Page 3 of Faster

Chapter Two

Cece took a drink and acknowledged that she was playing with fire.

She never let herself be this close to Luca.

He’d caught her eye first out of the two friends, but there was always something a little unknowable about him.

There was too much mischief in his gaze to get any real grounding.

She realized now that it wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted her—he just hadn’t known whether or not he deserved her.

Ethan, on the other hand, hadn’t left her guessing for a minute.

She knew he wanted her because he’d relentlessly pursued her.

It took her so long to get it—that he hadn’t really wanted her for the woman she was.

He’d wanted a pretty trophy he could show off and a way to humanize himself in the press.

If his wife wasn’t one of the model/influencer/socialites that most of the other drivers dated, it would mean he was really genuine and down to earth.

Yeah, a genuine asshole she currently wanted to put six feet under.

Well, she had certainly learned her lesson about listening to popular dating advice. Sure, men loved the chase, but they still cheated when they caught you.

She hadn’t been consciously thinking about seducing Luca when she’d walked the two blocks from the condo she shared with Ethan to Luca’s building. Just that she’d needed someplace to be for a while. But she wondered if she’d subconsciously been planning some sort of revenge seduction.

She shook her head. “Too strong?” he asked. Why did he have to be so considerate when she wasn’t sure if she was being an asshole by thinking about cheating on her husband with their former best friend?

“Just right,” she said, trying another smile. It didn’t work because Luca lifted his hand as though he wanted to reach out and touch her.

But then he stopped himself. Cleared his throat. Pointed the remote at his screen and asked, “This okay?”

“Yes, I need to see some beautiful, yet evil, people die.”

Luca nodded and turned on a French action movie that she would have to carefully read subtitles for. Even after years of living in Monte Carlo, she wouldn’t say that her French was particularly good. She might have been a bit less isolated if she was fluent.

But part of her knew it wouldn’t help. The very nature of her life was isolating.

She was married to one of the most famous men in the world.

It hadn’t always been that way, and it hadn’t been what she’d intended.

Before Netflix had done a documentary show that heavily featured Ethan and Luca, they could have walked down the street in most cities without being bothered by their fans.

Now, that would be impossible.

She turned to Luca, his face lit by the dim lights put off by the television. They flashed across his features. She wondered if the attention was what had broken him. He’d been so self-assured before—sure that he’d be a world champion.

“Do you regret it?” She shouldn’t be waking the dead like this. He’d opened his home to her, fed her. He was coddling her like the child he had never gotten to be. She shouldn’t be hunting for the ghosts of their shared past.

“I never regret anything. It’s a bad habit.” She could tell he was lying by the look in his dark-brown eyes.

She was most definitely going to regret the next thing she did for a long time.

She knew it before she moved her face even closer to his.

Before he cocked his head so their mouths would slot together.

She regretted it as his Roman nose brushed against her face.

She regretted it as soon as their mouths touched, and she kissed Luca Bendetto for the very first time.

He ruined her in that instant. Embers had been burning underneath her skin since she’d walked in, but they raged beyond control the instant he touched her.

She was afraid to touch him anywhere but his mouth—she held her hands just above his shoulder, feeling his heat—but he didn’t share that hesitation.

He turned his whole body and pulled her onto his lap, so she was straddling him.

He held her close to him as though he was afraid she’d get away.

His fingertips made deep impressions against her upper arms.

His hardness felt huge between her legs, and she was pretty sure he could feel how damp she was through all the layers of clothes. He grunted as she settled against him, sending a shiver down her spine.

That made him pull back and open his eyes. It took her a second to catch on that he had pulled back. God, she’d kissed him. He had just reacted, and now all of this would be over. It would be so awkward if they ever saw each other again.

Her eyelids fluttered closed. “Are you sure you want this?” he asked.

She wasn’t sure she wanted this, but she was damned certain she needed it.

She needed to feel like she was wanted somewhere in the world.

It was unforgivably weak of her to go searching for that feeling with him.

She was just as selfish as Ethan for coming to Luca to fill the gaping hole that her husband had left.

It was just triage for the wound that would take a lot longer to heal.

And she would definitely hurt Luca in the process. They couldn’t keep each other—not permanently. They only had tonight.

“I need you, Luca.” She owed him the truth, at the very least. “I need you tonight, but we can’t—”

He made a hushing sound and rubbed his giant hand up and down her back. “I know. Just tonight.”

She wanted to look at him sitting underneath her for hours and days. With his hair ruffled and his lips swollen and red, he looked like her very own Lucifer fantasy come to life. But they only had tonight, so she held his face in her hands and kissed him again.

He crushed her body to his, as though he wanted them to meld into one. All the drivers talked about being one with the car during a race, especially when they had a really good car. Cece had never understood what they meant. Not until Luca held her like that.

It was like he knew exactly how to kiss her, like she was made for him.

He knew exactly how much pressure to use with his hands as he smoothed them down her waist and pulled her hips even closer, so close she moaned into his mouth.

She felt high and almost dizzy, like all her blood was pooled at the center of her.

She’d never come from dry humping. Not even close.

Not even in high school, when she hadn’t wanted to swap fluids with any of the boys in her neighborhood.

But she was so close now with her thighs pressed to the outside of his splayed legs. It was indecent and delicious.

He snaked his hands under her sweatshirt and found her nipples. She squirmed against him as he stroked her. He took his mouth away from hers and trailed kisses down her jaw. “Need this off, Cece.”

He said her name as though he was supposed to be here with her, like he’d been born to whisper her name like a prayer. She’d wanted to kiss him for so long, and she would never let herself. Because, unlike Ethan, she was loyal. Until now.

Tears sprang up, and she tried to suppress them, but she wanted to feel all of it, everything with him.

She raised her arms, and he pulled off her top, immediately latching on to one of her nipples.

She wrapped her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer.

He was like silk—his mouth, his hair. The only thing rough about him was his calloused fingertips as he teased her other nipple and secured her to him with his hand on her back. She was shaking with need.

His chuckle was dark as he let go of her nipple with a lurid pop. “You’re not cold, are you?”

Cece shook her head, and he pulled her hair down, so it spilled over her shoulders. “Overheated. We might need to cool down the engine.”

That hadn’t sounded cheesy when she’d said it in her head.

“You want to slow down?” His brow creased with concern.

She guessed it was the first time he’d needed to say that in any context.

Who could slow down when it came to Luca?

He was a sweet she wanted to consume in one bite—a shot of high-proof alcohol that went straight into her system and made her dizzy.

“Never.” She leaned down and kissed him again, grinding against him, trying to be as close as possible. The less space there was between them, the fewer crevices for thoughts to creep in.

He was almost hesitant when he pulled on the waistband of her sweats, but she raised her hips and broke their kiss, standing to shimmy out of them.

She made sure that she was staring right at him, all the lust she felt beaming at him, so he would know that he wasn’t just a convenient body for her to work out her anger at her husband on.

She was here with him because it was almost inevitable that they would get here.

From the moment they’d met, she’d wanted him. She’d put that want in the back of her mind, just below her conscious thoughts for so long that she’d fooled herself into believing it wasn’t there anymore. But it had just been buried and not as deeply as she’d thought.

His hands against the skin on her hips were electric.

She couldn’t get enough of him. She pushed his shirt halfway up, and he stopped playing with the sides of her panties long enough to rip the lace seams and pull them off with one hand.

His movements were efficient, and his lean torso was so corded that he almost seemed more dangerous with fewer clothes on.

Cece pulled herself away from him long enough to pull off his sweats. He wasn’t wearing any underwear, so his cock sprang out. He was all angles and hard planes, except for this. She licked her lips, torn between going to her knees and putting him inside her right now.