Page 120 of Downforce

Giving in, he grants me my unspoken wish.

I sigh into him, feeding off of the warmth of his body that the heaviest rains could never dampen.

“Come,” he says a beat later, when our driver finally shows up at the corner. He apologizes as soon as we get in the car, telling us that the police had sealed off his intended parking spot due to the incoming storm.

Max doesn’t look too thrilled at this explanation.

“It’s fine,” I say. “We barely noticed the rain.”

The driver looks at me through the rearview like I have an alien sitting on top of my head. I know he’s seeing droplets of water drip down my face and from my hair, the leather seats getting wetter by the second as we sit on them.

But I don’t feel any of that.

Max pulls out a towel from the center console and wraps it around the back of my neck, attempting to squeeze the water from my hair while lightly patting my face dry. When our gazes meet, my breathing slows.

“How much longer to your place?” I ask low enough for only his ears.

“Too long.” Leaning in, he silences my small moan with a kiss.

CHAPTER 33

Max

One of my old team principals once told me that throughout his life he recalled certain moments where he felt his life changing. Not necessarily big moments that one would think, like a wedding day or the day his first child was born. Those were a given, he’d said.

But small moments, like the first time he went on a picnic date with the woman who would become his wife. Or the day he decided to stay in the house and watch a car race with his dad instead of going out to play with friends. It was that first race that got him hooked on motorsports, an industry and trajectory that would alter the course of not only his career but his life.

Those words he spoke to me filter through my mind as I stand before Annalise, stripped down to her soaked red lace panties and bra, in my bedroom. She takes my breath away.

Tonight isn’t one of those flashpoint moments like my team principal had mentioned. Tonight is when I finally acknowledge when that moment was. More than seven years ago, the night after that accident.

The night she yelled at me to get out of the hospital and never speak to her brother again.

The night she made me come face to face with my deepest insecurities as a racer, as a man. The evening she made me want to be a better person for the first time.

I sink to my knees before her, like a supplicant because for more time than I’ve ever realized, it’s Annalise, my princess, that has made me want to be a man worthy of her.

“Max,” she whispers my name as I hold her by her hips. I lower my head, kissing directly over her belly button and dipping my tongue inside.

Her body shudders, her hands coming up to tightly grip my shoulders, holding onto me to prevent herself from falling. I squeeze her hips and hold her firmly in place while kissing along the seam of her panties. My lips smirk when she groans and then growls my name, voice full of impatience.

“What’s wrong, princess?” I lick along the seam on her thighs until my mouth comes to the triangle at the center of her body. I press a kiss to her mound.

She cups a hand under my chin, turning my head up to meet her fiery eyes. “You're torturing me.”

My dick jumps in my briefs, a rush of sizzling energy coursing through my body.

“I don’t like waiting,” she says.

Grinning, I hook my thumbs in her panties. In a matter of seconds, her panties disappear from her body, and her leg is thrown over my shoulder. I eat her pussy like a man famished. Which I am.

It’s been exactly seven days and thirteen and a half hours since I’ve had Annalise’s taste on my mouth. I’ve counted every hour while simultaneously preparing for this weekend’s race and calculating the next time I could have her to myself.

All of the hours were torture but worth it to have her leg over my shoulder, her sweet taste on my tongue, and the sound of her purring spilling from her throat. It doesn’t take long for her first release to occur under the ministrations of my rapacious mouth.

Keeping my hands on her, I rise to my feet before lifting her to wrap her legs around my waist. As soon as she’s in the arms, Annalise circles her arms around my shoulders and ducks her head to taste her essence on my lips. Her hair spills like a curtain around us as I walk us to my bed.

We tumble into it, a mess of arms and legs, teasing, touching, feeling one another but never feeling like it’s enough. Not until I’m completely undressed, sheathed in a condom and easing inside of her does the tight fist of tension and need inside of my chest begin to ease.