"How's the nerves?" Seb asked as he switched off the engine, making his Ferrari go silent. At first Chloe stayed staring straight ahead, unblinking, as people walked past the front of the car, one or two turning and looking to see who the occupants were inside; then she blinked, snapping herself out of her trance.
"Shit." She answered simply. "Maybe not as bad as last week, but still shit. How about you?"
"I'm a little nervous, I always am before a race, the day I'm not nervous will be the day I know it's time to stop. But you..." He paused and took hold of her hand. "You really don't need to be so nervous."
"I can't help it." She looked down at their hands as his thumb stroked her palm. "I care about you, so I'll always be nervous."
"Well you shouldn't be. After last night I think today will be a good day."
"Oh really? Why? What happened last night?" She smiled, trying to act all coy.
"You don't remember?" He grinned, knowing full well that she did. "I only had the most amazing kiss with the most beautiful woman I've ever set eyes on."
"God you're so smooth at times Vettel." She shook her head, amused and blushing from his words. "Still can't say you've jogged my memory though."
"You've really forgotten?" He asked, leaning towards towards her.
"Yep, totally blank." She pointed to her head, trying not to laugh.
"Maybe we could re-enact it to refresh your memory."
"Here, with people watching?" She glanced to the view in front of them as Charles drove slowly past in his red Ferrari.
"They're not looking at us right now." He raised his hand and placed his fingers under her chin, turning her gaze back to him.
"In that case, you'd better see if you can make me remember." She leaned towards him, removing his cap and sunglasses as his fingers slid lightly over the skin on her neck to finish in her hair at the back of her head.
"I'm sure I'll be able to do that." He murmured, pressing his forehead against hers before connecting their lips, giving her two sweet kisses, letting his tongue brush against hers and making her moan so softly he could barely hear her. He parted his lips from hers but kept his forehead against her own, wanting to make this precious moment last longer. "How was that?" He asked quietly.
"No, nope, that's not worked at all I'm afraid." She opened her eyes and quickly felt herself getting lost in the beautiful blue of his.
"It hasn't?" He raised his brows, was she joking or not?
"No, I'm sorry but you're just going to have to do that again." She grinned from ear to ear and his face lit up with an equally big smile.
"Well, here goes then." He kissed her again and this time he didn't hold back, kissing her with urgency, letting his tongue dance with hers, exploring her and tasting her, feeling her doing the same as she grabbed his red team shirt, bunching it up in both hands to try and pull him closer. Needing to breath, they both pulled apart, totally unaware that they'd been snapped by an eagle eyed fan. "Was that better for you?" He asked, stroking her face and then running his fingers through her hair.
"Yeah." She breathed. "I think it's starting to come back to me now." She bit her bottom lip as she looked at him, his kiss had electrified every single nerve ending in her body, there wasn't one part of her that hadn't felt it. Staying in the close confines of the car with him was nudging her into territory she wasn't ready to enter yet, she knew the best thing for them to do now was to head for the paddock gates. "We should head in, you have meetings before the circus gets underway."
"You're right." He replied, looking at his watch and then back at her. "I love you."
"I know and when I'm ready I'll be saying it to you so much you'll get sick of it."
"I'll never get sick of hearing you say those words." He stroked his thumb over her bottom lip to stop her from biting on it. "And please don't do that."
"Do what?" She asked.
"Bite your bottom lip, it does things to a certain part of my anatomy."
"You've never said before."
"That's because I usually know it's going to lead to something more."
"Oh, sorry." She suddenly felt a little bad, she'd been giving him the come on rather more than she'd intended.
"Don't apologise, I can wait, kind of." He smiled before opening the car door and getting out. She got out too while he got their bags from the back, passing her bag to her while he locked the car. They'd barely walked a few steps when he got stopped for an autograph, the younger man quickly took a selfie as Seb signed his race programme while they walked. This happened several times and it was inevitable that by the time they reached the motor homes he was running late. Saying a swift goodbye, Seb left his rucksack with Chloe and headed to the engineers office for his first pre-race meeting while she took his things to his changing room and then headed to hospitality where Annukka sat a table looking extremely pleased with herself.
"Good morning!" She beamed.
"Hi." Chloe dumped her bag down on the floor giving Annukka a dubious look, if her smile was down to Antti then she didn't want to know.
"You're looking a lot better this morning."
"Thanks, I wasn't aware I that looked ill yesterday." Chloe sat down and wondered where Antti was.
"You looked stressed yesterday and unhappy, you look totally different today. You're glowing."
"I'm glowing?" She felt her cheeks to check if they were hot.
"Yeah, you know, like a pregnancy glow or post sex glow." Annukka raised her brows suggestively.
"I can confirm that I'm not glowing for either of those reasons."
"Are you sure?" Still beaming, Annukka held her phone out for Chloe to see it. Displayed on the screen was an image of herself and Seb kissing in his car, she felt her brows raise in surprise, she didn't remember seeing anyone around the car; but then she hadn't exactly been looking, neither of them had.
"Well they're quick, I'll give them that." Chloe sat back in her seat.
"Are you two back together then?" Annukka couldn't hide the excitement from her voice.
"It was just a kiss." Chloe shrugged, wanting to play it down. "We're just a lot closer than we were."
"That looked like some kiss." Annukka grinned as she zoomed in on the image and showed Chloe once more.
"So, how are you finding your first race weekend?" She asked, keen to change the subject as she looked at the zoomed in image.
"It's been amazing so far, Antti's letting me watch the race from the garage later and I can't wait!"
"He's a nice guy isn't he. You and him seem well suited." Chloe leant over to retrieve her iPad from her bag.
"He's lovely, gorgeous, sexy, fit!" Annukka enthused. "And the way he fills those red jeans....."
"I can't say I've noticed." Chloe's eyes flickered up from the iPad to Antti's smitten girlfriend.
"Talking about me?" Antti placed two coffees on the table, one in front of his girlfriend and one in front of Chloe, before sitting down.
"Always and only good stuff." Annukka waved her phone in front of him and he took it from her. Chloe couldn't help but notice how a big smile spread across his face as he looked at it and then at his girlfriend. "Later." She murmured.
"I've never wanted a race to go by so quickly in my entire life." He kissed her before turning to Chloe and waving the phone in front of her face making her sigh and roll her eyes.
"Yes, we kissed. That's it. Nothing more."
"Except that its all over social media now, Seb will go nuts." He smirked.
"Do want to wear this coffee you got me Antti?" She raised her brows.
"I'll bet you one hundred euro that you'll be back together before Singapore." He sat back, folding his arms across his chest, full of confidence.
"I'm not betting on something like that."
"Oh, well that speaks volumes." He grinned, placing his hand in Annukka's lap and letting his fingers start to stroke her inner thigh. He sensed her squirm beside him.
"How about now instead of later?" She asked. Chloe raised her brows, were they really going to talk about that now? Antti's dark blue eyes darkened even more.
"Really? After this morning?" He looked at her, she nodded her head. "Seb won't be in his room for a while, will he Chloe?"
"No." She averted her gaze to her iPad. "Wait? What? No!"
"We won't be long." He grinned.
"Oh come on, in Seb's room? Really? Ever heard the phrase, get a room?" She pulled a face.
"Yeah, Seb's room." He laughed as he and Annukka stood up. "We won't make a mess." He took her hand and they practically ran out of the motor home leaving Chloe sitting there not liking the fact that her driver's private space was being used for sex by his trainer instead of herself and Seb.
"I really don't want to know." She muttered to herself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The lights went out and Annukka was glued to the screen while Chloe turned away, unable to look until the first lap was over. She could already tell from the noises that Annukka was making that Charles had kept the lead while Seb had dropped down to fifth. She turned around as she heard the cars screaming down the straight, past the garages, to start their second lap, relieved that Seb had survived the start unscathed and she was even more relieved when he retook fourth from Hulkenburg. She crossed her fingers; driving for Ferrari, Seb was always under a certain amount of pressure with the expectation of the tifosi and management based in Italy weighing on his shoulders but today at the team's home race the pressure on both drivers to succeed was even greater. She sometimes wondered how Seb managed to cope with it but now that he was in his fifth season she figured that he'd become used to it. As the laps started to go by she felt herself relax a little and she turned to see that Annukka was still glued to the screen, in fact the whole garage was pretty quiet as Seb's pit crew sat on chairs in the space normally occupied by his car looking up at the screens that filled the wall, while his engineers sat glued to their laptops monitoring information that came in from every single sensor on the car. The quietness was suddenly broken by gasps, cries and groans and she looked to the screen to see that their driver had spun and his front wing had been clipped by Lance Stroll's car as he rejoined the track. He was soon on the radio saying that he knew he had damage and she watched with a churning stomach as his pit crew sprang up from their seats, with four hastily unplugging the tyre warmers and racing outside with a wheel each. As the screen showed a replay her heart sunk and she felt terribly sad for Seb, he'd made a mistake and simply lost the rear, she knew he'd be absolutely fuming with himself and things got worse after he'd pitted when it became apparent that he was under investigation by the stewards. She covered her face with her hands, she knew this was bad, she knew he'd be handed a penalty of some sort, his race was effectively over after only six laps. It didn't take long for a ten second stop/go penalty banner to appear on the screen making the atmosphere in the garage sink even lower, having seen enough Chloe decided it'd be better for her mood if she left the garage so she silently made her way out and nipped across the paddock to hospitality.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seb's mood was grim to say the least when he met up with his PA and trainer straight after the race, not uttering a word or even managing a small smile as Chloe passed him his things. He put his RayBans straight on, mainly to shield himself from the prying lenses than to shield his eyes and pressed his hand to her back to indicate that he wanted to get the media pen over with as soon as he could. Antti gave her a sympathetic look before he left, carrying Seb's helmet and HANS device back to his room leaving her alone with her driver as they walked briskly to the media pen. Immediately people were calling his name and waving their hands to catch his attention but she knew a lot of them he wouldn't speak to, he had a few he'd always go to and today he'd stick to speaking to those and those only. She stood quietly beside him, he sounded miserable, and for once every presenter or journalist he spoke to seemed a little wary of him and kept their questions to a minimum, knowing that if they pressed him too much he'd simply walk away and that a few words were better than none at all. They had the media pen done in just over ten minutes which she imagined could be a new fastest time for them and she soon found herself upstairs in the media office typing up a few quotes and responding to emails. She let out a heavy sigh, already there were emails coming through asking for any comments on rumours that he was moving back to Red Bull or was ready to announce his retirement; they all had to be ignored, there was nothing to say. Soon she found herself reading through the post race headlines, they didn't make for good reading for Seb but for Charles they were full of admiration. He'd won the race and deservedly so, he'd driven fantastically and after the loss of his friend a week ago she couldn't think of anyone better to take the win once Seb had put himself out of the running.
"Are you ready to leave? I'd quite like to get out of here now." Seb's voice sounded solemnly behind her, she didn't realise that she'd been sat there for so long. She closed the browser down on her iPad quickly, knowing that he'd probably seen what she was looking at.
"Yeah, sure." She stood up and shoved the iPad into her bag. As she looked at Seb, her heart ached for him. He looked gutted, seeing that she was ready to go he simply turned around and walked off, she had no option but to follow him and she struggled to keep up with his pace. As they got outside he put his RayBans on again and walked with his head down, avoiding the gaze of anyone he passed, barely even stopping for the people who were trying to take a photo with him. He only stopped once before they got to the car and that was for someone's child, a little girl who looked to be no more than about eight or nine. As he signed a photo that she had of him, the girl beamed as he spoke to her and the cute scene lifted Chloe's spirits, his fans still loved him, he needed to remember that. The entire trip back to the hotel was silent and after trying to talk to him had failed, all she could do was offer him her hand which he took, only letting go when he had to change gear and it made her feel a little bit better even he didn't. Once they got back into their suite he dropped his rucksack down on the sofa and went to walk into their bedroom.
"I'm going for a shower." He mumbled.
"Seb, wait a minute." She caught hold of his hand. "Don't you want to talk about today?"
"No."
"It wasn't all your fault, it's the car, you've said before you can't gel with it, you don't feel like you can really push...."
"Look, I appreciate what you're doing but please, don't make excuses for me." He gently took his hand away from hers. and kissed her forehead. "Once I've had a shower I'll be fine, I won't be long."
"Ok." Watching him walk away, she felt worried, she'd never seen him like this after a race, this felt even worse than Canada. She looked to where he had disappeared before heading over to the kitchenette where she opened the fridge and retrieved the bottle of wine she'd opened last night and a glass from on the counter. After pouring herself a glass she went back to the lounge and sat down on the sofa, placing her glass on the table in front of her. Letting out a breath she relaxed back and closed her eyes. When she opened them again she looked at the clock on the wall, twenty-five minutes had passed and Seb was yet to emerge from the bedroom, usually he was fairly quick in the shower so this wasn't like him. Not wanting to wait for him any longer she got up and walked into the bedroom, he wasn't there and she could hear the shower running. Was he really still in the shower? Tiptoeing to the bathroom door she hovered close to it, listening. All she could hear was the water running, nothing else. Putting her hand on the door handle she slowly and silently turned it until the door opened, then she pushed it open just enough to enable her to see inside. He was standing with his back to her under the shower head leaning on outstretched arms with his palms flat against the marble clad wall, unmoving except for his shoulders and back as he breathed. He looked magnificent but at the same time seeing him like that was heart wrenching and all she wanted to do now was take care of him and make him feel better. She started to undress, right where she stood, dropping her uniform on the floor to make a puddle of red, her underwear added a final splash of white. Before she could stop herself and change her mind she pushed the door open and stepped inside. "Seb?" She called his name softly, mainly to let him know she was there, he didn't move a muscle or say anything back. She walked over to him and quietly slipped into the shower behind him, feeling him flinch when she pressed her body against his as she wrapped her arms around his waist and placed little kisses on his back. His warm skin felt heavenly against hers and she closed her eyes, nuzzling her nose against him, breathing in his scent and peppering him with more kisses. His posture remained stiff and his muscles tense making her stomach began to churn again, he was actually starting to frighten her as he failed to respond again so she moved and ducked under his arm to face him. He was staring at the wall, unblinking, his face was emotionless making his current state of mind impossible to read. "You're scaring me Seb." She whispered. "I've never seen you like this before." He still didn't respond, he looked as though he was miles away, completely lost in whatever was going through his mind and she had no idea on what to do. Kissing him, touching him and turning him on felt inappropriate, it wasn't sex that he needed, it was love. Seeing a bottle of shower gel on a small shelf to her right, she picked it up and dispensed a little into the palm of her hand, placing the bottle back before rubbing the gel between her hands to make it lather. She took a deep breath and placed her hands on his shoulders, slowly and delicately she began to wash him, gliding her hands down his arms and back up again. Getting a bit more shower gel she ducked under his arms and started to wash his back, starting at his shoulder blades and working her way down in slow circular movements, he let out a sigh and she felt him start to relax. Moving around to face him once more, she dispensed some more shower gel on to her hand and started to wash his chest and then his abdomen, finally he lowered his gaze enough to look at her and he removed his hands from the wall, standing still to let her finish what she was doing. As her hand slid over his skin and made its way back down over his defined abs she wasn't really surprised to see his body starting to react to her, being naked in the shower with him she'd kind of expected it. What she wasn't expecting was to look up into his eyes and see him looking back at her in such a way that it winded her. His eyes were watery but full of the most pure love she'd ever seen. It was shining through, right from the deepest depths of those blue hues, he was wordlessly telling her just how much he loved her, she could feel it radiating out from every single inch of him, bathing her in a warm glow and it caught her completely off guard. He placed his hands on her hips and applied just enough pressure to make her step forward until his body was firmly against hers. His gaze held her still, his expression changing slightly to make her see as well as feel exactly what he wanted. Her stomach started to perform somersaults as anxiety started to kick in, she was suddenly unsure if this was what she wanted, unsure if she'd be able to give him what he wanted because the last time he'd had sex it was with...... He brushed his lips over hers before claiming them in a kiss that was so laden with his arousal and longing for her that he literally scrambled her brain cells, making her forget what she'd just been thinking about and making her legs shake beneath her as she kissed him back, able to feel the groan that erupted from his chest rumble deep inside her. His hands slid round to her behind, pressing her against him even more, almost begging her to give in to him and she moaned into his mouth surprising herself with the rush of emotions and sensations that he was setting off like fireworks throughout her. Removing one hand from her body he reached up and turned the shower off while keeping his lips on hers, he then used his free hand to grab at the back of her thigh, hooking her leg around his waist as much as he could and starting to press his hips against her, groaning at the pressure he was creating on his erection. Needing to stop for air, he stepped back, reached for a towel and wrapped it around her body before scooping her up into his arms and carrying her out into the bedroom where he laid her down on the bed. It was then that he stopped and simply looked at her, making her sit up and look back at him, letting the towel fall away from her body and watching as his eyes hungrily raked over her. She reached out and took his hand to pull him towards her but he resisted and stayed where he was making her look at him in complete confusion.
"Ask me." He stated, his voice even deeper from being so turned on.
"You don't need....."
"I do. I need you to ask me." He tightened his hold on her hand. Inside she was smiling, she loved her demanding Sebastian but she knew what this about. Like yesterday, he needed her to make the first move, even after their passionate clinch in the shower.
"Please Seb." She pulled on his hand again. "I want this, I want you." She looked into his eyes, making it clear that she meant it as he stepped forward and pushed her back down on the bed. He lowered himself down on top of her and started to kiss her again and she wrapped her limbs around him, enveloping him in a full body embrace. Stopping for a moment, he leant on his forearms; cupping her face in his hands he looked down at her barely able to believe that this was actually happening. He nuzzled his nose softly against hers before tenderly kissing her lips, her cheeks and her lips again. Then he started to work his way around her neck and collarbone, brushing his lips and tongue over her skin; kissing, nuzzling and gently sucking on her pulse point to make her gasp out his name and writhe beneath him. He revelled in the feeling of her skin against his, the heat that he could feel coming from her body as she got more and more turned on and the sounds she made as she started to beg for him to be inside her. He wanted to pinch himself to make sure that this was real because just four weeks ago he'd lost her and he'd feared that it was for good, now she was answering his prayers and making him feel like he was in heaven. Returning to her lips he kissed her again and she eagerly returned his kiss, making it deep and hunger filled, almost verging on needy, as she lifted her hips while whimpering softly into his mouth. Unable to ignore the tight knot of desire that was aching and growing inside him he pulled away from her kiss to look down at her.
"You sure you want this?" He whispered, thinking that if she said no at this point it would probably kill him. She put her hands up by her head in an invitation for him to take hold of them, which he did by entwining their fingers.
"Please Seb." She whispered. It was all he needed to hear and he pushed his hips forward, groaning as he filled her, feeling a beautiful mixture of sweet relief and complete ecstasy as he answered her demand.