Chapter 2: Worried
The Monaco night was a liar. It glittered with the promise of champagne and ease, but underneath, it was all gears grinding, money changing hands, and egos being stoked or shattered. Carlos Sainz stood in the shadow of the Ferrari hospitality unit, the red glow doing little to warm him. He’d just finished a brutal debrief, his own mistakes picked over with clinical precision. His body ached from the g-forces, but his mind was elsewhere.
It was on a flash of navy fabric, a hushed, hurt tone from hours earlier.
He’d been walking past the Mercedes engineering office, the door ajar. James Vowles’s voice, usually a controlled, graveled instrument, had been a whip crack of fury.
“—unacceptable, Élodie! I had it from Pirelli myself. Your numbers were off. That variance is what cost us the front row. What the fuck were you doing?”
Carlos had stopped, unseen. He knew the data she handled. It was flawless. Always.
Her reply had been quiet, steady, but with a tremor underneath. “James, the telemetry from FP3 was corrupted. The baseline we used was George’s, not Lewis’s. I flagged it. You overrode it.”
“Don’t you dare blame this on my call!” The sound of something—a tablet, maybe—hitting a desk. “Just clean it up. And get me the corrected simulations before the fucking party. I don’t want to see you until they’re perfect.”
The door had opened then, and Élodie had stepped out. She hadn’t seen Carlos. Her face was a pale, composed mask, but her eyes were glassy, swimming with a humiliation so profound it had carved a hole in Carlos’s chest. She’d walked away, back straight, heels steady, a masterpiece of dignified retreat.
He’d wanted to follow her then. To put himself between her and that tone. But it wasn’t his place.
Now, hours later, the party was a distant throb of bass. He found her where he half-expected to: not at the party, but in a dimly-lit service corridor behind the hospitality suites, a concrete-lined space smelling of diesel and damp. She was sitting on an upturned equipment crate, her head in her hands, the perfect waves of her hair falling forward like a curtain.
“Élodie?”
She jolted, looking up. Even in the shitty yellow light of a safety lamp, she was beautiful. Devastatingly so. Her intelligent eyes were red-rimmed, her burgundy nails pressing into her temples. She tried to smile, a brittle, failed thing. “Carlos. Shouldn’t you be celebrating? P4 is strong here.”
“It’s a tomb.” He leaned against the cold wall opposite her. “What are you doing back here?”
“Correcting simulations,” she said, her voice hollow. “Like I was told.”
He knew then that James had never apologized. The injustice of it burned in his throat. He’d liked her from a distance for years, ever since he’d first seen her in the paddock, a quiet force moving through the chaos with a focused calm that seemed impossible. He’d hear her laughing with engineers in rapid French, see her gently guiding a lost journalist, watch the way her brow furrowed in concentration. She never seemed to see the looks she drew, the quiet admiration. She was brilliant, and kind, and she blushed a soft, beautiful pink whenever he deliberately leaned into his Spanish accent to greet her.
She had no idea. No idea how stunning she was, curled in on herself on a fucking crate in a back corridor.
“He was wrong,” Carlos said, his voice softer than he intended. “The data corruption was on the FIA’s server feed. Everyone knows it. James knows it. He was looking for an outlet.”
Her composure cracked. A single, sharp sob escaped her, and she clenched her jaw, fighting the rest. “It does not matter. My job is to make his life easier. I failed.”
“Your job is to be his partner in this madness, not his punching bag.” Carlos pushed off the wall and closed the distance between them. He crouched in front of her, his driver’s instincts making him fluid even now. He was 6'1", tanned from Spanish sun and endless global summers, his frame solid from years of brutal physical training. Up close, he could see the delicate tracks of tears on her cheeks. “Look at me, cariño. He doesn’t own you.”
The word, the tenderness in it, broke her. The dam holding back her hurt and fatigue burst. A ragged cry tore from her, and she folded forward. Carlos didn’t hesitate. He rose, pulling her up and into his arms. She came willingly, her body trembling against his. He wrapped her up, one hand cradling the back of her head, his fingers sinking into those soft, dark curls. He held her as she cried, proper, wrenching sobs that shook her whole frame.
“Shhh,” he murmured into her hair, which smelled of orange blossom and salt. “It’s alright. Let it out. He’s a stressed, brilliant idiot. He doesn’t see what he has.” He rubbed slow circles on her back, feeling the tension coiled in her spine. “You are the best thing in that entire garage. Everyone knows it. He knows it. That’s why he’s so scared.”
She cried for a long time, her fists clinging to the fabric of his team shirt. He just held her, his own heart pounding a fierce, protective rhythm. He’d driven at 220 miles per hour with less adrenaline. This felt more dangerous.
Slowly, her sobs subsided into shaky breaths. She didn’t pull away. Her face was buried in the crook of his neck, her breath warm against his skin.
“I am so tired, Carlos,” she whispered, the words muffled.
“I know.”
“I have given him everything. Every thought. Every hour. And it is never enough.”
Carlos’s hand stilled on her back. He leaned back just enough to tilt her face up. Her eyes were wet, her lips parted. She looked utterly lost. And so fucking beautiful it hurt.
“He doesn’t deserve it,” Carlos said, his voice low, graveled with an emotion he’d kept banked for years. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
He saw the moment her perception shifted. The hurt in her eyes flickered, replaced by a dawning, vulnerable awareness. She was seeing him—not the friendly driver, not the paddock acquaintance, but Carlos, the man holding her in a dark, quiet corner of the world. Her gaze dropped to his mouth.
The first kiss was not gentle. It was a collision.
It was her surging up onto her toes, her mouth finding his with a desperate, hungry claim. It was a release, a rebellion. A fuck you to James, to the expectations, to the cage of gilded care. Carlos met her with a growl, his arms locking around her, crushing her to him. He kissed her back with five years of pent-up wanting, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, tasting the salt of her tears and the latent heat beneath.
She moaned into him, a raw, unfiltered sound that went straight to his cock. He walked her back until her shoulders met the cold concrete wall, pinning her there with his body. He broke the kiss, both of them gasping.
“Tell me to stop,” he breathed against her lips, his hands already gripping her hips.
“Don’t you dare stop,” she panted, her eyes blazing in the dim light. Her fingers scrabbled at the waistband of his team trousers. “Fuck me, Carlos. Please.”
It was all the permission he needed. He claimed her mouth again, his hands moving with a brutal efficiency. He shoved the skirt of her navy dress up around her waist, his fingers finding the lace of her underwear. He tore them aside, the delicate fabric giving way with a sharp sound. She cried out, not in protest, but in sheer need.
He unfastened his own trousers, freeing his hard, thick cock. He was already leaking, painfully aroused. He didn’t wait, didn’t tease. He hooked one of her legs around his hip, the heel of her expensive shoe digging into his back.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his Spanish accent thickening with lust.
She opened her eyes, her gaze locked on his.
He notched his cock at her entrance. She was wet, so fucking wet, her heat searing him even before he pushed in. He drove into her in one deep, relentless stroke, burying himself to the hilt.
She screamed, a short, sharp sound swallowed by his mouth. Her back arched off the wall, her inner muscles clamping around him in a vice-like shock of pleasure. He held there, letting her adjust, feeling her heart hammer against his chest.
“Dios, you feel incredible,” he groaned, his forehead dropping to hers. “So tight. So perfect.”
Then he began to move. He fucked her against the wall with a hard, driving rhythm that was all piston-force and raw hunger. There was no finesse, just a consuming need to claim, to comfort, to rewrite the memory of her tears with this searing pleasure. The concrete was rough against her back, his body was hard and unyielding against her front, and she loved it. She met every thrust with a roll of her hips, her nails scoring his shoulders through his shirt.
“Yes… right there, Carlos… fuck, just like that,” she babbled, her accent thickening with every filthy word. “Harder. Don’t be gentle. I don’t want gentle.”
He obliged. He slammed into her, the slap of their bodies a rhythmic, obscene counterpoint to the distant party music. He could feel the coil of her orgasm tightening, her breaths coming in sharp, rhythmic cries. He shifted his angle, grinding deep, hitting a spot that made her eyes roll back.
“Come for me, cariño,” he growled, biting her lower lip. “Let go. I’ve got you.”
She shattered. Her orgasm ripped through her with a silent scream, her body seizing around his cock in pulsing, fluttering waves. He watched her face, every spasm of ecstasy a reward, a victory. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Her climax pushed him over the edge. With a final, deep thrust, he came, his own release roaring through him. He spilled into her, hot and endless, his hips jerking against hers as he emptied himself with a guttural, Spanish curse against her skin.
For a long moment, they stayed there, locked together, panting in the damp, dark air. The world slowly seeped back in—the hum of generators, a shouted laugh from far away.
The world slowly seeped back in—the hum of generators, a shouted laugh from far away. Carlos was still buried inside her, his softening cock cocooned in her incredible, clinging heat. He hated the necessity of movement, of withdrawal.
The thought of leaving that wet warmth felt like a physical amputation.
He kissed her instead, deep and dirty, his tongue mapping the familiar territory of her mouth as his hand slid between their bodies. His thumb found her swollen clit, circling with a relentless, practiced pressure. She gasped into the kiss, her hips giving a feeble, overstimulated jerk.
“Sssh, just relax, cariño,” he murmured against her lips, feeling her inner muscles flutter around him one last delicious time as he coaxed her through the final aftershocks. Only when she went boneless against the wall, a soft sigh escaping her, did he allow himself to pull out.
She keened at the loss, a ragged little sound of protest that he swallowed with his mouth.
His own completion was now a cooling dampness on his skin and hers. Shame, hot and acidic, rose in his throat. He had taken her in a filthy hallway, against a concrete wall, while she was raw from another man’s cruelty. He was no better than Vowles, just a different kind of selfish.
“Lo siento,” he whispered, the apology torn from him. “I should not have… not like this.”
He tucked himself away with clumsy fingers, then focused on her. He redressed her with a heartbreaking gentility, pulling her torn lace underwear up as best he could, smoothing her rumpled skirt down over her trembling thighs. His touch was a stark contrast to the frantic grasping of minutes before.
“Let me take you home,” he said, his voice rough. He brushed her tangled curls back from her damp forehead, placing a soft kiss there. “My apartment. Let me take care of you. Please, mi vida.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, her flushed cheek, the line of her jaw. “I will run you a bath. Feed you. Just let me hold you.”
She looked up at him, her intelligent eyes clearing from their lust-haze, seeing the genuine remorse in his. The fight had left her, replaced by a profound, weary emptiness. She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
He helped her stand, her legs unsteady. He smoothed her hair, his large hands surprisingly deft, though the perfect waves from La Belle Époque were a lost cause. He found her fallen shoe and slipped it back onto her foot, his fingers lingering on her ankle. Then he laced his fingers tightly with hers, a deliberate, claiming gesture that felt more intimate than the sex.
He led her not towards the main paddock glow, but deeper into the service labyrinth, towards a discreet exit known only to team personnel. They moved in silence, past pallets of tires and silent generator trucks, their joined hands swinging slightly between them.
He guided her out into a side alley, where the roar of the track was muted and the air smelled of salt and night-blooming jasmine. His rented Aston Martin DBX sat there, sleek and dark. He opened the passenger door for her, his hand a protective shield between her head and the frame.
As she slid in, he caught one last glimpse of the paddock’s neon crown in the distance. He thought of James Vowles, probably still working, believing his most essential infrastructure was dutifully correcting simulations. A savage, possessive satisfaction curled in Carlos’s gut.
He shut her door, walked around the hood, and got behind the wheel. The engine purred to life. He looked over at her, her profile etched against the window. She was staring at her own reflection, at the smudged mascara and kiss-swollen lips.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, not as a seduction, but as a simple, awful truth.
She didn’t answer. She just reached across the center console and took his hand again, holding it in her lap as he navigated the car out of the alley and onto the winding Monte Carlo streets, leaving the glittering cage and its absent keeper behind.
The Aston Martin’s purr was a soft, mechanical whisper compared to the memory of paddock screams. Élodie watched Monte Carlo’s fairy-lit hills blur past, her hand a small, cold weight in Carlos’s warm, steady grasp. She felt hollowed out, scraped raw by the twin violences of James’s words and Carlos’s body. The scent of him—racing fuel, warm skin, sex—clung to her, a new layer over her own perfume.
His apartment was in a modern, discreet building overlooking the Port de Fontvieille, all clean lines and floor-to-ceiling glass. It smelled of lemons and clean linen. “Sit,” he murmured, guiding her to a vast, cream-colored sofa. He knelt, his fingers carefully unbuckling the straps of her heels. He removed each shoe as if handling ancient glass, his thumb stroking the arch of her foot. “I will draw the bath.”
She heard water begin to run, a generous, cascading sound. He returned moments later, having shed his team shirt. The sight of his torso, tan and defined, the dark trail of hair leading downward, should have stirred something. She felt only a numb exhaustion. “Come,” he said, his voice soft. He led her into a spacious, steam-fogged bathroom where a deep freestanding tub was filling with water the colour of milky jade. Bubbles foamed atop the surface, and the air was thick with the serene scent of lavender, chamomile, and something mineral-rich.
He turned off the taps. The sudden quiet was profound. Élodie stood motionless, watching the tendrils of steam curl. The perfection of the scene, after the concrete brutality of the service corridor, felt surreal. She felt uncertain, an intruder in this silent, fragrant ritual.
“Carlos?” Her voice was small.
“Hmm?” He was testing the water temperature with his elbow.
“Will you… get in with me?” She looked at him then, her brown eyes wide, vulnerable. “I do not want to be alone. I want to be close.”
He turned. His expression, usually so easy with confidence, softened into something unbearably tender. He crossed to her, cupping her face in his hands. He kissed her, not with the desperate hunger from before, but with a deep, lingering sweetness that promised sanctuary. “Of course, mi vida,” he breathed against her lips. “Of course.”
His hands went to the hidden zip at the side of her navy dress. He eased it down slowly, his knuckles brushing the length of her spine. The fabric pooled at her feet. He unhooked her bra, his movements reverent, and then knelt again to carefully peel the torn lace of her underwear down her thighs. He helped her step out of the small ruin of the garment, his lips brushing her hip bone.
Then he stood and removed his own remaining clothes, his eyes never leaving hers. He was fully erect again, his cock thick and heavy, but there was no urgency in his posture, only a patient, waiting strength. He took her hand and guided her to the bath, helping her step over the high rim and settle into the deep, enveloping heat. A sigh, part relief, part pain, escaped her as the water covered her shoulders.
He climbed in behind her, the water sloshing gently. He sat, his back against the curved end, and pulled her to settle between his legs, her back to his chest. She melted into him, her head resting on his shoulder, her body going liquid in the fragrant, silky heat. His arms came around her, one hand splayed low on her belly, the other lifting water to trickle over her collarbones.
“Better?” he murmured into her damp curls.
She nodded, a single tear tracking into the bathwater. This was a different kind of claiming. It seeped into her bones. He was washing away James’s fingerprints, replacing them with his own attentive, silent care. He reached for a soft, natural sponge and a bottle of bath gel. He soaped the sponge and began to wash her, starting with her shoulders, moving down her arms with long, slow strokes.
His touch was devotional. He lathered the swell of her breasts, his thumb circling each nipple until they peaked under the slick, hot attention. He washed the delicate skin of her stomach, the sponge gliding over the subtle muscles there. She let her legs float, drifting open, and he cleaned her there too, his touch thorough but achingly gentle, rinsing away the physical evidence of their earlier coupling. He washed between her thighs, over the soft curls, along the folds still tender from his taking, and she shuddered, a low sound catching in her throat.
“Shhh,” he soothed, kissing her temple. “Just letting you feel clean.”
He turned her in the water then, so she straddled his lap, her knees on either side of his hips. The water lapped at her breasts. He took the sponge and washed her back in slow circles, down the line of her spine to the curve of her ass. He rinsed her, his hands following the cascade of water, smoothing it over her skin. Then he discarded the sponge and simply held her, her wet skin slick against his, her face buried in the hollow of his neck.
They stayed like that until the water began to cool, until her fingertips wrinkled. He helped her out, wrapping her in a towel so plush it felt like a cloud, and dried her with the same meticulous care. He led her to the bedroom, a room of low light and crisp white sheets. He pulled the covers back and she slid in, the linen cool and clean against her skin.
He slid in beside her, pulling her into the curve of his body, her back to his front. His arm was a heavy, secure weight around her waist. His breath was warm on her nape.
“Sleep, cariño,” he whispered. “I have you. He cannot reach you here.”
And for the first time in years, ensnared in the arms of a man who had just rewritten the rules of her world, Élodie felt something like safety. It was terrifying. It was a door blowing open in a room she had thought was sealed forever. She felt his cock, hard again and pressed against the cleft of her ass, a persistent, patient heat. But he made no move to act on it. This was just presence. A promise.
Her last conscious thought was not of James’s anger, but of the smell of lavender salts and the solid, beating heart against her back. The cage was still there, perhaps. But tonight, she could not see its walls.