Black Flagged – This flag is waved by the official to signal to a driver that he must immediately report to the pits for consultation related to a dangerous mechanical condition or a driving infraction. Failure to heed the flag can result in exclusion from the race. This flag may also be displayed in a furled (rolled up) manner as a warning to drivers.

 

“Wake up!” I kicked Jameson in the ass. “Wes said to be ready in fifteen minutes.”

“No, leave me alone.”

“Fine,” I told him, sending a pillow flying toward his head. “I’m never having sex with you again.”

His head shot up. “I’m up.”

“That’s what I thought.” I headed for the shower.

Jameson insisted we take a little nap before we left for Key West. He kept an eye on Charlie for me last night so I thought he deserved a little nap. But now, it was my time, and more importantly, time for us to be alone for the first time in two weeks. If I were any more excited, I would burst into a puff of fairy dust.

“Did you pack enough panties?” Jameson asked once we were on the plane, not looking up from his phone, but the smirk was evident.

“Yes,” I voiced. “But that doesn’t mean you can rip them off.”

“Did you at least give me a few pairs to have my way with?” I watched as his smirk grew wider—he was still not looking up from his phone.

“You’re out of control.” Sitting across from him in the overstuffed leather captain’s chair, I kicked my flip-flops off and slid my feet into his lap.

“You act as though you’re surprised.”

I shook my head, laughing. “I’m not. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I agreed to go steady with you and marry you.”

“I have to be in Loudon at 2 p.m. tomorrow.” He finally looked up from his phone; his smirk had turned into a frown. He blinked, gauging my reaction.

“Press conference?” I asked.

“Yeah, winning and fines don’t come without obligations ...” his voice faded as though he was hinting this wouldn’t be the end of it. I knew this, though. I knew exactly what racing in the elite levels meant and always had. After he proposed that night, he was whisked away to the contenders’ conference and then more pictures. Before I knew it we were in Richmond and with the fines and Vegas, we hadn’t celebrated.

So this, tonight, was our celebration together, alone, of our engagement. I glanced down at my ring and smiled. My fairytale was coming true.

Sliding my feet along the insides of his thighs, I stopped when they reached inches from the camshaft. “That means I need the wooing.”

“Mmmm.” Tossing his phone aside, he shifted in the chair reaching for my feet, running his strong, large hands along my calves. “Woo I can do.” He grinned, dark lashes blinked.

Once we arrived in Key West, we checked into the hotel Jameson booked for us at the Ocean Key Resort and Spa.

The room was beautiful, but I hardly paid any attention to it.

“Wow,” I gasped.

“Good?” His lips found my shoulder, kissing his way to my lips. “Is this what you wanted?” His finger touched lightly to the back of my neck.

“Yes.” I kissed him once.

“Dinner?” He pulled back to look at me, eyes bright when he heard my stomach growl.

My brow arched, and he smiled.

“Dinner it is,” he snorted, reaching for his bag he’d placed beside the bed. Carefully he pulled out his black slacks and a dark gray dress shirt with a black tie.

“Wow... hot.”

Jameson smirked; his head remained bent forward as he searched the bag.

“So are you.” He held up a black satin dress with matching heels. “Emma,” he hesitated for a second, “instructed me to give this to you.”

“Oh, she did, did she?”

His head tipped, his knuckles ran over his lower lip before he set down the dress, pulling me against his chest. “You don’t have to wear it... but you would look sexy in it,” he teased, his eyes twinkling in the setting sun, shining through the windows.

“I’ll wear it.” My eyes shifted to my baby bump. “If it fits.”

Amazingly enough, it fit. Surprised the hell out of me. I didn’t even look pregnant with it on, which made me feel better. When I finished dressing and applying some light make-up, I walked out of the bathroom to find Jameson on the balcony, facing the ocean. I smiled, admiring his attire—we were matchy-match tonight.

 

Jameson chose a restaurant on the pier, the warm coastal air surrounding us. Tiny white Christmas lights twisted in the wooden umbrellas overhead created a magical feeling over the pier. The ocean crashed against the rocks below us, the salt actually present on my tongue, and the humidity was making my ass sweat. Not exactly romantic but, hey, I was pregnant.

“You having a good time?” he asked, letting his hand settle against the small of my back. I only hoped he couldn’t feel how much I was sweating.

“Very much so, thank you,” I assured him, smiling, more sweat dripping and then pooling in places I didn’t appreciate. Like in my bra.

“I’m glad we’re alone, finally,” he said, raising my hand to his mouth. He laid kisses across my knuckles, opening my palm and pressing a wet kiss at its center, “where I don’t have to worry about someone walking in on us.” He kissed my hand once more as I stared back at him. “... or the media.”

“Don’t get too excited.” He set my hand down on the table, smiling. “We haven’t made it back to the room yet.”

“Do you like getting away like this?” His voice softened, his eyes dropping to my hand still on the table and then ring he placed there.

“It’s nice to be alone with you, yes, but I enjoy our time at the track, too.” I think in some ways, Jameson needed to hear that. He needed to know that while I appreciate this type of romantic thing, I would always love the life we had. The life we were making.

He smiled, again, and moved his hand to my thigh, just under my dress where his warm fingers felt like ice compared to the heat here. “I know what you mean.”

We didn’t stay there long, mostly because we had some plans of our own back at the hotel. Jameson paid the bill, and we began making our way through the city toward our hotel. Lanterns lit up the dark sky overhead, as a heavy drumbeat pulsed with people dancing in the streets. There was a buoyant energy throughout the city; the sense of wild abandon was floating through the air.

We passed a bar playing salsa music, and Jameson stopped suddenly, yanking me inside.

“Really... you salsa dance?”

He licked his lips slowly again and wrapped his arms firmly around my waist.

“Honey... I know how to move.” His strong hips pressed forward, leading me to the dance floor. “And it’s all in the hips.”

Thousands of those tiny twinkle lights strung across the ceiling and pillars throughout the bar, creating a sexy, romantic feeling on the dark wooden dance floor. People were dancing all around us, making it difficult to move, but none of them existed once my dirty heathen had his strong concrete arms around me, moving me fluidly over the dance floor with ease to the beats of “El Gitano del Amor.”

I don’t know how it happened, but his tie was loosened, the top few buttons of the shirt undone, allowing a view of his faint chest hairs to peek out. My hands instinctively wrapped around his neck, his fingertips gripped my hips, controlling my movements.

His eyes lit up as we moved across the dance floor, effortlessly, to the beat of the band, the music pulsing, I could feel it throughout my entire body. I couldn’t speak—all I could do was smile.

I couldn’t salsa dance to save my life, but with Jameson leading me around, turns out I could salsa dance, and goddamn was he right, it’s all in the hips.

Beautiful women danced closely beside us, but Jameson’s eyes never left mine, not once. They stayed fixated, holding me like the treasure I was to him.

When the song finished he drew me closer, his hips pressing forward, his breath blowing across my face as he spoke. “Let’s get out of here. I have some machine work that needs to take place, right now.”

His eyes still focused on mine, he led me away from the dance floor. Once outside, I was whirled once more against the side of the building and pulled toward an obscured alleyway.

“What are you doing?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. His green eyes sparkled as his left hand came up to cup my cheek, angling my face with his.

He kissed me deeply, passionately, fervently... let’s just say this one kiss was what fairytales were made of. His tongue gently, and with determination, caressed my own. His other hand slid down from my hip to wrap around the back of my knee—hitching it around his waist. And, in a movement, so quick I didn’t know what was happening, Jameson slid my underwear aside and assessed my bearings, deciding whether or not align boring, or maybe press forging, would be necessary.

I gasped loudly at the feeling of his long slender fingers wooing the crankcase. And then again, in another movement so quick I barely had time to interpret it, he was fumbling with his belt, desperately trying to get his pants unzipped.

“What... are... oh, God... that’s...” His fingers swirled around my ignition switch.

“Good?” he grunted, pushing forward with a growl of animalistic proportions. If he hadn’t been holding me against the wall, I would have collapsed at that noise.

“So good, but we’re... in public...” Though I said this, for the life of me, I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit about our public display of align boring.

People were screaming and dancing in the streets not more than ten feet from us, but under the secluded darkness of the alley, it felt private and insanely fucking erotic.

“I don’t care.” His mouth moved back to mine, his breath coming out in short gasps as he pushed inside. “I couldn’t wait any longer.” His wet, hot lips traveled from my mouth and kissed along my jaw, down my neck, and sunk into his favorite spot, the skin over my collarbone. “I want you, Sway, right now.” His voice trembled, full of desire. “I can’t promise you slow, not tonight.”

“Fine by me,” I breathed.

“Ah, shit, honey... I can’t last long like this.” Jameson breathed against my neck after a few moments; his head buried there, his hands wrapped around my ass, guiding me up and down and over.

I don’t know what it was about this align boring against the cold brick wall in the dark alleyway. I’m sure this alleyway has housed many romps and the occasional drug addict’s next hit, but I was just as turned on by this, as was Jameson. My ass was scraping against the brick wall; forget the sticker burn I had before... now I had brick burn... much worse.

I could feel Jameson’s camshaft lift as he hardened further, his movements quickened, his breathing ragged, and wetting the side of my neck. Each growl, each grunt, each moan that escaped his beautiful lips sent me closer to the edge until I was falling with him.

His hips twitched, and I felt him pulsing inside as I stifled my moan with his tie that somehow got shoved inside my mouth.

“Oh, my God... that was ...” I could hardly speak the words.

I handed Jameson his tie back while he set me on my feet.

“How’d you get that?” he asked me, smirking. His hands dropped to button his slacks. His shirt was also ripped open, with no buttons remaining.

I didn’t remember doing any of that. It was like I had some out-of-body experience, similar to that night I destroyed my bedroom and his closet.

Adjusting my dress and underwear, I realized the only problem with this romp in the alley was the mess I now had. Usually I was able to go to the bathroom right afterward. Now, we still had a half-mile to walk and, excuse my crassness, but I had an oil leak without a drip pan … if you catch my drift.

Not exactly fairytale right there but, hey, sometimes the fairytale was messy.

“What’s wrong?” Jameson asked, leaving his shirt open and reaching for my hand.

“I’ve um ...” I glanced down with my eyes between my legs. His eyes followed and then met mine with confusion.

Slowly, and I do mean slowly, the realization hit him, and what did he do?

He grinned.

“Sorry, honey... let’s uh... get back to the hotel.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said. “You don’t have an oil leak sliding down your bare thighs right now.”

He let out a small chuckle and leaned in to kiss my forehead. “Here, use my shirt. I’ll go without.”

It helped, and he tossed the shirt in a dumpster when we began walking toward the street.

Jameson stopped suddenly on the edge of the sidewalk, winked, and pulled me hard against his side, kissing me.

I wrapped my arm around his waist as we walked back to the hotel.

“Back to the hotel?” he asked.

“Back to the hotel,” I agreed with a smile I was sure would never leave.

Once back at the hotel, Jameson showed me exactly what it meant to be here, alone, on these romantic gateways. And I couldn’t wait for another one.

When we awoke in the morning, he wanted to go again, but the night had taken its toll on the two of us. My ass hurt from the brick wall scraping, and Jameson was exhausted. I think the last few weeks were starting to catch up with the dirty heathen and his bull stamina.

“... that hurts... shit... move your arm.”

“Oh, sorry, is that better? Fuck!” Jameson arched his back against me, his hands slammed against the mattress, his face carved in pain.

“What, what did I do?”

“Leg cramp.”

I sighed. “This isn’t working.”

Jameson sighed, too, rolling to the side. “I know.”

I reached up and rubbed his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

“It sucks.”

Not every time could be epic... sometimes it was awkward and sometimes it didn’t work. At least he wooed me last night. Some people forget that sex wasn’t always good. I mean, yeah, it was good, but there were times when you weren’t into it, or maybe your body wasn’t. It happened. But you could always try again. And, again.

 

After our time in Key West, it was time for the New Hampshire race in Loudon. Unfortunately, the weather had its own agenda that weekend and refused to cooperate.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Emma, setting my magazine on the leather couch beside me. “I have to pee.”

“I’ll come with you.” Emma stood.

“No, no, it’s okay... I’ll be a minute. This kid is sitting on my bladder.”

The race was on a red flag. It’d been raining in Loudon since we arrived on Thursday morning. Qualifying was cancelled and set by the point standings, which meant Jameson started fourth. One hundred laps into the race and the race was stopped on account of rain.

So there I was, once again making my way to the bathroom as my bladder had controlled most of my day. The only problem was I had to use the public bathroom down a level from the terrace seating since that one was being cleaned.

When the door to the stairwell opened behind me as my foot hit the third step, I didn’t think anything of it. I thought it was another person heading to the bathrooms below.

I was wrong.

Without warning, I remembered once again all those fairytales Charlie read to me. I remember them because my instincts told me to.

Sleeping Beauty who was awoken with a kiss. The glass slipper that fit Cinderella and the frog that turned into a prince. I remembered the fairytales that were once upon a time and then they lived happily ever after, or in my case, living the happy right now.

Fairytales.

That was the shit dreams were made of, right?

The problem with all that fairytale crap was quite simply that fairytales didn’t come true. They just didn’t. Instead, happy right now turned into the past and the unspeakable happened.

“I hear congratulations are in order here,” a dark voice echoed from behind me. I could feel his breath on my neck, every hair on my body stood on end, and a shiver ran down my spine.

I glanced over timorously. “D-D-Darrin?”

He was standing a few feet away from me, arms folded, looking at me curiously. His blond shaggy hair peeked out from under his black baseball hat. His eyes hard and tense, but still curious.

“Sway, Sway, Sway... hasn’t Jameson ever told you not to walk alone.” His voice was a little harder now, a hint of sarcasm marring his polite tone. He stepped down another step, standing directly behind me. “You know, to be honest, I’m disappointed. I expected a challenge. And, after all, I only needed a little luck from the cleaning lady... Mariah.”

“What do you want?”

He stepped closer, smiling.

“I want revenge,” he told me. “My career is over because of Jameson. I see no reason why you should live happily ever after when my dreams have been destroyed. Jameson is far too determined and you... well, you’re an easy target now that you’re pregnant. I get a two-for-one special.”

I felt a curl of nausea as I spoke. “Your career has been destroyed because of your own stupidity, Darrin.” I spun around to face him. I wanted to kill him for what he did to Jameson in Pocono and his stupidity in Summerville.

I wanted so badly to run, but I was frozen in place once I was staring back at him. Darrin grasped my arm firmly. And, suddenly, I realized what Darrin meant by revenge.

It became obvious to me the second when I felt his hands in places I only wanted Jameson’s.

“Stay away from me!” I screamed, but his hand over my mouth cut off my voice.

My talking earned me a hard pinch to my nipple, making me cry out. “No talking, Sway,” Darrin growled in my ear. “I only want your body. I want him to know I took the only thing that mattered to him.”

His hand wandered up my shirt. Nothing about it felt good and the thoughts that this would go any further were repulsive.

“Don’t hold out now… fucking scream!” he roared in my ear, forcing himself hard against me. “Beg him to save you!”

My heart’s thundering rhythm kept me from speaking. I only stared at the wall above his shoulder.

“Beg him to protect you like he said he would!” When I didn’t respond, his frustration got to him, his tone vibrating my entire body. “Fucking scream!”

I wasn’t going to allow him to take anything from me.

With as much strength as I could muster, my fist rose, and I punched him square in the nose. Not that I did any damage besides piss him off, but I wasn’t going down without a fight.

“You fucking bitch!” he roared back at me, wiping blood from his nose.

Apparently I did do damage, and I was pretty sure—given the sharp pains—my hand was now broken.

Darrin’s hand came up and slapped me hard across the face; my hands immediately went to my throbbing cheek as I tried to steady my footing on the stairs but before I could, Darrin gave me one hard push.

The only thought running through my head in that moment was my baby. Instead of instinct, and protecting my head as I fell down stair after stair, my arms cradled my baby, protecting him. The mother within me was looking out for her unborn child.

The pain was all encompassing, flowing through my head in radiating waves. I knew something was wrong, silently I prayed my child would make it.

I tried to scream for Jameson, Emma, or anyone, but no words where coming out—at least none that I could hear. I tried to kick and fight, but I felt my body giving up the fight with a blow to my head.

With my last effort, my hands rose instinctively to protect my stomach, my eyes closed, and I drifted away.

Who decided if you lived or died?

Who told you to fight or who told you to run?

Who made the decision that changed the course you’re on to the one you’re headed to?

You do. You hold the power to make the choice.

I had one choice.

I could fight or I could give in.

It was simple really. Your life was always made up of choices.

Living and dying.

It was an important choice, but the shitty thing was, it wasn’t always in our hands.

Sometimes others held the answer.