Page 15 of Kiss & Collide (Racing Hearts #2)

V iolet cast a look around the half-empty Pinnacle post-race party, wondering how much longer she was professionally obligated to stick around.

Everyone else had scoped out the new Pinnacle at Spielberg.

Tonight was pretty much just Pinnacle staff and a few corporate sponsors who didn’t have better invites.

The team’s dismal nineteenth- and twentieth-place finishes today hadn’t helped the vibes. Chase had been doing relatively well for the first half. But he’d had a disastrous pit stop and slid right back down the ranking.

Across the room, Reece was holding a loud conversation with Oscar Davies, the two of them in some competition to out-asshole each other.

Oscar was more flushed and sweaty than usual, a sure sign he was drunk, and Reece was doing that squinty-eyed thing he did whenever he’d been snorting coke in the bathroom.

Poor Imogen hovered behind Reece, visibly flinching every time his voice rang out through the room.

Violet caught her eye and gave her an encouraging thumbs-up. Imogen waved back sadly.

“Hi.”

She turned to face Chase. “Sorry about today. What happened out there?”

He winced and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fucking Oscar,” he groaned, spearing his fingers through his hair and fisting them. It took effort not to get distracted imagining her own fingers running through that silky black hair.

“What’d he do this time?”

He cast a quick glance around to make sure no one could overhear, then took a step closer, lowering his voice. “He decided to change up the tire organization when we got here, with no warning.”

“Yikes.” Pit crews drilled pit stops relentlessly. There was no time to wonder where something was. They had to know it in their bones so they could work on instinct. Changing things around at the last minute was a recipe for disaster.

“Yeah.” Chase sighed. “When I came in for my pit stop, I ended up with three hard tires and one medium, because one guy messed up and went to the old rack location. It was like wrestling a whale. I can’t even blame him.

This is all on Oscar. I went into that stop in fourteenth and I finished the race in nineteenth. ”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, fuck. You were right, Violet. The biggest thing holding this team back is that guy.” He glared at Oscar across the room, still grandstanding with Reece.

“I’m working on it.”

He cracked a grin. “Then he doesn’t stand a chance, does he?” He ran a hand across the back of his neck. “So I’m … uh, heading back to the hotel.” He hiked one of his ridiculous eyebrows meaningfully. That was all it took for her body to start lighting up in anticipation.

Violet made a show of checking her phone. “Maybe I’ll catch a ride with you.” She shrugged. “You know, since there’s a car for you and we’re staying in the same hotel.”

Chase shrugged playfully. “Well, that makes total professional sense. Maybe we can even get a jump on that media training on the ride back.”

“I’ll meet you out front in ten.”

When she made her way outside, a black sedan was idling at the curb with the back door open.

Chase was already waiting inside, suit jacket off, tie long gone, and his dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

His long legs splayed out as he lounged back on the leather seat.

Her pulse accelerated just at the sight of him.

God, she wanted to climb on him and do filthy things.

“Okay, so media training,” she began as she joined him in the car.

He blinked. “I was joking. You really want to do media training now?”

“Well, I wasn’t. Let’s go.”

He sighed. “What do I need to know?”

“The most important thing is to develop your talking points and keep them in mind. I’ll help you with that in advance.”

“Talking points?”

“What you should talk about with press.”

“Oh.” He visibly relaxed. “I just want to talk about driving.”

“Yes, I know that. And we’ll practice what to say about the team and the car. But if I do my job right, they’ll also want to know about you . You need to be ready for the unexpected personal questions.”

“Like what?”

Violet shifted to face him on the seat and crossed her legs, tracking his gaze as it traced up her legs to the hem of her dress. “Are you seeing anyone, Chase?”

His voice dropped to a low rumble. “You know I’m not—”

She sighed. “No, I’m a reporter right now. Are you seeing anyone?”

“Ah, right.” He took a beat to rearrange his expression and sat up a little straighter. “Haven’t met the right girl yet, I guess.”

“No need to lay it on too thick.”

“No, I’m not seeing anyone right now. My time is pretty committed to the sport.”

“Better.”

“However, I am sleeping with this hot chick on the side.” His hand landed on her bare knee.

Her lips twitched as she tried to suppress a smile. “That’s exactly the sort of thing you don’t mention to the media.”

His hand slid up the inside of her thigh. “Really? You mean I shouldn’t talk about the sound you make when you—”

She reached out and slapped her hand over his mouth, tipping her head to indicate the driver.

He nodded, then licked her palm. This time she couldn’t hold back a muffled burst of laughter.

“Because I’m sure reporters get bored hearing all about race strategy,” he continued conversationally.

“They’d probably be much more interested in hearing me talk about …

something more personal.” His fingers reached the apex of her thighs and brushed against her.

This time she slapped a hand over her own mouth to keep from moaning.

Her eyes met his.

He slid her thong to the side in a movement he was becoming quite adept at, and slipped two fingers through her wet slickness. His mouth dropped open, and his eyelids drooped.

“The press is always going to want to catch you out saying something outrageous.” Her voice was a little strangled. “That’s their job. But yours is to keep your head on straight and keep on message, no matter what happens.”

He slid two fingers inside her and hooked them forward. Her eyes fluttered closed and she rocked against his hand. He was so fucking good at this.

“I’d imagine that’s hard,” he murmured. “Staying on message when someone’s really trying to distract you.”

“You have no idea.” This time her words were definitely a little breathy. His thumb brushed across her clit and her whole body shuddered. Motherfucker. If he made her come right now, in the back of this car …

Just as suddenly, he pulled his hand away from her. “Looks like we’re here,” he said, looking out the window.

She exhaled hard. When she climbed out of the car, she wasn’t entirely sure her legs would support her.

“Maybe we should head inside so we can finish this … interview,” he murmured once he’d crossed around the car and joined her.

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Her whole body was throbbing with need as she pushed through the revolving glass doors. When she got him upstairs to his room, she was going to shove him down on the bed, climb on top of him, and—

“Sunshine?”

It was like a bucket of ice-cold water washing over her. The sound of that voice, and that nickname—after all this time.

She had to be imagining it … but when she spun around to look, there he was, unfolding his long, angular body from one of the leather club chairs in the lobby.

“Ian.” His name left her on an exhale. “What are you doing here?”

What was he doing here? In Buckingham? In her hotel? In her world ?

He crossed the lobby toward her in that long-legged, rangy stride of his.

He still had the same square jaw and full, sculptural lips, and smudged black eyeliner that made his icy-blue eyes look even paler.

But there were changes since she’d last seen him.

His hair was longer, nearly to his shoulders, and the light ash brown was streaked with blond now.

He was wearing a pin-striped blazer without a shirt, and she noticed a new tattoo on his left pec.

“Astrid said you were staying here,” he said, a lazy smile tugging at his mouth.

“Astrid? How did Astrid know? Astrid hates me.”

He shrugged, with all that sensual ease she remembered. “She doesn’t hate you. She found you … challenging. And she follows you on Insta. You posted a selfie from here.”

Violet closed her eyes and shook her head. “What the fuck. I don’t care if Astrid follows me on Insta. What are you doing here, Ian? ”

“Violet?” Chase asked quietly behind her. “Is everything okay?”

She felt a bubble of hysterical laughter threatening to burst out and fought it back. Okay? The one and only guy she’d ever loved, the one and only guy who’d ever broken her heart had tracked her down at her hotel.

No, she wasn’t okay.

But he was here, and now she had no choice but to deal with him.

“I’m fine,” she said over her shoulder to Chase, her tone dismissive. “Thanks for the ride back.”

CHASE WATCHED IN silent shock as Violet stared down this guy— Ian.

Who was this asshole? Tall and rangy, with long dark blond hair, wearing skintight black pants, black boots, a jacket with the sleeves rolled up, and no shirt, tattoos all down his forearms and scattered across his torso.

He was tricked out in a ton of silver rings and necklaces, and his eyes were smeared with black.

Nobody dressed like that unless they were a pirate or a rock star, and since piracy was rare here in central England, he was guessing rock star. At least, he wanted to be a rock star.

The minute Violet laid eyes on him, she’d frozen like a deer in headlights.

Whoever the hell he was, he mattered to her.

Which should have been fine, because she wasn’t supposed to matter to him .

That was their deal. But as he eyed this Ian asshole, clocking the greedy once-over the motherfucker was giving Violet, something suspiciously like jealousy started simmering in his gut.

He felt possessive and twitchy, fighting back a purely primal urge to step in between the two of them and assert himself.

Violet would absolutely murder him if he tried that shit, though, without a doubt.

And besides, it wasn’t his place. She wasn’t with him.

Still, he’d been the one about to make her come in the back of the car not five minutes ago, and now he was being fucking dismissed for this asshole?

“Seriously, Violet?” he muttered.

She shot him one brief look, and her expression shut him right the fuck up. Violet—fierce, fearless Violet—was freaked out, caught off guard and shaken. He’d never seen that look on her face before. And fuck this guy for putting it there.

“I need to deal with this,” she said quietly.

“Am I interrupting something?” Ian said with a lazy shit-eating grin. He had the same subtle inflections in his British accent as Violet did, like they came from the same place.

“Yes,” Chase said at the same time Violet said no.

He scoffed. Yeah, fuck this guy. “Guess I’ll go then,” Chase said sarcastically. He didn’t want to go. He wanted to stand there and glower at Ian until he shriveled up in fear and slunk back out the way he’d come in. But he reminded himself—again—that it wasn’t his place.

“See you in Hungary,” Violet said without looking back at him.

“Your room?” Ian asked her, eyebrows lifting. If she took this asshole up to her room right now—

“The bar,” she snapped, pushing past Ian and heading into the hotel bar off the lobby.

Ian rocked back on his heels. Then he looked at Chase and smiled again. “Better luck next time, mate.”

“Motherfucker,” he muttered under his breath as Ian turned and followed Violet into the bar.

“What the fuck?” he said out loud, to no one.

Violet clearly had a history with Ian. And he’d promised her no strings, which meant if she wanted to head off with Ian, all he could do was stay out of her way and let her.

But fuck, he was mad. He didn’t like the guy on sight.

Running a hand through his hair, he tried to shake off this feeling.

He felt … forgotten, irrelevant, small. As much as he hated to admit it, he felt intimidated .

He knew he was good-looking. He’d heard it often enough in his life, even from Violet herself as recently as this morning.

But he wasn’t … that , whatever that was.

He wasn’t tight pants and tats, silver jewelry and guyliner. And if that’s what Violet wanted …

Fuck. It didn’t matter. Who cared what she wanted?

This wasn’t … they weren’t anything. They were just fucking.

No strings. He didn’t care what she did or who she did it with.

Except he was still standing there, alone in the lobby, staring off in the direction she’d gone, and he realized he cared a lot more than he wanted to.

Jesus. He hated this feeling. He’d been here once before, and he’d promised himself afterward that he never would be again.

“Fuck,” he muttered to the empty lobby. Then he turned and headed up to his hotel room alone.