Throttled (Dirty Air 1)

He pulls me out of my thoughts.

“Did I tell you that you look beautiful today?”

Nope, you didn’t. But I’ll take it now, with my head pressed against the comfy lounge chair as his hands rub my back. I don’t think he has a drop of sunscreen left on his fingers.

“Hmm. Not sure.”

Okay, good job. That didn’t sound half as desperate as your moan.

“You look stunning today.” He ramps up his charm.

He shocks me by doing the unthinkable. I suck in a breath as his lips press against the curve of my neck. Swoon. It takes everything in me to not bolt from the chair. My fingernails claw into the seat fabric to hold still, leaving indentations to match the ones Noah burns into my brain.

My body feels on fire and my most intimate places are worse off. How is it possible to get turned on by sunscreen application? There should be a warning label on the back of the bottle for this. Screw damaging rays, this shit with Noah burns me up worse than any SPF below fifty.

He lets out another chuckle that prompts me to turn around and face him.

He looks unaffected, and it ticks me off. I check for signs. His eyes remain hidden, and his face looks neutral. My eyes surpass his golden chest and abs because I have absolutely no time or restraint for that.

I smirk at the bulge in his bathing suit. His cheeky grin makes me want to kiss it off his face, replacing the humor in his eyes with lust.

Our attraction threatens our semblance of normal

cy with one another. Not sure what to make of this. I need time to process, concoct an avoidance plan, set up defenses against the ultimate playboy. This will take effort. I may even need Sophie’s help with reinforcements because plans are her thing; she’s been successfully avoiding her attraction to Liam like a plague.

Thou shall not bang your brother’s teammate rings in my ears, a new mantra for me by now. Yes, my mantra list continues to grow, but you haven’t met Noah Slade. You don’t understand how sensuality seeps from his pores. Never underestimate the power of pheromones and wicked smiles.

He even makes sunscreen application into some kind of foreplay.

Guilt rushes through me because I don’t want to be attracted to Noah. Although he does nice things for me, he stills acts like a dick to Santi. I’m a walking contradiction at the moment, battling the pros and cons, weighing catastrophic situations if Noah and I got together.

Noah gets up from my chair, placing the offensive sunscreen bottle next to me. A wave of uncertainty passes through me. Part of me wants to make him stay while the other part of me wants him to go. My brain needs to digest this information. His boner distracts me enough, drawing my attention to it, the bulge looking much larger as he stands. I need it removed from my vicinity ASAP.

He tugs on my ponytail. I smile up at him because somehow it’s become our thing.

How can he be so hot yet so cute at the same time? Troubling.

“Don’t think too hard. You’ll be stuck battling the ‘what if you dos’ and the ‘what if you don’ts’ instead of living in the moment. Call me if you need my help again. I’ll be around.” He gives me one last cocky smile before disappearing below the deck.

I let out a deep sigh.

I’m so royally screwed, by the F1’s American Prince no less.

I can lie and pretend I’m a mature woman. I can say I’ve kept it cool in front of Noah and my brother. But I haven’t. Why bother lying when I suck at it anyway?

My butt plants itself on the bench inside of a local priest’s confessional. My mother loves how I’ve found time to go to church while in Monaco. The priest wishes me lots of luck with my life and tells me to go to Mass more. It feels good to let it all out, even to a man of the cloth, like my own therapist on the road. I’d describe the experience as cathartic. No shame as I spill my guts to him, letting it all out in a confessional booth.

Surprisingly, he sends me off with three Hail Marys, two Our Fathers, and a bottle of holy water to cleanse myself whenever I have impure thoughts. Confessions come with goody bags—who knew?

I start a new Avoiding Noah campaign. It goes strong for two days, thanks to Sophie’s obsession with lists and plans.

Two long days. If anyone understood the amount of effort it takes to avoid him, they would be impressed. He and my brother have to do everything together in Monaco since a united team looks great to the public.

I spend a lot of me-time in our Monaco hotel avoiding parties and cocktail hours. To pass the time, I book myself a massage. It doesn’t yield the same physical reaction as Noah’s back rub, but I attribute it to having a woman massage therapist. She doesn’t physically do it for me. Santi covers the cost, but unbeknownst to him, he basically rewards me for my good efforts of avoiding Noah. I take one for the team here.

I would count my evading techniques as successful, at least until my brother asks if I can attend a fashion show that apparently is a big deal. An A-list event I should be grateful to have an invite to.

Santi makes me watch him practice his runway walk to make sure he looks good. He loves the limelight, but not this kind—with the expectation to model. And I do not blame him at all. If I did a show like this, I would definitely fall flat on my face before rolling into the pool.