Page 68 of Off the Grid

She rolls her eyes and laughs. “I need another drink to simply stand here and stomach this.”

“I’m not sharing anything when you’re bagging on me.”

“Poor baby. Did I hurt your ego?” She pouts out her bottom lip and then when I mimic her by rolling my own eyes, she lunges for the bottle I’m denying her.

I twist my body to prevent her from reaching the bottle. She trips and I stumble, or some cliché movement like that, but we end up chest to chest, our faces mere inches apart.

The laugh that falls from her mouth stutters to a breathy stop.

I can feel the warmth of her panted exhale on my lips.

Can feel the brush of her breasts against my chest with each inhale she takes.

Can see her pulse skittering along the line of her throat.

For the briefest of moments, I forget where we are, who she is, and my reasons for the dare card that night.

All I remember is the taste of her kiss.

The softness of her lips.

That low, strangled moan that she emitted from the back of her throat that tugged on my balls as if it were her fingertips.

Her eyes are startled wide and look much how I feel. Shocked. Discombobulated. Turned on.

I reach up and brush a lock of hair that has fallen over her cheek and tuck it behind her ear—something, anything, to keep my hands busy and my mind off her parted lips and wide eyes. It’s been one hell of a day and a bit too somber a night. But this? This feels like something I want but know I shouldn’t have. Like something I desperately need, as if I’m drowning and Camilla is the only thing that can revive me.

“Should we test your theory about my skills?” I murmur.

“Riggs,” she whispers in a shaky voice that has me wanting to step into her and kiss that vulnerability away.

My conscience wars.

With what’s right.

With what I don’t want but suddenly do.

With the fucking fallout—something I normally wouldn’t care about—that I don’t want to fuck up given my first complete experience of F1 under my belt.

My fingers skim her bare arm as I bring it down and she jumps back as if I’ve electrocuted her.

“Sorry. I fell. I didn’t mean—”

I shove the bottle toward her to stop her from rambling and to prevent myself from stepping forward and doing what I can’t get out of my head.

She’s nervous. It’s the way her hands need something to do. Fix her hair. Touch the desk. Adjust her shirt on her shoulders. Lift the bottle to her lips and then back down.

“Why do you have that? Champagne? The bottle?”

Huh. The woman who never gets rattled is rattled.

Why do I like that I did that to her?

“Another driver gave it to me today as a congrats.”

“Oh.” She looks at me and then my hands and then back out to the track.

Knock. Knock. Knock.