Page 42 of Overdrive (Speed Demons #1)

The bass rattled my ribs and synced with my pulse in a way that felt more like a warning than an invitation.

Part of me wanted to leave. Get into a car, go back to my hotel, take a shower, scrub this night off my skin.

But I didn’t, because I was hell bent on ruining my own night.

Running meant it was real. That it was about him and I was too tipsy to care anymore.

So I stayed, even as my mind screamed at me to flee. Even as the comfort of Kimi’s presence beside me did nothing to cool the fire still licking at my insides. Even as I pretended—pretended so fucking hard—that I wasn’t hyperaware of Callum.

I was unraveling, spiraling, I could still feel his hands covering mine, hear the way his zipper sounded as I pulled it down.

I tipped my head back in forced laughter at something Kimi said, the taste of liquor bitter on my tongue. It was easy, comfortable. Kimi was familiar and safe, but he wasn’t the one setting me on fire, nor was there any kind of romantic connection. There never had been, and never would be.

The truth clawing at the edges of my mind? Callum was the first man to make me feel anything since my ex and the affair that had broken me.

An ugly thing in my chest tore open, a deep, festering wound I thought I’d stitched shut. But tonight, Callum had fucking ripped it open with his bare hands when that girl had slid under his arm like she’d been there a hundred times before.

I expected to feel that sharp, electric intensity of his stare, but he wasn’t watching me. He’d stopped a while ago—but I hadn’t. I tracked how he sat there on his phone, or nursed a drink with his shoulders hunched.

The same pit chaser from earlier sidled up next to him, her red-painted nails trailing lightly down his forearm as she encroached on his space, whispering something into his ear. He didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Just stared ahead, lost somewhere unreachable.

He wasn’t paying attention to her at all, not even a little. He wasn’t acting like the Callum Fraser I knew—all charm and cocky amusement, who should have had some fucking reaction to the girl practically pressing her tits against his bicep.

He was just… there. It threw me off my axis.

I was prepared for him to chase me, to want to make me jealous, to play another game. I was not prepared to see him withdraw like this—quiet and detached.

My stomach twisted violently, bile rising in my throat.

Suddenly, I wasn’t standing in a club in Miami, watching a man ignore a woman throwing herself at him.

I was back in F2. Back in the doorway of my ex’s office, where I stood frozen as he whispered sweet things into someone else’s ear.

She wasn’t me. Just another woman who took something I didn’t know was breakable.

A woman who was the complete opposite of everything I was… just like these pit chasers.

I blinked, shoving it down. The pain, the heartache, the feelings of worthlessness. I had to compartmentalize.

It’s not the same.

I didn’t have a fucking claim on Callum. I had no right to feel like my stomach was caving in, like my blood was rushing in my ears, like I wanted to grab him by the collar and demand that he fucking look at me.

Did I care? I was the one who walked away, and if my body thought otherwise?

I would drown it out. I simply needed to get out of my head.

Out of this booth. Out of this stupid goddamn battle with myself.

I just needed to feel something else, something real.

Not the version of us written in fan fiction where everything made sense; where rivals fucked and fell in love as if it was easy.

As if the repercussions wouldn't outweigh the rewards.

The moment my empty glass hit the table, I slid out of the booth, smoothing my dress over my thighs, setting my shoulders like armor.

Kimi glanced up, brow raised. “Going somewhere?”

I flipped my hair over one shoulder, feigning nonchalance. “Yeah. To remind the world why they love me.”

They loved the fantasy. The curated edits. The fanfics where I always got the guy. But this wasn’t fiction. This was messier, hotter, real.

“Yeah? Or to a certain Scotsman who’s had your attention for weeks now?”

Snickering, I flicked my eyes over to the bar. “Trust me, he’s got his distraction for the night. I’ll be dancing. Please pray I don’t get trampled.”

And before I could talk myself out of it, I walked down the stairs of the club, ignoring the biting pain in my feet from these too-high heels, down into the pulse of the dance floor.

I danced, letting the music swallow me whole, bodies pressing in around me, heat and sweat and rhythm blurring together as I threw my head back and let myself go.

I wanted to forget the way his voice sounded when he called me love and how his hands felt on my skin.

But no matter how hard I tried to dance him out of my system, he was still there.

When I exhaled and finally dared to look up…

I fucking froze when I found him looking at me.

Finally , I thought, caught off guard by the relief I felt.

And oh, I was so screwed when I realized he no longer ignored the world around him.

He was standing at the railing above the dance floor, hands in his pockets, his body a picture of thinly veiled restraint. His eyes burned into me like a goddamn wildfire, scorching, unrelenting, and so fucking heavy.

The heat between us snapped tight, dragging me in, an invisible leash wrapped around my throat.

The crowd moved around me, but all I could feel was him.

God help me—all I wanted was him. If this were fan fiction, he’d storm down here and kiss me like I was the only thing worth burning for, but this wasn’t a chapter someone else could write.

I was tired of running. Didn’t want to keep trying to prove a stupid point. It would be so much easier to relinquish control and cave to this aching intensity growing between us.

And I realized… I wasn’t the one chasing, I was the one running—straight into his fucking arms, ready to be caught and claimed.