Fast & Hard: A Formula 1 Romance (The Fast Series) Read online

  Her eyes sweep to mine and my heart sinks to my gut, my chest feels like it’s on fire. I can’t feel my limbs.

  I’m either having a massive coronary or I’m falling in love with this woman.

  Mallory steps back to me and I take her head in my hands as she looks up at me. I wipe the start of her tears away with my thumbs, “Don’t cry,” I whisper. The pressure inside my rib cage can’t take her tears right now, too.

  “They’re going to swallow us up, aren’t they?” She whimpers, her voice cracking.

  I pull her tight against me and cradle her head to my chest, tucking her under my chin. “I won’t let them.”

  I hold her as tight as I can without bruising her until minutes pass and then I feel her start giggling. “What?”

  “I’m having wildly inappropriate thoughts about you in a cemetery,” she laughs.

  “Let’s go then, before I get arrested and have to hire a new nanny to clean that up.”

  ◆◆◆

  The LaFerrari is an impressive car by any standards. However, it has a fatal flaw: it is far too small for the kinds of things Mallory and I want to do to one another. I can’t even kiss her without my head jabbing into the roof. Her ass changed every setting on the steering wheel controls, smashed up like a pretzel on my lap. And because I am being punished for something terrible I must have done in a previous life, I don’t have a condom.

  I stop at the first drugstore I can find to remedy that and Mallory runs inside to make the very important purchase. I argued but she insisted she didn’t want to deal with photos of me buying condoms on Twitter tomorrow. The car is conspicuous enough as it is and I’ll get mobbed this close to London so I begrudgingly let her go in alone.

  It’s another fifteen minutes until we’ll be back in Aylesbury and I adjust myself for the umpteenth time, my dick smashed up inside my jeans and my whole body pressed into the fitted racing seats. I should have driven a station wagon, panel van, a bloody school bus.

  “You know,” Mallory theorizes, looking over the low chassis cover between us. “Yep, I can make that work,” she mumbles as she starts freeing herself from the seat belts. She’s finally free and turns sideways and leans toward me, her foot propping her up on a carbon fiber interior component. She kisses my neck and runs a hand down to grip my dick. I raise my right arm to make room for her and she tucks in to unbutton my jeans.

  Fuck yes.

  She gets my zipper down and frees my cock, which has been throbbing for an hour now.

  “Jesus, you are going to get us killed,” I watch as her head sinks and brush her hair away. I’m already nearly doubling the speed limit on the bloody A41.

  “Good thing my man knows how to drive a car,” she purrs.

  Her hot breath against my skin sends a rush of blood to my already hard shaft but it’s her calling me her man that makes me growl. Her wet tongue circles the head of my cock and I push back in my seat, eyes darting between her beautiful mouth on my dick and the road speeding past us.

  Her lips wrap around me as she starts working me up and down, my hand at the back of her head. It’s all I can do not to guide her head and I grip her hair in my fist to fight the urge. “Fucking hell,” I hiss as she takes more of me into her mouth, her tongue running up and down the underside of my flesh while her lips squeeze tight around me and her cheeks hollow out from sucking me.

  My hips jerk up reflexively when the tip of my cock hits the back of her throat and she moans around me, taking me deeper. Her eyelids squint shut as she fights to take me deeper, her head circling and bobbing up and down on me. “Look at me,” I growl. Her hazel eyes meet mine, moisture on her eyelashes, and every muscle in my body flexes at the sight. My eyes flash between her and the road, years of reaction time training has never been so handy.

  She snakes one hand between my legs and rubs my balls and then sinks all the way to my base, her tight throat constricting against me. “Ugh, yes, love,” my head slams back into the seat and the knuckles on my left hand are white from squeezing the steering wheel so hard. My grip in her hair tightens as her pace picks up. “Fuck, I’m gonna come.” Mallory moans more, her ass wiggling around and squirming. “Take every last drop,” I groan.

  Heat surges through me, pressure expands and with a surge, I explode into her throat with a primal roar. Hot ropes of energy and fire and adrenaline and passion shoot out and Mallory swallows and licks and does her damndest to keep up. When I am finally drained and spent she releases her lips and her tongue licks and laps around my crown until she’s satisfied and slinks back into her seat.

  “So good, love. Incredible.”

  Mallory is smirking, quite pleased with herself as I catch my breath and tuck myself back into my pants just in time for the last few kilometers. “See, no one died,” she teases.

  I know she’s joking but I need her to know. “You know I won’t hurt you, right?” Her eyes fall and dart to the floorboard. “You don’t know that?” I question, a twinge in my chest starts up again.

  “I want to trust you,” she sighs.

  “But you don’t.”

  “It’s hard for me to be totally out of control.”

  “You can be out of control and still trust me.”

  “Prove it then,” she goads and smirks at me. She’s sassing me, being playful and argumentative because that’s what we do. But there’s some truth there like there is behind all of our sarcasm.

  Pulling into Celeritas, it’s dark and well past the time when everyone has gone home for the night. The LaFerrari rumbles along the brick-lined inner roads, idling past the administration buildings and winding along the dimly lit walkways. I drive us past the factory buildings to the farthest part of the complex and pull up to a heavy iron gate. I push the button for the window to go down.

  “What are you doing?” Mallory asks as I pull my wallet out and wave my keycard past the security reader and the gate creaks to life.

  “Proving it.” Pulling in, the test track comes into view under the headlights. I hop out and throw the switch for the track lights and the expanse of the winding asphalt lights up. Now I’m glad I brought this car and not the school bus, after all, since Mallory wants to challenge me.

  Hopping back into the car, her eyes are wide and she’s clutching the door panel. “You like when I drive you, yes?” I ask and start tightening down her seat belt harness, snugging her into the seat as much as I can.

  “What? Yes, but, what are you doing?”

  “In the corners, try as hard as you can to keep your head pushed back into the seat,” I push her head back and show her. This car won’t pull the g-forces that an F1 car will, but it’s still going to be way more than she’s used to with that delicate little neck.

  “Lennox,” she grips one of my wrists cinching her belts and locks eyes with me.

  “You know when I’m the most out of control? When I’m in the car on track. And when I’m with you.” I tuck back into my seat and attach my harness. “You let me know when you trust me.”

  I change a few settings on the car’s control panels and pull out onto the track. I start slowly and look over at Mallory, still clutching the door panel but she squints at me and then bites her lip. “You want to get out?” I ask just to make sure. Again, asshole, not monster.

  She shakes her head no.

  Game on.

  I nail the throttle to the floor and Mallory screams, the acceleration shoving her back into the seat with force she cannot control, her hands desperate to find anything to hold onto, as if that will help her. In under three seconds, we’re past sixty miles per hour and before the first corner a few seconds later, one-twenty-five.

  Mallory screams as we fly into the first corner at speeds that look impossible to most people. My fingers working the paddle shifter, I downshift and slide the rear end out as the car drifts along the width of the asphalt. Mallory’s hair is flying out in front of her body and she’s board stiff screaming her head off.

  I straighten the car
out and then upshift through a series of left-right chicanes, the speedometer climbing past one-hundred-fifty as we cut each apex and the screams and four-letter words next to me escalate.

  Sailing through the next sweeping corner, the car totally sideways yet going exactly where I intend it to despite the unnatural position of the steering wheel, I taunt Mallory some more. “Say the words, love.”

  “Fuck youuuuuuuu,” she cries, her body board straight and a death grip on the handles she’s found to clutch for dear life. The engine is roaring, nine-hundred-fifty horses shrieking in the night alongside Mallory. All the instrument panels lite up flashing the status of all the hybrid systems and gears I’m flying us through.

  Diving onto the straight, the car opens up and when we pass two-hundred miles per hour and Mallory sees the number she screams again. Into the next turn, I hold the throttle wide open until the last possible millisecond and throw the car sideways again. Mallory tries, unsuccessfully, to get her gravity-defying hair out from in front of her face.

  “Remember KERS, baby? Let’s hit it.”

  “Nooooooooooooo,” she screams.

  “Oh yes,” I laugh and climb past two-hundred-thirty mph on the long straight then slam the brakes into the hairpin, Mallory’s body now kept in the seat only through the strength of her harness. I throw my right arm over her chest anyway, instinctual move, and swing up through the hairpin with my left hand.

  She latches onto my arm and is digging her nails in screaming. “You want me to keep this up with one hand? Fine by me, but your choice.” She releases my arm then grips it back then releases, more screaming.

  The car rocks and shakes as I keep it in position squirreling around another corner and start the next lap. “Trust me yet?”

  Her hands grip her harness and she tries to nod, I think. “Keep your head back. Say the words,” into Turn 1 again we go, the tires lighting up, blue smoke pouring off our wheels.

  “I trust you!” She finally screams. “I trust you! I trust you!” I back off the throttle and she starts laughing maniacally, bouncing in her seat. “Holy shit, my heart!” The smile on her face is huge, her eyes saucers. I put a hand on her knee and she grips it, her palms covered in sweat. “Go again!”

  I bust up laughing, “I’ve created a monster.”

  I take us through another few laps until I’m pretty sure all four tires need replacing. Mallory still screams through all of them but she’s having the time of her life.

  And I’m on top of the world.

  At the far end of the track, I do a few donuts for her then bring the car to a stop and kill the engine amidst the plumes of blue smoke surrounding us. “I think I peed a little,” she giggles and catches her breath, palming her crazy hair back down.

  “You pissed up my LaFerrari? Wow,” I tease her.

  When her laughs and giggles finally quit, I watch her silently. I want to hear her say it. Again. “You, me. This is more than just screwing around, Mal. At least, it is for me.”

  “It is for me, too,” she breathes.

  “You know I won’t hurt you? You trust me?” I ask her again, looking into her eyes searching for the honesty, the raw feelings deep inside her.

  “Yes,” she takes my hand and pulls it into hers.

  “Good. I need you to do something for me.” Her eyes crinkle at the corners, searching mine. “Maxwell Cooper is expecting your call.”

  Nineteen

  “Baby, I’ll take you to an honest place. Darling, I just can’t find my honest face.” - Inhaler - My Honest Face

  Mallory

  I haven’t been called into the principal’s office in well over a decade and that was for putting gum in Rebecca Johnson’s ponytail. She was a spoiled mean girl brat and had it coming. I got detention and grounded for a month for shaming my family.

  Now I might get fired.

  In the two months since I first sat in this office, everything has changed but the room, and Sandra Alix, remain just as cold. The last time I sat in this chair, I was filled with promise. Now I’m filled with suspicion. I don’t trust anything they say.

  No big surprise, Ding-a-ling DuPont ran right to mommy and daddy and Celeritas to tattle. Lennox and I spent yesterday in meetings with HR and the Celeritas attorneys. They separated us, of course. I felt like a criminal being questioned in a seedy police station, attorneys playing good-cop-bad-cop games like I’m an idiot.

  Thank god Lydia and Robert cannot see me now, proving them right about what a failure I am.

  “Let’s review,” Sandra huffs, shuffling mounds of manilla folders and paperwork over her glass desk. Her glasses sit low on her pointy nose and she has more grey roots poking out of her scalp today or I didn’t even notice them the last time. “You say Mr. DuPont came, unsolicited, to your flat and propositioned you.”

  “Yes. He’s… propositioned me on other occasions as well, asking me on his yacht,” and a few other times I didn’t even tell Lennox about knowing he acts like a caveman.

  “And he made unwanted physical contact?” Sandra is flipping through pages of typed text but I can’t read it upside down.

  “Several times, yes. Touching my face, tucking hair behind my ear, yesterday he was running his hand up and down my arms.” It’s harder than I think it will be to put into proper words what creepy feels like. I’m not going to lie, but I have to do better than ‘Digby is handsy and gives me the creeps’ if there’s any hope for me to stay gainfully employed and for Lennox to keep his contract.

  He’s not even remotely worried about his contract and it’s making me crazy. I know he has enough money for several lifetimes, but F1 is his dream.

  “And you asked him to stop?”

  “Yes. I asked him to leave and he refused and continued touching my arm.” And then Lennox lost his ever-loving mind and slammed his head into the wall.

  “You felt uncomfortable during this time?”

  I’ve covered these questions a hundred times already by this point and it’s getting difficult to keep my patience. I think I understand how Lennox feels now answering stupid questions from the media. Obviously, I felt uncomfortable, Sandra. I’ve said so a dozen times. “I did,” I say one more time.

  “And you are willing to sign an affidavit to these statements?” Sandra peers at me over the top of her glasses.

  “Yes, everything I have said is true,” I nod.

  “Very well,” Sandra removes her eyeglasses, sits back in her chair and rubs her eyes. I think the moment of truth is upon me. I’m either about to be fired or, or I don’t know what, actually. I don’t know how much power the DuPont’s have over Celeritas. A hundred million dollars a year probably buys a lot of unethical behavior.

  “Given these statements, the DuPont’s have elected not to pursue any charges against Mr. Gibbes.”

  I nod. Lennox told me they wouldn’t, said the prestigious DuPont family would never have their name risked in the news, it would be too unseemly. I wonder if my father has thoughts about how he’s going to look in the news if he sues his own daughter. Or maybe the Mitchells are just more trashy or more desperate than the DuPont’s.

  “As for you, Mallory, the UK has very strong employee protection laws and all parties involved wish to avoid such murky waters,” Sandra’s eyebrows are cocked at me.

  “Ooookay,” I say slowly, not quite understanding, but I think I am still employed. For the moment.

  “As they would say on track, Ms. Mitchell, we will consider this a racing incident.”

  A racing incident. An accident or collision on track that the stewards decide was due to the nature and chaos of the race, no one particularly at fault. No penalties or fines assessed. I think that’s the best I could have hoped for. It’s disgusting.

  “I understand.” Sandra slides over some paperwork for me to sign agreeing that each party agrees to let it go and behave professionally. They’ll go in our HR files but that’s it.

  “Mallory, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this,” she p
auses for a moment and her shoulders drop. It looks as if she’s softened a bit but that would defy everything I know about Sandra Alix, having a heart. Or a personality. “You and Mr. Gibbes seem, oh, more friendly these days.” There’s the hint of a tiny, tiny smile on her lips but it’s stuck like her face is incapable of making such gestures.

  “I think we’re working fairly well together now, Ms. Alix. After a steep learning curve, as you said,” I smile at her with every ounce of fakery in my soul.

  Sandra starts cleaning up the shuffled papers all over her desk. “There’s nothing in Celeritas policy that prohibits intraoffice dating assuming it is not a supervisor-subordinate position or becomes problematic. With as much travel as the team endures, it’s not unusual. I’m sure you can imagine.”

  I try to school my eyes, my heart rate, the sweaty palms. A closed mouth gathers no foot, so this is a high time for me to sit here and shut up. I’ve seen those YouTube videos on what to do when the cops stop you, no one talks and everyone walks. I don’t know if that applies here, but that’s my plan.

  “That said, as an old lady who has been in this game for a long time, I would advise you to consider the optics for your career.” She taps a pen on a thick folder on her desk in an ultra-rare display of what appears to be genuine human emotion. “And as a woman, use caution.”

  “Thank you, Sandra.” I wipe my palms on my pants and start to rise.

  “Ah-ahem,” Sandra clears her throat very loudly, glaring at me, her pen tapping furiously.

  My brow furrows, Sandra is leering at me, pursing her lips. I follow her eyes to the folder she’s tapping against. It’s two inches thick and labeled “Human Resources: Confidential. Digby DuPont.”

  Oh, I see. That’s quite a thick HR dossier for the squeaky clean golden boy of the paddock. I knew it. And Sandra Alix, the hard-nosed, stick up her ass, ‘dragon lady’ as the boys call her, has warned me.

  I raise my chin at her in understanding and give her a sharp nod.