Chapter 369: Keep Your Eyes on Me

Rechelle did not ease into the drive. The BMW left the hotel district like it already had somewhere to be, cutting the first side street hard enough that the rear tightened before she opened the throttle the second the road widened. Glass and stone slid past in clean streaks while Lucas watched her hands more than the road ~ light on the wheel, sure on the gear changes, nothing wasted.

She was good. Not careful-good. Actually good.

At the next junction she took the corner tight, fed the power back in early, and the sedan snapped straight like it trusted her. He felt the weight shift through the seat and glanced at her profile. No tension in her face. If anything she looked more settled than she had in the suite.

"You drive like this every morning?"

"Only when I’m in a good mood."

"This is your good mood?"

Her mouth curved. "You should see me when I’m showing off."

She merged onto the highway without slowing for the ramp the way most people did. The car climbed into the lane, found space, and then she let it run. The engine note deepened, other cars started falling behind in the mirrors, and wind pressed faintly against the sealed windows while the morning city stretched wide and pale under the early light.

Lucas sat back and let himself feel it. He had expected her to be competent. He had not expected the clean aggression, the way she read gaps before they fully opened, or the small corrections that kept the car balanced at speeds that would have made a weaker driver look busy. Every so often she flicked a look at the mirrors, then at him, like she was checking whether he was still with her or already judging the risk.

He wasn’t judging it. He was impressed.

"You’re better than I thought."

She kept her eyes on the road. "Most people think the cars are the only thing I collect."

"And the rest?"

"The rest is knowing how not to die in them."

She took an exit without warning, dropped a gear, and carved down a feeder road that left the clean highway behind. The surroundings changed fast ~ warehouses, long fences, empty lots with weeds forced up through cracked concrete, the kind of place the polished part of the city pretended not to own. She drove deeper into it, and after another stretch of rough road she turned through an open gate and the space opened up in front of them.

An old race track. Unused in the official sense. The grandstands were weathered, the barriers showed years of impact scars, and the paint on the asphalt had faded to ghosts of lane markers, but the place was not dead. Not even close.

Cars were already there. A lot of them. Tuned street machines, wide-body builds, a couple of serious track toys with numbers still on the doors. Engines idled in low rumbles. Someone had music playing from a parked van. The morning air smelled like fuel, rubber, and cheap coffee.

And girls. That was the second thing he noticed.

They were everywhere around the cars ~ blondes, brunettes, different faces, different bodies, most of them in the same kind of uniform that had nothing to do with racing and everything to do with being looked at. Mini shirts. Tight singlets. Shorts that barely qualified as clothing. Some leaned on hoods. Some sat on fenders with their legs crossed. A few were already watching the BMW before it fully stopped.

Rechelle parked and killed the engine. For a second she only sat there with her hands on the wheel, scanning the lot through the windshield, then she opened her door.

Lucas stepped out after her.

The reaction was immediate. A group of drivers near a white coupe looked over and the recognition hit them in a visible wave. One of them put his drink down. Another wiped his hands on a rag and started over. More followed ~ not aggressive, just interested, respectful in the way people got when an old name walked back into a place that still remembered it.

"No way," one of them said as he got closer. "Rechelle?"

She shut the door with her hip. "Morning."

"Thought you were done with this side of town."

"I got bored."

A couple of the men laughed, short and surprised. Others just stared, still matching the woman in leather jeans to the version of her they used to know. Someone called her name from farther down the line of cars. Another asked if she was running anything today. The attention closed in fast and none of it felt random. These people knew her ~ not as a guest, as one of their own.

Lucas stayed a step behind and took the scene in.

That was when the other half of the lot noticed him.

The girls had been watching Rechelle at first, then their eyes shifted, one by one, then in groups. They were built for this scene. Big tits packed into tight singlets, nipples faintly visible through the thin fabric where the morning light hit. Wide hips. Thick thighs. Asses so full the bum shorts barely held them, half the cheeks out every time one of them leaned on a hood or bent to pick something up. Blondes mostly, the kind with long hair and heavy makeup, but not only blondes ~ different faces, same body type, soft stomachs and deep curves, the sort of figures that made the system rating look like a joke. Almost every one of them would have broken it.

A blonde in a white singlet stopped talking mid-sentence and stared straight at Lucas, the fabric stretched so tight across her chest it looked ready to give up. Another girl sat on the hood of a black car with her legs open, bum shorts riding up between her ass cheeks, and sat up taller the second she saw him. Someone to the left muttered behind her hand and laughed. More heads turned.

It was obvious. They looked at him like they had already imagined him between their thighs.

Rechelle noticed it in under a second. The easy posture she had carried out of the car tightened through her shoulders before her face caught up. Her smile stayed on for the drivers still talking to her, but her eyes cut sideways once, then again, tracking the way those stares stuck to Lucas. A brunette near a red hatchback looked him up and down without shame. The blonde in the singlet said something that made two girls beside her laugh, and none of them looked away.

It landed in her chest, sharp and unwelcome. She had brought him here to keep him close, not to put him on display for every half-dressed girl on the lot.

One of the drivers was still going on about an old qualifying run. She answered without really hearing herself. Her attention was already split. Lucas stood there in the clean shirt and jacket she had bought him, calm, unreadable, and somehow worse for it because he was not even doing anything. He did not have to. The lot had decided for itself.

She stepped back half a pace until she was closer to him, reached out, and hooked two fingers in the front of his jacket, tugging him down just enough that only he would hear her.

"Hey."

He looked at her.

Her voice came out softer than she meant it to, almost shy under the noise of the lot.

"Don’t look at them too long."

"I wasn’t."

"I’m serious." She glanced past his shoulder at the cluster still watching, then back up at him, cheeks a little warmer. "I don’t like the way they’re staring. Just... keep your eyes on me, okay?"

His mouth twitched. "Possessive already?"

"I’m not~" She stopped, fingers still in his jacket, and exhaled through her nose. "Just don’t give them a reason. Please."

She held his eyes a second longer, then let go, turned back toward the drivers, and put the harder face back on like the soft part had never happened.