Dirt Driven (Racing on the Edge Book 11)

just as mine did.
My thoughts felt numb, noises around me too loud to decipher where they were coming from. “Was that the only time?”
Say yes. Don’t do this to me.
“No….”
Who are you? Did you even love me, ever?
His answer shattered my breathing into gasping, because of the realization. He wasn’t who I thought he was. “When?”
Setting the bottle down on the counter, he didn’t look at me as he slid his hands into his pockets of his jeans, his head hanging low. His lips parted and I knew it was coming, the answer, the devastation that he wasn’t who I thought he was. “I slept with her again after the win at Homestead.”
You’ve destroyed any love I had remaining for you.
“And then you asked for a divorce,” I deduced, closing my eyes as I delivered the words through tight lips.
He gave me a moment to ask more, accuse, react, and then he nodded, muscles in his jaw locked.
You son of a bitch. You were cheating on me and made me feel like the one who caused this.
I didn’t think hearing that he cheated on me would hurt. But it did. I wanted to ask him about it, demand details I deserved to know.
“How many others have there been?”
His eyes cut to mine, a sideways glance that was brief. “Just her.”
Blinking out of the memory, I held back a sigh, biting back so much. And then I was angry. Fucking pissed. “That’s why I didn’t stop Rager from beating the shit out of you tonight. You deserved it.” With my heart in my throat and my entire body shaking, I walked away from him and into the arms of the man I should have been with the entire time I had been married to Easton.

Cogging Torque – A measure of non-uniform velocity (e.g., jerkiness, momentary stalling, slipping.)
Have you ever watched teams leave the track after a race? The team guys jetted out of there. As soon as that checkered flag dropped, they were on a mission to get the fuck out of there and to the nearest car wash. From there, it was the next city.
Though we all traveled with the teams, our jobs after the race were entirely different. The drivers had to stick around and sign autographs, greet fans, and finish up with post-race interviews. And leaving for Outlaw teams meant loading up the merchandise trailers to the motor homes, getting on the road, putting kids to bed around midnight or sometimes one in the morning and then relaxing as we drove to the next city.
“You got room.”
Rager stuck his head out of the window, a scowl plastered on his face. “It doesn’t look like it on the camera.”
“Are you going to believe me or the camera? I’m standing here looking at it and you have about ten feet!” I yelled over the diesel engine of our forty-foot luxury motor coach we called home these days. And yeah, it was nice, but somedays, it was like being stuck in a cracker box and the walls were closing in.
With the light of the streetlamps above us, I squinted in the distance to see Knox and Hudson on Rager’s lap, both trying to steer the motor home with him and him yelling for Rosa to grab them.
“He’s gonna hit the—” Casten’s words fell away about the same time Rager hit the edge of the picnic table. “Table,” Casten finished.
I glared at Casten, squinting my eyes so hard they were nearly slits. “You were supposed to stop him.”
Appearing offended, he arched an eyebrow at me. “I did. I said, he’s gonna hit the table. What more am I supposed to say?”
“What was that?” Rager yelled out the window.
“Nothing,” we both answered.
Casten scratched the side of his head, adjusting his JAR Racing hat. “Why would they put a table right there? It’s in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
“No idea.” Motioning for him to help me, we moved it out of the way.
It took another twenty minutes before we had all four of the merchandise trailers hooked up and heading out of the pits. I put the kids down for bed as we drove down the highway, made Rager a plate of pizza rolls and then sat next to him in the puffy white captain chair.
Silence hummed through the motor home, the only sounds, the road noise and the even breathing of the one beside me. I hadn’t told him about the picnic table and the scratch now in the side of our motorhome, but he’d know eventually. I would blame in on Casten.
Finally, an hour into our drive, Rager asked, “Do you still think of him?”
“What?” I glanced over at him, surprised by the question. Shifting in my seat, I looked over my shoulder at the darkness behind us in the motor home. Our kids, fast asleep in their beds.
“You heard me.” His eyes shifted from the road to mine, the passing of a semi-truck lighting up the space between us.
Fear knotted inside my chest. Not that I was scared of him or the question asked. But fearing why he asked it, tonight of all nights. “I know I heard you. I’m surprised you asked it.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “You loved him.”
“Loved. As in, not anymore.”
I heard him swallow, his breathing heavier than before. “Still.”
“I don’t think of him. At least not in a good way.”
Rager lifted his eyes from the road. “Okay.”
Okay? “Does it bother you?”
“He will always bother me in a sense. He had you first.”
I snorted and reached for the package of Skittles I’d picked up at the last gas stop. “Technically Ricky Hagen did, but whatever.”
A growl trembled from his lips. “Enough.”
“You brought it up.”
His hands gripped the steering wheel tighter. “And I’m finishing it. You’re mine now. Always.” One hand slipped off the wheel and to mine. Bringing it to his lips, he pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “Always.”
For a moment, I put myself in Rager’s position. How would I