“Tourists aren’t allowed here,” she replies apathetically before scanning me from head to toe. She’s the living version of Barbie with her dirty blond hair, her marine-blue eyes, and her generous breasts. “Whatever.” She rolls her eyes before getting back to her activities, ignoring me.
I finally spot Aaron and his team making adjustments to the car. When he notices me, he puts his helmet on the table next to him and ambles in my direction.Danger. I bow my head to the side and bite the inside of my lip, lost in my new fantasy. My new craving. My new need. I always thought the slow-motion walk was purely a cinematic thing, but now I know it’s real.
Wolf is strutting toward me, like a sexy hero who just achieved the impossible, the firefighter who rescued innocent people, the soldier coming back from war. He passes his hand through his hair seductively and begins to open his racing suit while flashing me the type of grin that makes you flush. I want only one thing. His lips on mine. To make me the heroine of my imaginary movie. I’m yearning for his touch, for our bodies to connect. I’ve never been into racing drivers, nor fantasized about any man before. But now, I’m convinced of my undeniable attraction for him. He is taking the pole position of my thoughts, and I can’t stop him.
“Let me introduce you to the team,” he says casually while I swallow, trying to erase the mental image of him from my mind.
I greet every member of Aaron’s racing team, from the engineers to the mechanics—and Thomas, who sends me a friendly smile. “Aaron is about to test the car. Do you want to watch the testing with us?”
“I don’t know if I should. I mean, I don’t want to intrude.” My mantra used to be: hide from the spotlight, don’t go into an unknown territory, and old habits die hard.
Aaron steps in while putting his gloves on. “Nonsense. I’d prefer to hear your voice on the headset than Thomas’s.”
Thomas rolls his eyes. “Well, I have your back on the track. Without me, you’d be a reckless driver without a proper strategy.” I laugh as the two men joke around. Aaron is a completely different person with him, it’s like he is free of whatever demons he’s carrying on.
“That’s true, but you get to boss me around and I know you love that.”
Thomas chuckles despite him. “If only you would listen, that would be more effective.”
Wolf jumps into his cockpit before putting his helmet on. “Where would be the fun in that?”
Aaron’s Formula 1 racecar leaves the pit to do the installation lap to test functions, and I take a seat in front of the monitors inside his paddock with the other engineers. Thomas hands me a headset, connecting Aaron with him and his car crew.
“Why is Aaron’s nickname,Wolf? I have my guess, but I believe there is a story behind it,” I question Thomas.
“Because Aaron is a lone wolf. He is unpredictable and dangerous to others.” He shakes his head while smirking at me. “His previous teammate called him Wolf because he was an individualist. During his first year in Formula 1, he was supposed to race behind him, but…” He laughs. “He couldn’t follow the orders. He raced aggressively against him and stole his first place.”This sounds exactly like him.I can’t help but smile. “In the end, he became the lead driver of Amorino racing and stole the spotlight from the other driver. He didn’t take it well.”
“Who was the driver?”
“Louis Harmil. He is racing with our main competitor now.” I open my mouth, that name is definitely familiar to me. Aaron got into a skirmish with Harmil in Monaco, and I read the two men have a lifelong rivalry.
I hear Aaron’s voice in my headset. “We need to adjust the front wings. I’m not feeling it.”
“Copy. Rise up the engine,” Thomas commands, his eyes not leaving the screen, as Wolf presses his pedal, gaining speed.
A couple minutes later, the team starts working on the car adjustment. After that, Aaron is back on the track, racing his car faster during the straights. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like I belong here. I don’t understand everything about racing, but I feel comfortable. I never felt that way around the parents and friends of my ex. Probably because I always tried too hard to be someone I wasn’t.
“We need to maximize the power on the rear wheels. I don’t want to be overtaken down the straights.” Wolf struggles to speak while racing his car at a blistering pace.
“Copy. Box the lap,” Thomas replies.
“Do Formula 1 drivers need to learn about mechanics?” I ask, genuinely uncertain.
“Yes and no. They need to know their cars and adjust themselves to it, but most of them don’t go deep into the details. Aaron does. He’s overworking himself more than most of the drivers out there. He helped the team buildup the perfect car. That kid knows a lot.”
“A kid?” I can’t help but smile. “That’s not a word I would use to define, Aaron.”More of a twenty-five-year-old alpha.
Thomas lets out a loud guffaw. “Yeah, for me, he’s still the reckless teen I knew from back then.”
My discussion with Thomas is interrupted when Wolf completes his last lap, before discussing with his engineers. I don’t want to disturb them so I decide to walk around the pit lane and check my messages. All of them are from Tania, asking if I have decided to make Aaron my ‘knight’ in my fairy tale.
I start typing, looking up to meet Wolf’s gaze but to my surprise, I spot him with the Barbie of earlier. She’s talking with him—and not in a friendly way. She also brought her gorgeous friends to accompany her into her seduction quest. Great. I’ve met the evil queen trying to make of my ‘knight’ her own.
“Aaron, love! How have you been?” Just the sound of her perched voice talking to him and stroking his arm makes me cringe.
“Hi, Amber.”And the perched voice has a name… Amber.
I clear my throat, watching the show from afar. Jealousy strikes me at full speed and unleashes all of my inner demons. She’s clearly flirting with him, giving him the bedroom eyes, but he does nothing. He doesn’t flirt back, but he doesn’t push her away, either. I know I have no right to be jealous. I shouldn’t be jealous. Someone like Aaron doesn’t do relationships, and we have nothing going on. Just a lie. An agreement. But my body is burning from the inside. I’ve never been the jealous type, and I can’t possibly understand why this is happening to me. Probably because they are gorgeous, an appeal to sex. This is the type of women he goes for. Not me.
