Chapter 12

My feet pound the pavement beneath me. I try to keep focused but the thoughts whirl and swirl. I don't want a relationship. I want to win medals. I want to be an athlete. I want an apartment that I don't have to share with assholes. I want, I want, I want. The list is long and the needs are there. I am desperate for a change in my life. But love? Love isn't something I even know how to give.

Except no matter how much my brain rejects the notion and pushes it to one side to discard it, the facts remain. I can feel it inside me. She is all I can think about. I can taste her on my lips. Hear her voice in my head. She plays on repeat even when I am trying not to think about her, and all the time we are apart, I crave her.

I am falling in love with Dahlia Dante.

"I don't get it, Alexa… You have the form, you have the fitness, you have the willpower, but you are distracted, unfocused. You are making mistakes, setting the wrong pace, taking the corners wide, you nearly clipped your heels on that turn there and yet you've made it cleanly for at least ten years. However, your speed is more than I have ever seen, you are getting better and better times. If you can get your focus back and run at this pace… I feel like we are there. But what is wrong? Why can't you focus?"

I stop and bend over, doubled as my lungs cry at the lack of air, my muscles burning, and I feel the spasms. But also, I feel a sense of achievement because Andy is right. I am running faster, setting new personal bests, and I can't explain the change. I just have more energy, more power, more drive. But … less focus.

"I don't know, Andy. I guess it's just life. You know me, I have always put everything into this, but recently, I have been …"

"Living?" he finishes for me as I falter, and I look at his knowing face.

"As your coach and trainer, I am pissed. You have… oh, I don't even want to think about this, but you have, like… days to get this together. On the other hand … watching you have something other than this in your life makes me really happy."

I reach for him and I pull him into a sweaty hug. He stiffens at first and then he relaxes. We have never hugged before. Even though I feel like I have known him all my life, we have never crossed a line or a boundary. But I felt like this was a moment so I took it. He pulls back after a second looking a little sheepish.

"Hugging doesn't mean you get a discount, you know," he says with an awkward smile.

"I feel like we shouldn't do that again," I laugh and he nods, agreeing.

"No, I don't think so but for what it's worth, I am happy to see you so happy. I just want you to pull it all together so you can be happy … with a gold medal!"

Don't we all.

"Alexa?" Dahlia's voice echoes through my phone with a sultry sexy heat. I am home—if you can call it that—getting some things together. I fall onto the bed, legs half crossed with wet hair and a sudden teenage grin. "Mmhmm."

"I have to fly out of the city. Just for tonight. They want me to make an appearance at a gala in Milan. I said yes because I will be back tomorrow at lunchtime. You can come here, stay here, wait for me. If you want?"

I feel disappointed but also a flush of happiness that she still wants me to be there and spend time at her place and to be waiting for her when she returna. But it also gives me an idea …

"I can wait for you, but you will be staying at a hotel in Milan tonight?"

"I will."

"I will be over to the hotel later and when you get back after your gala, you should call me."

"Oh?" she purrs with a question in her tone. "You have something you want to talk about?"

"I do, urgent matters that can't be put off any longer."

"Well, I shall make it my number one priority. Also, what is your favorite color?"

"Erm …" I lay back on the bed, my mind blank of normal thought and instead filled with the erotic. "I guess a deep shade of teal … one when you can't decide if it is more blue or more green."

"Noted. I will call you later. Oh, and you can look out for me if you like, I will be on television."

She lets it hang there and the phone cuts.

Of course she will be on television.

I can't believe I am having sexual relations with a superstar, who is and will be on TV tonight for a fancy gala thinking about me, but my thoughts are interrupted by my door swinging open.

"Milly! What on earth are you doing in my room without knocking?!" I exclaim.

She at least has the decency to look sheepish.

"Oh, Alexa, I didn't know you were in. I, erm, heard some noises and I thought someone had come in. Maybe they were robbing you or you know, something," she mumbles, half reversing out of the door, except I know full well she had been heading straight for my wardrobe. I have no idea what I have in there that would be of any use to Milly, but what the hell, I'm feeling generous.

"Just take what you came to borrow and not give back, Milly. I don't care, just knock next time."

I watch her stop mid quick exit and look at me with surprise. "For real?"

"Yes, but I can't guarantee I will be in such a good mood next time."

She doesn't hesitate, she's across my room in seconds, diving into my wardrobe to the very back where she has obviously hidden my designer sports coat so she can take it when she pleases. I raise an eyebrow but say nothing, and she doesn't stick around to see if I'll change my mind. She darts out of my room in around two seconds, and a minute later I hear the front door clatter close so I know she has made her quick exit.

To be fair, I had forgotten I even owned that coat, and it may have been expensive but it is ten years old. Oh god, does that make it retro? Am I already vintage? I don't allow my mind to linger on that thought. I instead get up and carry on packing a small bag. I don't need much. I have everything there I need and more, I just need the reality check more than anything. The reminder that this is my home, my reality, and that isn't going to change anytime soon. No matter how much my feelings have begun to blossom.

It"s strange walking to the hotel but not going there to work. My few days off have turned into nearly two weeks and yet I spend more time at the hotel right now than I did when I was getting paid. The staff never acknowledge me; it's like they feel I have turned to the dark side. I wonder how it will feel when I return, which I'm due to next week after my big race. Maybe I will transfer. I don't know if I can continue to…

My mind drifts down a dark path, facing the inevitable ending of whatever this is between me and Dahlia and I'm not ready. It makes it hard to breathe to even think about it. So, I switch lanes. Turning my attention to the night ahead. I slip the key card in the slot and press the button for the 85th floor. It takes a minute... But the light flashes green and I begin to rise up the building. As the dial climbs higher, my heart beats faster.

I"d like to say I was productive, but actually, I lazed, daydreamed, took a bath, stared out the window, thought about her. I have clothes here, but I prefer hers. I like smelling her on my skin. I glance at the clock and I know she is due to call and that"s how I wait for her. Laid across the bed in her shirt half-buttoned, skimming my bare skin. The room is dark. Just the city lights from the floor to ceiling glass lighting up the room.

The call comes through and I rest up against the pillows.

"Hey, you," I say softly with a smile in my voice.

"Hey, you too," she replies with her sweeter than honey southern drawl.

"I saw you. On the TV." I didn't just see her, I paused the screen and studied her like an obsessively hooked voyeur. There were a million things to be drawn to. Some people on the red carpet shimmered, but she shone like the only star in an ink black night.

A single beam lit up the red carpet. Mist rose, seeping around the shadowed photographers in black, their faces obscured, who they were completely unimportant, there to capture not to be noticed. Her eyes were closed with sweeping dark lines of makeup brushed over her eyelids. I watched her step in high heels to the center of the carpet, her gown flowing behind her in a sea of green-blue. Her lips were deep cherry red and I could almost feel them on my skin as her eyes opened and she smiled for the camera.

"You looked sensational. You stole the show in every way possible. I saw you on all the best dressed lists already. How did you do it so quickly? Get the dress that color?"

I could hear her shrug down the line. "I ask and people do. I wanted you to know I was thinking about you."

"I like to know you are thinking about me. What are you wearing right now?"

"I just have panties and a shirt. And you?"

"I will show you."

I flick the call to video and I watch the dots wait to connect. I wonder if she will accept but the chime comes and she appears on my screen and I see myself in the small tile on the bottom left corner.

"I am wearing a shirt, but it is yours."

She laughs, "Same." And she directs the camera downwards to show me my own t-shirt, not one she bought me either, a cheap old thing I wore one of the first nights and never thought about again.

"Take it off."

I watch her hesitate. Filming isn't allowed and I wonder if she worries about the rules, but I am not recording. This isn't to keep, it is for now, to enjoy. Then she makes a move to follow my direction but I spot the dresser in the corner of the frame.

"Wait. Go sit there, at the dresser, rest the phone in front of the mirror. I want to see and watch everything. Can you do that for me? Can you be a good girl?"

She gives me a shy smile, a flush rising to her cheeks before she nods, standing. Making her way over.

She sits on the white leather stool at the dressing table. The dark room is lit with the soft yellows of the bulbs that line the frame of the mirror. She leans forwards and I let my gaze sweep over her features. I scan every detail from her lightly curled lashes to full rosy lips.

She gives her head a little shake and bouncy red curls fall forwards to frame her face. Her teeth lightly run over her bottom lip, the softest of bites with just a hint of pressure and she shivers. The light silky fabric of my black shirt slips from her left shoulder. Exposing creamy soft skin, the V spreads downwards, splitting at her chest so the valley of her breasts is on show, the hint of a curve at her full breasts but nothing more.

I feel the pulse between my thighs. Fuck. She is delicious. Heavenly. My mouth salivates just looking at her. "More," I say softly.

She stretches her legs forwards and twirls her ankles. The shirt rides higher and higher up her thighs, skimming the top, almost high enough for a peek of her sex but not quite. She adjusts on the chair, letting the shirt cover the curve of her ass, a buffer between naked skin and cool leather.

Her eyes close, her breath held as her lips tremble. I am waiting for her touch to watch her fingers trace down her skin. To show me herself and to give me what I ask.

I watch silently as her fingers run down the exposed skin between her breasts until she reaches the last button. Her eyes flash open as the shirt falls open. Her rosy nipples are bared and I watch them harden.

"You are so beautiful. Touch yourself as if it were me. Show me how you want me to take you right now."

She shrugs her shoulder and I watch my shirt fall. It skims her back, falling down the curve of her spine as she pulls her arms free. Naked, all for me.

Her fingers begin to explore. First the nape of her neck, then along her collarbone, the backs of her fingers trace the light outer curve of her breasts before her thumb flicks against her nipple and she moans.

It is intoxicating. A dizzying high. Every time she moves, I too begin to touch myself. Not mirroring, just going to the places my body craves, where I need the touch. Exploring whilst my eyes are focused solely on her.

The ultimate act of voyeurism. I feel the buttons of her shirt against my stomach. Cool cotton against my hot skin. The flush spreads from my chest to my thighs as I watch her palm dip between her legs—cupping, caressing, a possessive grip—before her fingers begin to move.

She watches me now, as I watch her. Our moans fill each other's room. I have never done anything like this before but it is so incredibly sexy. I only want more and more and more.

My body gets there faster than my mind, eyes fixed on her perfect feminine form I give in to the pleasure and I climax for her, just as her own waves of orgasm begin. It is messy, neither of us in sync, the cameras drop.

Dahlia. What are you doing to me?