Dirt Driven (Racing on the Edge Book 11)

me. We weren’t these people. We were a passion. We were a half-lidded glance from across the pits, dirt clinging to our skin. We were a long sigh when the weight of words wouldn’t let up. We were insecurities that collapsed in the heat of the night, foreheads slowly touching and the shaking of our bodies in the quiet, bringing lips closer together until quivering skin followed.
Together, I could get him through this. I stepped toward him, hating what this had done to him. On his knees, his head in his hands, Rager’s body shook and finally he melted into my embrace, his sobs never letting up. When I wrapped my arms around him, my fingers clung to the fabric of his clothes.
Tears fell down my cheeks, and I looked up at the restless moonless sky. Sometimes you looked up and the night was full of stars, burning brightly and shining on you longer than you ever thought they would. And then other nights, there was nothing. Darkness was all you saw. Cold, irritable darkness that took everything from you and left you in the shadows of despair. Hidden behind clouds of doubt, you had to have patience and wait for the night to clear, knowing eventually, your light would return. It wasn’t easy but it was worth the wait.
I wasn’t sure we could wait the darkness out before it broke my husband completely.

Stiffness – Relationship describing moto displacement from a fixed position due to an applied torque of specified value.
THE DIRT TRACK AT LAS VEGAS
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
MARCH - SIX MONTHS EARLIER
“Stand there.”
“Where?” Rager groaned, tossing his head forward dramatically. “I can’t tell by the flick of your goddamn wrist what you want me to do, Arie.”
With a heavy sigh, I glared at him, wishing I could take the Sharpie in my hand and stab it in his damn pretty blue eyes for questioning me. This was what three years of marriage and being on the road for nine months out of the year with four kids does to you. You begin to want to stab your husband. And we’re only a month into our nine-month season, so, it wasn’t looking good for my husband if he kept fucking with me.
“There,” I growled at him. “Where the fucking X is. How is it not obvious?”
Though he was wearing a hat, I knew if I was to knock it off his head, he’d be lifting a challenging eyebrow at me. “Why are you being mean to me?”
Because you’re a dick today.
“Because I feel like it. Now just do your job, stand there, smile, so I can do mine.” Was it him being a dick today, or was I exceptionally cranky? Maybe a little bit of both.
That conversation right there sounds like most marriages though, doesn’t it? Or maybe it was the marriage of two people who spent the majority of their time together on the road. Probably the second one.
Rager threw his arms up, kicking at the dirt and the flour marking the spot where he would be standing during introductions tonight. “Why are we doing this? It’s dumb. No one cares who we are.”
I haven’t told him that the spot where he would be standing tonight would also be lit on fire. Maybe I’d save that for later. I’d save it because he would be standing next to Casten with a lit flame at their feet. There was no telling what my brother would do.
I also wanted to laugh in Rager’s face that he thought nobody cared who he was. Actually, I did laugh. “You don’t think they care who you are?” I raised a bitchy eyebrow. “Okay. If you think that, go up in the stands tonight. Alone. And tell me they don’t care who the top ten drivers racing in the World of Outlaws are.”
I knew my husband well enough to know he was actually contemplating this. His sturdy glare swept from the stands where I was pointing, back to me. “I know they care, but why are we making such a big deal out of this prerace show? It’s not NASCAR. Why try to make it that way?”
“Listen, jerk.” Wow. He was really getting under my skin today. “Just do what I’m telling you to do and shut up.”
“Fine.” Defiantly, he crossed his arms over his chest. “But I’m not smiling.”
Always pushing my buttons. When I agreed to be the PR manager for JAR Racing, I should have considered its drivers. Ones like my husband, Rager Sweet, who insisted on giving me shit every day. It didn’t matter that I was his wife. If Rager didn’t want to do something, he let everyone know his disapproval of said task. Kinda like our nearly four-year-old son, Pace. By the way, I have three, three-year-olds at the moment. No, they’re not triplets, two are twins, but it might explain why I was so cranky these days. In fact, we have four kids under five. I absolutely loved being a mother, but some days, like today, I struggled with being nice to everyone. And the one who helped create all those kids, he took the brunt of my anger most days.
Reality crashed against Rager when he read the car numbers on the ground. Rager pointed at the X with the number 4 on it next to him. “There’s no fuckin’ way I’m standing next to him.”
Damn it. He knew.
“Can you not be difficult for one afternoon and let me do my job? It’s the last night here in Vegas and I have a lot to get done today.”
“Where would the fun in that be, wife?” He smiled, walking toward me. With one smirk, he had his arms wrapped around my body and his mouth on my neck. With one sweep of his tongue against my overly heated skin, I melted. “Now, how about you show me how feisty you can be?”
“Can’t,” I whispered, trying like hell to ignore him and his wicked ways of getting