Page 9 of Over the Limit

“It means how bad did you fuck up?”

The muscle in his jaw pulses as I glance over his shoulder at our team beginning to congregate out front of the garage area. It has to be getting close to meeting time.

“I don’t fuck up, Evans.” He chuckles and shrugs. “And even if I did, she always comes back. I’m always fucking golden when it comes to her.”

I bristle. “We are talking about Blair, right?”

There’s the slightest pause in his response that has my irritation firing. We better be fucking talking about Blair because while Rossi is Rossi—a player, a guy who talks a good game, a man you don’t want on your bad side—I didn’t take him to be a cheater. Then again . . . he is Rossi. Far from an angel.

His smirk is as sarcastic as his tone. “What do you think?”

“That sounds fucking convincing.” I snort. He doesn’t deserve her.

What the hell are you talking about? You barely even know her.

And yet the woman has been living rent-free in my head since our talk of hummingbirds and the northern lights. Nothing happened. Not a fucking thing, but hell if I can’t forget her shy smile, the hint of her perfume, the feel of her body pressed briefly against mine, the sway of her hips, or her perfectly kissable lips.

“What the fuck ever. I don’t need your approval for what I do or don’t do. Just like I don’t need hers.” He lifts his hat and runs a hand through his hair. “All these people thinking they can tell me what I can and can’t do. Fuck that and fuck them,” he mutters more to himself than anyone, before looking back at me. “With Blair, we have our lines in the sand and . . . history. She lets me be who I am and I let her . . . you know.”

There’s that word again—history.

“No. I don’t know. From what I see, she has a pretty good head on her shoulders. Perhaps you’re scared of what might happen if she were to start to use it when it comes to you.”

The comment is out before I can stop it and garners the reaction one would expect from him.

“What the fuck does that mean? What’s it to you?” Anger peppers his voice as he squares his shoulders and takes a step toward me.

“It’s nothing to me,” I say.

“Stay out of my business, Evans. That’s all you need to—”

“Don’t bring it up then.”

“Oh. Sorry,” a female voice says at the edge of the garage. Her footsteps falter. “I didn’t mean to interrupt . . .”

I look to my left and see Blair. Her gray eyes are wide, and her lips are parted as she looks from me to Rossi and then back. The automatic smile you’d expect a girlfriend to give her boyfriend when they see each other is more hesitant than anything.

But when she meets my eyes, the damn thing lights up her face.

Fuck.

It’s not like she hasn’t smiled at me before or during our mandatory participation in her F1 outreach events, but this just feels . . . different.

Like when an old friend, who you’ve been waiting to see, says hi.

Like when a woman you haven’t stopped thinking about finally acknowledges you.

“Lachlan,” she says in her signature rasp.

My name is a greeting and a question all at the same time. Our gazes hold longer than normal, and I have to force myself to look away. Just like I have to tell myself to ignore the way everything about her sets everything fucking ablaze in me.

Because it shouldn’t. Can’t.

She’s Rossi’s.

Not mine.

But fuck . . . man.