Page 37 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

She sat down on the bench and began pulling her skates from her strong muscled legs.

“Are you in a hurry?” she asked, lifting her head toward Alisa.

Alisa stopped immediately, as though Tora’s voice had startled her.

“Already without the medal?” Tora asked, glancing toward where Alisa had stuffed the bronze into her bag. “Why do you hate bronze so much?”

She finally pulled off one skate and leaned back against the cold wall, still breathing a little too quickly.

Had she really run all the way after me just to ask that?

“Bronze isn’t gold.”

“Well, yes, I know that, I’m not stupid,” Tora answered with a grin.

At once she saw the hurt and anger flicker in Alisa’s eyes. Alisa looked furious and upset and embarrassed all at once, and somehow all of it was written openly across her face. Tora still could not get used to it.

Slavic faces always seemed so difficult for her to read, cold and almost expressionless one second, and then suddenly everything was there at once. She had never understood how someone could live without smiling all the time.

How could you not smile when the sun appeared after days of gray weather?

How could you not smile when there were so few warm days in the year?

“Listen, I have to go,” Alisa muttered.

“Where?”

Tora stood up and walked toward her in only her socks.

Alisa lowered her head.

She did not know what to answer, because she did not actually have anywhere to go.

The championship was over. She could finally rest. She was not planning to celebrate bronze, and Pike had made it painfully obvious with that disappointed look that she did not want to see either of them today. They would talk tomorrow.

“Nowhere…” Alisa said quietly. “I don’t need to go anywhere. I just want to get out of here as fast as possible.”

“Then can I invite you to my hotel room?”

Alisa looked up sharply.

“You want me to go with you straight from the arena to your hotel room? Are you insane?”

“What’s the matter?” Tora frowned as she took things out of her gym bag, she asked a simple question, noticing the way Alisa seemed to be in a daze, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink.

She watched as Alisa’s gaze followed the movement of her hands, as she shook out her hair, the long blond locks cascading over her shoulders. Tora’s lips curved into a slow, sultry smile as she caught Alisa staring.

“Can you help me, babe?” Tora asked. She had already loosened her hair completely, the silky strands spilling down her back.

With deft fingers, Alisa unbuttoned the top of Tora’s dress, the fabric parting to reveal the creamy swell of her breasts. Tora turned to face Alisa, holding the dress closed at her chest with trembling hands. Alisa swallowed hard, her heart pounding in her throat.

Tora let the dress slip from her fingers, the garment pooling at her feet. She stood before Alisa, completely bare. Tora’s breasts were full and high, the rosy peaks hardening under Alisa’s gaze.

Tora’s smile widened as she watched Alisa’s tongue dart out to wet her lips. “See something you like?” she purred, taking a step closer to Alisa, her hips swaying with a feline grace. “Because I certainly do…”

“We… we might get caught and…” Alisa became worried and began to stumble over her words, glancing around the locker room.

“It’s just us and the Japanese girl, and she’s still in the interview. Their first silver medal at the international competition, after all.”