She shakes her head, a twinkle in her eye. “I’m used to you not being pretty—have you seen your ugly face, Mr. Tate?”

I smile. Then clench my jaw and cover her cheek with my palm, staring down at her. “If I say or do anything to hurt you, Lana …” I rasp, my eyes narrowed.

“You won’t.”

I hope so. Fucking pray so. No, I’ll make it so. “Don’t ever feel sorry for me.”

“Never.”

I peck her lips, rewarding her with my tongue. “Come here,” I quietly summon.

She drops the sheets and slides beneath them, her bare skin flush against mine, getting me all riled up and then some.

“How did your mom take it when she found out about your dad?” she asks.

“She was already too in love with him to care,” he says.

“I can relate,” she mutters. She absently kisses my nipple as she speaks, looking up at me innocently as if she doesn’t realize what she just did or fucking said.

Damn me, it does shit to me.

Makes my balls hurt, my cock swell even more, and my chest feel like it’s doubled in width.

I take in her features as she waits for my reply, and she’ll never fucking know how much I want that. How I’d never thought I’d want that until she crashed my goddamned cherry mustang.

I thought I’d best be a loner, race my heart out, live the single life, not make loving me become anyone’s curse.

Then she happened, and all I can think of is this one girl and how much I want to take care of her.

Fuck, this girl, my girl, takes care of everybody—and I want to be the one taking care of her for a change.

I press my mouth to hers and open her lips with mine, smoothing my hands down her body, my cock continuing to stir hungrily as she moans softly under my kiss.

I’m kissing her raw and fierce because I feel all damn bare, bared my soul right here.

I’ve never been so fucking real with a girl in my life.

For the first time in my life. Bare as fuck before the girl I want. Wanting her to want me back. Letting her glimpse every facet of what makes me up.

And this girl presses her lips back to mine, her body closer against mine, pressing a hot kiss to my dimple. Of all things.

“You’re wonderful, Racer Tate,” she says as she slides her hands around my neck and presses me closer like she needs me like air.

Like she needs me like I fucking need her and need to be inside her right now.

“I know,” I rasp, just to tease her, but maybe I’m lying because nothing has ever felt as wonderful—not even me at my goddamned best—as this green-eyed girl, taking me at my real value, and still wanting more.

Lana

“We’re changing this right now.”

I watch Racer in our tent, his racing suit halfway down his body, his hair standing up after a practice session, and he’s looming over Adrian as he points at the motor and gives him some specs.

“What the fuck do you want to take out? Why the fuck are you changing this shit an hour before qualifying?”

Racer laughs and slaps his back confidently. “Do it.”

“Tate,” he calls as Racer strides over to grab a water bottle from the cooler.

“I’m aiming for another track record,” Racer says calmly, coming back after guzzling down half the bottle of water, peering into the engine as Adrian and the mechanics get to work on the changes he wants.

I feel a little thirsty myself.

But not for water.

I don’t think that when my brothers commanded me to keep him out of trouble, the idea was to keep Racer Tate entertained with my body. But my body seems very entertained by feeling his.

Of feeling his hands run over me, let his eyes look at me in ways no guy has ever looked at me.

I grew up with four brothers, and my mother didn’t even let me walk out to breakfast in my pajamas. I was always quite modest in that respect.

While they went around shirtless and in boxers, I’ve never really stood in my underwear in front of a guy. But this guy makes me greedy for those eyes of his, the way the blue turns a little more electric when he looks at me, and I’m both shy at the idea of those eyes seeing me, and at the same time, I’m excited about it.

What do I really know about BP? What do I know about mental illness except that it takes lives, that it’s hard for everyone, the families, those suffering. It’s scary, and it makes the scared girl in me, who’s lost a loved one and fears of losing another every day, want to stay away—that is the truth. I’m only human and nobody wants to see the fire and fly straight in except the moths who don’t know better. I’m not a moth, I’m a girl, and he’s not only bipolar but a racer. And yet no matter how much I rationalize, the truth is that I don’t get a choice, not when I’m already falling for him.

I’m trapped—helplessly and totally—in Racer Tate’s irresistible fire.

I want more dates with him like the one we had the night before I found his pill bottle. Where we talked and ate in a small street café, stealing touches only because I was so worried that my brothers would walk past.

I want to find out his every secret, figure out what makes him up.

I want to make a bible out of his body, an encyclopedia out of his muscles and bones, every detail registered, examined, and stored away for me to enjoy and relive, over and over.

I want to do what we did last night again and again and again.

The problem is, my brothers seem to be noticing something’s going on, and they’re being … well. They’re being my fucking brothers.

“Lana used to be a very fussy baby,” Clayton tells Racer as we eat in one large table at the tent. “Even Mom said she was born with everything. Acid reflux, colic, she was born with it all, right Drake?” Clayton says.