Read Online Racing to You: Racing Love, Book 1 by Robin Lovett - Free Book Online

hair. “I’m fucking exhausted and my legs feel like fucking lead. Okay?”
    Of course he’s tired. This is probably the first time he’s sat down since—well, unless you count the bike as sitting—early this morning. “You raced for eight days in a row?”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s nuts.”
    He drops his head back. “‘Race to the Sun’ and all that bullshit.”
    “I like it. It’s a nice name.”
    “You would, poetry girl.”
    “Poetry girl?” The lights flitting from the house stripe his face. It’s so dim out here. And quiet. It’s only us on the terrace. Everyone else is back inside.
    “Mm-hm.” He hums and sits forward, closer to me.
    I don’t know when, but I’ve stepped closer too.
    He brushes the back of his hand on my arm. “Sit with me?” His brown hair is fluffy and clean from a shower. I kind of, sort of, want to touch it.
    “You really are tired, aren’t you?” I ask. If he’s not so drunk, maybe he really meant it when he said I’m pretty. None of those models are here. He threw me flowers from the podium. He’s still the same guy who said he could “help me with my problem”, but this is nowhere near the post-that-conversation awkwardness I expected.
    I sit. “So, those doping tests.”
    He stills.
    “You passed?”
    “It takes weeks for them to process.” His bitter tone tinges with boredom. “Nothing like winning a race, and the first thing they do is check if you cheated.”
    He stretches out behind me, his legs pressing against my lower back. “So the race was just ‘okay’?”
    His thigh is touching me. He’s so hot against that one small piece of my back. I close my eyes and try to swallow, but my tongue is a fist in my throat. I nod.
    “Did you like watching me win?”
    I can still feel it across my skin, the aliveness, the tingling breath-binding suspense, as though I experienced a piece of what it felt like for him.
    “Yes,” I whisper.
    “Yes what?” He sits closer, his chest grazing my arm.
    “I liked watching you win.”
    He leans his head down. I think his nose, then his lips, touch my shoulder, but I can’t feel it through my coat. He’s this fever temptation at my back, and I want to sink into his heat. Shivers brush my spine.
    “Are you cold?” He rubs my back with his hand, his leg, and those I can feel through my coat.
    I can’t stop relaxing into him or my resulting sigh.
    “You got the stain out,” he says.
    “Huh?”
    “The wine. Your coat had red blotches at Mardi Gras. They’re gone.”
    “Oh. Yeah, I soaked it and scrubbed it.” I finger the gray outline that only I can see, and ramble, grateful to break the silence. “It’s still there a little when there’s light on it, but it’s pretty good. It took me a couple of tries.”
    His hand circles my back in warm strokes, and I inhale the calm it soothes into me.
    Goosebumps scatter across my skin. He’s so close now; if I turn my head, I’ll be looking at his mouth. My breath rushes in my ears and my lungs expand in my chest. I want to inhale and hold him inside me. I hadn’t remembered how nice it is to sit with a guy.
    He’s warm.
    He nuzzles my ear. “Sit back with me.”
    I stiffen.
    He whispers, “I’m too tired to be anything but a gentleman. You’re cold, let me warm you up.”
    I’m not cold. I’m nervous, not about him, about my reactions to him. So far I’ve sat here and let him touch me through my coat. I have yet to participate, really. If I give in to him, I might fall all the way. If I lie back with him, I might never want to get up.
    “I’ll probably fall asleep in a minute. I’m so tired.” His forehead droops on my shoulder.
    He is tired. He’s harmless.
    He nudges me back; I go with him.

Chapter Eleven
    My heart runs laps in my chest, and I’m certain the whole world can hear it beating.
    I keep my back to him. I’m too nervous to face him. He snakes an arm around my middle and pulls me against his chest.
    Relief entwines me, and any thought