Chapter 6
Chapter six
Miguel
There's a joke to be made about finishing in a sock.
My alarm sounds and for the first time in thirteen years I don't immediately get out of bed.
Why?
The tiny, fireball blonde in my arms.
Even as she whines in her sleep for the alarm to stop I can't move.
If I do, she'll feel the evidence of her effect on me.
This is the stiffest morning wood I’ve woken up with since I was a teenager.
In the middle of the night Laney curled into my side. My arms were open to her and she took the invitation. The blissful memory exists in the form of a hazy-at-the-edges reality meets dream.
"Make it stop." Laney says more clearly as she rolls away to her stomach and covers her head with a pillow.
Free of her touch, I stand and keep my body angled away from her as I silence the alarm on the desk.
"Why are you up already?" Laney asks, her voice heavy with sleep.
"I always get up at 4:04 on race day." As the words leave my lips, I begrudgely notice it is now 4:07 and there's a slight zing of panic in my chest. No one on the planet would consider me late or irresponsible for being three minutes behind schedule but I run on strict discipline.
I can't let myself slip because I'm compelled to care for this woman.
It doesn’t help to wonder why she doesn’t have anyone here to care for her.
I was walking back from dinner with a few guys I’ve gotten to know over the years of racing together. We take turns organizing it and getting the reservation.
Movement in the car caught my eye. Initially, my plan was just to walk by and make sure everything was okay but when I looked in the far side window and saw Laney's face, I cursed the circumstances that meant she was sleeping in a car.
And didn’t think twice about knocking on her window.
She's an incredible athlete. A beautiful woman. And she deserves better.
Better might not be me, but a bed is better than the backseat of a car.
"4:04 huh? Any particular reason?" She asks as she punches the pillow to fluff it up again.
Yes, but I'm not about to explain my entire addiction history to her this morning.
"Habit." Is what I settle on as I walk to the bathroom.
I take a cold shower on race mornings to wake up my body in the absence of a cold plunge tub.
And this morning I need it to cool the lust beating a path through my body to my cock.
I have no idea what Laney's pre-race routine entails.
As I turn on the water a depraved part of my brain envisions us starting each race with a shower fuck.
Something fast, hard, rough; sex that gets our blood pumping.
Ten seconds under the cold stream and my erection is as stiff as ever. I won't be able to run with a boner. I think I have to take care of this.
With a hiss as I turn my back to the cold water I fist my cock and jerk it roughly. Laney's perfect form and her wide blue eyes settle into my mind. I set a punishing pace as I envision her taking me down her throat.
Hollowed out cheeks.
Watering eyes.
Little trails of saliva falling from her lips.
Fuck.
It's when her hands come up to pinch her pink, pert nipples that my balls tighten and my spine tingles.
Two more tugs are all it takes for me to spill onto the shower floor and my knees quake as I turn again to wash myself off in the water.
Was it over the line to fuck my fist to the image of the woman almost thirteen years my junior who has consumed my thoughts since I first saw her?
Probably.
She's entirely too tempting. And I don't give in to temptation anymore.
This shower jerk was an indulgence I’m unaccustomed to.
When I leave the bathroom in just my towel, Laney is curled up in my bed. The sheets are ruffled and her shirt has ridden up to expose her side and lower back. My fingers twitch with the desire to touch her. To claim her.
This is not good.
I need to get myself focused.
Back on track.
The breakfast I ordered through room service last night will be here any minute. A bowl of oatmeal, two hard boiled eggs, toast, banana, and a carafe of coffee.
I dress, trying to keep my eyes off Laney who is still asleep in my bed. A light knock on the door at 4:44 a.m. causes her to stir and when I wheel in the breakfast cart she’s sitting up in bed.
"Mmm, that smells good." Laney hums as she stretches languidly. My eyes trace her firm abdomen muscles but she lets her shoulders fall and her shirt covers her midriff again. "Morning."
"Good morning." I say quietly because the air in my lungs is gone.
"What time is it?" She asks as she pokes the sleep out of the corner of her eyes.
"Four forty-six." I tell her.
She giggles quietly. "So exact. You couldn't have just said quarter to five?"
"It isn't quarter to five." I reply.
"Got it." She says as she sits up and stretches again. I try to keep my gaze on the food in front of me as I step back into a lunge stretch.
She slips past me in a short white t-shirt and pair of black panties that will haunt my dreams. I blink away from her ass just in time to see her swipe a slice of toast off my tray. She crunches into a bite before she reaches the bathroom.
I had the macros calculated for this meal as best I could with it being made by someone else. Now I'll need to find twelve grams of carbs before my heat at 7:15 a.m.
The men race first today. Elite women start next, then co-ed race heats are divided up by age group. I'm not sure when Laney is supposed to start but she's not on the list of elites so I'm assuming it's later.
I hear the shower turn on and my mind floods with the image of her undressing and stepping under the spray. Of soapy suds catching on her nipples. I fixate on the zig zag pattern in the carpet to avoid imagining water forming rivulets and trailing between her breasts, or heaven help me, her thighs.
Laney is temptation incarnate and I am not prepared to be tested.
I am here to run a full TitaniumPerson race today. To get the feel for the effort. And after, I plan to push myself to run another half marathon distance.
A deca event will demand ten full TPs in ten days. Recovery will mean something entirely different than what I’m used to.
But, if my life has taught me anything so far, there’s no growth without pain. There’s no way around it, only through.
I’m eating the remaining piece of toast and stretching my hip flexors when Laney comes out of the bathroom with just a towel wrapped around her body and her blonde hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. I lose count of my stretch wishing the scrap of white terrycloth would somehow slip.
“I was thinking about you in the shower.” The toast feels like a handful of sand in my mouth. “And, I think I said thank you last night for letting me crash, but if I didn’t, thank you.”
Her wide smile reaches the corners of her bright blue eyes and I find myself nodding in her direction. Assuming it’s been a full sixty seconds of the stretch I switch sides.
“Be right back!” She calls as she waves a swimsuit in her fist. “Changing in a hotel bathroom is much preferable to the port-a-potty I planned to use at the race.”
Her laughter follows her into the bathroom and the toast turns to wet concrete. She was planning to change in a port-a-potty at the race? I cannot fathom how that is her best option.
“Oh that’s a good idea,” Laney says as she steps out of the bathroom again in a swimsuit and sees me doing some leg swings with my hand braced on the dresser.
She drops her t-shirt and underwear into her duffle, the panties not making it all the way in and taunting me from their crumpled position on the zipper.
She props a hand on the wall and starts to wildly swing her leg back and forth.
Again, I lose track of my time and possibly rush the switch. But turning my back to her gives me a break from the constant motion, energy, and temptation.
“So, why is World Champion Miguel Garcia running this regional TP today?” She asks and her voice sounds further away, I turn over my shoulder and see she’s turned away to swing her other leg in a large arc.
“It’s a warm up of sorts.” I tell her.
“For what?”
“Keep me in the swing of things.”
“Funny.”
“What is?”
“Swing of things, and we’re doing leg swings.”
“Ah.”
“The half a few weeks ago was my warm up. Today, I have to finish. Ideally high enough to qualify for Worlds.” She says this as I turn around to face her.
But she’s still facing away from me but now, she’s bent over reaching down to her toes.
Her pert backside popped up in the air, the gusset of her swimsuit becoming a black hole for my attention.
I swallow hard. Instead of visualizing the race, I am seeing something else entirely in my mind’s eye.
She continues like she has no idea the way her body is beckoning to mine.
“But, since I haven’t finished a full TP before, I am also signed up for Indianapolis and Chicago to make sure I give myself a chance to qualify.”
“That’s a full race calendar.” I manage to say as she straightens.
My watch beeps between us and I realize my routine has been completely derailed by Laney Matteson’s presence.
“I should go, I need to grab my breakfast from the car.” She says as she takes a sip of the coffee I poured for myself. “Mmm, so good.”
“Laney,” I start and she freezes. The contrast of her stillness to her usual constant motion is jarring.
Advice sits on the tip of my tongue. I want to mention the small tweaks she can make in her transitions to help tighten them up.
To tell her to run her race, keep her pace, do her best, and see where she lands.
To ask if she wants me to stick around to cheer her on to the finish line because I can’t fucking resist her. “Good luck.”
“Thanks Miguel. You too.”
And with that she slings her bag over her shoulder and leaves me alone with my breakfast and the remaining scraps of my pre-race ritual.