She flicks a smile my way. “Maybe you bring out the best in him.”
“Wanna know something funny? He kinda brings out the good in me too. I didn’t realize how dumb and immature I was being with you until some stuff he said made me see it through an outsider’s eyes.”
“Huh.”
“And I’m a little impressed that even though he’s been trying to get into my pants—like, you’d think he’d just agree with anything I say—he’s stuck up for you multiple times.”
She slow-turns, all amused bewilderment. “No way.”
“Yes way. A hundred percent.”
There’s a long pause before she gives another, “Huh.” She hands me the steaming shot. “There. Now go have coffee with the guy you ‘barely tolerate,’ who definitely didn’t give you an adorable nickname.”
I take both cups and head for the bedroom, gearing up for what feels like it might be the first heartbreak of my life.
15
MELBOURNE
ALEXANDER
Any good journalist is an inveterate eavesdropper, and I’m no exception. I overheard Sage telling Priya that she’d prefer to slam her car into a wall than love someone. Normally, for me, hearing that would be a relief.
But as Badrick would say, “Life’s motorway is paved with irony.” Today I wake in the sublimely wrecked bed of a woman I want to follow around with the doggedness of an electoral register canvasser running after someone with a clipboard… only to find that I’m about to be tossed aside like one of Sage’s helmet visor tear-offs.
I’m basking in the assault of three showerheads when I hear the bedroom door close. I turn my face into the spray and massage with both hands. There’s a small click on the marble counter.
“Brought your espresso,” Sage tells me neutrally. “Pri made it.”
“Thanks, pet. Out in a mo.”
I wipe my eyes and look over my shoulder at her. She’s perched on the countertop, bare legs swinging, ankles tangling and unwinding. I can’t read her face—the set of that petal mouth is a half-smile, but her eyes are cautious.
“Unless you’d care to join me?” I add.
She necks the espresso in her own cup and hops off the counter, picking up her toothbrush. “No time, babes. Gotta be at the paddock in point-zipshit minutes.”
She proceeds to clean her teeth, all the while bobbing her knees and humming what sounds to be the melody to Belle and Sebastian’s “Step into My Office, Baby.” She spits in the washbasin and rinses, and an image comes to mind of what I’d like to see her doing with that lovely mouth. She leans to wipe her face on a crumpled towel—the en suite is as much a tip as the bedroom—then turns my way with a pirouette that makes her foot squeak on the tile floor.
“How was the record?” she asks.
I lift an eyebrow. “Did we set a record last night? Certainly felt like it.” Shutting the water off, I pluck a folded towel from the nearby stack.
“No, uh… the internet auction thing. In Bahrain. You spent like thirty grand on some record with four songs. Were they worth it?”
“Absolutely.” I pull the towel over my head and scrub at my hair to dry it off. “But it wasn’t the best thing to happen to me that night.” Uncovering myself, I meet her eye. “That would be the moment you came and sat beside me on the same chair. Or possibly when I ate cake off a fork that had been in your mouth.”
She pokes her tongue out. “Quit trying to charm me. You know you don’t mean it.”
“I do mean it. I suspect it’s more the case thatyoudon’t.”
Her brow furrows and she turns away, grabbing a hairbrush and yanking it through her aqua tresses. “Don’t make this weird just to amuse yourself. I’m not into dating, and neither are you. I heard from Natalia Evans that around theARJoffices you brag about having a ‘three-shag limit.’” She drops the brush with a clatter and twists her hair on top of her head, trapping the haystack mess in an elastic band.
I wrap the towel around my waist and secure it, then walk over and stand behind Sage. Her arms lower slowly from her head as we watch each other in the mirror. I skim my hands over her shoulders, and the desire to kiss the nape of her exposed neck is intense. It doesn’t escape me that her nipples tighten into rosy pebbles as my touch explores her.
“Two out of three, so we’re owed another round.” One of my hands roams to the base of her throat and settles there in a reverent V, framing her, and the other glides down to breach the waist of the boxer shorts she’s wearing.
Obviously I crave her. For nearly two years now—since she was a reserve driver for Harrier—I’ve savored every sip of news about her, gone alert as a hawk at any sighting of her around the paddock. But atypically to my experience, the consummation last night has only made me want her more.
