Driven

He sips from his Dixie cup. “My parents needed a way to channel my teenage rebellion,” he shrugs. “They figured why not give me all the safety equipment to go along with it instead of racing down the street and killing myself or someone else. Lucky for me, they had the means to follow through with it.”

“So you started as a teenager?”

“At eighteen,” he laughs, remembering back.

“What’s so funny?”

“I got a ticket for reckless driving. I was speeding … out of control really … racing some preppy punk.” He glances over at me to see if I have any reaction. I just look at him and raise my eyebrows for him to continue. “I was spared being hauled off to juvie because of my dad’s name. Man, was he pissed. The next day he thought he’d teach me a lesson. Dropped me off at the track with one of the stunt drivers he knew. Thought he’d have the guy drive me around the track at mach ten and scare the shit out of me.”

“Obviously it didn’t work,” I say dryly.

“No. He scared me some, but afterward I asked him if he could show me some of the stunt moves.” He shrugs, a half smirk on his lips as he looks out toward the water. “He finally agreed, let me drive his car around the track a couple of times. For some reason one of his friends had come with him to the track that day. The guy’s name was Beckett. He worked for a local race crew who’d just lost their driver. He asked if I’d ever thought about racing. I laughed at him. First of all, he was my age so how could he be part of a race team, and secondly, how could he watch me take a couple of laps and know that I could drive? When I asked, he said he thought I could handle a car pretty well, and would I like to come back the next day and talk to him some more.”

“Talk about being at the right place at the right moment.” I murmur, happy to learn something about him that I couldn’t read about by looking on the Internet.

“You’re telling me,” he shakes his head. “So I met up with him. Tried out the car on the track, did pretty well and got along with the guys. They asked me to drive the next race. I was decent at it so I kept doing it. Got noticed. Stayed out of trouble,” he grins a mischievous grin at me, raising his eyebrows, “for the most part.”

“And after all this time, you still enjoy it?”

“I’m good at it,” he says.

“That’s not what I asked.”

He chews his food, carefully mulling over my question. “Yes, I suppose so. There’s no other feeling like it. I’m part of a team, and yet it’s just me out there. I have no one to depend on, to blame, but myself if something goes wrong.” I can sense the passion in his voice. The reverence he still has for his sport. “On the track, I can escape the paparazzi, the groupies … my demons. The only fear I have is that which I’ve created for myself, that I can control with a swerve of the wheel or a press of the pedal … not any inflicted on me by someone else.”

The startled look on his face tells me that he has given me more than he expected in an answer. That he’s surprised by his unanticipated honesty with me. I brush his unease of feeling vulnerable over by propping my arms out behind me and raising my face to the sky. “It’s so beautiful here.” I say breathing in the fresh air and digging my toes in the cool sand.

“More wine?” he asks as he shifts to sit closer beside me. The brush of his bare arm against mine leaves my senses humming.

I murmur in assent as warning bells go off in my head. I know that I need to create some distance from him, but he’s just too damn attractive. Irresistible. Nothing like I expected and yet everything I anticipated. I know that I need to clear my head for he is clouding my sensibility.

“So is this what you imagined, Ace, when you spent all that money for a date with me?” I turn my head and come face to face with him; hair mussed, lips full, eyes blazing. I hold my breath, frozen in the moment for all it would take is for me to lean in to feel his lips on mine again. To taste his carnal hunger as I did earlier on the porch.

He flashes a grin at me. “Not exactly,” he admits, but I can sense our proximity is affecting him too for I can see the pulse in his throat accelerate. His Adam’s apple bobs with a swallow. I bring my eyes back up to his, unspoken words flowing between us. “You really have the most unusually magnificent eyes,” he tells me, his words a breath of a whisper.

It’s not as if I haven’t heard this before with my unique, violet-colored eyes, but for some reason, hearing it from him has desire spiraling through me. Warning bells clang again in my head.

“Rylee?”

I raise my eyes to meet his, trepidation in my heart. “I’m only going to ask this one time. Do you have a boyfriend?” The gravity in his tone as well as the question itself takes me off guard. I didn’t expect this for I think he’d already know the answer after the backstage ministrations from the other night. I think more surprising than the question itself is the way he asks it. The demanding tone.

I shake my head no, swallowing loudly.

“No one you are seeing casually?”

“You just asked twice,” I joke, trying to shake the nerves skittering up my spine. When he doesn’t smile but rather holds my stare in question, I shake my head again, “No, why?” I respond breathlessly.

“Because I want to know who’s standing in my way …” he tilts his head and stares at me as my lips part fractionally in response for my mouth is suddenly very dry. “… Whose ass I have to kick before I can make it official.”