CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE DIEGO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DIEGO
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Wasn’t supposed to fall so hard for Alara.
The feeling crept up on me, unexpectedly, and swept me off my feet, as if I’d been standing in the surf during a tempest, and the reckless waves had pulled me out toward that abyss of devastation. I didn’t stand a chance against this magnetic force.
She’s caressed all the invisible scars and the indentations around my damaged heart, bringing it back to life.
That soft touch has made me feel loved. Seen.
There isn’t a shadow of doubt that Alara will always be the only woman who shows me where the light shines through when I lose myself behind stormy clouds.
And now I’m fucked, but also completely, undoubtedly, irrevocably hers.
It’s the day after Christmas, and Alara is currently sleeping next to me.
My fingers trace idle circles on her bare back, the light filtering through the high windows casting a kaleidoscope of golden twinkles on her angelic face.
It’s amazing how her skin welcomes me like it’s known me forever, goosebumps appearing in the wake of my touch.
I continue to draw featherlight shapes up her shoulder blade, like a brushstroke on a canvas.
Taking the time to study her features, I lift my index finger to lightly caress her brow, down to the bridge of the nose I love so much, down to those lips I constantly dream of.
She’s unreal. So, so beautiful.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, her lashes fluttering. It takes a few seconds for her vision to adjust, but when her eyes lock to mine, I’m pretty sure I’m unable to breathe.
“Looking at you.”
“Why?” I’m fascinated by the way she blushes.
I take a shaky inhale, tucking strands of hair behind her ear.
“Because, Alara, when I look at you, I don’t understand how someone could ever stand in front of you and not see what I see.
And do you know what I see?” She shakes her head, her eyes brimming with emotion.
“I see an entire universe, an entire galaxy within you. I see so much strength and beauty and courage, and I feel so lucky to be the one who’s managed to look deep enough to see all of that. ”
I have no clue where all that came from, but it’s nothing short of the truth.
Her pupils are dilated as she flicks her eyes back and forth between mine, searching for a lie, but she won’t find any.
She reaches out to caress my cheek, and I notice how she’s trembling.
Leaning into her touch, I close my eyes, and then her soft lips are on mine, stealing my breath straight out of my poor lungs.
Through the kiss, I pour out a multitude of other feelings I’m not ready to confess yet, but with every caress, every swipe of my tongue, every breath, I let her know.
She murmurs my name against my mouth, but I interrupt her. “I have something for you.”
When she sits up, she pulls the sheet up to her chest. I admire all the hickeys I’ve left on the swells of her breasts.
She rolls her eyes. “Stop smiling like that.”
“You’re telling me I’m not allowed to look at my work of art?”
I duck out of the way as she chucks a pillow in my direction. I laugh, but when it almost lands on Tabby and makes her dart down the stairs, I follow the cat. “I know, Tab, your mama is mean.”
I’m butt-naked and jogging around Alara’s cabin, so I pray to the universe that no one’s headed this way or peering through the windows, because what a fucking show they’d be getting.
I take the paper bag I hid in her pantry and run back upstairs. Her expression is full of intrigue as I sit across from her and hand her the pink bag.
“I thought we said no gifts?” With reluctance, she takes out the first item, which is in a box.
“Oops, I guess.”
She shakes her head, but her lips are tilted in a smile. Taking the lid off the box, she freezes when she sees the item.
“You mentioned needing new gloves, so I went ahead and got you a pair.”
“Those are the limited edition from Burton,” she whispers, looking up at me in astonishment. “We couldn’t even get them at the store.”
“Yeah. Being a super talented and charming rider has its perks in this industry.” I wink just as she sets the box aside and tries to pull me in for a kiss, but I say, “There’s more.”
I can’t stop looking at the way her eyes light up when she touches something at the bottom of the bag. She pulls out two items. The first is—
“Is this my copy of Pride and Prejudice?”
Propping myself on an elbow, I smile. “Stole it from you the very first time I hung out here.”
“Why?”
“Open it.”
“Diego . . .” Her voice is thick with emotion as she flips through the book. She runs the pad of her finger over my writing and the highlighted sentences. “You annotated a book for me.” It’s not a question but a statement, filled with so much awe, so much appreciation.
“Spent the whole month working on it.”
Her brows pull together. “But . . . when you took it? We were barely friends.”
“I guess I already knew, deep down, that you’d be more than that,” I confess, while holding her gaze. “And if you’d rejected me? Well, I guess your copy of Pride and Prejudice would’ve gone missing.”
She sniffles, putting the book aside before taking the remaining square box in her shaky hands. “I’m going to cry,” she mumbles.
“Happy tears, I hope.”
“Take a wild guess.” Her last gift is a silver bracelet with charms dangling from it – a cat, a book, a pair of skis, a cup of coffee, and a croissant.
There’s enough space for her to add some more, if she wants to.
I gifted similar ones to my sisters, but with different charms on each of them. “This is so cute. I love it.”
“Here. Let me put this on you.”
I can feel the softness of her gaze on me while I focus on securing the bracelet around her wrist. It fits her perfectly, the way I knew it would.
“Thank you,” she whispers, and as I lean up to capture her lips, she hops off the bed, the sheets wrapped around her body and trailing behind her.
I scoff. “Fucking rude.”
She has the audacity to send me a flirtatious wink from over her shoulder before fishing something from behind her dresser. “Close your eyes.”
I oblige, but when I hear her light footsteps inching toward me, there’s another sound accompanying her walk. A sound I know very, very well.
I gasp. “Alara?”
“Okay, so sorry, because I didn’t take the time to wrap it but . . . Open.”
She’s holding out a very large Lego box in front of me, but not just any Lego set.
The seven-thousand-piece Millennium Falcon I’ve wanted ever since I was ten years old.
The one I mentioned to her once. The one I wanted to treat myself with this Christmas but decided not to for the sake of my sisters and mother.
“Shut the fuck up,” I whisper-yell, grabbing the box and staring at it wide-eyed.
“Politeness isn’t your forte,” she snipes, though she smiles at the excitement she can see on my face.
“Sorry, baby, I’m just— Seems like neither of us are rule followers.”
“You don’t say.”
I mirror her amused grin. “Why did you get me that?”
Setting the gift aside – albeit with reluctance because I’m so ready to open that shit up and assemble it – I pull her on my lap, the sheets pooling on the floor. Her fingers sift through my hair, the way I absolutely adore, her eyes bouncing between mine.
“Because you deserve it. You deserve everything. And because, even though I admire your kindness, I don’t like seeing you put everyone else’s needs above yours at the expense of your own happiness. You’re allowed to spoil yourself.”
A part of me that I keep buried is terrified of what’s going to happen to me and Alara once I leave.
Even if I’m sure to come back here at some point, I’ll eventually need to go to Utah.
Then, I’ll travel with the team, and I don’t know when I’ll see her next.
This part of me knows the best thing to do is not pursue anything romantic anymore and put an end to this.
But the other part is entirely, irremediably hers.
I am not strong enough to push Alara away.
I have no clue what to do, so I focus on now.
“You’re amazing,” I whisper, because, at that moment, it’s all my lizard brain can muster. Then, I kiss her. Deeply. Fervently. Pouring everything from my soul into hers.
She presses her bare breasts against my chest, aligning our drumming hearts so they can make one symphony. We kiss slowly, unhurriedly, as if we have all the time in the world and nothing else matters or exists.
Flipping us over, I lay her down on her back without so much as breaking our kiss, rolling my erection against her slick core. She sighs in my mouth, and, together, we’re a tangle of breathy moans and wandering hands.
I enter her without foreplay, thrusting deeply, slowly, passionately. She whispers my name like it’s a reverence, and I can’t help but rise on my forearms, either side of her head, to look into her eyes.
Something intense gleams around her pupils. Something that tells me she reciprocates the feelings I have for her. It makes my heart pound frantically, like it wants to fight its way out of my body to wrap around hers – to tether them together in one way or another.
There was always a thin line between us, and I’m not exactly sure when it blurred and blended with reality, but all I know is that it’s impossible to go back in time.
Pulling one of her thighs up to rest around my hip, I pump deeper, harder, hitting the spot that makes her cry out in pure bliss and arch into me. Her nails leave marks on my shoulder blades, and I welcome the pain like it’s pleasure.
Soon enough, she comes with the sexiest, prettiest cry, and she shakes with such intensity that it makes a jolt of heat pulsate down my spine. I come with her, so hard that tiny white stars blind my vision.
And when I collapse on her, still buried deep, I revel in the way our wild pulses match like they’re two metronomes thrumming in perfect synchronicity.
I want this moment to stretch into eternity, but reality blows in my face. My phone rings. Frustrated, I groan in the crook of her neck, and she chuckles.
I fucking love her laugh. Even more so if I’m the one who manages to draw it out of her.
Reaching blindly to the nightstand, I pull out of her. Surprise skitters down my spine as I stare down at my cell. “It’s Coach,” I announce, my voice gravelly.
Her lips brush my jaw, and I shiver. “I’ll leave you to it. Gotta clean up.” Alara pulls my t-shirt over her head, then accepts my kiss when I give it to her. I can’t help but smile, not caring about my phone ringing and ringing and ringing.
Eventually, though, as I watch her walk down the stairs, I begin to strip the bed – it’s probably best with the amount of fucking we did last night and this morning. I finally accept the call.
“Hey, Coach.”
I put him on speaker and set the phone on the nightstand. “Hey, man. Merry Christmas! Well, a bit late, but I didn’t want to bother you while you were with your family.”
I chuckle, balling a pillowcase and tossing it in the laundry basket in the corner of the room. I could always change careers and switch to basketball if snowboarding isn’t an option anymore. Over my dead fucking body. “No worries. Merry Christmas. You’re doing good?”
“And you?” I noticed it’s a thing he does often – avoids any attention set on him.
I don’t answer right away, and I don’t know why, because I’m doing fucking amazingly.
Maybe I’m scared to admit it, because if I do he might give me the green light to go back to Utah, and, quite frankly, I don’t know if I want to go just yet.
But what if I refuse to do it? I’ll go back to square one.
He’ll think I’m still a stubborn motherfucker who’s nothing but a reckless failure, which means I won’t be able to ride, and it’s just an endless circle.
What if he thinks I’m not serious about riding?
What if he thinks I want to retire? Because that’s absolutely not happening until I’m at least sixty years old.
And what if he doesn’t give me a choice other than to return to the city that I can’t call home, no matter how hard I’ve tried?
Shit. I’m already conflicted, and he hasn’t even said a damn thing.
See? I actually didn’t think this through when I decided to stay. I’ve been so wrapped up in Alara, in family time, that I didn’t think about the consequences of my decision.
“I’m actually calling with great news,” he says, when the silence drags on for too long.
I ruffle my hair and sit on the edge of the mattress.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on you via Joe and Max” – Dr Ellis and Coach are on first-name terms – “and you’ve been recovering faster than anticipated.
I also heard you were giving back to the community with a lot of enthusiasm by participating in town activities.
I’ve seen a few pics, and you look like you had fun at the Christmas market and the ice rink and the bake-off, oh, and the competition where you were part of the jury.
You also look like you’re enjoying assisting those skiing lessons with your boss’s daughter. ”
She’s so much more than my boss’s daughter. I wet my lips, suddenly feeling my throat going dry. “What are you saying, Coach?”
“I’m saying you look lighter. You sound lighter too. You look good, well rested.”
So . . . How exactly do I tell him it’s all because of this one girl who’s stolen my heart? This one girl who has a breathtaking smile she keeps only for me, who’s managed to pull me away from the gray clouds I’d been hiding behind for years?
She makes me want to become a better man.
“Thanks?” I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. “Can you not beat around the bush? Please?”
“Ah, here he is. Thought I’d lost you for one moment.”
“Nope, still very much myself. Just lighter, I guess.”
He chuckles quietly. “I think you’re good to come home, Diego.
You can carry on with your recovery here, and, if you really like Max’s way of working, he’s willing to temporarily move here to help you.
His wife is on board too. I can’t promise anything for the USASA Nationals, but we’ll talk about it in person.
What’s certain is that you’ll be able to move forward to train with the team.
We’ll start training for the Winter Olympics qualifications in March.
I know I’m coming in hot with that news, so I’m more than fine with you coming back early next week so that you can still spend New Year’s Eve in Blue Ridge.
Unless there’s nothing holding you back there and you have nothing planned. That’s up to you.”
?No manches!
I suck in a breath, my deafening heartbeat concealed by my shocked response. “Really?”