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“He says he is wooing.” We both laugh and sit back, watching the guys.
I don’t know that I can call the last three days ‘wooing,’ but something intense has been happening between Cole and I in the aftermath of Alessi’s accident. His sweet wooing gestures are on point, no question about that, but this is more.
At first, he was so tense and worried he spent hours in the hotel gym working his energy out, taking out his frustrations on the equipment. But then he’d come back to our suite, and we’d have the most intense sex. It was every bit as hard and dominating as always, but extraordinarily intimate at the same time.
The juxtaposition is still bending my mind.
His body took mine easily enough, but it was the slow, teasing kisses that set it apart—the way his tongue licked my bottom lip. The way we shared breaths with our foreheads resting together.
It was like he’d shattered and was giving me every piece to put back together. He was offering me his entire soul, every raw, exposed nerve within him.
And I drank him in. I wrapped my arms around him and let the entirety of his lifeblood flow through me. It crept inside my veins, into the chambers of my heart, and into every recess of my mind
He let me tell him that I love him. Amid mind-blowing passion, I asked if he could believe me now. All he could do was nod, hold me tighter, give me even more of himself.
I can feel that he believes me now. He’s letting me love him now.
All the demons he’s clung to, he’s cast them aside and made room for me to move into their spaces. Dark memories and shame have been evicted. I want to spend the rest of my life filling them with the feelings he deserves, instead.
I thought I knew Cole before, I thought I loved him before. I thought I had all of him. But now, he’s opened up and given me pieces I didn’t even know existed, an expanse greater than the deepest ocean trench.
As teenagers, our love felt dreamy and dramatic. He was off-limits, and I was clinging to him for salvation, rescue from mundane, freedom from perfection. He wanted me for who I was, and I loved every damaged piece of him. We shared components no one else got to see.
But now, it’s so much more.
He’s protective and honest. He cherishes me and treats me like I am his first priority, like I matter.
He’s had me a thousand times, at this point, but he treats every time we’re together like it’s our first, like he’s seeing me for the very first time. He loves me like I am perfect, exactly the imperfect way that I am.
Somehow, the inside of Cole, his beautiful inner workings, shine even brighter and are so much more gorgeous than even the sculpted and perfected exterior.
“Tell me about the Concordia situation, the tires,” Mallory interrupts my daydream, and my ogling stare at the way Cole is leaned up against the hospital room wall.
“Are you asking as a reporter?” If so, I don’t know what I could tell her. Silas has made it clear that any sleuthing needs to be done quietly and without dragging Imperium through the mud.
“Right now, I’m asking as a woman who has as much to lose as you do. Are they safe?”
Mallory stares ahead at Lennox. I know she feels the same fears, the same oppressive weight in her chest every time their cars pull onto the race track. In truth, nothing about this sport is safe. It’s safer than it was years ago, of course, but the word safe is misguided, at best.
Alessi lying in his hospital bed proves that
I shake my head, “Not entirely. Something is wrong. I’m getting closer to what, but everything is such a freaking secret around here.”
“That it is,” she nods. “You know, if you need help, I have resources through Cooper Media.”
“Thank you. I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist or wrap my head in tinfoil, but…something isn’t right.”
“You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist, Emily. There’s so much money in F1, it’s impossible to throw a rock and not hit a scam or corruption or something illegal going on. You know what they say, there are no ethical billionaires. And we walk amongst them every single day.”
Mallory is right, of course, and I shudder to think of what else she’s come across as a reporter with unprecedented paddock access like she has.
“It could be an honest mistake or just an inferior product, though.”
“Sure, and Olivier is out marching for women’s rights on the weekends,” she snickers.
“Oh my god, does he give you the creeps, too?”
“Oui oui. Lennox actually kicked him out of our garage the last time he came calling, but he’s kind of a caveman like that.”
