“Okay,” Tamara said. “Are we going to go get something to eat, or are we going to stand here?”
Her words may have sounded harsher than she intended, but luckily no one seemed to notice the edge to her voice.
She stiffened when Drake’s arm landed on her shoulder.
“Relax,” he murmured in her ear, and the tension seeped out of her. Her body softened into his side. Maybe for one night she could dream that there was a possibility she and Drake could have what Mitch and Julia did.
* * *
Tamara woke to a trail of kisses up her spine. After the short celebratory dinner with Mitch and Julia, she had been unable to say no to Drake when he asked to spend the night with her. What surprised her even more was that he didn’t try and seduce her at all. It was clear he was exhausted and once they got into bed, he’d fallen straight to sleep. Obviously, after a decent night’s sleep, he had a good idea about how he wanted to start the day. She couldn’t deny that she quite liked what he had in mind.
“Hey, sleep well?” he rasped against her neck, moving his hips so she couldn’t help but feel his erection against her fabric-covered ass.
“I did, how about you?”
“Best night’s sleep I’ve had since I arrived.”
She turned over onto her back so that she looked up into Drake’s smiling eyes. “You know you’ve already got me in bed with you; you don’t need to flatter me.”
“Baby, there’s flattery and then there’s flattery.”
“I didn’t know there was a difference.”
The shiver undulated through her as his finger trailed along her jawbone, down her neck, to the top of the lacy camisole she slept in. Her nipples peaked against the thin material, and she wanted Drake to lift it up and place his hands on her needy flesh.
As if hearing her inner plea, he found the hem of her top and pushed it up. She lifted her arms so that he could remove it. With a careless flick of his hand, the silky garment whispered to the ground. Tamara arched her back in invitation.
Drake answered by placing hot kisses on her breast. “I could say you have a gorgeous rack. Or I could say, you have the most beautiful breasts I’ve ever seen. I want to worship them while I worship you.”
Boy, now she knew the difference between flattery and flattery. Never before had she felt so wanted or needed or precious, even. Such a silly thing to think, but being here with Drake, with his focus one hundred percent on her, pushed any doubts that they were heading for disaster out of her mind.
Words weren’t possible as Drake caressed her breasts with his hand while his mouth caressed hers. She ran her hands down his muscled back, the flesh jumping in delight at her touch. Finally, she reached his butt and slipped her hands beneath his cotton boxers. She wanted them off as much as she had wanted her top off.
“Take them off,” she muttered against his mouth.
“Now who’s being the flatterer?”
She brought her index finger to the corner of her mouth and looked coyly up at him. “I’ll take mine off if you take yours off.”
In a blur of movement, Drake’s boxers joined her top and her panties joined the small pile of clothes.
“Don’t you know you get in trouble when you tease a man?” Drake said as he grabbed a condom from the bedside drawer.
She ran her fingers down his chest, circling his belly button before reaching for his hard dick. She encircled it with her thumb and index finger. “But teasing is half the fun, babe. Don’t you know that?”
He groaned and rested his forehead against hers. “If you tease, I get to tease too.”
“Ohhhh.”
It was the only word she was capable of as Drake’s fingers found her slick folds and stroked her lightly. Her body relaxed, and her fingers lost their grip on his hard length.
Her eyelids drifted down, and all thoughts left her mind. All that was left inside of her was sensation after sensation, pin pricks of pleasure as he slipped a finger inside of her, stroking in and out in a lazy motion. Her toes curled and heat built in her. Her orgasm was building. She wanted him to stop, exchange his finger for his cock, but couldn’t say the words. Her tongue was glued to the top of her mouth. Her fingers grasped onto his upper arms as he increased his motion inside of her.
Her orgasm crashed through like hurricane force winds tearing apart a house. It was intense, and Tamara wanted it to last.
She didn’t have a chance to come down from her high before Drake thrust into her. Her hips shuddered at the intrusion. He started moving slowly in and out, drawing out her orgasm so the vibrations remained with every one of his thrusts. Soon the pressure inside her began to build again. Surely, she wasn’t going to come again? Had she ever really stopped?
“Yes. Oh, God, yes Drake,” she called out as her second climax washed over her.
“Tam,” Drake cried as he thrust one last time and then pumped his release into her.
He collapsed on top of her, and she wrapped her arms tightly around him, never wanting to let go.
The thought was dangerous. The Olympics finished in three days. What happened then? There was still so much she didn’t know about Drake or his life. Her thoughts went back to the previous evening. After his win and before Mitch interrupted them. He mentioned his father wasn’t there to watch him. His reaction to her questions during their warm down session shed no light either. If anything, it seemed Drake was glad his dad wasn’t there. Why?
Was now the best time to ask? Could she? Dare she?
She gave him a little nudge and Drake automatically lifted his weight off her and rolled over. She propped herself up on her elbow and made patterns over the hard ridges of his chest.
“So you want to tell me why your dad’s not here?
15
In the afterglow of another amazing sex session with Tamara, the last thing Drake wanted to talk about was his father. Why had she even brought it up? He chanced a look over at the clock. It was just on 7:30am. He shouldn’t do a light workout, especially since he’d run last night and the final was tomorrow. The last thing he wanted to do was injure himself. But if it meant he didn’t have to talk about Dad, then he’d go and take a slow jog around the park.
He went to pull the covers off so he could swing out of bed. Tamara’s grip tightened on the covers.
“I know what you’re about to do,” she said.
“Really? And what is it I’m about to do.”
Her hands traced a pattern over his chest. As she drew little circles around his nipples, little darts of pleasure coursed through him. Dammit, his body was ready to go again. He wasn’t averse to the idea of a second round with Tamara, even though he knew he had to conserve some of his energy for his big race tomorrow.
“Actually, you’re tossing up whether to get out of bed to avoid answering my question. Or try and seduce me again in the hopes that I’ll forget what I asked. As your trainer the second option is probably not a good idea with your final tomorrow. As the woman sharing your bed, I wouldn’t object to a seduction. But,” she halted the hand that had started to creep up her smooth skin to brush the underside of her breast. “I’m not going to let you distract me. So tell me, why isn’t your dad here?
He sighed, dropping his hand away from her body. “I don’t want to talk about Dad.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s complicated.”
“Aren’t all family dynamics complicated?”
That was something he didn’t know about Tamara—her family. “Why don’t you tell me about yours, and then I can tell you about mine.”
If he could get her to talk about her family, he wouldn’t have to talk about his even though he said he would. It was perfect. She could talk, and he could touch her in the areas he knew she liked. Soon she’d forget all about wanting to know about Dad, and he could pleasure her without exerting too much energy.
“Uh, uh. No, you don’t. I asked first. You tell me about your family, and then I’ll tell you about mine.”
He closed his eyes in frustration. Muscles lax from pleasure only moments before now pulled tight. Fuck, there was no way around it. Tamara had been relentless in her pursuit of getting him to seek treatment. Why should this be any different?
“Fine, Mom divorced Dad when I was eight. She ran off to Europe with some guy she’d met at a coffee shop who seduced her into thinking he could offer her more than Dad. The more ended up being less, and last I knew she was living in a one bedroom bedsit in London working at a Laundromat.”
“I’m sorry, Drake.”
“Hey, don’t be sorry, you asked to hear this, so you’re going to hear every sordid little detail there is to the story that makes up my life.”
He hated how whenever he thought or spoke about his mom, red hot lava of dislike boiled through is veins. She’d abandoned her son and husband all for empty promises.
“Anyway,” he started again trying to quench the anger. “Before they met, Dad was a runner too. He was set to make the Olympic team again for the 1988 Games in Seoul. He’d made the team for the ’84 games but had missed out on a medal, so he was determined to avenge the loss in Seoul. Only Mom ran across his path literally, she was chasing her cat. But it was love at first fight, so the story goes. They should’ve taken note of the way they told people ‘love at first fight.’ That was more the way of their relationship.” He plucked at the sheet, forming his words in his mind. “Anyway, it was time for the Olympic trials, and he and Mom had yet another big fight before his race. His focus was on the fight and not his running, and so he missed out on making the team. By the time the Barcelona Games came around, I was two and mom wouldn’t hear of him leaving her with a toddler while he gallivanted off to Europe. So he hung up his runners. When I was old enough, he got me into track. I loved it. I loved trying to beat my time and winning the medals and ribbons. Then Mom left, and he became even more determined for me to achieve what had eluded him. He foisted his dream on me. While he did that, the joy of running was sucked out of me until it became what I needed to do to keep the peace. Now, here I am about to run in an Olympic final, and he’s not here to see it all unfold.”
Drake hadn’t meant to blurt out the whole terrible story of his Mom. He’d planned on giving the bare facts, enough to appease Tamara.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He accepted the soft kiss she placed on his lips, the urge to take it further gone. “There’s nothing to say.”
“I can’t imagine the pressure you were under each time you had to compete. You ran in London, didn’t you?”
“Yep, and I didn’t even make the semis. He was so disappointed in me. Kept harping on how I was a much better runner than he had ever been. How I was wasting my talent. I wasn’t trying hard enough to win.”
“Why didn’t you quit and walk away from him?”
He couldn’t lie in bed with her any longer. Restless energy clamoring with the anger still simmering within him, he gently moved Tamara off him and got out of the bed. He breathed easier when she didn’t try and stop him this time.
He grabbed his boxers and pulled them on. He started pacing around the small room, wishing it were a four hundred meter running track. “You don’t know how many times I wanted to do that, especially when I was overseas. Running away was always like the carrot dangling in front of the horse. Constantly out of reach. No matter how far the horse stretched his head to get it, he always failed.”
“Why was it out of reach? Why didn’t you just grab it? Obviously, running away overseas would’ve been difficult, but at one of the meets in another state, you could’ve taken off.”
“Because I love my Dad, Tamara. When he’s not pressuring or hounding me to run faster, work harder, eat better. He’s a good guy. He’s the best. We have fun together. We’ll go to the shooting range. Or go to a bar, grab a burger and watch a football game. He could’ve easily become a hard-nosed bastard with me when Mom walked out. But he didn’t. He loved me and, yes, I’m living his dream. But yesterday, out there on that track,” he jammed his finger in his chest. “I wanted to be there. I wanted to run hard and win. I wanted it more than I ever thought I could want something in my whole life. Out there on that track, when it looked as if I wasn’t going to make it. It hit me that winning at the Olympics was as much my dream as it was his. That’s what got me over the finish line and into the final.”
He collapsed on the bed. “I want that medal. I want to feel what Mitch has felt over and over again. What Julia felt last night when she won against all the odds. I want to stand up on that podium and hear the Star Spangled Banner blare out over the stadium. I want it so badly. But not for him. Not for Dad. I want it for me.”
Warm hands landed on his shoulder before sliding down to clasp around his belly, her chest against his back.
Soft against hard.
The comfort Tamara was giving him melded into his body. He didn’t want to let go.
“I want it for you too,” she whispered against the back of his neck.
“But what if I lose? I can’t do another four years of this. I don’t think my knee will last. I’ve made the Olympic finals. It has to be enough for Dad.”
Drake hoped it was enough for Dad. The final consisted of thirteen men. The top runners from all over the world in his event. He’d won silver at the World Championships, but the Olympics always seemed to have more prestige than that event. The Games only came around every four years. Every year they held the World Championships. The chances of him making it to Tokyo were slim.
“Have you spoken to your Dad?”
He moved so that they were both lying on the bed again, Tamara still wrapped up against his back.
“No, I’m surprised he hasn’t called me. He could’ve emailed me—I haven’t checked.”
“You should call him.”
“I don’t know that I want to. I’m not sure I can deal with a critique of my semi. Or a lecture on what I need to do to win. If I want a lecture, I’ll go to Len. As my coach, he has the right to tell me what I need to do.”
“You don’t know he’s going to lecture you.”
“You don’t know my Dad. You should’ve seen the email I got after my heat. He gave a detailed critique on what I needed to do to improve my time,” he retorted, frustrated with the whole conversation. He didn’t want to talk about his dad anymore.
Drake extricated himself from Tamara’s hold and slipped off the bed again. “Look, I need to get back to my room and prepare for my race tomorrow.”
He grabbed his clothes off the floor and pulled his pants on.
“Make sure you don’t do anything too strenuous. You’ve got to look after your knee.”
He punched an arm through the armhole of his shirt. “And speaking of lectures, I don’t need one from you either.”
Shit. What was he doing? There was no censure in Tamara’s voice. She was doing her job. He should turn around and tell her he was sorry. He couldn’t deal with all the emotions flying through him.
Anger.
Desire.
Love.
Love? There was that word again. Did he feel love for Tamara? Lust, yes. Hell, yes, he had lust still burning up his blood. More than one man had confused lust with love and started thinking of futures that had no place being thought about.
He heard the sound of the sheets, and images of what they’d shared not half an hour ago flashed through his mind. He wanted to erase the last fifteen minutes. Go back to where they were both lying wrapped in each other in the afterglow of another amazing sex session.
Only he knew more than anyone that turning back time was impossible. Only one way to go and that was forward. For him it was out the door. A door he might never be asked to enter again.
Yep. There it was, the whisper of the sheet moving past him and the door opening.
“Goodbye, Drake. I’m sure I’ll see you around the training room.”
Say something, he told himself. Anything to take away the pain tingeing her words.
Drake spied his wallet and phone on the small bedside table. He scooped them up and grabbed his shoes. He’d put them on outside, escaping the disaster he’d created his priority.
He stopped and looked at her. She stood behind the door, hiding herself from anyone who may be walking the halls, and was she hiding herself from him?
“Tam,” he reached out a hand to touch her cheek.
She leaned away. “Just go, Drake.”
Yes, he should. He should walk out that door and remember the words he’d told her. He wanted the gold medal. He wanted to be an Olympic champion. Somehow, though, that victory would be hollow if he had no one he cared about to share it with.
No Dad.
No Tamara.
Dreams were nothing if you had no one to share them with.
16
Tamara’s hand hovered over the phone. Was she about to make the biggest mistake of her life? Perhaps she should look for Mitch and check with him if calling Drake’s dad and seeing if he could come to Rio was a good idea or a bad one.
“What’s up T-Girl? You’re looking pretty serious there.”
Her hand landed with a muffled thump on her desk as she looked up at the person who entered the room. Maybe she didn’t have to talk to Mitch after all. Len, Drake’s coach, stood in front of her. She knew the two of them had been coach/athlete for a long time. Perhaps he knew the reasons behind Drake’s dad being absent.
“Hey, Len. I…” She stopped, not sure what to say or how to word what she wanted to ask without seeming like an interfering so and so. “I’m, uh, good. How about you?”
Len side-eyed her. “Fine. Now you really want to tell me what’s going on?”
She sighed, taking a deep breath. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? What’s the worst that could happen? Len could tell her to butt out. Or he might surprise her and agree to help her. As it was, it was going to be tight to try and get Drake’s dad here in time for his race. “Ok, here goes nothing. I need your help. I want to see if I can get Drake’s dad here for his race. But I don’t know how to get in touch with him. Can you help?”
Fighting to Dream (The Elite Book 2) Page 9