“Zara,” he murmured against my lips, and his thumb touched my chin, angling my mouth open a bit more. His tongue swept inside my parted mouth.
I moaned against him, caught up in the sensations. God, Ty was an incredible kisser. His tongue slicked against my own, flicking and teasing. My entire body went wild with sensation, my ni**les hardening. I leaned into the kiss, curling up against him as he pulled me even closer to him. Under the table, his hand grasped one of my legs and pulled it over his own, his big hand clenching on the inside of my thigh, anchoring me in an intimate embrace.
He made a pleased sound in the back of his throat as I gave in to him, and the kiss grew deeper, Ty’s tongue thrusting into my mouth in a way that made me wet between my legs and hot all over.
“Zara,” he murmured again, breaking the kiss. “Let’s forget about dinner and go home.” His hand flexed on my inner thigh, reminding me precisely of where it was.
And I panicked. I pulled away from him, my eyes blinking wide open. “Wait.”
He gazed into my eyes, giving me that sleepy-eyed look that was making my stomach do somersaults. “What is it?”
“We can’t do this.”
He chuckled. “Well, not here, we can’t. But nothing’s stopping us from going home and picking up where we leave off.”
“No,” I breathed, and I hated that I had to say it. Hated. I put my hand on his chest. Oh god, he had such a good chest, too. “I mean we can’t do this. We can’t hook up. Not right now.”
Ty blinked at me, as if just now registering my protest. The hand—warm, delicious, big hand—fell away from my inner thigh. “Let me guess. Bad luck?”
It was all that, and more. “We’re just doing so well right now as a pair. I don’t want to change the dynamic and somehow screw up both of our chances.”
Because if we had sex and it was bad? Everything changed. Awkward afterward? Everything changed. Really really great and we wanted to spend the next week in bed? Everything changed. Or if one of us was bad and the other was good? Again, everything changed. No matter how you factored it, sex changed things, and we were in the middle of a competition. We needed to stay the course, not add another aspect to navigate.
He considered me for a long moment, and then gave a heavy sigh. “As much as I hate to say it, you’re right.”
Part of me was relieved that he wasn’t going to fight me on it. Part of me was also…disappointed. He gave in that easily? “I am?”
“Yeah. You and I are both athletes. We know from past experience how sex can f**k up a competitive angle.”
Well, one of us knew that, at least. “Exactly.”
Ty shifted away from me on the bench, and his mouth quirked into a wry smile. “I’m glad one of us has their head on straight, at least. I get it, Zara. We hang in there and keep things going as they are.”
“Right,” I said, hoping I sounded more convincing to him than to myself. “Staying in the competition and fixing our careers is the most important thing right now.”
He poured another sake shot for both of us, and then lifted his up. “To careers and second chances.”
I clinked mine to his and hoped I hadn’t just made another decision I’d regret for the rest of my life.
CHAPTER TEN
How am I getting along with Zara? Fuckin’ great. She’s pretty awesome. If it weren’t for this ice skating bullshit, I’d say I could hang out with her all the time and not get bored. — Ty Randall, Practice Interview, Ice Dancing with the Stars
A horrible buzzing sounded in my ear like a thousand mosquitos were dive-bombing my brain. It throbbed and ached, and I groaned, pulling a pillow over my head and wishing I could somehow stuff it into my cranium. The buzzing continued.
I fished around in the muddle of my blankets, looking for the source of the infernal buzzing that was making my head ache so badly. My fingers located my phone, set to vibrate, and I squinted at the screen, recoiling at how bright it was.
Naomi.
Ugh. Why was she calling so early? I clicked to answer, raising the phone to my ear, and licked my lips. My tongue felt like a paper towel. “Hello?”
“Wow. Did I just wake you up?” She sounded surprised.
“What’s up?” I asked sleepily, wondering why she was talking so loud. Why was everything so damn loud this morning?
“You tell me?” She chuckled, and the noise hurt. I pulled the phone away from my ear an inch, wincing. “I’m on time.”
I frowned into my pillow. “On time?” Something wasn’t registering.
“You know. Our lunchtime call? Check in with each other, see how our bestie is doing?”
I rubbed a hand on my face. “Lunchtime?” Horror set in, and I bolted upright in my bed, immediately regretting it. My head swam and my stomach lurched. I fought nausea and scanned the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was unplugged. Ugh. Had I done that last night? I held my phone away from my ear and hung up the call just to see the time pop up.
12:06 PM.
Shit!
Scrambling out of bed, I surged toward my closet…and immediately staggered to my knees. Oh god. Oh…that was not good. I was going to barf. My stomach heaved, and I curled into a ball, waiting it out.
The phone began to vibrate again, buzzing. It fell off the edge of the bed, and I crawled over to pick it up. Licking my lips, I answered again. “Hello?”
“Dude, you hung up on me! What the hell?”
Naomi again. “Oh. Sorry.” I put a hand to my forehead. “I’m not thinking so clearly right now.”
“Are you sick? Do you want me to call a doctor?”
“Not sick,” I told her. “Hung over.” My first one. Now I saw why I didn’t drink. I never wanted to again, either. I felt awful. And I’d missed a half a day of practice. Ty was going to kill me.
I peered at my shut door. Where was Ty? Why hadn’t he woken me up?
“Hung over? Holy crap, girl. You never drink! Hollywood’s definitely changing you.” Naomi sounded amused.
“No, it’s not. Ty and I went out drinking to celebrate how well we did last night. That’s all.”
“Oooh, a date?”
I thought back to the kiss—the hot, delicious, incredibly sinful kiss—and gave a long, gusty sigh. “Not really. We’re not dating. Can’t. Not during competition.”