Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (25 page)

"What
do
you want?" he asked sincerely as he played with a lock of my hair, twirling it between his fingers.

"I want everyone who has watched us do our best to screw up what we have for so many years to be with us, to be a part of finally making it official and permanent, if that makes sense?"

He leaned closer to me and kissed me gently, "I know exactly what you’re saying, love."

"What do
you
want?" I asked him even though I had an idea from the plans he had already made.

"I want you… I want you to be mine right now, right this second, to know you are legally stuck with me, to not run away from me. I agree with you—I want the people who told me to stay away from you, that I would hurt you and that watched me hurt you over and over again to see that I’m finally doing it right, that I’m yours forever, to do with what you will. If there were a Reverend here, I’d do it right here and now. I don’t want to wait—the sooner the better—before you get away from me again."

My heart felt like an overly full hot air ballon. He really loved me. He really wanted to be with me forever. My grin was ridiculous and a bit embarrassed as I realized that Desmond and Chelsea had been listening to his speech.

"So when are we flying out?" Desmond blurted out.

"If you would rather get married at home or here," Seth leaned closer to me, "I’ll do whatever you want as long as it’s soon."

"No," I smiled lovingly at him, "I want to marry you immediately, too. I’d like to go somewhere tropical and get married on the beach at sunset."

"Perfect!" he kissed my cheek with a quick excited energy. "I’ve got it all planned then, we’ll leave tomorrow."

Chelsea was already shaking her head. "Uh, uh, she
must
have the perfect dress; we’ll have to leave on Thursday."

"How long will it take to for you to find a dress?" He was asking Chelsea, as if she were the one choosing the dress.

She touched her fingers to her lips as she considered his question, "I could probably rush it into three or four hours, if I tried."

"Umm, hello?" I waved a hand in front of Seth’s face, "remember me, the actual bride to be? It won’t take me long to find a dress, it’s not that important to me."

Seth looked at me thoughtfully before turning back to Chelsea, "Three hours, I can give you three hours tomorrow morning and we are on the plane by noon." I made a few "what am I chopped liver" noises, but all I got out of it was Seth patting my hand as he turned to my brother, "Des, I know you hate doing this, and so do I, but I need you to cancel everything for Thursday and Friday. Get Glenn to drive my car during practice on Friday, we’ll be in Pennsylvania Saturday morning in time for qualifying."

"Will you at least tell me where we’re going?"

"Nope, it’s a surprise. I will tell you it’s somewhere in Belize in Central America, so we can be there in just a little more than four hours. I’ll get Wyatt, Gene, Brad, Greg, and Christina on a plane headed there in the morning. We’ll take the jet there tomorrow. Do you want to bring anyone other than Chelsea and Desmond?"

"Oh, do I finally get a say in something?" I was being dramatic in an attempt to get a reaction, but Seth just leaned forward and kissed me softly again.

"Only in who you are bringing, baby"

I scowled at him for a moment before finally answering, "Jamie, Susanna, Mel, and you aren’t going to like this, but Ace."

"Seth, he was a good friend to me, even when we were together and he realized I was still in love with you and not him. It means something to have him there."

"I’m not very good at controlling my jealousy when it comes to you, especially not now when I actually have a right to my jealousy, I have no doubt that he still wants you."

Chelsea jumped in to help me at that point, "He’s been dating Susanna for a few months now."

I flashed him a big smile, "See? You have nothing to worry about."

He brushed my hair off my shoulder and kissed my earlobe, "You’re far too beautiful for me to ever have
nothing to worry about
."

"Sorry to break up the party everyone," Desmond stood up from the table, "but we still have a bit of a drive to get back to Chelsea’s, and from what it sounds like, we’ll all be up early tomorrow getting this shindig planned. We should get going."

"He’s right," Chelsea stood up as well, placing her napkin on the table, "we have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow morning."

Seth nodded and stood up, turning to help me up. When he pulled me up, he pulled too strongly, right into his arms holding me there for a minute. I felt him breathe deeply and let out a slow, content sigh. It was so comforting to be in his arms again. It was like being home, like finally feeling safe. I didn’t want to leave him again. I didn’t want to be apart from him for a moment.

"Come back to my hotel with me," Seth whispered in my ear.

Again, Chelsea was already shaking her head at him, "Uh, uh. No way! We’ve got way too much to do." She looked over at Seth, "You are so totally lucky I’m prepared." Turning back to me, she continued, "My mom’s best friend owns a small bridal boutique in Malibu. She already called her friend, and she is going to open the store early for us tomorrow and help you get everything you need. We need to get an early start, and I don’t trust you not to oversleep. Sorry, but you’re coming home with me."

Seth stepped forward looking more stubborn than I had ever seen him look his.
This could get ugly
I thought as I watched Seth focus his eyes. "Chelsea, I appreciate everything you’ve done and are trying to do for us, but we need to be together." His tone was insistently firm, and I worried that he may be being a bit pushy with Chelsea. "I promise to have her at your house as early as you want, but she
will
be coming back to my hotel with me."

"I understand," Chelsea sounded resigned, and Seth smiled in triumph, but I knew better than that. He thought he had won when, in reality, he just lost. "I completely understand that despite the fact that I have been cleaning up the mess you’ve made of my best friend for years, you are still unwilling to allow me to treat Alexis in the manner she deserves as a pampered bride-to-be. I understand that you care more about
getting some
tonight than about the wedding day that both you and she will carry as a memory for the rest of your lives. I understand perfectly that your own desire is getting in the way of looking out for giving Lexie everything she deserves in a wedding."

Seth’s shoulders slumped, and Desmond leaned over to Seth to mumble, "Just say ‘yes ma’am’ and get it over with." Chelsea turned an indignant look upon Desmond.

As much as I enjoyed watching Seth squirm and seeing a battle of stubbornness between the two of them end in Chelsea’s victory, I had to nip this one in the bud and in the manner that Chelsea would best respond to. "Chelsea, I’m spending the night with him, how can I make that work?"

Chelsea scowled at Seth, then turned to me and smiled, "Why doesn’t he come spend the night with you at my house?" So simple, so obvious, we could have avoided the entire confrontation. I let out a heavy sigh and hoped I wouldn’t have to do any convincing or smoothing over hurt feelings with Seth, but Chelsea jumped in to rectify the situation before I could take a stab at it. "Seth," she began with a kind smile that didn’t look at all sarcastic, "might I suggest that you simply come stay at my house for the night so that we can all be happy?"

Seth seemed to want to argue for a moment before finally answering, "I think that’s a wonderful idea. Would you mind if Lexie accompanies me in my car back to the hotel to gather up my belongings and check out?" Now he was getting the idea.

"I think that would be just fine," I rolled my eyes and turned away from the two of them to head out to the trolley.

It felt slow getting back to the city, but we finally reached Seth’s hotel. Seth opened my door for me and helped me out of the car never taking his eyes off me. I had taken off his suit jacket in the car since it was warmer now that we were out of the mountains leaving Seth to carry it over his arm. His other hand was possessively occupied with trying to cover up as much of my bare back as possible. When we reached the elevator and were once again alone, Seth pushed me fiercely against the wall of the elevator holding me in the corner with one hand up against the wall and his other hand moving all over my body. His knee nudged my legs apart as he moved closer, kissing me thoroughly. Just when I thought he was going to start tearing off my clothes right then and there, the elevator dinged, and the doors opened. I took a breath or two or three to try to steady myself as Seth pulled me out onto the twelfth floor of the hotel.

All it took for me to feel like the world would be okay again was a few hours in Seth’s arms. If I thought that the passion I felt for Seth before was extreme, it was nothing when compared with the emotion between us now. I lost count how many times Seth said, "I love you," and how many times I was too breathless to respond.

After a few hours of enjoying each other’s bodies, Seth pulled himself from the bed. "Chelsea is going to kill me if I don’t have you back at her house soon."

I stretched in resignation, admitting that I wanted to live to see my wedding day, and finally opted to get dressed rather than be hunted down and strangled by Chelsea.

A half hour later, we were walking into Chelsea’s house. Desmond and Chelsea were both lounging on the couch, clearly waiting up for us.

Chelsea’s first words to us were, "Wow! It must have been really packed at the check-out counter at that hotel you were staying at, took you nearly three hours." I managed to smile sheepishly at Chelsea. I must have looked apologetic because she finally rolled her eyes and moved on to Seth. "You’re sharing Lexie’s room. I didn’t think you’d mind. We should all head to bed," she looked back at Desmond, "tomorrow’s gonna be a busy day." Desmond nodded and got up off the couch as Chelsea walked down the hallway to her room. Just before she reached her door, she turned back around to me, "Please, at least
try
to get some sleep." Her attempt to be serious was ruined by the small smile on her face.

As sexy as I found him to be, and as much as I thoroughly enjoyed making love with him, falling asleep in his arms with my head to his chest, hearing his heartbeat with my leg draped across him and his hands absent-mindedly running over my upper and lower back, was more amazing. It felt… meant to be.

"Lexie," vaguely I could hear Seth whispering my name in my ear the next morning as I struggled to wake up. "Baby, it’s time to wake up."

In an attempt to delay the inevitable leaving of the bed, I crawled on top of Seth, straddling him as I continued to lay my cheek against his bare chest. I heard him groan in response. "Don’t tempt me, baby," his arms felt so safe and warm as he held me close to him. "I only have so much will power and Chelsea has already been by here once to see if you were awake yet. If you don’t get up, she’ll be seeing a whole lot more of you than she ever intended to when she pops her head in here again."

Okay, I guess she would be pretty angry if that were to happen. I dragged myself up into a semi-upright position, still straddling Seth as I stretched my arms toward the ceiling. I felt wonderful—very well rested. Suddenly, I found myself flipped over onto my back with Seth on top of me, his face just inches away from mine. "You’re too sexy for your own good," he commented as he leaned down to kiss my neck.

A knock on the door and Chelsea’s subsequent voice interrupted us. "Lex, get your butt up, it’s getting late." I rolled my eyes as Seth buried his face in the crook of my neck.

I patted his head in sympathy and kissed his forehead as he said, "It’s a good thing we have the rest of our lives or I might just have to kill your friend." I smiled as he rolled away from me and watched me climb out of bed. I had forgotten what it was like to get a solid, content night’s rest. This was the first night in my entire life that I didn’t spend obsessing over Seth. No need to obsess when I had his ring on my finger and his arms around me. As I got ready, I mused on the fact that the following day I would become Seth’s wife. It felt surreal.

After an hour of trying dresses on the next morning, I slipped on the dress that I knew was meant for me as much as my future husband. It was white, strapless, but held a sweetheart neck line. The top portion was Satin with delicate lace covered in small silver beads. The skirt was the softest sheer material I had ever seen. The wide slit up the side exposed nearly my entire thigh. I loved it, and Chelsea, Jamie, and Mel all agreed that it was completely perfect.

We managed to hit a few more stores, including a lingerie store, before Seth called to tell us to get our butts back to Chelsea’s or he was going to hunt me down and drag me cave-man style to Belize.

Back at Chelsea’s, it was a mad dash to get packed and on our way. It didn’t take long for Seth to pack up his stuff since he had only spent one night there, and it wouldn’t have taken me long to pack up either, but Seth kept distracting me. His eyes on me, his smile, stopping for a moment to watch the way his mouth formed each word, it all distracted me, and I found myself continually returning to where he was sitting on the edge of the bed. I was standing between Seth’s knees looking down at him as he ran his hands up and down the backs of my legs, then up underneath my knee-length skirt when Chelsea knocked on the door and entered.