Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (13 page)

He put his hand on the bottle effectively stopping me from pouring myself another shot, "Baby, what’s wrong?" He really didn’t seem to understand why I was upset.

I paced back and forth again trying to control myself, but I couldn’t get the sick feeling out of my stomach, the image of him and Alexandria in bed, his face enjoying it. Tears came to my eyes.
Suck it up
, I tried to tell myself. "You still want her, don’t you?"

The question definitely began to sober me up and apparently, it sobered Seth up a bit, too. "Hey, hey," he walked over and took me in his arms as a tear slipped down my cheek. "I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I want you. I don’t want her, I’ve always wanted you. You are the sexiest woman I’ve ever met in my life, every little thing you do turns me on." To illustrate his point, he brought his lips back to mine and put his hand on my butt, pulling me into him. His desire, which was hard against my thigh, made me feel a little better.

It was a quick kiss, but we were both left a little breathless when Seth pulled back and walked across the room taking deep breaths. I leaned across the pool table, enjoying the fact that I was giving him a nice view of my butt. I heard him groan behind me as Desmond came back into the room.

"Yeah. The week is set up a bit differently at Indianapolis. He has a few sponsor events tomorrow that I’m lucky enough to be guiding him through. Trust me you would
not
have fun there with me. Friday, he’s got pre-race events and practice, so I’ll be stuck with all of that. Wyatt has a meeting here on Friday, and he’ll fly out Friday night for pre-qualifying events and qualifying on Saturday. Seth said you should come out with Wyatt, if you want."

The second I opened the door to my bedroom, I was attacked by Seth who picked me up and carried me to the bed, never letting his lips leave mine. We made love before allowing exhaustion to get the better of us. Several hours later, I awoke to Seth’s feather-light kisses beneath my ear. "I can’t get enough of you," he breathed into my ear, allowing his hands to explore my body, touching every inch of my skin.

It was completely light out when I heard him whispering my name in my ear. I turned to him and grabbed him, hugging him, surprised at how tired my whole body felt. I groaned as he lay on top of me. It took me a minute to figure out that he was fully dressed. I opened my eyes immediately to find him looking down at me.

"No," my head was pounding, and he was leaving me, so I didn’t really care that I was whining. My arms tightened around him.

"I
have
to go, baby. Besides, I’m surprised you’re even awake enough to notice me leaving, after forcing me to stay awake all night making love to you."

"Mmm, you know, I don’t remember having to work too hard to persuade you, and I didn’t hear you complaining last night about being forced."

"Your naked body is all the persuasion I need."

"In that case," I pulled back the sheet to expose my naked breasts. "Surely you can stay just a tiny bit longer."

He groaned, "That’s not fair, baby, I have to go or Des will start looking for me."

I wanted to tell him that I loved him, but I wasn’t really sure about how he would react. Despite having been in love with him for most of my life, it still felt new and unstable. I just didn’t want to jeopardize what we had going. "Promise me you’ll be safe?"

"I’m always safe" He absentmindedly buttoned his jeans.

"I’m serious, I… I don’t want to lose you."

At my stumbling, he looked up into my eyes and I internally cursed at my inability to hide the severity of my feelings. He leaned down and placed his hand on my cheek. "I have too much to live for to be reckless out there. I promise."

Satisfied with his answer, I snuggled back down in the bed and closed my eyes.

"Are you coming to qualifying?" his voice was so tentative. What a foolish man to think I wasn’t totally and completely hooked on him.

"Of course," did he really think I wouldn’t jump at the chance to be near him?

He delicately pushed aside a lock of my hair and kissed my forehead. Grabbing his hand, I tried to pull him back down to cuddle with me, but he was too strong. "I’ll see you Friday night, baby." A final kiss and he was out the door. I think I fell asleep before he even reached the doorknob.

I spent the day sleeping and recovering some strength after two solid nights of strenuous activity. Trying to relax myself, I did some laundry, but I couldn’t help but obsess over my memories from the previous nights. I couldn’t stop smiling all day long.

Unable to eat much that night, I went to bed early. Seth’s scent clung to the pillow he had slept on. and I cuddled up to it hoping sleep would claim me, but it didn’t. Just after midnight, my cell phone alerted me to a new text message.

"Typical, autograph this, smile for this picture, shake this hand. I sometimes think that the appearances are more exhausting than the race itself." He gave a small laugh, but I could tell it wasn’t sincere—it was tired.

"Think of all the people you made happy, though."

"I try to. There are just moments when it’s tough to appreciate how lucky I am. Times when there are
other
things I’d rather be doing. Or I should say other
people
I’d rather be doing."

"Seth!" he chuckled genuinely at my attempt to scold him.

"So, you haven’t thought about me at all today, then?" He already knew the answer; he clearly just wanted to hear me say it.

"Nope, not at all. Why would I think about you?"

"So, you’re telling me you haven’t thought once about my lips moving against your soft lips, my tongue sliding into your mouth to tangle with yours, my hands moving all across your body, exploring every inch of you, my…"

With a loud groan, I gave into his methods. "Okay, I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day long. I’m dying here lying alone in this bed wishing I was next to you, on top of you, or under you; I’d settle for any one of those scenarios."

Again with the chuckle, but this time there was a smug smile to his voice, "That’s what I thought." He let out a large sigh, "Ah, Baby, you can’t imagine how much I miss you."

"Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea. Let’s talk about something else or I’ll never get to sleep, I’ll just lie here wanting you desperately."

"Okay… who is Pablo?’

Now I was
really
laughing. I had thought he didn’t really care about that, he hadn’t asked me about anything that I did at school. He sounded very curious, but there had to be some jealousy there or he wouldn’t have remembered his name. "An ex-boyfriend."

"Ace
was
unforgettable!"

"Oh really? Great in bed or because of the wet bikini contest?"

"You aren’t going to forget that anytime soon are you?"

"How could I with that image of you in that ridiculously hot bikini burned into my brain? So why was he so unforgettable?"

Feeling bad for letting him squirm over something unimportant; I let him in on the truth. "He was unforgettable because I walked in on him screwing two of my sorority sisters. Even though I hated him for a while, we wound up being good friends."

"What an idiot, he should have recognized what he had."

"Are you speaking from the pot’s point of view or the kettle’s?" I half teased.

"Hey, I know I was an idiot. I freely admit that. I just knew…" He didn’t finish his sentence, but I could tell that he wasn’t kidding around anymore. I tried to wait quietly, but after a few moments I gave in to my curiosity.

"Please tell me what you were going to say."

He sighed loudly into the phone, "I didn’t deserve you. I still don’t. I wanted more for you than I could give. Desmond wanted more for you, too."

"You are what I’ve always wanted and are beyond what I deserve. But what do you mean Desmond wanted more for me? More than you? How would you know…"

"Uh, I just meant that, uh, Des has always wanted the best for you, we… we all have. Like it or not, we all want to keep you safe and happy." He was hedging my question… interesting. Although I was wondering why, I didn’t want to push the topic, since I was simply enjoying that he had shared his fear with me.

"What you want for me wouldn’t make me happy, though.
You
make me happy, so be content that being with me fulfills your wish and mine."

We were both quiet for a moment. I assumed he was as lost in thought as I was when he brought the conversation back to his earlier topic. "So, who is Pablo?"

"Hmph" was the sound I made into the phone. "You really want to know all about my love life, because I’ve always believed in fairness. You ask me about Pablo and I’ll ask you about Cynthia. Shall we talk about her?"

More quietness—clearly, I hit him where it counted. Not expecting an answer, I was suddenly surprised by his matter-of-fact explanation.

"I
did
love her, like I
did
love Alexandria, but there’s always been a part of me that interfered, that nagged me and poked at me until I had to admit that there was something I couldn’t stand about them both; something I couldn’t live with."

"I screwed up that night of your prom," he continued. "I regretted it, but not the way you thought I did. I regretted it because after being with you that one night, I knew it had ruined any possibility of me ever being happy with another woman. The way you loved me and gave yourself to me, it made you the ideal and every other girl was just lacking."

"Then why did you fight me from the moment I came back home?"

"I tried to fight it, to tell myself you were better off, but then you started going out with
Brad,
and that’s when I realized I’d screwed up my life. That didn’t mean that I needed to screw up yours, though. I hoped that if I gave you more time, you would get over me and move on to someone better. I didn’t know you still felt so strongly about me until that night out on the dock."

"Then, yes, I agree, you are an idiot. I tried not to care about you, too. I tried with Pablo, Marcus, Jason, and Ace. Pablo was as young and immature as I was. Our relationship never left the superficial level. Marcus wanted to marry me too soon—I freaked. Jason was older than me, so he graduated, and we lost that closeness. Ace was the first to put it all together and accuse me of still wanting you, which is why he went off and cheated on me. He said that I had been cheating on him for months and just didn’t realize it. It took some time for me to realize that he was right, but when I did, he gave me the easy out I needed by sleeping with my sisters."

I could hear it in his voice that he didn’t want to mention something, and I could guess what it was, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t give away additional information. "No, tell me what you meant by that."