Read Beyond The Checkered Flag for Free Online Page A

stood, kicked his jeans aside. And before her world
could tilt back on its axis, before she could question or second guess what she
was doing, before she could run away, he was kissing her, inhaling her and she
didn’t care if her world ever righted itself.
    She was where she wanted to be .
    And it terrified her.
    “Bobby Wayne,” she breathed out his name.
    His hands slid up over her stomach, pushing her shirt up over
her breasts and over her head. Then they were sliding around her back,
unhooking her bra. It fell to the floor, and they were naked.
    “Bobby Wayne.” She placed her palm against his muscled chest.
“We need to talk. There’s too much between—”
    “There’s nothing between us,” he stated the obvious, his
finger teasing the undersides of her breasts.
    “Bobby Wayne, we need to talk.”
    “No talk, sugar. There’s only room here to feel.” And then he
was picking her up, his palms cupping her butt and she was feeling him. All of
him. Every thick, long, hard inch of him. Her legs wrapped around his waist and
she cocked her hips so she could rub against his engorged flesh. And she nearly
whimpered at how good he felt. How needy she was for only him.
    And how right he felt. How perfect.
    “That’s it, baby, just feel.” And then his mouth was on hers
again, his tongue eagerly mating with hers as he walked them across the grand
foyer to his study. They stumbled through the doorway. Bobby Wayne made his way
to the couch as Lauren reached a blind hand out for a light switch.
    She found one. The room illuminated with soft golden light
and her breath caught in her throat.  
    “Oh my god,” she whispered as she looked all around her. “Oh…
my… god.”
    Pictures she’d hung in here of Bobby Wayne’s NASCAR
achievements – his first win at Daytona, his first championship – and every
championship after had been replaced. With pictures… of her .
    Pictures of her on tour. Pictures of her lifting high her
Horizon Award. Of her holding her first album cover. Then another picture of
her holding the disc when the album had gone platinum. And other pictures of
her accepting awards at the CMAs and the ACMs and the AMAs. Her heart pounded. She
turned back to him. “I- I don’t understand,” she stuttered.
    And Bobby Wayne stood stiff and silent as she slowly slid
down off his body. “I decorated this room for you,” she softly stated the
obvious. So how did she end up on the walls? How did her career
achievements end up here? She looked back at him waiting for an explanation.
    And still he stood silent, exactly where she’d slid off him.
    Barbara Jean would never, never have hung these
pictures. Not when she’d destroyed all the other rooms Lauren had personally restored
and decorated. This wasn’t exactly a shrine to her, but it did make a
statement. A huge statement. One Lauren didn’t quite know how to interpret. She
looked back at Bobby Wayne. “You followed my career?”
    “I should have followed you.” And she heard real regret in
his voice. Saw it in his eyes and in the downward set of his mouth.
    His confession went a long way to soothing the hurt that had
never quite healed in her heart.
    “I knew the mistake I made… as soon as I said, I do. Barbara
Jean knew it, too.”
    “But… I…” Her heart pounded in her chest.
    She looked around. Really looked. Beyond the pictures. To his
clothes, his jeans, his tee shirts, and boxers that were neatly folded and
stacked on his desk instead of upstairs in the dresser in his bedroom. To his
boots and shoes stashed in a corner. To his books and magazines stacked by the
couch and his files that littered the coffee table.  
    He’d been living in here for a quite a while. Longer than his
recent accident; maybe as long as his marriage to Barbara Jean. But why? Why
live in here surrounded with pictures of her?
    He stepped closer to her. “I love you, Lauren. I don’t think
I ever stopped. Hell, I know I never stopped.”
    And he stood