Page 52 of Faster

When they were alone again, he pulled her into the kitchen and put the pizza down on the island. It looked like soapstone. He’d bypassed the table, choosing intimacy. They were silent as he grabbed the plates and poured the wine while she nearly burned the tips of her fingers off serving the pizza.

“Ouch.” She blew on the burns until he grabbed her again and pulled her toward the sink.

This was more leading than he’d ever done with her, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t like it.

If this was what he was like when he was away from the glaring cameras and his father, she couldn’t say it was necessarily a bad thing.

But it was a thing that conflicted with her professional duties.

That kept her from fully enjoying the way he soothed her irritated skin with cold water and then dried her off.

She looked up at him, waiting for him to kiss her and turn this into a romantic date instead of a business meeting over pizza.

He didn’t do that, though. Instead, he smiled at her and said, “It should be cool enough not to burn the roof of your mouth now.”

She was hungrier than she’d realized, but then she’d been too nervous to eat at the airport or on the plane.

Halfway through her second slice, she stopped herself before she got sick.

He had a slice of pizza halfway to his mouth when she asked, point-blank, “What are you going to do? It honestly doesn’t matter to me whether you go back to the team, we just need an answer. ”

He put his food down and raised one brow.

She wouldn’t say it because it would piss him off to know he looked just like Liam when he did that.

“It doesn’t matter to you at all? You were the one making an impassioned case for me to go all in on the team and my career. All of the sudden, you don’t care?”

“Professionally, no.” She was being honest. It would be a headache if he quit midseason, and it would likely reignite the rumors about Micaela and Liam. But that could be handled. “I’ll make it work, no matter what you do. It’s the speculation and uncertainty that’s hurting the team.”

“I’m sorry that I walked out at Monza.” He took a sip of wine. “That had to have been a rough couple of days.”

“Sorry to me or to the team?” She couldn’t help having her personal feelings for him leak through in that question.

There was a long pause of them staring at each other before he said, “Both.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Why does that matter?” Neither of them was eating at this point, and they weren’t answering each other’s questions. Both of them were being stubborn, and she wasn’t going to be the one to falter. She’d felt like she had been faltering since giving in to his charms a few months ago.

He looked away first. “You are as tough as nails, and it makes my cock so happy. You know that?”

“I don’t care about your cock right now.” Untrue. “I care about what you’re going to do with your life.”

“You’ll care about my cock later?” He grinned at her, and she was a goner.

She still rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah. Later. But, right now, I want you to tell me that you’ll finish out the season and play happy families.”

He didn’t seem shocked by her statement. “I knew I could get you to tell me what you wanted me to do.”

“Are you going to do it, or are you going to be an asshole about it?”

“My father is the only asshole. And Micaela’s at least half an asshole.” He picked up his pizza again. “But I’ll do it because you want me to.”

“Not even a little bit for you?” She wanted him to do it if he loved racing, not out of duty to his family or even wanting to please her. She wanted him to be doing this for himself.

Brent’s loft was spacious, but he’d felt the walls closing in on him before Paola had shown up this afternoon. He’d thought about picking up the phone the first three or four times she’d called after he’d stormed off. But then, he’d turned off his phone to avoid the temptation at all.

He’d needed a few days to think on his own.

The things he needed and the things he didn’t became clear to him when racing and Paola were out of reach.

He hadn’t once been tempted to turn on the qualifying sessions or the race.

He hadn’t even checked the results because they didn’t really matter to him.

Somewhere along the way, and he didn’t know where, his love for racing—or what he’d thought was a love for racing—had gone away.

For a while, it had been replaced with his desire to please his father.

And then, with his need to beat Micaela and save face in their little nepo baby war.

But the pure love for it he’d felt on the karting track? That was long gone.

It wasn’t the same way he felt when he thought about Paola. When he knew she was on her way up to his apartment, adrenaline had pumped through his veins. He’d known he had to keep his cool because he had to win her. She was better than any trophy sitting in his father’s overstuffed case, though.

When he was with her, every problem he had seemed manageable because she expected him to manage. He’d known she wanted him to return to the team and at least finish out the season. Because that’s what he’d promised he would do.

“I’ll go back, but I have a condition.”

“And that is?” Paola froze.

“You know,” he said, softly. “But I’m going to spell it out for you.

I’m in love with you, Paola Rodriguez. And I want you to be with me, out in the open.

And I want you to be next to me when I decide whether I can find my love for racing again.

But I don’t know if I will. You might take up all the room in my heart. ”

She sat in front of him, looking stunned. He didn’t think anyone had ever rendered her speechless before. Even if he wasn’t the first man to declare his love for her, he was the first to do that.

“Are you going to respond at all? Or am I going to have to await a press release?” He didn’t know if teasing her was a good idea at the moment.

She looked down, and he was worried she was going to walk out of the apartment and probably file a sexual harassment complaint. If she didn’t return his feelings, he deserved it. But then she looked up at him and smiled. “You don’t have to wait for a press release.”

He stood up and rounded the counter almost before she finished her sentence. Her “I love you” was claimed by his mouth on hers. He pulled her up to standing flush against his body. His hands couldn’t fill themselves with her curves fast enough.

When he pulled away a little for air, she said, “I must smell awful; I’ve been flying.”

He ran his nose up the side of her neck. “You smell perfect. We can shower after I have you.”

She pulled him even closer with her hands on his ass and said, “How could I forget?”

“You said you’d care about him later, and it needs to be later now.” He pushed his fingers through her lush hair, pulling it down from the messy knot he’d been wanting to undo since she walked in the door.

“Shut up before you make me take it back.”

He pulled his fingers across his mouth as though he was closing a zipper and put his mouth to work peppering kisses down her neck instead.

Her stomach growled again, and he wondered for a second whether they should stop so she could finish eating. What he had in mind for them would require a lot of energy. “Do we need to stop so you can fuel up?”

Instead of answering right away, she pulled his shirt over his head and started kissing her way down his chest. “Pizza is better cold anyway.”

Before she could get to his belt, he picked her up using his hands under her thighs. She felt so good against him that he groaned with pleasure. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her to his bed.

“I love the way you think.”

She laughed and whispered in his ear. “I love you .”