Page 137 of The Savage

I’ll give her something she’ll feel between her legs for a week.

I take my time driving out of the garage to the replica start-finish straight.

A shrink would probably have a field day with me because I don’t feel even an iota of fear or anxiety getting behind the wheel for the first time after my crash.

Maybe something in me is broken. Or maybe this is just how racing drivers are built – wired to flirt with death until it stops feeling like a stranger.

Also… I’m a Salvatore. I’ve stared down men with knives, guns, vendettas older than I am. I’ve watched bodies hit marble floors and kept eating my dinner.

A track doesn’t scare me.

A track is honest.

So I pull up to the mark, watch the red lights flick one by one up to five.

My middle finger hovers over the throttle. And when the lights flash green, I launch.

The car surges forward, a beast unchained, and every corner, every apex, every controlled slide is me carving her name into asphalt. I take the replica Ascari like a dare, Parabolica like a winning bet, and when I shoot down the straight I swear I can feel her pulse from the pit wall.

Because she’s there.

Not a blur of colour or a VIP silhouette behind smoked glass, but Giada – standing at the chain fence, hair loose, hands curled tight as she laughs and cheers like she’s forgotten how to be careful. That smile hits harder than any podium roar ever has. Harder than the hundreds of thousands who scream my name when I win. Harder than the millions watching from sofas and bars and yachts around the world.

I’ve raced for trophies. For legacy. For blood.

But this – this audience of one – undoes me.

She’s missed so many races. Years of circuits and seasons she should have been at. And something in my chest aches with the vow that forms sharp and absolute: she won’t miss another one. Ever.

Sure, I’ll have to erase a few men from the earth to make that happen.

But isn’t that exactly what I was born for?

When I roll back in, helmet off, sweat still dripping down the back of my neck, she’s waiting. Eyes bright, breathless, and a little undone.

Just the way I fucking like her.

‘Enjoyed yourself?’ I ask, swiping a hand through my hair.

She nods, slow, dreamy, almost reverent. ‘You… you’re extraordinary.’

The pride hits hard. The hunger hits harder.

‘Come here,’ I say.

And the second she’s within reach, I pull her behind one of the trailers, into the quiet shadow where engines hum like a private soundtrack.

She plasters herself harder into my body and I snag her around the waist.

‘Hands on me,’ I order softly.

She does, palms flattening against my chest, sliding up my collarbone to curl at the back of my neck. Her dress brushes my thighs; her breath hits my jaw.

I press her back against the warm metal and lean in until her body melts into mine. ‘You’re trembling,’ I murmur.

‘You know why.’

I ghost my mouth over her throat, her shoulder, the place where her breath turns into a sound she tries to swallow.