Chapter 13
Colin
Tugging my shirt over my head one-handedly as soon as I walked into my room wasn’t exactly on purpose, but I rolled with it once I’d done it. She was in my room. This had not happened before, except in the couple of fantasies I tried not to indulge in too often.
I teased her about finding me irresistible, but I was well aware her presence here right now meant precisely nothing. The tingling feeling in my chest was wrong. My instincts had always been wrong when it came to Leesa Magdalena Kubicka – as that disaster in September had proved.
But when I turned and she snapped her gaze away a second too late, I couldn’t help the suspicion that there was something strung tight between us.
It was lucky she’d never worn these dresses on training camp when she was on the team. Twenty-year-old me would not have coped. I might have tried poetry or some shit and then I would have had to live with that embarrassment too.
‘I don’t know why guys do that, take their shirts off from the neck.’ Her voice wavered, which gave me more ideas I shouldn’t have had.
‘How do you take yours off, then?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ she answered drily.
‘I would, but I meant it as a genuine question,’ I replied with a laugh. ‘Don’t you do the same? I never thought about it before.’
She glanced down at herself, her hands raised as though she were about to tear off her clothes, and I had to turn away, all my hair standing on end.
I knew exactly how I would undress her. Today’s dress had an elasticated ruched bit around her torso that I would tug down until I could tease myself with a hint of her bra.
With the other hand, I’d raise the hem and grip her thigh, around the back.
Christ, this was not helping. I rubbed the back of my head vigorously to clear it.
She’d already rejected me once, which was fair enough, since she was a commitment gal and I’d never even tried to be in a relationship with someone.
It was usually easier just to say goodbye when my life took me out of the country – whichever country I happened to be in that day.
But I’d struggled saying goodbye to her back in September…
‘Maybe I cross my arms?’
My gaze snapped back up to her face. Of course my body had raced ahead with this ‘taking off clothes’ scenario, while she was still working on the intellectual task, but she was pretty when she was thinking hard, her lips pressed together and a dimple between her brows to match the one in her chin.
‘I wonder if that’s a thing, that men rip their shirts off like you do and women cross their arms. It would make a good short video,’ she mused.
‘Men ripping their shirts off?’
She laughed, the sound shooting through my brain. ‘Exactly. Although it might not be as effective for marketing. No one would remember the sponsor.’
I tried not to take that as a compliment and turned for the bathroom to keep this thing moving. ‘At least the PowerFuel followers will have seen me half-naked so much, they’re desensitised to it,’ I said as I turned on the water until it ran hot.
It was true, she’d filmed me wearing less than the tracksuit bottoms I had on, but something in her body language was setting me off this time, my oversensitive Leesa radar bleeping continually.
When I caught sight of her in the mirror, her gaze seemed to be stuck on the dragon tattoo on my back, her expression volatile.
She came closer with hesitant steps. ‘Do you need to tidy up the bathroom?’
‘I don’t leave condoms lying around, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ I said with a snort. ‘We’re at altitude in the middle of nowhere. Opportunity for that sort of thing is kind of lacking.’
There it was – her vivid eye roll. ‘Do you ever think about anything else?’
‘Not when you’re looking at me like your favourite ice-cream flavour.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘I was not!’
I didn’t argue with her. ‘Should I put my shirt back on?’
‘It’s fine,’ she said, which wasn’t the most flattering adjective she could have chosen.
I reached for my razor, dipping it in the hot water in the basin. ‘You gonna film any of this or were you really hoping to take the moustache for a test drive before I get rid of it? Are you sure you aren’t curious about how it feels?’
‘How it feels where?’
I had to shoot out a hand for balance, my throat suddenly thick. My gaze swung to hers, only to find her cheeks pink and a flustered frown on her face.
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘—how it would feel on your thighs if I went down on you?’
She gulped, but I suspected I’d got myself more worked up than I’d got her.
‘You seem to think I won’t call your bluff,’ she said, her expression grave.
My mind went blank as she took a casual step closer. ‘What?’
‘You’re not really offering to kiss me – or anything else.’
‘What do you think is going on then?’ For once, the brainy Leesa Kubicka had no idea what she was talking about.
‘You keep taunting me, but if I stepped up and tried to kiss you right now…’
Ohhh, shit. I could barely breathe when she said stuff like that.
‘… you wouldn’t let me anyway.’
‘I would.’ The words tumbled out. She could do whatever the hell she wanted to me. I’d even let her set me on fire the way she was doing now and she wasn’t even touching me – except with that gaze. The way she looked at me made me forget my own name.
‘I sincerely doubt that, Colin.’
I didn’t like the brittle tone in her voice.
‘You don’t think maybe by teasing you I’m salvaging what little pride I still have after September?’
‘I don’t know how that makes sense. You caused an accident by teasing me, so you’re teasing me more now?’
Hands propped on my hips, I sighed deeply, glancing up at the wooden slats on the ceiling of the bathroom as the guilt – the frustration – washed over me again. ‘I was talking about what happened in the hospital, not the accident. You know how sorry I am about the accident.’
‘The slagroomtaart apology,’ she mumbled. ‘I thought you insisted nothing happened.’
‘My pride says otherwise now. You turned me down. It’s not my favourite memory.’
She kept looking at me, her frown deepening. ‘You weren’t serious.’
I should let her keep thinking that, rebuild my pride on the flimsy foundation, but instead I blurted out, ‘Are you sure? I was… quite disappointed actually.’ Shut up, you idiot.
She laughed, which didn’t make me feel any better. ‘Quite disappointed. Okay.’
She’d see through me in another second.
‘You know what I think?’
Here it comes. I thought she was standing too close. My brain was scrambled and I caught a hint of her perfume or soap or whatever it was – raspberries with herbs, tart and sweet. It was classy as fuck.
But she apparently had no idea what was going on inside me.
‘You might be a little attracted to me physically,’ she began in a superior tone that was still a turn-on, ‘but you don’t really want to kiss me. That’s why you’re making a big deal out of this.’
‘I’m not making a big deal out of it.’
Her brows rose with the corners of her mouth and that satisfied smile shot weakness to my knees. ‘I’m right. You don’t want to kiss me. You didn’t deny it.’
Choking when I’d meant to make some kind of verbal response, the various things I might have said got all tangled up and nothing came out. All I knew was that she was wrong. I wanted to kiss her too damn much and maybe that was why—
‘Colin, suck up your own stupid pride and remember that you don’t want me anyway and—’
I grasped her jaw and lifted it, her lips opening in surprise. She drew in a sweet breath, her eyelids blinking. She’d gone still. She would let me do it, press my mouth to hers, make my point. I’d kind of forgotten what my point was. And I wasn’t sure what she wanted.
Which was how I managed to stop, my lips a breath from hers.
Her cheeks were soft under my thumb and fingers.
I felt the bob of her throat against my knuckles.
Blood rushed in my ears as my instincts insisted on closer.
Maybe we’d make super-special children or something, because every part of me was firing like a party popper.
Except it was probably just her. She would have incredible children – if she wanted them – with whoever she settled down with.
Which wouldn’t be her man-child ex-teammate, who could barely grow a beard and was tied up with a sport that had burned her.
‘Whatever thoughts are coursing around in your brilliant brain, Lees,’ I began, my voice so low she seemed to be holding her breath to hear, ‘that “I don’t want you” theory is one you’ll never prove, because it’s not true.’
‘Then why didn’t you do it? You didn’t kiss me. You’re not usually known for restraint.’
I licked my lips, struggling to interpret this game of chicken. The longer I stayed close to her, the more danger there was that I’d blow it all out of proportion, three weeks before the Tour.
‘I don’t know what we’re arguing about,’ I said, my thoughts growing foggy the longer I could feel her in the air I was breathing. ‘If you don’t want to kiss me, then I’m not—’
My brain was wiped in an instant as she came closer. She stretched up and I was about to pass out like a sprinter who’d gone too hard to the finish line. Ahhh, breathing in was marvellous – especially when it was her I was inhaling.
Then breathing was overrated. Who needed air? I had the soft pressure of her lips on mine. It was everything – too much and not enough and so fucking tender it socked me right in the gut.