Chapter 17
Leesa
He flinched when I flashed the bright light at him, lifting a hand to shield his eyes.
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, trying not to think about the last time I’d apologised to him – for ordering him to kiss me and then changing my mind.
Trying not to think about that kiss was like telling myself not to imagine a zebra.
I could still feel his hair under my fingertips, his tough, hard body – the panic when my brain fast-forwarded to ripping clothes off and then exploded with doubts.
He hadn’t exactly been overcome by romantic urges – I’d ordered him to kiss me. Logic dictated he had to be attracted to me, but was that just an indiscriminate biological function and I was a convenient partner? Did that even matter?
My thoughts interfering with my sex drive was not a new thing and I didn’t like my chances of switching it off and sinking into a fantasy on the grass under the summer sun.
Colin would probably tease me if he knew the hoops I had to jump through in my head just to make myself comfortable enough to have sex with someone.
The strangest part? I kind of regretted not pushing through my reservations.
It might have been worth some emotional discomfort for a heated fuck with Colin while the summits looked on.
That way, I might have worked it out of my system, rather than remembering the texture of his lips and the brush of his fingertips along my throat as unfinished business.
The spotlight accented the pale freckles on his skin, creating shadows at his cheekbones, sculpting his mouth.
He looked fair against the black background I’d set up using screens and a poster with the client logo on it.
He watched me intently, his expression unreadable.
The illuminated lines of his face felt more familiar than I expected, not only from the past ten days of seeing him through a camera lens, but from earlier memories.
He looked his age that morning, a just-grown-up 25.
When I’d been 25, I’d felt the age of the world. Only later had I realised how much my blithe decisions would affect the rest of my life irreversibly.
‘Get him to turn a little to the left.’ It was early in the morning in LA, but Morgan had insisted on having input while I set up the interview.
Colin dipped his head to peer at my phone, where I’d propped it up on a chair. ‘Good morning.’
‘Hey, sweetie,’ Morgan answered with a smile. ‘You’re doing great.’
He grinned, leaning his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers between. ‘You’re so much nicer to me than Leesa.’
Even though I knew Morgan was supportive, a shiver of unease still snaked up my spine.
‘Whatever she’s doing, it’s getting results, so I’m all in favour of Leesa being a hardass,’ Morgan said with a chuckle. ‘The footage is really something.’
Was there a hint in Morgan’s tone? Colin’s gaze slid to me, as though he’d sensed it too.
Although I’d been careful to edit out anything too personal, every time I watched the video of Colin shaving, or my GoPro shots from Friday’s ride, I worried it was obvious we’d had our tongues down each other’s throats off camera.
‘I think you should set up your phone to take a close-up,’ Morgan continued. ‘It would be a shame to waste that bone structure on a wide shot.’
Colin pointed at my phone, peering up at me. ‘You never compliment my bone structure. Are you still learning from your supervisor?’
‘You have a lovely skull, Colin,’ I responded drily.
Morgan guffawed. ‘I cannot wait to see this interview, you two. It’s looking good, so go get personal!’
I waved to Morgan and ended the call so I could set up the close shot.
‘Morgan’s nice,’ Colin commented, a smile in his voice.
‘I’m lucky they’re understanding. They noticed you and I have… rapport.’
‘Is that what we have? I was going to say chemistry.’
‘We don’t want anything to show up in your drugs testing,’ I quipped with a straight face, keeping my gaze on the phone in its tripod, rather than on Colin’s grin.
‘I could get disqualified from the Tour. Traces of Leesa Kubicka in my blood, one of the strongest substances known to sport. For the first time in my life I might be interested in doping.’ I hoped he didn’t know how his words rippled through me when he spoke in that low, smooth tone.
‘Except I doubt it would be performance-enhancing,’ I managed to warn him.
‘I dunno. It could be.’
I couldn’t be certain what he meant by ‘it’, but my mind immediately returned to that moment on Friday, his hand tugging at my hair and his body pressing me into the ground.
If someone had told me a week ago that I’d be rolling in the grass with Colin Gallagher and it would be the single hottest moment of my life, I would have laughed them out of town.
Taking a deep breath, I started the phone recording and settled in the chair by the camera. Colin fidgeted, rubbing his hands together.
‘Got your scalpel ready?’
‘This is an interview, not a flaying.’
He met my gaze with amusement. ‘What do you want me to say? PowerFuel gives me wings?’
I ignored him. ‘Why do you think you’ve had such good form this year?’
‘I’m just getting better with age,’ he responded flippantly. ‘Like expensive whisky.’
‘I’m not asking for secrets,’ I said with a sigh. I’d tried to warm him up gently, but the worry was returning – worry that I’d screw this up, because of this inconvenient chemistry between us.
‘Then the answer is: I don’t know. We’ve always had great training personalised on data. If I knew how to do this every year, I would have done it before.’
I recognised the edge to his voice.
‘Sorry,’ he said, shooting me a quick glance. ‘I’m doing shit. You want some motivational crap, right?’
I couldn’t tear my eyes off him, wondering if this darkness had always been there and how people didn’t seem to notice it – how I’d never noticed it.
‘What keeps you going when it hurts?’ The question wasn’t planned, but I couldn’t stop it from tumbling out.
‘Stubbornness,’ he answered, eyeballing the camera as though he couldn’t bring himself to look at me. ‘Pride. Spite, occasionally. Spite is a powerful motivator.’
‘You want to beat the others?’
He chuckled. ‘No, I want to prove people wrong.’ That sounded like the Colin I knew. I wanted to ask who he wanted to prove himself to, but I had a strong suspicion and the team would never want me to splash the truth of his relationship with his father across the internet.
‘There are easier ways to do that,’ I commented.
‘Maybe,’ he agreed with a smile. ‘But winning is the best way. You know the feeling.’
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I bet he could tell. Denying it would be pointless, so I ignored him instead. ‘What about the team? How do you feel when Derek’s out in front of you, pushing to his limits to protect you?’
His playfulness disappeared in an instant.
‘You know, sometimes the scrappy fight is easier than the smart game. The end of a stage, you’re alone and you go on instinct and give it whatever you have left.
But at the beginning you have to hold back.
I’m not good at holding back. The guys protect me from myself sometimes too. ’
‘That’s insightful.’
He glanced at me with a hint of surprise – and doubt. ‘Cycling is all about knowing your limits – and how and when to push them. I fight for the win for myself, but I’m disciplined for the team, because their hard work only gets recognised through mine. It’s not… a choice really.’
He might not have thought he could produce ‘motivational crap’, but this stuff would be amazing as a voice over for action footage. Maybe I wouldn’t show the grimace of discomfort that accompanied his words, as though he’d be more comfortable if the team weren’t behind him.
‘Can you win the Tour?’
He scowled at me, too sharp not to realise I’d thrown him in at the deep end with that question. ‘How am I supposed to answer that?’
‘With the truth?’ I suggested with mock innocence.
Leaning forward, he held his hand over the camera. ‘To be perfectly honest, for you and not for this sponsor, no, I don’t think I can win the Tour.’
That shocked me into silence. Colin talked such big talk, I’d never expected him to admit to weakness.
He chuckled. ‘You told me to tell the truth.’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t think you would!’
‘Lees, I don’t want to lie to you. Maybe you’re the one who should have been worried about this interview.’
‘Oh, I was worried about this interview.’
‘I’m trying to behave.’
Goosebumps rose on my skin. If the client’s followers reacted to him the way I did, this stuff would be gold.
‘Anything’s possible,’ he commented, slowly and clearly for the cameras.
‘Even Colin Gallagher growing up,’ I added in a mumble.
‘Maybe not that.’
Morgan’s insistence that I needed to get a romantic angle in this interview hung over me. I already felt tingly, as though I was digging too deep and might hit an old unexploded bomb that would take me out, but I forced myself to ask.
‘What about your personal life?’
‘What personal life?’ he responded with a wink, not missing a beat. ‘I eat, sleep, train and race.’
Instead of responding, I just lifted my brow and gave him a prompting look.
He surprised me by bursting out laughing. ‘Yeah, that’s what I tell Dad.’
‘Wouldn’t your dad want you to settle down with a nice girl?’ I couldn’t help the cynicism that crept into my voice.
‘I don’t like nice girls.’
I hoped he couldn’t see how that sentence sank in my stomach.
‘Except you,’ he added, melted chocolate in his voice. ‘I like you, although I’m not convinced you’re a nice girl.’
Christ, the effect those words had on me. My throat was so thick I couldn’t swallow.
He looked away with a hitch of a groan. ‘Leesa, you’re killing me.’
That only seemed fair, given the messed-up state of me. I took a deep breath and said, ‘I am a nice girl.’
His smile was dangerously tender. ‘I know y’are, but I like you anyway and sometimes I think maybe there’s another side to you.’
‘There’s not,’ I said flatly.
He leaned even closer, ruining the shot, but I couldn’t move to adjust it – or turn it off. ‘What if you didn’t think about what you should do for a moment. If you just did.’
‘I don’t… operate that way.’
‘You used to. You can have a good finish in a race by using your head, following the plan. But getting a win takes instinct, gut reaction, a feeling in your skin. It’s an art.’
I suspected he knew he was painting a powerful picture in my mind – of the day I’d crossed the line in first near Colin’s home city in Australia.
He’d been there that day. The memory struck me as somehow new.
He’d been there, watching with Tony – watching me take one of the biggest wins of my career.
The way he was staring at me, intently, no hint of a smile, made my lungs tight, as though I needed something more to breathe again.
‘Sometimes your gut tells you something is right,’ he said, his voice a low ripple through my sinew. ‘And you’ve got to listen.’
He moved slowly, but my brain refused to process anything until it was too late. He grasped my wrist and tugged. I didn’t resist, letting him draw me onto his lap. I waited for him to kiss me, but he lifted his face to my hair and inhaled deeply.
‘You feel right,’ he murmured, setting off sparks over my skin. Then he turned my face slowly to his, fingertips in my hair, and brought his mouth to mine.
Unlike the soft exploration of the kiss in his bathroom and the push and pull of Friday’s make-out session, this kiss was like a shot of strong liquor – searing, powerful.
He held me still and kissed me so hard there was no time to think about anything except the hot urgency of his mouth, the plunge of his tongue.
His chest heaved under the hand I shot out for balance and a hitched rumble from the back of his throat shivered through me. I turned as best I could to kiss him back, my fingers slipping over his jersey. His hand dipped under my dress, gripping my thigh hard enough to make me gasp.
‘Leesa,’ he said with a pained groan.
He obviously wanted to say more, but I was tired of my noisy brain, of doing what I should, so I cut him off with another kiss, this one greedy. He clutched at me, flipping my skirt up by accident, but neither of us cared.
I wanted to crawl up his body, straddle him, blow his mind.
The poor man was wearing bib shorts, so I knew he was on the same page from the swelling bump in his lap.
The certainty of his arousal flooded me with relief and then smug satisfaction when he shifted me for more friction, grunting like an animal.
Perhaps because I could feel the hot hardness of it so starkly against my thigh, I was suddenly burningly curious to see his cock – to touch him there. He’d made so many jokes about this simmering sexual awareness between us, at least I knew he wouldn’t feel embarrassed to get it out.
I dragged my mouth from his to slide it down his neck, darting out my tongue and making him jolt.
A distant tingle in the back of my mind warned me about being too aggressive, but I managed to shove it away again, sliding my mouth up to his jaw and whispering in his ear, ‘Don’t say anything. Let’s just go to my room.’
He drew back to look at me and I stilled, bracing myself for him to speak anyway and throw me off completely, ruining what could be my only chance for hot, meaningless sex with a guy who lit me up like a bonfire.
But this was Colin Gallagher and he was thankfully on board with meaningless sex.
He licked his bottom lip and nodded, dumping me off his lap as he reached over to switch off the camera that I’d completely forgotten about.
I flushed to the roots of my hair at the thought of what had been recorded on there, but Colin grinned at me, his eyes a little wild, then he shepherded me bodily out of the room with his hands on my waist, pushing me ahead of him so I nearly tripped.
I hadn’t locked my door – I kept forgetting in this remote hotel with only the team staying – and Colin didn’t hesitate to shove me inside, close the door and then press me back into it, his hands locking mine against the wood near my head, our fingers tangling.
He hesitated for an instant, long enough for me to taste his breath and memorise his heavy-lidded gaze.
I was burning to be touched, would probably be afraid of myself if I’d been thinking straight.
Even though I strained towards him, he kept my hands clamped against the door, a kick of a smile suggesting he enjoyed my squirming.
‘You sure about this, Kubicka?’
‘Yes!’ I needed him to hurry. My thoughts were pleasantly muddled by the scent of his skin, the pressure of his hands in mine, but there was always a distant bell that could clang and drag me back into overthinking. ‘Please, now!’
His brow rose, but then he came mercifully closer, drawling an inch from my lips, ‘Anything for you.’