Page 72 of Crash Course

Lower.

When his thumb presses into my palm, heat floods me. I sink my teeth into my lip.

He had a good reason for leaving. He saved my involvement in the race series, and all the other engineers’ involvement, even though he had nothing to gain from it.

God, life was so much easier when he was just an asshole.

His gaze shifts down my body. I feel his attention on my breasts, my waist, my legs like a caress.

He’s only touching my hand, but I swear I feel him everywhere.

“You really think that little of me, that I’d bring you to your first race and then bail?” When his eyes find mine again, his voice is softer.

I try to focus on what he’s saying and not only the wanting vibrating through my entire body.

“No,” I say honestly, because that would violate his own rules for himself. He might not give a shit about anyone else’s, but he cares about those. “If you thought I was helping Theo, I wasn’t—”

“Can’t tell you how much I’d love to get through tonight without hearing you say my brother’s name again.”

His words are sharp, but there’s no smugness in his expression.

“Too bad. Theo and I are friends.” I realize the truth when I say it aloud.

“Friends.” Jameson jumps on the word as he moves closer. It’s unreal how quickly he eliminates the space between us. “And what are we?”

He looks wrecked. Like he’s losing something he’s wanted forever but never let himself claim.

My pulse kicks in my throat, my stomach doing that nervous excited thing it does when he’s close enough our fighting feels like something else entirely.

“I think it’s obvious.”

His blue eyes are stormy, as if he’s still on the track battling for a prize that’s worth everything. His fingers thread through the hair at the nape of my neck. “Then fucking enlighten me.”

Then he does the most disarming, horrifying thing of all.

He waits.

Everyone tells me what to want, what to do. Jameson simply ceases everything. As if the fastest person in the world decided I’m worth waiting forever for.

I say the only thing that feels right, the only one that captures the messy storm in my chest whenever he’s nearby.

“Not friends.”

His throat bobs. For a second, he looks as if he’s going to let me go.

But something in him breaks. The hand in my hair forms a fist as he drags me up to him.

Then he’s kissing me.

The universe splits in two—one reality where Jameson Ashford is kissing me, and one with every other possibility.

There’s only one I want to live in.

His lips are as hard as the rest of him, but after weeks of barely there touches and stolen glances, it’s the warmth of his mouth that’s most overwhelming.

Desire courses through me, hot and sharp. My hands itch, and before I know it, they’re exploring his chest, the hard muscles underneath.

My head tilts back as he angles me under him.