Page 43 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

Luca

Everly had been in hair and make-up for what felt like three hours.

She didn’t need anything done. She was already perfect.

Spending those days in the same room with her, seeing her hair in the morning, the beauty of her make-up free skin…

there was nothing that meant she needed to be in there for three hours.

Tonight, I got to share a room with Everly again.

I checked my phone to distract myself from spiralling into dirty thoughts.

No new texts.

Ettore, the PI, was on the tarmac, searching the plane we’d landed on. We were meant to be down in Miami, practising the course. But Ever, Livie and I were here for the photo shoot Nazmin had arranged — and wherever Livie was, Nix was.

We’d taken the Ciclati plane from Miami to Jacksonville, which gave us the perfect opportunity to snoop. But I found myself less and less interested in that and more and more desperate to simply be alone with her.

So, Ettore had come out to check the plane with a detection dog.

With how little we’d found, I was eager to know if it was worth holding out hope.

With no texts though, I put my phone in the locker and decided Nix would be as bored as I was with waiting.

Outside one of the emergency doors, he had his head up, eyes closed, taking in the Florida sun. He was jittery. His face was a mask of calm, but his breathing was the opposite. His hands were deep in his shorts’ pockets.

“You okay?” I asked.

He breathed out deeply, jaw ticking. “Yes.”

“Is Livie?”

Their relationship had gone public in the last week. My socials had been hounded with questions over it, but the main reaction that brought any feeling other than anger out of me was Everly’s — a proud little grin, accompanied by comments on how she’d known all along .

His jaw stiffened but he opened his eyes and lowered his voice. “She needs the distraction, but she’s still wobbly some days. She’s nervous. She…” I walked out further into the warm Florida air, out of the shade. “She’s not going to be with Ciclati next year and neither will I.”

“What?”

No way could they both jump ship like that. Nixon’s life was Ciclati. More so than my cousin’s had ever been. Maybe nearly as much as Everly’s dad.

He gave me a warning glance. “She’ll be at Prixton for a year. I’ll be at MotoBike.”

The photographer popped his head out of the door. “Just checked on the girls. Won’t be long now.”

I nodded and, thankfully, he dismissed himself.

“A different championship ?” I asked.

If both Livie and Nix were leaving… that would change everything—the whole team. Who would the fans have to cheer on if we both left?

“It’s really complicated,” he sighed as we headed back inside, hovering by the door, looking out at the set-up of the shoot. One of the Ciclati motorbikes was up in a boxing ring, a punching bag hanging in the centre. “It’s the only way it would all work out.”

When my brows furrowed in question, he turned and gave me his full focus for the first time. “For her, I will be anything. I will do anything. Everything’s complicated—I’m pulled in too many directions, and I can’t bring her with me to most of them. And still, all I want is to be enough for her.”

I didn’t quite understand what he meant.

They’d be working in two different championships. That didn’t sound like taking her with him.

But before I could question my friend, there was movement coming out of hair and make-up. Four burly men flagged our two ladies and one of the studio workers.

Nix had hired security for Livie — no one else could find men that tall, that wide, with smiles that looked like they could kill.

“Do you not think four security guards are maybe a bit OTT?”

Nix’s glare was lethal as he slowly turned to me. “No, I do not.”

When they turned the corner, I could finally see my girl. They’d performed some kind of magic on her hair, where it was a mess of curls — thick, silky, stupidly tempting. My shackled hands would glide so easily through the strands because I was ready to be enslaved by her.

But she was blatantly going against what I’d told her earlier in the week.

Because she was wearing a dark green leather jacket with the same lacy black bra she’d tormented me with. And nothing between them.

To top it all, the silhouette of her luscious thighs was laid bare for all to see in her leather-look leggings.

She was delicious.

And I’d been denied a taste for far too long.

She was giggling away with Livie and one of the male on-set team members and I had to be sure I wouldn’t put on one of the glove props and batter him with it.

He wasn’t the one who made her cheeks flush and her breaths harsh as she shattered. But I still hated that he got her laugh so easily.

I caught her hips in my hands when she came to me, waiting at the ring for her. “What’s this?” I asked and lifted the leather jacket to reveal a bit of the skin she’d tried to hypnotise me with.

She shrugged, pursing her lips, trying to act serious. “An outfit.”

“It’s lingerie, Everly.”

“Good thing you’ve got a hot girlfriend then, isn’t it?”

Livie sat with the producer and I breathed in deeply. Somehow, the documentary series had also followed us here.

She stepped closer to me, taking all of my attention.

“I’m pretty sure I covered you up,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

“You want to keep me to yourself?” she asked innocently, eyes widening. “I think I’ll wear what I want. If anyone acts up… It’s a good thing you know how to fight.”

“As do you now.”

She shrugged. “I’ll remind you, Mendes, you said you wouldn’t want your girlfriend dressed like this,” she said and leaned into my ear to whisper, “I’m not actually your girlfriend.”

That shouldn’t have hurt.

But she was right. She couldn’t be when I was keeping secrets from her.

I jerked back, hands slipping from her waist, but with the reflexes of a damn panther, she held them back in place. “Smile, sweetums.”

“Keep that energy for the camera!” one of the team members said and she nodded before slinking away to climb up into the ring.

I followed her like the puppy dog I was.

We started with some shots of me on the bike, Everly leaning over, showing her cleavage and grinning. She was sex. Wasn’t sex appeal. She was pure, unadulterated sex.

And I got to call her mine. Only in public, but it was enough for me for now.

“Everly, if you want to get onto the bike too,” the photographer said, snapping the camera.

She lifted her leg to get behind me, but he shook his head. “Nah, like on his lap.”

Fuck.

She looked at it doubtfully.

I wobbled from side to side, the bike remaining rigid beneath me. “It’s stable. It can take the two of us. It can take some action.”

She gave it a little shove, me still on it, and nodded before climbing on board.

“Okay, and go for a kiss now,” he said.

She looked up at me and her deep, hazel eyes had me some sort of way, like after the fight.

I leaned down and her lips pressed to mine, the slightest touch, hardly a breath.

“Press further into each other,” he said.

“Guess you wish you could press further in, ” she whispered against my mouth.

I grabbed around her ribs and shuffled her closer. “Always. That’s the problem.”

“Because I wouldn’t let you?”

“Because I told you.”

She frowned and placed an arm on my shoulder. “What?”

“Everly, are you okay to take the jacket off?”

She stilled and her eyes widened, looking at mine, as if asking for help.

“My skin,” she whispered.

“Is part of you,” I reminded her. “And every part of you is beautiful.”

She breathed in deeply.

“Everly?” the photographer called.

Our eyes remained locked.

“But you don’t have to do a thing you don’t want to. Keep the jacket on or take it off.”

Not looking away, she slid her arms out from the jacket, shook off her jitters and wrapped her arms around my neck again. “What did you mean?” she asked. “The problem?”

Each word was firm like she was concentrating on every sound.

“That night I told you I wanted to fuck you and I didn’t want you to change your mind… I didn’t want to persuade you to do something I knew you didn’t want to. I couldn’t help myself.”

She pressed further again and bit my lip, pulling it taught as her hands travelled up my bare chest.

“Yes!” cried the photographer. “That’s perfect.”

We paused for him to get the shot.

And my mind spiralled. I knew I shouldn’t have said it. She probably thought I was a manipulative piece of shit when it had escaped my lips and—

“That’s okay,” she said to me. “I wouldn’t do anything I wouldn’t want to. It’s actually incredibly hot. I love how much you want to fuck me. It really gets me off.”

Oh, thank fuck.

But the thought of her getting off on my words alone…

Blood was rushing to my cock, so quickly, I might faint.

“Does it?” I asked and traced her collarbone with the tip of my finger. “And if I told you I wanted to taste you?”

Her weight rested on me as she stilled. I pulled her closer by the small of her back and she leaned her head back, neck bare and far too tempting.

The most natural thing to do, of course, was to reach forward and kiss down her throat. Her breath hitched and my cock grew painful underneath her.

She might act like I didn’t affect her, but I knew I did. There was no way this lust was one-sided. It was too strong.

“Wait, hold it there,” the photographer called. “We need more lighting…”

The team around us scrambled but I used the pause to my full advantage, dragging my tongue down her skin. “I’ll get a taste either way,” I warned her. “If I’ve got to do it in public, I can, you little exhibitionist.”

“Great,” the photographer said. “Do that again and then maybe we’ll get out the punching bag?”

I kissed along her neck, slowly, lips gliding down the pillar of her throat and finishing in the crook of her neck where she jerked in my grip.

“What was the answer, Everly? If I said I wanted to taste you?”

She sat up and said, louder than the rest of our hushed conversation, “I’d tell you it made me wet.”

My breath hitched but I recovered with the proudest smirk.

“But if you want to play that game, I can too,” she said and turned to Livie and the photographer. “Do I have to keep this on?” she asked and released the strap of her bra with a thwack.

The photographer quickly said no, but Livie frowned. “We haven’t coordinated for actual nudity,” she said.

“I’m fine with it,” she called, and between our close bodies, she ran her finger under the waistband of my leather riding trousers.

Livie went to retort but she was already reaching back to undo her bra.

“We approve any photos that get used,” Livie demanded. “And any nudity gets deleted if they are not approved.” There was the click click click of her typing on her iPad. “Sign it.”

The photographer spoke but I was paying them no attention as Everly ground against me, trying to get the clasp undone.

“Here, let me,” I said and reached around to undo it with one hand.

Her face showed alarm as she pressed her chest into mine before pulling the lace free from between us and finally letting me feel those hard nipples against my skin.

My cock fought against the leather, desperate to get to her.

“That’s not the flex you think it is,” she said, dashing all of my hopes and dreams at impressing her. “Just tells me you’ve been with lots of women.”

“Yet there’s only one bra I want to take off,” I said as Livie and the photographer bickered about Everly’s abrupt decision. “One you’re desperate for me to take off too.”

She scoffed but wrapped her arms around my neck, shuffling forward along my dick. Damn. Her.

“We need to get my dad angry,” she lied. “That’s all.”

“That’s all,” I chuckled. “Of course. What you really wanted was to get me hard. You’ve succeeded.”

“Do you need help?” she asked and rocked against me again, tormenting my crying cock. She licked her lip pointedly. “I’ve got a very talented tongue, apparently.”

“It’s not talented at everything,” I told her and her little angry frown was too cute. “It’s awful at telling lies.”

She smiled but blushed, looking down at her chest bulging against mine.

“There’s no other reason you wanted to take off your bra and have your perfect tits against me?”

“I like the attention,” she said, whipping her hair back, chest against chest.

“You like my attention.”

“Not wrong,” she said.

“And you think by getting me all hard, you’ll win,” I guessed. “But you haven’t seen anything yet.”

She rolled her eyes, disbelieving.

“My mouth is also talented.”

“Sure.”

I leaned forward, brushed her hair from her ear and whispered, “I’m the desperate one.

Desperate to lick, suck and bite on that sensitive little clit of yours.

To be inside of you any way I can. My fingers, my tongue, my fucking cock.

But more than anything, I want to see my cock glistening with your cum as it slips so slightly into your cunt. An inch at a time.”

I pulled her hips back so she sat on the head of my hard-as-shit cock, following her with my chest so her peaked nipples weren’t visible. I hauled her forward an inch. “One at a time.”

Another jolt forward. “So you get used to my size.”

Another. “Until you beg for more.”

Another. “Until you moan and whine and thrash for every inch of me, Everly.”

She whimpered in my arms as I hoisted her body right back into mine.

“And you will, won’t you?”

Her breaths were laboured against my chest and the flashes started up again. “Won’t you?”

A high-pitched inhale was the only answer.

“Thought so.”

“Lean back, Everly,” the photographer said. “Like earlier. Shuffle back. Luca, catch her. I want to get the hair flip.”

I looked over warily. He didn’t mean to pull her chest from mine?

She held on tighter to me, not doing as he’d said. “Er…”

“I didn’t get the movement last time,” he pressed.

“She wasn’t topless last time,” Livie snapped and stormed forward, grabbing the leather jacket Everly had dropped before.

I held her close as I threaded her arms through the sleeves.

Livie stood between the camera and us, covering my girlfriend’s body as I zipped her up.

“Press against me all you like, but while we pretend to do this, the public do not get to see your perfect, erect nipples, Everly. Not some sleazy photographer either.”

She nodded and lifted herself off the bike before running to the changing rooms. She folded her arms over her chest even though she was now covered.

“Her dad is going to lose his shit,” Livie sighed as Nix came round the corner, mouth full with the baguette he carried in his mouth, having missed all of the photo shoot.

“They’ve got pickled onion, Livid? Want one?”