Chapter Nineteen #2
The lie tasted thin. Blaire had clocked her long before St. Moritz—the way Isaline laughed so easily, the way she bounced back from crashes like someone who genuinely loved being here, even when the sport treated her like a punching bag.
She’d watched that joy from a distance, hungry for it and annoyed with herself for wanting anything that much.
“Then you showed up at my table in St. Moritz where I was innocently reading my book… and complicated everything,” she said with a quiet laugh.
Isaline’s mouth curved. “I’m very good at complicating things. Like a spider catching women in my web. How do you say in English… I am like a black widow spider. But I won’t kill you and eat you, I promise. Well, in a lesbian way, I hope to eat you like that.”
Blaire choked on a laugh, nearly spilling her hot chocolate.
“Remind me to send a memo to the press,” Isaline said. “Before Olympic gold medalist Blaire Hollis could enjoy her retirement, she was scandalously eaten by a Swiss black widow. Her body never recovered.”
They stood laughing for a moment with their shoulders pressed together.
The cold nipped at their faces while the rings burned steadily below.
Blaire felt the strangeness of it—handing over pieces of herself no one outside her team had ever seen.
Instead of panicking, she felt a comfort settle easily in her chest.
If anyone had earned the right to see under the surface, it was the woman who she’d bumped off the podium in the Super G and still looked at her like this.
“I’m scared of what us looks like after this,” Blaire admitted quietly. “When we’re not in the same village, on the same hill, breathing the same schedule.”
Isaline shifted closer, her free hand finding Blaire’s. “Me too. We live in different countries. Different time zones. Very inconvenient for falling in love.”
Blaire huffed out a soft laugh. “Minor detail.”
“Yes, that is right. We throw ourselves down mountains at broken-bone speeds,” Isaline said, giving her fingers a squeeze. “I think we can survive a few airports and long flights to see if this works. We just navigate the terrain. Like always.”
Blaire looked down at their joined hands, then back at the view—the hill that had given her everything and the rings that marked the end. For the first time in years, the future didn’t feel like she was free-falling down a mountainside.
It felt like she was deliberately choosing the future for herself.
Blaire shifted her weight against the railing, letting the cold bite through her hoodie and jacket while snow began to drift down in soft, lazy spirals. The village noise had dulled further, leaving just the two of them and the glow of the rings below.
“So what do you want next?” Blaire asked, surprising herself with how much the answer mattered. “What is your four-year plan if medals aren’t the only thing?”
Isaline turned her head. “I want to prove that my medal wasn’t a fluke.
That I’m not just my father’s daughter who got lucky once.
” She paused as her gloved hand tightened around her cup.
“But I also don’t want to do it alone anymore.
I’m tired of treating everything like a zero-sum game where caring about someone means I’m not serious enough about my racing. ”
Blaire’s chest tightened. The opening was there—a perfect place to deflect with something clever and noncommittal. Instead, the honesty pushed out of her mouth before she could stop it.
“Watching your name lock onto that board felt as big as seeing my own.” The words came out shaky.
“Part of me was hoping we’d end up there together, even if it meant you took gold and I had one of the two that followed.
It didn’t matter which steps we occupied, as long as we were both up there.
I’ve never let that thought enter my mind.
It’s always been gold or nothing for me. ”
Isaline’s smile turned soft, pleased in a way that made Blaire’s embarrassment worth carrying. “You wanted me on the podium with you, even if I took gold?”
“Yeah, sounds just as strange coming out of my competitive mouth.” Blaire’s free hand gripped Isaline’s tighter. “Turns out I’m capable of wanting more than one thing at a time. Who knew?”
“Character growth,” Isaline teased gently. “Very attractive.”
They stood like that for a long moment with their hands tangled and snow catching on their jackets.
Blaire felt the shift happening—the clean pivot from rivals-with-benefits into a level of caring she couldn’t pretend was casual anymore.
She could step back. Keep it light. Protect the exit. But this time, she chose not to.
The cold finally forced them to move. Blaire pushed off the railing, tugging Isaline with her. “Let’s get out of the cold. Come back to my room with me.”
There was no practiced smoothness in the request. Just the simple invitation that made Isaline’s breath catch audibly. There was no denying what they both wanted.
“Is this how you get women back to your room?” Isaline’s accent curled warm around the words. “Under the pretense of letting them see your gold?”
Blaire huffed a laugh, and warmth flooded her cheeks despite the cold. “Only the ones I’m trying to keep.”
Isaline’s smile turned brilliant. “Then lead the way, Goldilocks.”
At the entrance, Blaire flashed her accreditation at the security volunteer slouched behind the desk. He was half-asleep over a phone showing a soccer match. The kid barely glanced up as he waved her through with the muscle memory of someone who’d processed a thousand athlete faces that week.
Isaline hung back just enough to look casual with her hood pulled up against the cold and her lanyard tucked inside her jacket.
When the volunteer’s eyes flicked toward her, Blaire reached back without thinking and caught her hand, tugging her forward like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“She’s with me.”
The kid nodded, already looking back at the screen in front of him.
Once on the third floor, the corridor stretched long and fluorescent, empty except for someone’s muffled TV two doors down.
They moved quickly but not frantically. Their boots were quiet on the carpet.
Halfway down, voices crept out of a room with its door open.
Blaire steered them wide, then had to bite down on a laugh when Isaline made an exaggerated spy-creep past it.
“You’re ridiculous,” Blaire whispered.
“You’re smuggling the enemy into American athlete territory,” Isaline shot back, eyes bright with mischief. “This is an international incident.”
Blaire pressed her knuckles against her mouth to muffle the laugh threatening to break loose. Warmth flooded her chest at how easy this felt.
Blaire nudged the door shut with her heel.
The space felt tighter with Isaline inside, as if the walls themselves noticed the shift.
Her race gear lay in organized heaps as she had left it—suits draped over a chair, boots lined up by the wall, sponsor stickers peeling on a forgotten protein drink bottle.
The light of the lamp caught the glint of the gold medal on the nightstand.
Blaire paused, her breath hitching for a split second, then crossed the room in two strides.
She lifted the medal with the ribbon trailing through her fingers and slid it into a drawer with a quiet thud.
Tonight, the medal was not the centerpiece.
Isaline’s eyes softened as heat flickered across her face. “It feels good to be here. We both have medals. And finally, we don’t have to choose between gold and… this.”
Isaline shrugged off her jacket. The pull between them sparked sharp and familiar, a current Blaire knew how to ride.
But she didn’t dive in with her usual assertiveness.
There were no calculated moves to wordlessly steer a woman straight to the bed.
Instead, she stepped close, and her hands found Isaline’s jaw.
Her thumbs brushed the edges of her cheekbones.
The kiss started slow. It was a lingering press that deepened only when Isaline sighed into it.
Her fingers curled into Blaire’s hoodie, dragging her closer like she’d been wanting to do since that aborted make-out session in the training room.
A quiet, disbelieving laugh bubbled up between them, breaking the last brittle edge of tension, and Blaire felt her chest unclench as she smiled against Isaline’s mouth, finally letting herself lean in.
They shed layers of clothing with unhurried ease.
Hoodies, base layers, socks, bras and panties were tossed aside.
Blaire’s hands moved with intent, but not the kind she’d wielded in St. Moritz.
Back then, there had been little emotional connection.
It had been about release, a quick, controlled burn.
A crush that had now turned deeper. She lingered, trailing her fingers along Isaline’s arms, watching for the subtle hitch in her breathing.
“Is this okay?” she murmured, waiting for the nod before sliding her palm lower.
Every touch felt like a question she actually wanted answered, and every shift in Isaline’s frame was a map she wanted to learn as much as she had wanted to ski.
She pressed Isaline down to the mattress.
The narrow bed creaked under their combined weight, but there was no hurry to claim or conquer.
Blaire braced herself on one elbow as her other hand mapped the curve of Isaline’s hip, drawing out a shiver that made her own pulse jump.
She kissed down the line of Isaline’s neck, tasting salt and warmth, and when Isaline’s fingers tightened in her hair, whispering Blaire’s name with that Swiss lilt, a realization sliced through her.
This wasn’t just about wringing out gasps or chasing her own edge.
It was the first time in years she’d wanted this to carry weight beyond the moment.
She wanted sex to mean something beyond proof of her control.