Aflame (Fall Away #4) (9 page)

By the time we rounded the fourth turn, Derek was already nearing the finish line, and I felt my stomach roll as I cruised past, pulling to a slow stop past the announcer’s stand and feeling the heat of embarrassment cover my skin.

Dammit.

Roman was crowded with spectators, and he climbed out of his car, smiling ear to ear.

I pulled off my helmet, having never felt so fucking humiliated.

I’d just lost a bike race to an old rival I could barely stand in front of a hundred people I went to high school with.

I’m not going to kill her. I won’t hurt her.

But I was going to do things to her. I slammed my helmet down on the handle bar.
Lots of fun things.

I hung my head, breathing in and out steadily as Tate climbed off the bike and stepped up to my side, removing her helmet.

“You know,” she started, looking off toward Roman, “You made him pretty damn happy. Derek doesn’t really have that much going on in his life,” she told me, looking thoughtful. “He has some friends and the Loop, but that’s it. He’ll never be one to rise high or have the world at his feet. This will probably keep him high for a month.”

Her mouth tilted in a little smile, and I looked over to see him laughing with his friends, enjoying the praise and admiration. The win clearly made him feel good, and it probably made him look good. I looked at Tate, realizing what she was doing for him.

I shook my head and gave a half smile. “What did you promise him if he won?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “I just guaranteed him he would win.”

“You were that sure,” I said, knowing she must’ve told him her plan to ride with me.

She nodded. “He likes me and trusts me. More than he does you.”

“Great,” I bit out.

She jerked her chin. “Look at him, though.” She smiled. “This is probably the best he’s felt in a long time.” And then she looked back at me. “He doesn’t need a reward. He just needed the win.”

I looked over at Roman, realizing she was right. He wasn’t a threat to me anymore, and I had a lot to be happy about. No harm done.

She let out a hard sigh. “But this really sucks for you, though,” she teased, fake sympathy written all over her face. “Jared Trent, up and coming motor bike racer for CD One Racing losing to an amateur on this small pond?” She laughed. “Yikes.”

And I watched her walk away, my face hardening as she went up to Ben and wrapped her arms around him.

I climbed off my bike, staring after her.

It was definitely time to step up my game.

***

It wasn’t a turn-on a year and a half ago, so why the hell was I turned on now?

I shifted slightly in my seat, the swirl of heat shooting from my stomach to my groin, and I watched, wanting him to touch her.

I actually wanted it.

I dared him to slide his fucking hand higher up her thigh, so I could feel more of what I’d missed feeling the past two years.

Only Tate did this to my head. Only she twisted my body up like this.

Nothing had changed.

“Jared, what are you doing?” I hear Pasha’s breathless voice as she shoves the hotel room door open.

I tip back the rocks glass and down the rest of the whiskey, the thick burn tearing up my throat before it warms my stomach. Dropping the glass to the floor, I fall back onto the bed—one of many beds on which I’d slept alone, completely faithful to Tate—and I feel the tears wet the corners of my eyes. But I tighten my jaw, refusing to let them fall.

I just want everyone to leave me alone.

I breathe in through my nose, defiant, willing myself to either forget or accept what I’d seen tonight through Tate’s bedroom window.

She had a boyfriend.

The ceiling spins above me, and I bring my hands up to my head, digging my palms into my closed eyes.

Six months ago, Tate loved me, and now I was nothing. The last time I was nothing to her—the last time she talked tough and tried to convince me that I didn’t matter—I’d stolen our first kiss.

And I knew she had lied.

But now . . . she’d shown me that she was forgetting me.

I feel like I did in high school. Before she was mine.

I can’t stop the first tear from falling. “Tate,” I breathe out, wiping my face quickly.

“Who’s Tate?” Pasha sounds worried, and I know she doesn’t understand any of this. “Jared, are you crying?”

“Just get out,” I growl.

I gave her my extra key, so she could get in to get anything I might forget for tomorrow’s race, but unfortunately, she must’ve heard my commotion when I kicked over the portable bar and broke a bottle earlier.

“You have a race at ten a.m.!” she shouts. “You have to be at the track by seven, and you’re drunk off your ass!”

I shoot up into a sitting position. “Out!” I bellow. “Get the fuck out!”

“What the hell’s going on?” I hear a male voice and instantly know it’s Craig Danbury, the team’s manager.

“Oh, my God,” he swears under his breath, probably taking in the sight of my drunken disarray.

I don’t look up from my hands, but I see his shoes near the door.

“What the hell is wrong with him?”

“I don’t know,” Pasha says. “And I don’t know if he’s going to be okay tomorrow.”

I press my head between both hands, unable to concentrate on anything except her. She didn’t wait for me. Why didn’t she wait?

Anger charges through my body, and I want a fight. I want to hit someone.

“He better be okay,” Craig snaps. “I don’t care what you have to do. Get him a girl or a pill . . . just get him back to one hundred percent by morning.”

I hear him leave, and I shake my head. I’m losing control, and I hate this feeling. I never wanted to feel this again.

Pasha’s hands land on my forearms as she kneels in front of me.

“Jared,” she pleads, “tell me what the hell happened.”

I close my eyes, feeling like my body is swaying. “I lost Tate,” I whisper, my eyes burning.

“Who’s Tate?” she questions. “Is he a friend of yours?”

I let out a bitter laugh, kind of liking the sound of that. I wish our new neighbors ten years ago had had a boy instead of a girl. I wish Tate was a guy I’d gone to school with instead of the girl I liked, bullied, and then fell in love with.

I wish my world had never revolved around her. Maybe we both would’ve been happier.

“Drink this,” Pasha orders, handing me a bottle of water.

I grab it lazily and unscrew the cap, downing the bottle. When I finish, she pushes another one at me.

I shake my head. “Enough. Just leave me alone.”

“No,” she pushes. “You have a race tomorrow. A responsibility to me and your team. Drink this and then go get in the shower, while I go rustle up some aspirin and food. We need to get the alcohol out of you.”

She leaves, and I suck in air, trying to ignore the knots in my stomach that I know aren’t from the liquor. Gulping down the second bottle of water, I rise on shaky legs and tear off my jeans and boxers as I make my way to the bathroom.

I don’t want a life without Tate. I don’t want anything without her.

Stepping into the shower, I stumble as I turn on the water. I jerk when the heat hits my body, and even though I should be under a cold spray to sober me up, the hot rush eases my nerves.

I drop my head forward, letting the cascade run down my neck and back, and I suddenly feel the first drop of peace I’ve felt all night.

Tate’s been everything to me for so long, and somehow I thought she always would be. I never doubted it.

In fact, I’d gone to great lengths to stay in her life, be it for good or bad.

And that’s when I realize it. I had given her too much power over me.

My first instinct tonight when I saw her with another man was to hit someone, yell at her, confront them both, but something inside held me back.

I’d always crowded her, pushed her and fought with her, and I didn’t want to be that guy anymore. I left in the first place so I could grow up.

I hear the bathroom door shut, and I pull back the curtain just an inch to see a young woman leaning against it.

She watches me, and I smooth my hair over the top of my head, trying to place her. She looks vaguely familiar.

“Who are you?” I ask, thinking she might be a groupie or someone’s assistant, but I hadn’t paid any attention to other women in a long time, so I wasn’t sure.

Her big brown eyes look shy. “Pasha thought you might need a backrub,” she replies, her voice sounding so innocent.

I narrow my eyes and watch as she slowly starts to take off her clothes, holding my gaze the whole time, as her meaning becomes clear.

I still, slowly releasing the air in my lungs.

Her light brown hair falls over her shoulder, and my heart rate picks up as piece by piece, everything comes off and she stands naked in front of me.

I whisper under my breath, willing myself to tell her to go.

Just tell her to go.

She’s quiet, but I catch the hint of playfulness in her eyes as she cocks her head at me, waiting for an invitation.

“Do you want me to leave?” she asks gently, everything in her look telling me she knows I won’t.

I let my eyes trail down her body, and I can almost feel how warm she would be if I touched her.

How nice it would be to have someone in my bed.

I want her to leave, but I don’t want to be alone.

Tate’s smiles float through my mind, and I steel my jaw as the girl approaches, her presence making the hair on my arms stand up.

She looks up at me with a small smile, and I start to grow hard as I think about her open for me on the bed. I can close my eyes and go at her, get lost in the act and let go of my anger and pain and use her like I have so many other women, but . . .

But I never gain anything from it.

Tomorrow, I’ll hate myself and the cheap act, because nothing compares to fucking someone you love.

Needles prick the back of my throat, and I swallow the lump. “Yeah,” I rasp, looking down at her. “I want you to leave.”

Confusion and a hint of hurt flash through her eyes as she shifts her gaze, probably trying to make sense of why I don’t want her.

I close the shower curtain and finally hear the door open and close, and a wave of relief hits me. For a moment, Tate fades in my head, and every inch of my body feels the gust of a second wind.

I’d let my need for Tate make me do so many bad things in the past and make so many wrong decisions, and I hadn’t realized how much I still lacked control over my own happiness.

She had been everything, and I’d held myself back, acting out and making all the wrong choices, because my head had been so clouded with her—and I’m not doing it anymore.

I get out of the shower, wrap a towel around my waist, and go to bed.

I have a race tomorrow.

A couple of women came and went over the next year and a half, but it was never because I was angry or wanting revenge. I was trying to move on just like Tate had been. I had wanted to go back and fight for her, but not until I was sure I was going to be good for her. And maybe she wouldn’t want me anyway, since she’d moved on. So I let it be.

For a year and a half, I warred between what I wanted and what I thought was right. Either take her back and love her forever, or leave her alone, because all I’ve ever caused her was pain.

But when I came home today and saw her again, that was it. The battle in my head wasn’t there anymore.

She belonged to me. I was built for her.

I looked over, across the dance floor, her table full of our friends and their drinks, while Ben had his lazy hand resting low on her thigh, and I steeled my jaw to prevent the smile.

That touch wasn’t going to do it for her.

Not for her.

Tate wasn’t a slow burn. She liked to be fed on.

Halestorm’s “I Get Off” played over the sound system, and some of our old high school friends sang along on the dance floor. I smiled to myself, remembering how that song always reminded me of her and how we grew up with our windows facing each other. She had a lot of fun taunting me with that window when we were together.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I slid my thumb over the screen to see a text from Jax.

What are you planning to do when she leaves with him tonight?

I locked eyes with my brother across the dance floor as he flashed me a small, all-knowing grin.

Asshole.

My phone buzzed again.

You have no idea, do you?

I dumped my phone on my table and shot him my middle finger. He laughed and looked at Madoc, who shared his amusement.

What was I supposed to do? Drag her to my car by her hair? Yeah, that would win me points.

But he was right. There was no way I could live with her going home with someone else. As much as I’d learned to control my temper, she was a trigger.

Whatever fling she’d had a year and a half ago, I’d been around to witness only a few minutes of it. Now it was a different matter. Ben wasn’t a bad guy, and Tate knew him somewhat well. Shit could escalate quickly between them.

The girl next to me leaned into my arm, and I looked down at her, almost wishing that I could take her home. I was overloaded with energy and adrenaline, and I wanted a girl in my bed tonight.

I could pretend I was going to take her with me. I could talk myself into it and let her body get mine worked up to where I’d shut off, dive in, and play for a while, but I’d be forcing it. There was only one girl I wanted and who knew exactly what I liked.

“Asshole!”

I jerked my head to the dance floor to see Pasha shoving a guy away from her.