TAMING THE ALPHA STREET RACER

We swerve around a corner so hard my head slams into the car seat. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even glance at me. Just one hand on the wheel, the other shifting gears like he has done this too many times.

I’m gasping by the time I get the seatbelt to click. My fingers are slick with blood, there’s a rip in my palm from when I ate shit on the road. My left shoulder’s screaming, my knees are scraped, and there’s blood on my tank.

I can smell it.

But most importantly, I’m focusing on this man.

I can’t see his face, and his helmet reflects nothing but flashing lights.

Sirens howl behind us.

Getting closer.

“What the hell is this?” I ask, breath ragged. “Why are they chasing you?”

“They’re not chasing me,” he says, flatly, as if I’m stupid for even asking. “They’re chasing everyone.”

“They wouldn’t be if you weren’t racing. Illegally,” I add, like the word tastes sour in my mouth.

He tilts his head slightly, like he finds that funny, but doesn’t laugh. Then he swerves hard around a minivan. My body jerks forward, slamming into the seatbelt, and I gasp, the belt is digging hard into my skin.

“Careful!” I wheeze, my chest is heaving, and my fingers are quivering.

He sounds gruff. “You're welcome for the ride.”

“A ride? You dragged me into a high-speed felony!”

He finally looks at me. “Dragged you? You ran into the car.”

“Because they were about to tear gas the crowd!”

He jerks the wheel hard to the left, slipping between two slow cars, and I get tossed toward the center console.

“And who took you out of there?”

“That doesn’t make it less illegal!”

He exhales harshly. “You’re bleeding all over my seat and arguing moral high ground in the middle of a fucking chase?”

“Because if you weren’t racing, you wouldn’t be getting chased!” I shout as he cuts off a van and slides into an exit lane, barely missing a divider.

“If you weren’t at an illegal street race,” he retorts, “you wouldn’t be in my car.”

I shut up for a second. Just enough for him to make his point, but I can't help myself.

“I wasn’t even supposed to be there! I didn’t race, I didn’t do anything… why the fuck am I running from the police right now?”

“Oh, well in that case,” he says dryly, one hand gripping the wheel as we take a tight curve, tires screaming, “should I ask the cops to only arrest the ones who came for the vibes?”

The G-force throws me into the door a second time. I grunt, swallowing back bile.

“You don’t get to be smug just because you’re used to getting away with shit.”

“I’m not smug, I’m rethinking my decision” he mutters, flicking a switch on the dash. Lights cut instantly, plunging us into partial darkness. “I’m annoyed.”

“That makes two of us. I’d rather have been arrested than stuck in a car with some cocky little shit—”

“Cocky?” he barks out a loud laugh, shifting gears so hard the car jerks forward, the sirens fades into the distance.

“You think that’s bad? If I hadn’t dragged your panicked ass out of there, your teeth would have been getting kicked in right now or you’d be in a holding cell, crying for your Daddy.”

“You don’t know shit about me,” I shout, but he just scoffs.

“I know the type,” he says. “You are spoiled.”

“Then DROP ME OFF!” I scream, beating my hand against the dash. “Drop me the fuck off right now! You hear me? DROP ME OFF!”

“I am not your uber!”

“NOW!” I shout, throat raw, eyes burning. “DROP. ME. THE. FUCK. OFF!”

He slams the brakes so hard I jerk forward, almost launching straight through the windshield. The tires screech like strangled banshees, the whole car twisting before halting half on the road, half on gravel.

He rips the helmet off and flings it into the back seat.

And fuck me.

My breath catches hard in my throat.

He's… God, he’s beautiful. Model-hot but real. Plump lips in a scowl, hair damp from the ride, messy brown curls toppling over his forehead.

And his fucking eyes are glowing red.

I blink hard, thinking it’s the low light or maybe I’m imagining things. But no, the red is still there.

“Get out,” he growls.

Literally growls.

I don’t move.

I can’t, not with the way he’s looking at me.

He throws his door open and steps out in long, fast strides, and I flinch as mine is yanked open a second later.

“I said get out!”

I barely suck in a breath before his hand clamps around my arm, hard enough to make me gasp. The other slams the door shut behind me with a thud that rattles my bones.

And then I’m being shoved back.

My spine hits the cool metal of the hood. I brace instinctively, wide-eyed, but he’s already there, towering over me.

Jesus, he’s tall.

So tall, I have to crane my neck just to meet his stare.

“You wanna act like a brat? Then you better know what the fuck that earns you.”

I gulp. “Go fuck yourself.”

He smirks and leans in.

I barely reach his chest, and he uses that, shoulders squared, arms on either side of me, caging me in like he owns the space, and me as well. His hands are planted on the hood now, close enough that the heat from his skin has my thighs trembling.

He doesn’t look twenty, or even twenty-five. He looks older. He’s definitely not some college kid.

Not like me.

“Where do you go to school?” he asks suddenly, and I flinch at how rough his tone is.

“W-what?”

“I said—” his head dips, lips almost brushing my ear, “where do you go to fucking school, sweetheart?”

My breath hitches again.

“U—USC,” I whisper. “Third year.”

His head tilts. “Figures. You look like a little sorority princess with a smart mouth and no idea what the real world’s like.”

My fists clench at my sides.

“Still think you’d rather be in a cop car?” he asks, voice just as low, just as dangerous.

I hate the way my thighs clench at that.

Hate the way my breath stutters in my chest when he leans in a little more, until I can’t breathe anything that isn’t him. And I hate that my heart is banging so loud I swear he can hear it.

I don’t even know where we are.

It’s dark, and wooded. The air smells like smoke and moss and wet leaves. And I’m out here in the middle of nowhere, cornered by a man who looks too fucking good to be real, and twice my age.

And the worst part?

I don’t want to move.

It feels... almost sacred to be this close to a face like his. Like touching him might burn me alive but I still wouldn’t stop.

He watches me for a long, loaded second, then finally pulls back, just slightly, just enough to leave me panting.

“Get in the car.”