Chapter 28
Leesa
My legs were wobbly, my breath couldn’t seem to fill my lungs, but I was grateful for the cold drip of my hair onto my shoulder to force a little perspective into my heated brain.
One touch and I was on fire. Regardless of the poor timing, indulging this intense attraction was surely a bad idea anyway.
I didn’t want to be so addicted to him. I was supposed to be sorting my life out.
‘I thought you said we should talk,’ I managed to say around my thick throat.
But I still couldn’t step away when he peered at me from under his lashes. I would see those blue eyes and that cocky smile in my dreams for the rest of my life. If he’d grabbed me, pressed me against the door and started things up again, I wouldn’t have stopped him.
Instead, he eased away as though it pained him, adjusting his tracksuit bottoms. At least one of us was able to take an effective breath. He collapsed onto my single bed, propping his elbows on his knees.
‘Sorry.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s all getting to me.’ Right. This was about blowing off pressure and nothing more. Colin didn’t do ‘more’ and I had to remember that. His leg was bouncing – a move that reminded me more of Lori than her brother.
I sank down next to him, tucking my hands in my lap. ‘It wasn’t like this last year?’
‘You weren’t here last year,’ he replied, shooting me a smile that didn’t reduce my dismay at his words. ‘But, nah, it was different. It was my first year as the lead rider. It was all “softly, softly”. Ninth was more than anyone expected of me, but this year… I’m all grown up,’ he drawled slowly.
‘You’re still very young for a lead rider, Colin,’ I reminded him.
I’d always thought it was an advantage of cycling, that unlike competitors in other sports, riders tended to get better as they got older, to a critical point some time in their early thirties.
But maybe it would have been better for me to peak in my twenties like in other sports and then retire gracefully, rather than quitting right when I might have been getting good.
‘A young hothead. It’s all true, what the pundits say about me. I don’t know if I’m going to crash and burn or actually bring the results Dad needs.’ He glanced at me. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t need a pep talk from you. I’ve had enough of those from everyone else.’
‘Did the tattoo heal at least?’
He caught my gaze and held it. We weren’t touching, but it felt as though we were. ‘Yeah, no worries. It’s nice and smooth. How about yours? All okay?’ Can I see it? The question danced in his eyes.
I nodded, a smile pulling at my lips. ‘I really like it.’
‘I did one thing well then. Two things, all up,’ he added with a wink.
Heat rushed up my chest. ‘Colin, stop. I admit you were very good for my sexual self-awareness, but you don’t have to flirt with me all the time. I just wanted to check how you were holding up.’
‘I’m not flirting with you, Kubicka,’ he insisted. ‘You just understand me better than anyone else right now and I like it – a bit too much.’ He sighed – an enormous breath, full of frustration – and rubbed a hand over his head, mussing his hair.
I did understand – how alone he felt. It was dangerous how much I wanted to tinker around in his heart and see what blossomed.
‘Leesa,’ he said on a groan, ‘you can’t look at me like that if we’re not supposed to be kissing any more.’
His hand curled around my nape and sparks skittered along my skin, gathering in the sensitive places he’d awakened with his hands and his lips.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, my brain stalling. ‘Maybe we should… one last time.’
His hand tightened. ‘What don’t you know? Whether you want me?’
I shook my head with a huff. ‘We both know I do.’ I lifted my chin. ‘I don’t know what’s best. On Saturday you have to—’ I broke off with a squeak when he hopped to his feet and leaned over me, dropping his hands to the bed on either side of me.
‘It’s not Saturday yet,’ he said smoothly, his gaze dropping to my neck. He walked his hands backwards and I tumbled onto my elbows. He loomed above me, not touching yet, but I could feel him everywhere – in the air surrounding me.
‘What if this—?’
‘Overthink it later,’ he murmured. ‘Right now, I need you.’
I flopped onto my back, my lungs tight. His words shivered over my skin, but it wasn’t only with desire. ‘Need’ wasn’t a pretty word. It was dependent and unhealthy and a pretty good description of the way I felt about him too.
‘Just kiss me, Kubicka.’
I didn’t hesitate, slinging an arm around his neck and dragging him down for a panting, open-mouthed kiss.
He tumbled into my body as I wrapped myself around him. I felt more than heard the hitched grunt from deep in his throat as he took two fistfuls of my wet hair, tugging just enough to sting lightly.
My vision blurred as he ground into me, absolutely no doubt of how much he wanted me from the hard pressure and the wild sweep of his tongue into my mouth.
‘Up!’ he said suddenly, rising to haul me to my feet.
Undressing me with rough, urgent hands, I was naked in a matter of seconds, his hands curling around my ribs.
‘Why are you so fucking beautiful?’ The words seemed to pain him, but they made my nipples pebble and my skin burst to life. ‘Where’s this tattoo?’
With a laugh bubbling in my chest, I turned to show him my right thigh, now adorned with a jagged black electrocardiogram, a heartbeat – for life, for sport.
Maybe for him, because I was an idiot. But when he crouched down to feather a soft kiss over the image, it didn’t feel like such a stupid thing to have ink on my body that would remind me of Colin Gallagher.
His hand slid up the back of my thigh to my waist as he stood, his other hand drifting to his pants as though the pressure was unbearable – at least, that’s how I felt.
‘I want to fuck you for hours, Lees,’ he said, his lips brushing my cheek. ‘But I can’t stand it. This might be embarrassingly quick.’
I just nodded, my speech too dull to reply with words, and dragged his hand down to my bottom, lower. When his finger dipped between my legs, I didn’t recognise the needy sound I made.
‘Christ,’ Colin groaned, swallowing loudly.
His fingertip traced the swollen line from the sensitive nub to the tender lower end and I had to cling to him heavily, gasping and trying not to thrash as the sensations slammed through me.
‘This is so sweet,’ he mumbled through gritted teeth. ‘You want me to fuck it?’
‘Yes!’ That word fell easily from my lips.
‘All right,’ he soothed. With strong hands he turned me around and marched me forward.
I was too startled to question what he was doing, until I caught sight of us – of myself – in the mirror on the back of the hotel-room door.
My skin was flushed, my nipples points, and Colin’s hands on me were proprietary and thrilling.
My footsteps stalled, but he urged me ahead, even when I stumbled.
Picking up one of my hands, he pressed it into the mirror and ran his other hand down my flank. ‘Have you done it this way before?’ he asked, his voice even.
I shook my head.
‘Do you want to?’
This time I nodded.
‘Good. Hold on.’ That was all the warning I got before he shoved down his tracksuit bottoms and underwear and then he was hitching up my hips and sliding his cock between my legs.
The slow penetration was exquisite, thick friction and overwhelming pressure, his heavy breaths on the back of my neck, his arm rigid around my waist, fingers splayed.
The choked sound he made was exactly how I felt when he settled in deep. My fingers on the mirror slipped, my palm sweaty. I groped for purchase when he gave a jerky thrust and I had to push back to avoid tumbling face-first into the mirror.
‘That’s it,’ he grunted. ‘You feel way too good. I’m not gonna last.’
All I could do in response was pant and gasp and prop another hand onto the mirror as he started to move in earnest.
The next time he spoke, it was into my ear, his voice a velvet whisper. ‘Eyes open, Lees. Watch us.’
I hadn’t even realised I’d closed them and when I blinked them open, it was to find the most devastatingly wonderful image, so much hotter than anything my brain could have conjured.
I was braced heavily on the mirror, my hair wild and falling over my shoulders, hips tilted and back bowed, absorbing the force of Colin’s body behind me, his cock buried deep.
My own face loomed in my vision, heavy-lidded, pleasure-drunk but loose and gratified and bright.
And Colin was right behind me, slowly falling apart, his expression tight with restraint and desire.
He nuzzled my neck, sending tingles shooting down my spine straight to where he was moving inside me.
Then he moaned and sank his teeth into my shoulder, the rough urgency setting all my whole body on fire until I was a melting mess of nerve endings.
‘I can’t—’ I gasped for breath. ‘Ohhh, I can’t take it. Too much!’ There was a rising tide in my chest, consuming me.
‘Yes, you can. Come on, baby.’
With one hand he delicately teased my clit and with the other, he pushed down between my shoulder blades, making my hands slide lower on the mirror. The combination set me on fire.
On a wave of relief, the flames licked through my body, eating up my skin and consuming my brain and I wasn’t even sure I existed for a moment, until Colin’s hands bit into my hips, his cock jerking once more powerfully inside me, sending another little swell of gratification as he finished.
His forehead fell to my shoulder as he panted and my gaze was glued to the mirror in front of us, the image of my wobbly-kneed, slowly melting naked body and his fully clothed one behind. He pried his fingers loose from my hips; the white marks faded only slowly.
When he pulled out, the trickle down my thigh made everything seem a little too real – mainly my own thoughts and feelings, an embarrassing flash of the memory of Colin holding a baby. Do not go there. He had races to win and I had my own success to build – away from cycling.
‘Are you… feeling better now?’ I asked, barely recognising my own breathy voice.
His gaze snapped up to mine, doubtful and a little dark. My half-hearted smile faded.
‘I… um… guess not,’ I mumbled, struggling to switch my brain back on to interpret the way he was studying me.
He seemed… angry somehow, although I couldn’t imagine why.
He’d wanted to blow off steam one more time, so that’s what we’d done – what I’d offered, so he couldn’t even feel guilty about that.
Perhaps the quick and desperate act in front of the mirror hadn’t felt significant enough to be a farewell to our physical relationship, but this wasn’t supposed to be ‘significant’.
I blushed as he tugged up his tracksuit bottoms and tucked himself back in. There was colour in his cheeks too. Swiping my pyjamas off the floor, I turned away and slipped into them as quickly as I could. My body felt like rubber, languid and boneless.
‘You need to go to sleep, Kubicka?’ The amusement in his voice was a relief, but I couldn’t quite remember why.
‘Talk… We need… distance.’
The covers seemed to move back by themselves, and then I was tumbling into the welcoming softness.
‘I don’t know that talking is a good idea, sweetheart.’
I struggled against sleep so I could respond, although I didn’t know how to answer.
His words stopped me anyway. ‘I’ll see you for the team presentation tomorrow.’
Gentle pressure on my forehead – maybe from his lips.