Drive me Wild, Rival(BL)

Chapter 135: I missed you

Alaric

My eyes widened in shock because I never expected Nico to be standing right there in front of me.

​How did he even get here, and why the hell was he here?

​Everything had been completely silent for days, and I had fully intended to keep it like that. Even when the Ferrari officials had asked that I give my own side of the story, attend press conferences, and handle the media fallout, I had turned it all down.

I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the outside world. And even when Nico wouldn’t stop calling, texting, and blowing up my notifications, I hadn’t bothered to reply to him. I thought I was safe out here in the middle of nowhere because I wanted my peace.

​Yet, here he was. He was standing on my grass, dressed like he had just escaped a corporate prison, staring down at me with that incredibly annoying, knowing smirk on his face.

​The exact face I had missed.

​I let out an internal groan, immediately realizing what I was thinking about and how my face must have turned bright red just staring at him. I tried to force my expression into a cold, hard glare, but it was hard to look intimidating when I was still gripping a fishing rod and trying not to tip over backwards.

​"What the hell are you doing here, Nicholas?" I demanded again, finally finding my voice as I steadying my chair. "And how did you even find this place?’’

​Nico casually slipped his hands into his pockets, his smirk widening into a full, teasing grin as he looked around my quiet little sanctuary. "Oh, you know me. I have my ways, de Villier. And honestly, it wasn’t that hard to know where you are,’’ he said, winking at me.

​"Who the hell told you where I was! Was it dorothy?" I snapped, my eyes narrowing.

​"Exactly. And your manager is entirely too predictable because she is seeing my manager. Lovers will do anything for each other." Nico said smoothly, taking a slow step closer to me. "Besides, you can’t just leave a guy on read for seventy-two hours after tackling him onto a metal podium on live television. That’s just bad paddock etiquette."

​"I did not tackle you!" I yelled, my voice echoing slightly over the quiet, rolling waves of the sea below us.

I stood up from the lawn chair, tossing the fishing rod onto the grass because there was absolutely no way I could focus on catching fish while this lunatic was breathing the same air as me. "The floor was damp! There was spilled champagne everywhere, and I lost my footing! It was a completely natural, gravitational accident!"

​"A gravitational accident that resulted in your lips locked onto mine for five full seconds?" Nico asked, tilting his head with a mock-thoughtful expression. "Wow. Gravity works in mysterious ways. I’ll have to ask the engineers to run some data simulations on that."

​"Shut up," I muttered, feeling the heat rise from my neck straight to my ears. I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to build a physical wall between us. "You haven’t answered my question. Why are you here? You’re supposed to be in simulator training. Dylan told Dorothy you were scheduled for a full team briefing today."

​"Well, Dylan lied," Nico stated cheerfully, taking another step forward. The space between us was shrinking, and my heart was already starting to act completely unprofessional.

It was racing fast that it felt like I was about to have an heart attack.

"I told my team my shoulder was acting up and that I needed emergency medical scans. But really, the only thing causing me pain was the fact that my rival decided to vanish off the face of the earth because he’s afraid of a few cameras."

​"I am not afraid of the cameras!" I defended myself, my voice rising in indignation. "I am protecting my sanity! Do you have any idea what the press is saying? Ferrari is having a collective aneurysm. My publicist has aged ten years in three days. They wanted me to release a statement saying we were just ’celebrating a hard-won victory with intense adrenaline.’ Adrenaline, Nico! Who kisses their rival because of adrenaline?"

​"I don’t know, you seemed pretty into it for someone who was just experiencing a medical surge of adrenaline," Nico teased, his eyes sparkling with pure amusement. He loved this. He absolutely thrived on pushing my buttons until I was completely unraveled.

​"I was dazed!" I shouted, throwing my hands up in the air. "You dropped all your body weight directly onto my ribcage! I couldn’t breathe, let alone think straight! If I didn’t push you away immediately, it was because I was trying to determine if I needed a paramedic, not because I wanted to experience your lips in 4K resolution!"

​"Oh, so it’s a crime to make sure you’re comfortable on the floor now?" Nico chuckled, stepping even closer. He was barely a couple of feet away from me now, the crisp scent of cedarwood mixing with the salty sea breeze. "You know, for someone who claims it was a total disaster, you’re awfully red right now, Alaric. Are you sure you’re not just blushing because I finally caught you hiding out in your little secret cabin?"

​"It is a vacation home, not a hiding spot," I muttered, turning my face away slightly so he couldn’t see just how much his presence was throwing me off balance. "And I am not blushing. The sun is hot today."

​"Alaric, it’s literally cloudy and the sun is setting," Nico pointed out, his voice dropping into a lower, softer tone that made my stomach do a dangerous flip.

​"The atmospheric pressure is heavy, then. Whatever. Just... don’t do anything annoying," I warned him, pointing a finger at his chest. "I have had a miserable three days. I haven’t had my phone, I haven’t been able to see what the internet is saying—though Dorothy told me it’s an absolute disaster—and I just wanted to sit here, fish in peace, and pretend that Formula 1 doesn’t exist for forty-eight hours."

​"I know," Nico said softly. The sarcastic, teasing edge suddenly vanished from his demeanor, replaced by something much more genuine, something that completely caught me off guard. He stepped right into my personal space, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made the breath catch in my throat. "But I couldn’t let you stay here alone."

​I blinked, my arms slowly dropping to my sides as I stared at him. "Nico..."

​"I missed you," he said.

​My heart instantly started pounding violently against my ribs, the sound of it so loud in my ears that I was certain he could hear it too. The words were so simple, so quiet, yet they hit me with more force than any crash I’d ever had on the track.

I opened my mouth to fire back another sarcastic retort, to tell him he was being ridiculous, but nothing came out. I was completely paralyzed under his gaze.

​"What... what are you doing?" I whispered, my voice trembling slightly as Nico moved even closer, completely closing the distance between us.

​"I missed you so much, Alaric," Nico slowly whispered, his voice warm against the cool evening air.

​Before I could even process the words, his arms came around my waist, pulling me firmly against his chest. He wrapped himself around me, holding me in a tight, fierce embrace that felt entirely too real, entirely too safe.

My lungs completely froze. My heart pounded even harder, hammering wildly as the warmth of his body seeped through my shirt.

I stood there stiffly for a fraction of a second, my mind screaming at me to push him away, to maintain the rivalry, to protect our careers because I didn’t know what I would do if I let him continue holding me like that.

​But my hands had a completely different plan. Slowly, entirely against my own better judgment, my arms slid up around his shoulders, my fingers gripping the fabric of his jacket as I buried my face into his neck. I held him back just as tightly, letting out a long, shaky breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding for three whole days.

​The silence around the cabin was absolute, save for the gentle crashing of the waves below and the wild, chaotic rhythm of our racing pulses. It felt like the entire world had stopped moving, like the grid, the sponsors, the media, and the championship points didn’t matter at all as long as we were standing on this hill.

​After what felt like an eternity, Nico slowly pulled away, his hands shifting from my waist up to my shoulders, keeping me close.

​I looked up at him, my head spinning, my chest heaving as I tried to gather enough scattered thoughts to form a coherent sentence. "Nico, we can’t... the agency, the teams, they’re going to—"

​"Let them," Nico murmured.

​He didn’t give me a chance to say anything else. Before the next word could even leave my lips, he leaned in closer, his hand sliding up to cup the side of my neck, and his lips pressed firmly against mine.