Page 100 of Downforce

When I glance down, Max’s hand is wrapped firmly around mine, his thumb slowly stroking my wrist.

I meet his eyes again.

“A lot of people in this world may have called Severino their hero or their inspiration, but you were the only person to ever call him ‘Dad’. No one will ever have with him what you had. Short as it was, it was yours. And no one can ever take that from you.” I pause before letting the next statement pass my lips, but they push forward as if on their own. “Not even your mother.”

Max’s eyes widen.

My insides squeeze and my mind shrinks in on itself. A reaction to the fear that I’d overstepped. Max and I don’t talk about his mother. Neither of us have mentioned that day in Bahrain. I haven’t because I know it would piss me off to think of how painful it must be to have such a bitch for a mother.

I’m also terrified of thinking about how frequently she speaks to him like that. When did she start? Had he been a child when she began berating him? A child who’d also witnessed the death of his father and while mourning that loss had to put up with an emotionally violent mother?

The thought begins to form a knot in the pit of my belly that attempts to work its way up to my throat.

But that’s where it dies.

The next thing I know, Max’s lips are on mine. The heat of his kiss is laced with an urgency or a desperation that I haven’t felt in any of our previous kisses.

Max wraps a hand around the back of my head, holding me in place even as he pulls back slightly. His lips brush across mine as he whispers, “Stay with me tonight.”

CHAPTER 28

Annalise

I awaken with a smile on my face. There’s a peace that fills me, but in the early morning of my awakening thought, I’m baffled as to the reason. Before I open my eyes, I suspect that it’s because today is the Grand Prix.

The excitement of the day always gets to me. Not only do I enjoy watching the F1 racers on the track, but the other levels of this sport race on the same day as well.

Yet when I extend my arm overhead and stretch my body out, I come up against a hard surface against my backside. But this surface moves, wrapping its arms around my waist and pulling me into its warm nest. The smile on my mouth briefly widens as I finally recall where I am.

Then I spring up out of Max’s bed with a gasp and throw the blanket off of me. I’m dressed in a pair of his shorts and a T-shirt. Both incredibly baggy on me.

“Did I sleep here all night?” I ask, glancing around the spacious bedroom. I take in the wooden surfaces, dark greys and navy blues that decorate his space indicating that a man definitely lives here.

“That’s right, princess. It wasn’t just a dream,” Max murmurs, sitting up and pressing a kiss to the back of my shoulder. My body soaks in the heat from his kiss, stealing my next words for a beat.

“What time is it?” I scramble for my cell phone which lies on the nightstand on his side of his bed.

I ignore the one percent warning my phone flashes at me and grunt as the time reads that it’s just before seven o’clock in the morning.

“Shit. I have to go.” I crawl out of the bed, still doing my best to ignore the half-naked man sitting in the middle of it. If I focus too much on Max dressed in only boxer briefs with his hair mussed and the early beginning of a five o’clock shadow, I may never leave.

Max first thing in the morning is almost as enticing as Max once he’s just finished racing.

I shake that image from my head.

“Where are you going?” he asks, trapping me in his long arms right before I exit his bedroom. “We haven’t had breakfast yet.”

God, why does his voice sound so damn good in the morning?

I almost groan that question out loud but stop myself.

“I have to have breakfast with my family,” I tell him instead. We always have breakfast together the morning of the Monaco race.

When Max doesn’t let me go, I spin to face him. My heart immediately squeezes as I run my gaze over his handsome face. His gaze hasn’t lost the intenseness it held last night but the sadness has been replaced by something else.

I don’t allow myself to linger too long on those windows to his soul. I might not ever make it out.

“I have to go,” I say in a barely audible voice.