Chapter 23 #2
His cock slipped out from the vigorous movements and he frantically pushed it down, working it back in.
‘You look like my filthiest dreams, tits out, letting me fuck you against the steering wheel.’ He gave a grunt, his eyelids at half-mast as he gazed at me. ‘So fucking beautiful with your hair a mess and your legs spread for me.’
I was ready to fly, moving like a wild thing, desperate for more, for harder, drowning in the gratification of him surging against me, right where I needed it.
I tried to tell him how good it felt, but all I could manage was a choked inarticulate burble. My thoughts spun out, nothing connected in my brain. I was reaching for something, weeping with how close it was.
‘Come on, sweetheart,’ I dimly heard Colin crooning. ‘You were made for this. Feel it. Feel what you do to me.’ There was strain in his voice – in his body. His hand closed in my hair, harder than I expected, and the pleasure-pain counterpoint struck me in the chest and sucked me under.
I heard my own gasps as though from outside my body, thrashing as the pressure snapped and gratification washed in afterward. I registered a rip and a choked curse from Colin and then he was holding me down in his lap with a grip that would leave marks as he finished with a jerk and a long groan.
I fumbled for balance and my hand slipped, the loud blare of the horn slicing through the moment.
‘Shit!’ Someone definitely would have heard it.
I scrambled off him, narrowly missing the important bits, and dived straight for the door handle and fresh air. The way my heart was pounding reminded me of the brand-new tattoo. Right now I didn’t even mind if it made me think of him for the rest of my life.
Wobbly on my feet, I clung to the car and straightened while I tried to pull myself together – and I caught sight of a door opening over at the hotel.
‘Quick, get dressed!’ I said urgently to Colin, who was already in the process of tugging up his jeans.
I managed the snap on my bra and rearranged my neckline.
It seemed to take him far too long to put himself away, long enough for me to see Tony emerge with a wave – and for me to develop a blush more radiant than nuclear waste.
Colin stumbled out after me, nearly knocking me into the next car. After apologising and steadying me with a light touch to my waist, he murmured, ‘Lees, the back of your dress is ripped.’
I hadn’t noticed the extra ventilation, given the fact that other parts of me were also very well ventilated right now. Jerking my gaze back to the car, I realised in alarm that there was one more detail I’d forgotten.
‘My underwear!’ I mumbled urgently.
He dived back in, rummaging wildly.
‘Where have you two been? One last publicity stunt?’
Hauling himself out of the car and hitting his head for good measure, Colin came to stand just behind me as a billow of wind swept across the meadow – and the skin of my back through the gaping rip. With an accidental shove that made me stumble, Colin pinched the ripped seam closed.
‘I finally convinced Leesa to get the tattoo she’d always wanted.’
Tony’s gaze snapped to me. ‘Is that true? I hope he didn’t talk you into anything that you’ll regret.’
‘Definitely not,’ I insisted. ‘I just got a little cardiogram symbol – a heartbeat. It’s true, I’d always wanted to get it and the studio was really nice.’
Perhaps I’d said too much, because Tony’s prodigious wrinkles got wrinklier as he looked from me to Colin. ‘I’m glad Colin wasn’t leading you astray.’
‘Not at all,’ I insisted, unconvincingly, if the nudge from Colin was anything to go by.
‘We’d better… go inside and… help.’
I’d expected Colin to be a better liar, but his stilted words did the job and he ushered me ahead of him, hiding my ripped dress from view. I could feel Tony’s eyes on us and wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he was thinking.
‘Here are your undies,’ Colin said, coming close enough to speak softly into my ear. He slipped the cotton into my hand as we reached the corridor heading to my room. It was blessedly empty.
‘Thanks.’
‘I’m sorry I ruined your dress,’ he mumbled, letting go of the edges so the floral material sagged around my waist. ‘And I’m sorry I manipulated you into getting a tattoo, although I like the sound of the heartbeat.’
‘Don’t listen to your dad.’
His brow lifted. ‘Is that professional advice?’
‘No.’ It was very personal.
Nostrils flaring, he kept his gaze on the rural watercolour on the wall over my shoulder as he spoke.
‘You’re too clever not to have noticed Dad and me aren’t exactly a dream team, but he’s not always wrong.
’ He tucked his hands into his armpits. ‘He told you not to let me manipulate you. I said you were saving me from getting a tattoo, which was a lie. It was manipulation.’
‘But he’s not always right either, is he?’ I pushed.
‘God, no.’
Like my mom wasn’t always right about me. But I couldn’t help hearing her in my head, all these years after I’d moved out of home. Colin had never even moved out. He still heard Tony in the flesh.
‘He needs to listen to you too,’ I insisted. ‘Then maybe you wouldn’t have needed that tattoo. You wouldn’t need to hide behind me.’
His response showed me I hadn’t made my point – or he hadn’t accepted it anyway.
‘The tattoo is the least bad thing I could have done. I have to take my kicks where I can get ’em.
’ His forced laugh made me wonder if he included me in these ‘kicks’.
‘Plus,’ he added, giving me a look that shot concern up my spine, ‘I do stupid things when you’re leaving. ’
I knew he was talking about September, but the implication that he… cared clashed with everything else he was trying to make me believe.
‘I’m…’ Not leaving would be a lie. ‘I’ll see you in less than two weeks.’
He just flashed his eyebrows at me, as though I’d proved a theory he hadn’t voiced. If he was waiting for me to fall in a lovesick heap at his feet, he’d be waiting another lifetime. As strange as it was to admit I felt… something here, I wasn’t that stupid.
‘With a nice, healed tattoo,’ he added with a twitch of a smile. ‘But you know how wild it gets during the Tour.’
I nodded, wondering if this was the part where he let me down gently. ‘No more stolen moments in cars.’
His smile faded. ‘Too many people around during the Tour.’ His voice was gravelly with discomfort.
But I got the message. This was it. We’d had our fun. We had work to do now.
He glanced down at me, his playful expression back. ‘Thanks for the orgasms, Kubicka. You’re shit-hot in bed, overthinking and all.’
I tried to ignore the stutter of my heartbeat when he brushed a thumb under my chin. So much tenderness I didn’t know what to do with.
I forced out a response. ‘I’ll see you at the team presentation. Say hi to your nonno for me.’
‘Give Babcia a kiss on the cheek.’
‘She requires three – on each cheek.’
‘That’s hardcore.’ He slipped his arms around my waist and dragged me in for a hug that was far too quick and still seemed to tilt the earth. ‘Take it easy.’ Pressing a kiss to the top of my head that interfered with the electrical signals through my whole body, he drew away with a mock salute.
‘You too,’ I called after him. ‘I mean it! And take proper care of that tattoo!’
After turning to place a warning finger over his lips, he disappeared through the doors back into the reception area – some kind of goodbye.
Gathering the edges of the accidental ventilation in my dress, I hotfooted it to my room and spent ten minutes trying to take the thing off.
The damage meant I couldn’t get enough tension in the zip to pull it down and I nearly dislocated my elbows trying, before I gave up and ripped an even bigger hole.
Perching on my bed in my bra and a fresh pair of underwear, I finally let my overactive brain sink its teeth into what had just happened – in the tattoo studio, the car and, more concerningly, in my heart.
I wanted him to spread his wings – his sad dragon wings. With me, he’d only stamped another number on his butt. I was off course, but he couldn’t afford to be. Somehow I had to stop thinking that my heart would be beating for him while he raced.