by Robin Lovett
I sit on my heels, my hands on my thighs. “I know.”
He leans back on his elbows. “Then why—”
“I think I might love you, too.” I don’t know it till the words leave my mouth, but I don’t want them back. It’s true. All the vulnerability and the heartache that chased me on my bike up the climb—it’s this. I love him.
His brown hair shines golden in the lamplight. His brow less wrinkled than the last time I saw him. His eyes calmer. The agitated stress from the burden to win has lifted.
He draws my face closer, his fingertips flutter over my cheeks, and his lips caress mine like warm butter and sweet honey.
“I don’t have a condom,” he says, with a curving smile. “I wasn’t planning on having sex tonight.”
I bite my lip. “I’m on the pill, but—”
“You are?” His eyes widen and enflame. “I’m squeaky clean. They test me for everything whenever they test my blood for stuff.”
A gasp tightens my chest. This is it.
I look in his lap and see him lengthening and hardening there. It’s intimidating, but when I think of putting him inside me, my boiling point tips over. My hips roll on instinct as though he’s already there.
“What are you thinking?” His look is searching, gauging me. His arms begin to shake, his forearms bulging. He wants me. Bad. He’s such a good boy for trying not to show me.
I give him a salacious smile. “I want you to be bad.”
He swallows. “Bad?”
“Yes.” I straddle him, and grasping his hand, dip it between my legs where I know I’m wet, as though with enough moisture my body could put out the fire searing my blood.
I wrap my fingers around him, where he’s long and thick, and I roll my wrist.
He shudders. “How bad do you want me to be? I’ll be the devil if you want.”
I press into his stroking fingers. My whole body feels empty, sobbing from my core with the need to be filled—by him.
I lean over him, my knees astride his hips. “Can I do it this way?” I’ve only had sex in missionary, but I want to be on top.
“Y—yeah.” He stares, ravenous, at my hand holding him, then his gaze rises to my nipples. He dips his head and licks and nibbles me, the way he knows I like it.
His hands glide to my hips and subtly direct me to tilt them. I lower and hum when he bumps me in that hot spot, my clit. I notch him into my opening and struggle to get him inside.
“It’s okay,” he rasps, his voice hoarse. “I’ll do it.” He grasps himself, and I balance my hands on his shoulders.
His one hand guiding my hips lower, the other holding himself, he tips—more like squeezes—inside me. He tightens everything on his way in. It would be uncomfortable except it feels so good. He’s filling me.
I hold my breath as I lower by inches onto him. Until my hips rest on his, and he’s all in. I suck in air with a gasp. He’s so full inside me, it’s like he’s pushing through my skin. I want to swallow him up and keep him there. But at the same time, I want to move. I want to feel him push into me again.
Before I can lift my hips to withdraw, he enfolds me with his arms and lowers us back on the bed, me lying across his chest.
“Lia,” he whispers, and grinds his hips into me deeper. “Are you okay?”
“Mm-hm,” I moan, and grind back.
It’s too much, never enough. It’s as overwhelming as I feared, the reason I haven’t been ready for this. He is everywhere inside me, and I don’t know where I am and he isn’t. He is in me. I am in him. There are no lines. It’s us. Together.
I meet his eyes. I need to know that he feels it too. That he knows this thing he’s planting inside me is big enough to move my soul.
His lips ghost across mine. “Yeah. I’m—there too. Uh. God.” He rolls his hips, pulling out a fraction before burrowing inward again. It primes me, and I move, letting him in and out of me once.
I do it again and again, and I mewl into his neck. He’s scratching me in the deepest, most perfect place. I want more—more—infinitely more.
I pump my hips up and down, the way it feels good for me. I hope it feels good for him, too, because my orgasm is coming, gathering, rising. It’s more whole than before, not just up my spine but down my bones, pulsing, beating farther, higher with each thrust.
I detonate around him, pushing onto him, absorbing him into me. My body clutching him, as though needing to drink from him the way my heart needs to feed from him.
He groans beneath me and his every muscle seizes. Then he slams his hips upward, driving into me with sharp orgasmic bursts, beyond restraint. He unleashes everything I know he’s been withholding. And I’m ready. I hold him, sucking in all he has to give me: his goodness, his badness, his compassion, his greed. I want everything that is him because I want him to be mine.
He is bad, the bad I want him to be, pouring it inside of me.
He binds me to him, one arm enfolding my hips, the other my ribs. Kissing my shoulder, his breathing rapid, but in synch with mine.
“Love you,” he groans, the tones spiraling through my ear.
My lips on his shoulder, I groan back, “Love you.”
“Did you come?” he teases. He knows I did.
“Uh-huh.” I snuggle into his neck. It’s all of him against me, around me, in me. I love him. He’s touching me everywhere he can be touching me.
And I don’t want to lose him. Even though I will soon.
“First time having sex with an orgasm.” He nips my lip and grins cheekily.
I nip back at him. “Yes.”
He rolls with me to the side. Kissing me in fervent bliss. He slips out of me as we move, and I whimper into his mouth.
“I don’t want you to leave me.” I wiggle my hips into him. “I want you to stay inside me.”
“Give me a minute and we’ll do it again.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Caroline leaves the next day, and Terrence is almost as upset as Gary. After teaching, I find them both locked in their rooms. They didn’t even ride today.
I sit next to Terrence on his bed, not understanding why he’s so upset. “I thought you wanted her to leave.”
“Not like this.” He scrubs his hair. It’s tangled like he’s been wringing it all day. “Not because of Gary’s racing. I wanted her to go home for the baby.” His voice cracks. “She broke up with him, Lia. She’s not coming back.”
I’m sure Caroline told them the real reason she left, because she suspects them of doping. He doesn’t know that I know.
I should ask about the doctor. After last night, though, I’m so raw, we’re so raw, that bringing up anything so emotional would overflow our small hearts. We’re pried open for each other in a scary way that neither of us has felt before.
I can’t ask him about doping today. I have to believe that Caroline’s as wrong about that as she was about Terrence not coming home to me.
I still don’t understand why he’s so torn over Caroline leaving. “And you’re worried Gary’s so upset he won’t race well?” He should care about Gary for more than the racing.
“He’s my best friend. He has a family coming; he can’t support them if he’s out of work. The team comes first. But the guy’s like my brother. Seeing his heart broken is no easy thing for me.” The terrified look on his face tells me everything.
He’s afraid I’ll break his heart, too.
Because of us, he understands what his friend is going through. He’s thinking of how I’ll be leaving soon too.
I don’t know if he knows how soon, though.
I rub his back. “They’re having a baby. It’s not a breakup. She’s just angry.” My throat tightens. There’s no baby to connect us across the ocean when I’m gone.
“I hope you’re right,” he whispers, then buries his face in my nec
k and holds me.
He doesn’t mention how I’m leaving, and neither do I. Tomorrow I’ll be able to count the number of days on two hands.
My heart wrings like a saturated cloth. When I leave, I’ll have to dig him out like excavating a hole.
I can’t fathom it.
His kisses are different, and he makes love to me with a neediness as though last night never happened. As though no matter how many times we do this, there’s no quenching the hunger of needing it over and over again.
* * * * *
Nice blossoms into the paradise I’ve been hoping for.
I have my bike back. Each afternoon, I ride it to the Promenade and sit on the beach in one of the famous blue chaise longues. There, I wait for Terrence.
Rather than reading literature, I checked out some modern, commercial novels from the library—to own the truth, romances, in French. There’s nothing more delicious than romantic scenes playing out on the page in my favorite language.
It’s fun. I’m having real, unrestrained, honest-to-God fun, with no goals for my future in mind. I’m discovering the beautiful, letting go of requirements, and delving into the things I truly desire.
Perhaps I am being bad, but I like it so much that I’m not sure how it can’t be good.
Terrence joins me after he finishes his ride and naps in the chaise next to me, soaking up sun on his pasty white chest with the tan lines ringing his arms.
I take a picture of him on my phone while he sleeps. I want to freeze images of him for when I have to leave him soon. Now that I know what sex is like with him, I’m insatiable. But it’s okay because he is too.
We go back to his apartment for dinner, and he’s exhausted. The spring classics over, the team has two weeks of recovery and training before the start of the summer grand tours. All of them sleep ten to twelve hours a day. They have less energy than ever.
When we walk in the door, I say, “Go lie down. I’ll cook dinner.”
“Yeah?” He kisses my temple and goes to put his legs up without protest.
I’m making pancit for dinner. I want to give my cyclist a taste of the Filipina that is me. I finally went to the Asian market this week and did manage to find the right noodles. I dig through the fridge and cupboards for the rest of the ingredients. The guys eat so much food and have such high standards for quality that searching through their kitchen can be a daunting treasure hunt.
My hand brushes a paper bag I’ve never seen before. I pull it onto the counter and open it.
The contents are heart-stopping.
I can’t move, not comprehending.
Denial. I close the bag. I’m not seeing this. It’s not real. I re-open the bag.
It’s still there.
No. No, no. No.
The emotions that have been on a constant simmer since Terrence came back from San Remo boil and spill over. I am a tornado of pain and betrayal.
Maybe it’s good I’m going home soon, then I won’t have to deal with this. Maybe I should pretend I never found it.
Tears flood my eyes. I can’t. How could he do this? To himself? To his team? To me?
Anger winds so tight in my lungs, it ices my tears in a glacial freeze.
“Terrence, what the fuck is this?”
“Huh?”
I walk into the room with the bag aloft. “This?”
He smacks his forehead. “They’re vitamins.”
I check the bag again. “Vials and syringes.” My words are sharp. “Do I look stupid to you?” I thought he was clean. I believed in him. But what’s in the bag in my hand…
“It’s B-12 injections,” he says. “They up your red blood cell count.”
My arm sags with the bag. “Why can’t you just take supplements like the rest of the goddamn world?”
“Because it doesn’t work!” He sits up. His face fires red like a stop sign, so defensive it blazes. “They hand me this shit, and I just do what the doctors tell me to do.”
He’s lying. It slices through my chest so much worse than if he’d admit what they really are. “How could you?” I ask.
“Everyone does it, Aurelia. If we want to be competitive, we don’t have a fucking choice. Would you rather it be EPO or steroids or cortisol? Or better yet, blood transfusions?”
“How do I know this isn’t EPO or whatever?”
“EPO comes in pills now.”
“How would you know that?”
“Because they asked me to take it, and I said no.”
He’s so adamant, but it makes no sense with the evidence in my hand. “I don’t believe you. You’ve been hiding things from me. This is why you kept pushing me away, why you left early for Paris and Milan.”
“I didn’t want you to know about it.”
“I know about Bugatti.”
He frowns. “What about Bugatti?”
“Caroline said that’s the doctor you went to see in Milan.”
“She told you? Of course she did.” He looks at the ceiling. “Yes, we went to see Bugatti, but Gary wasn’t along.”
“You went. You admit it.” My breath slows. “He traffics drugs!”
He points at the bag in my hand. “It’s just vitamin B. You can buy those injections at a pharmacy. It’s not illegal.”
“Then why go see Bugatti?”
“He tried to give me—they tried to make me do—other stuff.”
“Tried?”
His jaw grinds. “I refused. I won anyway.”
“How do I know you’re not a liar?”
Hurt flashes across his face, and his chin falls.
It’s him: the man who loves me and feeds me his heart every night in bed. I feel like a monster.
Before, I never would have thought him capable of lying—his direct way, honest to a fault, a detriment to his career during interviews with the press. He’s so genuine in every word he says.
I’m acting like Caroline, attacking him about doping the same way she has been for months. He deserves better than this.
He says he was offered the drugs and refused to take them. If he’s telling the truth, he’s done a heroic thing in refusing. He could have so easily given in and done what they told him to do. I want to curse Caroline. I never would have had these suspicions if it wasn’t for her.
And it means… “Is that why they threatened your contract, because you refused to take it?”
He scratches his neck. “Sort of. Yeah.”
Shame clenches my throat. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” he whispers. “This stuff makes everybody do things they wouldn’t normally.”
I walk closer. “Why didn’t you tell me, at least about the vitamin injections?”
“Because it’s revolting and I don’t like doing it. The less I have to talk about it, the better. You think I like sticking a needle in my arm every night?” He shudders. This weighs on him, another thing adding to the pressure of winning.
“There has to be some other way. Can’t you eat special foods or something?”
“I’m no doctor. Apparently this is the best way.”
I sit across from him, my thoughts spinning. “I had no idea it was so bad. That you had to do things like—” I look at the syringes, cringe, and shove the bag away from me.
He grabs my hand, a strained look on his face, his skin stretched thin over his cheekbones. He’s lost weight since I met him. I didn’t see it until now. He’s skinnier than he was, his muscles look bigger, because there’s less fat on him.
“Why do you do this to yourself?” I squeeze his hand. “Why do you put up with this?”
“Because cycling is what I do. It’s what I’m good at. And as shitty as this crap is—” he nods at the bag, “—I love it. It’s more than worth it.”
Cycling is his whole world. I wonder h
ow far he’d go for it. Is it the riding he loves or the winning? Or is it the money? I don’t think he knows the answer.
He kisses my hand. “I’m glad you know now. I didn’t want to tell you, but—”
“I’m glad you did. I want you to talk to me about it.”
“It’s such a relief that I can.”
I have to believe he’s telling me the truth. If I don’t trust him, what else do we have?
Chapter Thirty-Three
My pancit isn’t as good as my mom’s, but the guys devour it and lick their bowls like it’s ice cream. They do it every meal because they’re so hungry, but I choose to believe it’s because they like my cooking.
Terrence is helping me clean up the kitchen when he says, “Lia, how soon are you leaving?”
I’ve avoided telling him. To say it feels like slapping him in the face. I swallow. “My flight is next Friday.”
“Friday.” His eyes widen. “How soon is that?”
“Nine days.”
“Nine days?” His eyes glaze and dilate. “Nine days, Aurelia! I thought you had another month!”
“I was supposed to, but I applied to go home early…”
“Early? Why?”
“It was before we…” I motion between us. “Before I wanted to stay. I should have told you.”
“Heck yes, I wish you’d told me.”
“I didn’t want to—upset you.”
“I’m upset now.” The hurt in his face rams me like a fist to my chest and flays my heart open. He turns away from me, hiding his pain.
I can’t leave him.
Before him, I was this cold, lonely, mechanical bookworm who knew nothing about having fun or how to smile. Now I love being alive and being with him. I wake every morning excited to talk to him.
“Come with me to Italy,” he blurts.
“Italy?” I blink.
“The Giro d’Italia starts in two weeks. You can come along.”
“Giro?” I know the word means “turn” in Italian but…
“It’s Italy’s Tour de France. A three-week race through the country.”