Page 61 of Redline
Now, I’m vibrating with the fallout of a weekend I can’t quantify, trapped in the expensive confines of the very sportthat dismantled my own family. It’s been hours since we arrived back, and the irony is a bitter taste in the back of my throat: the more I try to claw my way out of racing, the deeper I seem to be pulled into the center of its most dangerous gravity.
Dominic is here, quiet and deliberate in the steam. He doesn’t even flinch at the noise.
"You were listening to my dad," I say, the words tumbling out before the door even clicks shut behind me. My hair is a mess, and I know I look frazzled—completely undone by the wreckage of the race. "I saw it on the telemetry. I saw it in the way you took that turn. You were winning. Why did you stop?"
He doesn’t answer. He’s sitting on the bench, his back against the cedar, elbows resting on his knees. He doesn't move, doesn't even look up at first, just stares at the floor as the steam curls around his bare shoulders. He’s a statue in the stillness, while I’m the one vibrating with a nervous energy I can’t shake.
The stillness in his posture is worse than if he’d shouted. It feels like he’s intentionally sucking all the air out of the room.
"What did Luka say?" he asks, his voice low and scraping against the quiet.
I blink, the sudden shift in subject catching in my throat. "What?"
"On the pit wall." He finally lifts his head, his gaze heavy and pinning me where I stand. "Mid-race. I was hunting the gap, and I looked over and saw you. You were smiling at something he said. What was so funny that you couldn't keep your eyes on the race?"
"What are you talking about?" I demand, my brows knitting as I pull my arms tighter across my chest. "I’m asking you about the sector. I'm asking you why you threw away a podium for a compromise that didn't actually exist."
"And I'm talking about you," he counters, still not rising, yet somehow managing to make me feel like he’s looming overme. "Because today, while I was hitting the apex, I didn't hear Landon. I didn't hear the tires. I heard your voice in my head."
I freeze. "What?"
"I heard you," he repeats. "So I listened. I listened to what your dad was telling me. I stopped forcing it. I stopped being selfish."
The word hangs between us, as heavy and stifling as the steam-saturated air.
"Then why did you stop?" I demand. My voice is sharper than I intended. "If you were being 'unselfish,' why did you let him take the line? Why did you throw it all away?"
Dominic doesn’t answer with words.
He unfolds from the bench, a slow, predatory movement that sends the air in the sauna swirling, suddenly too hot to draw into my lungs. He closes the distance in two heavy strides, pinning me into the narrow gap between his chest and the wall.
He leans in, one hand falling against the wood paneling beside my head with a muffled noise that vibrates through my skull. He’s so close I can feel the closeness of him like a second pulse, but it’s the frantic, heavy thud of his heart against his ribs that makes my world tilt.
The rhythm is off-kilter, a mirror to the uneven misfire in my own chest. My eyes widen, my gaze snapping to the frantic pulse visible in his neck.
It’s unexpected. Startling. For all his practiced arrogance, he isn't nearly as steady as he wants me to think —at least not in this moment.
He slides a heavy, muscled knee between my thighs, pressing upward with a slow, agonizing deliberation. My breath hitches—a sharp, broken sound that echoes off the small space—as I’m forced to widen my stance. The contact is firm, unyielding, and the friction of his skin against the inside of my leg sends a jolt through me that has nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
"You want the truth?" he rasps, his face dipping until our foreheads almost touch.
I can't find my voice. My heart is a frantic rhythm against my ribs, and the air between our lips is charged, electric, and dangerously thin. I can only nod, my eyes locked on his as the string between us pulls to the point of snapping.
"The truth is, I’m tired of trying to find a version of me that isn't a disappointment," he says, the words a low vibration against my skin. "I tried to be the person you asked me to be. I tried to be 'better' for once."
"And?" I whisper, the word barely making it out.
"And it didn't work," he says, his gaze darkening as he presses his knee just a fraction higher, demanding all of my attention. "Because I am selfish, Carter. I have always been selfish."
My breath catches, my back pinned so tight I can feel the wood of the wall biting into my spine. My lungs feel like they're filled with lead. "And now?"
Dominic doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he shifts his weight, his leg moving with a slow, grinding friction that makes it too easy to lean into. Before I can find my footing, his hand slides from the wall to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair as he pivots me toward the bench.
It’s one fluid, forceful motion. I hit the seat, my legs splaying out as he looms over me, boxing me in with his arms. The closeness is agonizing now, but it’s the look on his face that makes me feel like I’m burning from the inside out.
He doesn’t look angry anymore. He looks predatory.
His eyes drop, tracking the heavy, rhythmic rise and fall of my chest, then lowers to where my shirt is clinging to my skin in the humidity. A slow, devastating smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth—the look of a man who has just seen exactly how much I want the mistake he’s about to make.
