.
It was the only reprieve from thinking about Nix.
I busied myself with work, going through the emails Adam had sent me. I downloaded them all to my laptop before putting them into the pre-prepared files for every article about him so they easily correlated.
They’d reactivated my account but were unable to retrieve my sent emails, just those that had been directly replied to, which wasn’t much when it came to my pleas for the papers to stop.
Then, I worked on a few brand deals Clara had been sent since the release of her relationship with Nix. She had yet to hire anyone to help her socials, and seeing as I had recently taken over managing the grid girls too, it didn’t hurt to elevate her this way.
Except they wanted to video call her during the start ofSunday’s race.
And they were being difficult about rearranging.
Then there was Nix’s charity, the different dirt bike courses he’d planned across the world, and finalising the last few commitments before announcing to the public a softer side of him. It was hardnotto think about Nix when thinking about Nix was my job.
But my mind wandered to more than just his public image.
What was he doing just down the hall? What would happen if I knocked? Asked for that booty call he’d mentioned?
The riders didn’t have their trailers this far East, so they were lumped into the same hotel as us. Which meant we all had quite the upgrade. But his room would undoubtedly be better than mine. What if I just went to see…
Not getting very far with the emails Adam had sent over, I headed down to get some of the tension out of my body with a gym session withLucaand his PT. It helped me feebly release the anger at my whole situation, and I rewarded myself by going to the spa to de-stress in the sauna.
I loved the rough, dry air in a sauna. I loved the sweat and the way I felt rejuvenated after. I could sweat out the remaining negativity from the last week and relax, watching every grain of sand in the timer and not think of anything.
