“Why do you think so?” she purrs in my arms.
“You smirk at the champagne I ordered. You’re used to better.”
“I’m French.” She grins. “Of course, I’m used to better.”
“However…” Her hand finds my dick under the sheet. “I’ve never tasted better than this…”
I wake up with a jolt.
My chest is slick with sweat. My dick is hard.
For half a second, I don’t know where I am.
Then the ceiling comes into focus. A hotel room. Curtains pulled tight.
Across the room, Martin snores in his bed, oblivious.
I drag the blanket over myself and swing my legs off the mattress, running a hand through my hair with a quiet sigh.
That wasn’t just a dream.
I was drunk that night. Woke up afterward half-convinced the mysterious French girl had never existed. But she did. Not justher. Everything that happened between us remained as sharp as my ski edges.
The night didn’t end with one round. We fucked like rabbits until I lost track of time.
The memory curls my lips into a bemused smile before I can stop it.
I don’t know her name. She just keeps appearing in my life, again and again, haunting my sleep. An ice queen who loses all restraint once I pin her to the bed. I’ve never had a woman so wild. She clung to me like it was the last thing she’d ever do, like my cock was her lifeline.
And then she vanished.
I passed out — from alcohol, racing, and too much sex — and when I woke up, she was already gone. No lace panties with a mysterious note. No number in my phone. Fuck, not even a lipstick mark on the wineglass.
As if she meant to disappear.
For half a year, I managed to forget that Olympic night. Never told anyone. Buried it deep so it wouldn’t cost me focus.
So why now?
Why does she crawl back into my dreams here in Sölden, with the season about to start? With the weight of a nation on my shoulders and Thomas at home, injured?
Thomas was the guy whose shadow I chased last season, the role model of my junior years. Now I’m the one filling the hole he left.
This year is a straight shot: Sölden to open the circus, then North American speed weeks, Wengen and Kitz for the legends, and World Cup Finals in spring if I don’t screw it up. Four months of ice, planes, and people waiting to see if I’m the next Thomas or just a nice little hype bubble.
I take a cold shower. It fires me up as it always does and drives all memories out of my system. My skin gets the reddish haze cold exposure gives it, and I cover it with my snuggly soft hoodie.
By the time I step into the hotel dining room, I’m fully awake.
Breakfast smells like perfect coffee, flawless pastries, and ambition nobody dares to name before 9 a.m. Heads down, jaws working, athletes eating like fuel tanks with legs. I load my tray with eggs, bread, fruit I won’t eat, and coffee strong enough to wake the dead, then drop into my usual seat with Lukas.
“You look like shit,” he says pleasantly, already halfway through his third croissant.
“Thank you. I try to stay relatable.”
He snorts into his mug. “Season jitters?”
“Existential dread. Or maybe I just need coffee.”
