Nope. What I felt the first time definitely wasn’t a fluke.

  It was real—is real. The tingle, the ache, the sweet burn. All three are owning my body for a second time.

  And when the kiss ends, when he leans back and stares at me with that cocky, lopsided smirk of his, he gives a nod. “There.” He taps the table beside us with his hand. “Now we’re even.”

  I chortle as he grabs his cell phone and beer off the table, gives me one more nod, and then heads back to his friends.

  There’s a whoop of cheers and high fives all around as he sits down with them. It’s only when I go to grab my own cell and glass of wine off the table that I notice the business card he left behind.

  Or at least that’s what I think it is until I turn it over and see the bright blue DARE printed in fancy font across the top in bold letters. And then the following words written beneath: Find the woman least likely to be hit on and get her phone number.

  I stand there and stare at the dare card, trying not to be offended by it, but it’s only natural that I am. Anybody would feel the same.

  Talk about a blow to my ego.

  Talk about proving my own words right about men not being worth it.

  Dumbfounded and ignoring the pressure in the center of my chest, I look in the direction of his friends and see them laughing and patting him on the back.

  Tears threaten and my throat burns. This is why. Why on earth would I put myself “out there” only to feel like this?

  “Hey. What was that?” Isabella asks with a little shimmy and a hand held up for a high five that I don’t return.

  “You got his number, right?” Gia asks. “Because, damn girl, that was hot and you definitely stepped out of the box.”

  I nod and palm the stupid card, hoping to hide my mortification. “Yeah. I did. We’re going to meet up when I get back. I—uh—I’ll be right back. The bathroom.”

  “Do you want one of us—”

  “No, I’m fine.” I muster a smile and then try to walk as calmly as possible to the restroom on the other side of the bar.

  It’s only once I shut the bathroom stall door that I sag against it and let the emotions hit me. Shame. Anger. Disbelief. All three of them run a race through my head as I stare at the stupid card.

  I was the butt of their joke. Of his joke.

  I try to shake the thought off but it doesn’t shed completely.

  “They bet me that there was no way in hell I could get the prettiest woman in here to give me the time of day so . . . here I am. Trying to win that bet.”

  Well, he was right about one thing—trying to win a bet. And I was right too—that I was the one who looked the most gullible. The easiest mark picked so he could win his fucking dare.

  Leaning against the bathroom stall, I close my eyes and give myself a pep talk that doesn’t relieve the demoralizing hurt.

  C’mon, Cami. You promised yourself you’d never give another person the power to knock you down. To steal your pride. To take a part of you and ruin it. To make you a victim.

  I close my eyes, the card in my hand feeling like lava singeing my skin.

  And then I laugh like a loon into the empty bathroom. At myself. At the situation. At what this entire evening has turned into.

  An ambush. An accidental meeting. An arousing kiss. An abject disaster.

  Isn’t it just like me to find the only man who made my body feverish . . . yet I was the butt of his jerkish, testosterone-laced joke?

  Screw him.

  I think the words while shrugging away the sting with the intent of exiting the bathroom, making an excuse to my friends that I don’t feel well, and heading back to the hotel.

  But the minute I step back into the bar, his table’s laughter hits my ears and eggs me on, my sensible plans now forgotten.

  Rather, they’ve been replaced by the desire to embarrass him in front of his friends. To take a bit of my dignity back. To let him know that I know.

  So many times I walk away from situations and think of what I should have said. Not tonight. Not this time. I’m going to say it now.

  With the card in hand, I stalk over to where the jerk is busy basking in his victory.

  “Excuse me,” I say as I step up to the table. My voice has the five of them whipping their heads up and their voices falling silent. My smile is smarmy at best when I angle it at the nameless jerk. “I think you forgot something.”

  I slap the card down on the center of the table, the atmosphere turning icily silent as they realize I know their juvenile game.

  “Look, love—”

  “Save it.” I hold up my hand to stop him from speaking. “No need to explain to me why grown men think shit like this is funny, just like there’s no need for me to tell all your friends that your game is pitifully weak and your kissing skills are subpar.” Shock flashes through his eyes. “But hey, we all can’t be good at everything, right?” I say with a shrug and a fuck you smile. “Lose my number.”

  There’s a round of nervous chuckles as if they’re not sure if they can react or if they should.

  “I’d tell you to enjoy the rest of your night, but I’d be lying. Cheers.” I turn on my heel and don’t make it ten feet from the table before I hear his voice.

  “Hey. Wait.”

  I feel his hand on my bicep.

  It takes everything I have not to yank my arm out of his grasp. Instead, I grit my teeth and calmly turn around with my eyebrows raised and a glance down to where he’s touching me.

  “Nah. I’m good. You can kindly take your hand off me. Pity fucks aren’t my thing.”

  “Hey, come on now,” he says as he glances over his shoulder at his friends and then back to me—almost as if he’s afraid of them hearing him. “The card was . . . real—at first—but then I ran into you and—”

  “And saw a woman least likely to be hit on. Way to boost your ego while hurting mine. Class fucking act.”

  “It was a bloody game.”

  “I know. And that says so much more about you than it ever could say about me.” I look at him. The shame turning to astonishment. The hurt morphing into anger. “I don’t want your apologies. They’re not accepted.” I take a step back. “I’d say it was nice knowing you . . . but it wasn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t have kissed you a second time if the card were true,” he blurts out.

  “I wouldn’t have kissed you at all if I knew about the card.” I retreat another step. “Feel better now? Your guilt absolved? You can go back to feeling like the good guy you aren’t.”

  “Look. I said I was sorry.”

  “Was that on a dare card too? To apologize to some unsuspecting woman who—”

  “I don’t even know your name,” he says as if I’d tell him.

  “Lucky for me.” I glance over his shoulder to where his friends are trying to pretend they aren’t paying attention. “The rest of your asshole pack are waiting for you. Best not keep them waiting.”

  This time when I walk away, I don’t look back. And if he starts to follow me, I’m none the worse for wear for not knowing.

  Good to know what I told my friends earlier was on point. Men aren’t fucking worth it.

  They’re just not.

  And the rare times that they are? It seems that’s when they can do the most damage.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Camilla

  “Tell me why you agreed to pick up and move.”

  I stare at my therapist. Her blond hair and soft features look like they belong with the “everything neutral” theme of her office. Her voice is soft and her smile softer. She’s been my North Star through all of this. The only person who knows what happened.

  What started out as weekly visits turned into monthly ones over time. Then we progressed to every few months.

  Now I’m saying goodbye because I’m moving away.

  My own smile matches hers because I’ve thought about this a lot over the past week that I’ve been home and packing up my life.

  “If not now, then when, right? Maybe I want more time with my dad while he’s okay. Maybe I don’t want to let him down. Maybe I’m intrigued by the challenge. And maybe it’s a bit of all three.”

  She nods in that stoic, I’m hearing you but not judging way. “And maybe you’re agreeing to be there at the expense of you. In an environment that could possibly trigger you.”

  “The thought has crossed my mind. More times than it probably should have . . . but truth be told, maybe this is what I need to finally get over that final hurdle. Maybe it’s time to get my life back.”

  “I thought you’d already done that.”

  I nod. “In a sense. But I’m sick of living life scared. This is my chance not to.”

  “Scared?” She muses. “I would never say you were living scared. I’d say it was more along the lines of living safely. We’ve worked on the mental aspect of what happened. You’ve had boyfriends since then. Taken lovers.”

  “And we’ve talked about how that went.”

  “Baby steps, Camilla. No one is allowed to steal your happiness or to tell you how you should act or how your body should feel.”

  But what happens when it doesn’t feel at all?

  “Mechanical. Cold. Numb. Should we continue with all the reasons I’ve been dumped?”

  “And like I said, when the time is right, everything will fall into place, just like you said it did the other night. The guy might have been a jerk, but you said it was the first time someone has touched you that made you and your body feel alive. That’s nothing to trivialize. That’s huge.”

  Our kisses live rent-free in my head. The ache that burned between my thighs even more so.

  It’s been a sensation that only I could create for myself during the past six years. That is until I kissed the asshole from the bar and now, it’s front and center in my mind. The whole getting a drop of water in a desert metaphor seems a fitting description for how I’ve felt since then.

  “It’s pathetic is what it is,” I joke.

  “No. It’s a good sign if you ask me.”

  “Not sure if I agree with that theory,” I say.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I tried to replicate the feeling, the situation . . . the moment, and nothing.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Some of my coworkers wanted to send me off in style so they organized a farewell party of sorts at a club. I went out on the dance floor after I’d had a few drinks and my guard was down. There was a guy. He was cute. Nice. We flirted. He kissed me. Looking back, I think I openly wanted the kiss to happen to see if I could summon that feeling again—but nope. Nothing.”

  “If you weren’t physically feeling anything, what were you thinking?”

  “Can we get this over with? So, see? I’m still broken.” I chuckle because it’s easier to do that than to admit how much that burns. To think I wasn’t—finally—and to realize I still am.

  “You’re not broken. There’s no such thing. Look at it this way—you don’t shy away from the act of sex like many do in your situation. In fact, you’ve used it as a measuring stick to try to prove to yourself that it’s okay. That you’re okay.”

  And it seems to only have proved that I’m not.

  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and then try again,” I joke, but am more than serious in my own mind. Indifferent. That’s how I’ve been, how I’ve felt toward sex for so long, that I crave something other than indifference.

  “Sex has been your litmus test and that’s fine. But what you really need to do is quiet your head and just listen to your body. It’s okay for something to feel good and to want more of it. To kiss all the men in the room until you find the one that lights your skin on fire and when you do, hold on tight so you can burn together.”

  “Is that an official prescription? I mean, sleep around? There’s a not nice name for that, that I’d prefer not to be called.”

  “You make jokes when you’re nervous, Camilla. Just as you are now. That means whatever that guy made you feel sparked something inside you. Maybe scraped the wound open but offered a salve to tide you over. Who knows what might happen next?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Riggs

  “He’s okay though, right?” I watch the replay on the monitor for what feels like the tenth time. Tires screeching. The car lifting. Flipping. Cartwheeling. The metal giving. The tires flying. The gravel spraying.

  Then comes the fire.

  I shake my head and hold my breath momentarily as I fight memories just as terrifying. Memories that have faded in clarity with time but not in the sucker punch to the stomach department.

  But regardless of the visceral reaction, I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from the screen.

  My stomach remains dropped at my feet as I watch each slow-motion replay even though I already know what happens next.

  Maxim motionless as the car finally comes to a stop after skidding across the gravel.

  His hands moving as they work frantically to unpin the steering wheel trapping him in the car.

  His white helmet bobbing its way up through the flames.

  His body rising through the halo and then falling, flopping onto the scattered tires that moments before were a safety barricade.

  He stumbles. Then falls. Then crawls away from the heat until he collapses . . . seconds before the safety crew rushes to him and drags him away from the ticking time bomb of a car.

  It’s every racer’s worst nightmare.

  The wall rushing at you. The car collapsing around you. The fire engulfing you.

  Maxim. His lifeless body. The crew doing their best to shield him from the cameras in case he’s gravely injured, and it’s not caught on camera to become a viral spectacle.

  So his family doesn’t have to watch him die on camera. Like my mum did. Like we all did.

  “He’s in the hospital,” Pierre says stoically.

  “What does that mean?” I demand, my feet needing to move and every part of me antsy as fuck.

  My days in karting flash through my mind. Hours on end spent hating the bastard for having everything he needed to succeed—the parents, the money, the sponsorships, the equipment—and then learning to love him like a brother once I realized he was just like me. Driven to succeed in a sport that single-handedly robs you of your confidence while becoming your one and only focus.

  Maxim and I are competitors. There are days that I like the guy and others that I loathe him. We belong to an elite group of drivers all vying for one of twenty coveted positions on the F1 grid.

  He’s gotten his spot there with Moretti Motorsports.

  I’m still pushing for it.

  Am I jealous that he has his? That most of my class who has grown up together in this odd circuit has made it to the penultimate level? Fuck yes. Do I wish harm on him because of it?

  Only a fucking arsehole would wish that.

  And yeah, I am one on so many levels—but not when it comes to something like that.

  But now . . . now? Who the fuck knows if he’s okay?

  Because if he can be hurt—then we all can be, and that’s not a thought any of us want to have. Ever.

  A thought I’ve lived with the reality of my whole life but that I’ve pushed aside with the justification that technology has advanced miles. The cars are stronger. The safety equipment more protective. The sport safer.

  But that justification means shit if Maxim is hurt.

  “Have you gotten any word on him? On how he’s doing?” I ask, forcing myself to look anywhere but the screen where the accident plays on repeat. My crew is doing the same. They’ll explain it away as if they’re studying how the car performed—where it gave, how it fell apart, and the like—but I know they’re just as horrified by the crash as I am. By the fact that Maxim got out of it. By the unknown of whether he’s okay or not.

  “Neck brace is always precautionary,” he murmurs, lifting his glasses up and rubbing his eyes before shutting the monitor off.

  “But they airlifted him out, right? I mean—shit.” I go to grab my mobile. “I’ll text his brother and see—”

  “You need to get in the car, Riggs,” Pierre says, stepping in front of me and putting me in my place. The order is more for me to get my head in the right place than anything. It’s a means of forcing me to swallow down that inherent fear that lurks just beneath the surface with every fucking limit we push. With every lap we cheat death.

  “We’re short on track time this week,” he says. “We need to make the most of the time we have.”

  I hesitate when I shouldn’t and then get pissed at myself for doing so. Leave it to Maxim to fuck with my head even now despite being in separate circuits.

  “Fuck it,” I mutter and grab my balaclava and yank it down onto my head.

  I don’t say another word as I put my helmet on, get my body belted in, put my gloves on, and lock my steering wheel in place.

  I visualize the curves of the track I’m about to drive on. Over and over, I trace the map I’ve etched in my mind. Anything and everything to push the jarring image of Maxim’s body flopping onto the ground out of my head.

  Everything to fight the memory I see each and every time my engine roars to life—my dad. His lips stained blue from candy floss. His laugh a rumble above the roar of engines that were always sparking to life. A smile he saved just for me.

  My engine revs. My radio checks. And I spend the next fifteen laps becoming as one with the car as I can. As much as I fucking hate it on a good day, right now, I like that the car isn’t adjusted right. It gives me something to concentrate on. Something to lose my thoughts to.

  But the minute I pull into the garage and get out of the car, the first words out of my mouth are, “Any word?”

  Pierre glances over to Ricky and then back to me. “Not yet. Unofficially? Something about an induced coma to help with swelling or some shit like that. Brain shit is never good. I’m not a doc so I don’t know what the fuck that means other than that.”