She just stared at him.
“You’re the smartest, most intense and yeah, sexiest woman I’ve ever met.” He gazed down at her. “I feel alive when I’m with you. And happy.”
He did? “You never tried to make me stay in bed with you. Never tried to tempt me into missing training.” He’d said no to her missing training.
“Because I’m not a total jerk, that’s why.” He frowned. “For fuck’s sake honey, we’re not kids. You’re a professional. I know you need to train and I’m not getting in the way of that. I’m a doctor, that takes years of hard work at med school, you know? I understand how hard you have to work when you want something big. I’ve been there. Done it. And as much as I’d like you to lie in bed with me all fucking day, I know it can’t happen just yet.”
“But I wanted it,” she admitted brokenly. “I wanted to skip training and stay in bed with you. Fucking. All. Day.”
He drew up at her passion, his smile returning. “That’s because you’re human honey, not a machine.”
She shook her head. “I’m so distracted. You make me want everything I shouldn’t want. You make me want it all.”
“Why can’t you have it all, Nicoletta?” he asked quietly. “What makes you think you can’t?”
“I travel all the time. My training is intense.” A tear escaped and trickled down her cheek. “It wouldn’t work. You’d get sick of it and bored and you’d—”
“Don’t say it,” he warned, pressing his palm over her mouth the way he had that first night in Summerhill when he’d busted her peeping. “I’m not like that asshole actor. I would never cheat on you. And I don’t believe you’d cheat on me.”
“Never,” she breathed against his skin and he released her. “I don’t want anyone the way I want you. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
That’s what scared her so much. She wanted him more than she’d wanted any one or any thing else in her life.
“Why don’t you try talking to me?” he leaned closer. “Why not try to trust me?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she cried. “I don’t trust myself. I’ve never felt this way and it’s messing everything up.” She trembled. “I thought—”
“Have you thought about the word compromise, Nikki? Have you thought about working something through instead of making a snap decision and acting on it? Instead of running away?”
She pulled up.
“You’re not a coward honey, you’re brave and strong.”
Was she? She hadn’t been honest with him.
But he’d come after her—and didn’t that say it all? Maybe she could be as brave as he thought she was. Maybe, if she wanted the grown-up passion she’d said she wanted, she could ask for it. And with Austin looking at her like that—she felt like she could do anything.
“I told myself I’d come to Summerhill first because its what I’ve always done and it would be nice to kick things off after the break with some familiar routine. Get the edge before going to Europe. But the truth was I knew you were here. And I… wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see if it was still the same.”
He waited quietly, but that light in his eyes spurred her on.
“That feeling I get when I see you,” she explained nervously. “When I’m around you. And that first night I got here. I saw you in the distance and boom. Its like my stomach drops and I get all hyper aware and I’m suddenly more nervous than standing in the gate.”
“You don’t get nervous standing in the gate.”
“Yeah I do. It’s terrifying. But its also the best feeling in the world.” She managed a smile. Because it was like that—sheer thrill. “I arrived late. I went to the bar. I knew you’d be there. And sure enough you were but you were surrounded by all these beautiful women. And it hurt and you’d never looked at me before anyway… and so I just went out the back to get some fresh air and ended up in that corridor—”
“And found Connor.”
“With Savannah.” She nodded. “It wasn’t what I was so envious of.”
“What wasn’t?”
“The hot sex they were having,” she mumbled. “I told you it was the orgasms because it was a way of covering up what I really wanted.”
“What was it you really wanted?”
“Someone to look at me the way he looks at her. To love me the way he does her? Like that couple the other day when you caught me looking again.” She dropped her head into her hand. “I know it’s pathetic.”
And she wanted that someone to be Austin.
“Wanting a partner in life is not pathetic,” he said calmly. “It’s normal. It’s normal to want to adapt to accommodate someone in your life. That’s not surrendering everything you hold dear. You’re not going to have to give everything else up. The right person is only going to enrich your life.” He framed her face with his hands and made her look back up at him. “I’d never want to stop you doing what you love. What you’ve fought so hard to achieve.”
She gazed into his eyes. He’d followed her. He understood her. And that he really wanted her the way she wanted him?
Tears stung again. “I don’t want you to be the cherry on the top of my cake,” she whispered, her heart in her mouth. “You’re all the flavor in my life.” He made her life so much more. And she didn’t want to have to miss him when she was going to be away for months. She didn’t think she could do it.
His smile was so tender. So was his hold on her. “I’m here for you. Always will be,” he promised. “You’ll do your time on the slopes. I’ll travel with you. I can get locum work wherever we have to go. Then when you finish with the pro circuit, I’ll do my time and build up a specialist sports med practice. Probably at Summerhill. So we’ll take turns, okay? We’ll make it work.”
He was offering her everything.
“You’d do that for me? Travel with me?” She shook her head. “You can’t—”
“I’m not giving up anything to be with you,” he assured her, leaning closer to rest his forehead on hers. “I’d be giving up too much if I didn’t come with you. I love you Nicoletta. I’ve been in love with you for months.”
“I love you too.” She reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck, unable to hold back her joy. “This is so much better than any dumb medal.”
“Hush,” he clamped his hand over her mouth—gently. “It’s different. You can have the medals and me, understand?”
Slowly she nodded her head. “Kiss me,” she murmured against his palm.
He complied. Thoroughly. So thoroughly she could barely stand. Hot, excited, happy she poured her heart into kissing him back until he was breathless and hard and had that wild look she loved in his eyes.
“Nicoletta.” He spoke through gritted teeth.
“Yes,” she smiled up at him happily. He was here for her. He’d followed her. He wanted to be with her every step of the way. And he couldn’t wait to have her again now.
“You’re still my cherry.” He dropped to his knees.
Nicoletta Valeri looked down at the raw passion glittering in her lover’s eyes but she shook her head, dropping to her knees to meet him. Face to face, game on.
“I’m eating my cake first.” She unsnapped his jeans and reached to stroke his hard cock. “I plan to suck up every last crumb.”
But he pushed her shoulders so she fell backwards onto the plush carpet. He moved over her, full of hungry purpose. “This isn’t a race you’re going to win.”
“Maybe not today,” she sighed. “But I know how to train hard.”
“Hard?”
“Very.” She sent him a look. “Please.”
Austin gazed back into her eyes and she saw everything she’d longed for reflected in the hot green depths of his.
“Always,” he promised.
THE END