Racing to You: Racing Love, Book 1 (10 page)

“‘Not a big fan’? Seriously, Aurelia. Why not just tell the truth? No one who’s ever had an orgasm would say that. Ever.”

“Get off me.” I shove him, re-adjust my shirt, and stand up.

His hands and mouth fall open in exasperation. “Don’t leave. This is ridiculous.”

“Of course it’s ridiculous. You laugh at me when I lie. How much more would you have laughed if I told you the truth?”

“I wouldn’t have. I laughed because you lied.”

“Fine then. You want the truth?” My voice rises in volume until I’m shouting, but I don’t care. I’m humiliated, and if I don’t shout, I’ll cry. “I’ve tried jerking off and it never works, okay? Happy? I’ve never had an orgasm!”

The hallway door opens, and Gary appears. “I’m sorry to interrupt this very fascinating conversation.” His voice stutters with restrained humor. “But can you please be quiet?”

“Oh my God!” As if it wasn’t bad enough having to tell Terrence.

The front door leaps open. “What’s the fight about?” Ralph steps inside, followed by the two Spaniards, all three dressed in riding gear. “Did she say what I think she said about orgasms?”

“Ah!” I scream. Holding my breath to keep from crying, ignoring the shouts from Terrence, Ralph, and someone else, I stomp out the door and race away.

I don’t look back. I’ll die of mortification. As if it wasn’t bad enough being orgasm-less. Now the whole world knows.

Chapter Eighteen

In my apartment, I spend most of the evening staring at the stack of homework assignments. I slog through them, seeing his face every time I mark a page. His smiles, his amber eyes. Me shouting,
I’ve never had an orgasm!

“Ugh!” I kick my feet on my bed, two-year-old style.

My despair and powerlessness over my orgasm-less state pools like lava in my stomach. I refuse to be a helpless girl who needs a man to “show her sexual pleasure”. I should be able to figure out this problem on my own.

I lie back on my bed, discard my pants, and try everything to imitate a penis with my fingers to make my vagina do something, feel something, react in any way.

I’m sore by the time I’m done, never coming close to feeling as good as when Terrence rubs me through his jeans.

This pretension that there are more important things in life and therefore orgasms must not be that great—I’m done with it. I want a damn orgasm!

I want Terrence between my legs. So fucking bad.

I wish I hadn’t ruined things with him.

* * * * *

In the morning, descending the stairs from my studio is a supernatural feat. My muscles are inflamed from the bike ride yesterday, but I’m feeling things in places I didn’t know I had muscles. My body feels—awake. Kind of like when I woke this morning and found my hand dipped between my legs.

It’s as though I was dreaming about wanting him in my sleep. It better not be possible to have an orgasm during sleep and not remember.

I should have told him the truth the first time he asked. Maybe he wouldn’t have judged me for it. I’ll never know. I can still hear him laughing.

Focusing on teaching is as hard as ever. I want this assistantship to be over. The urge to go home is so strong I check my mailbox twice. Still no response to my Fulbright request.

More than once I ask a student to repeat an answer. I can’t always blame it on their mispronunciation; they can tell I’m distracted.

Are you always like this?

No
.

Just for me?

I scratch my forehead. I want him so badly it hurts. But I ruined it.

I call on a student whose hand is raised. “Yes?”

“Is English your premier language?” A tittering goes through the class, and I blush. I deserve it for the little attention I’m paying them.

It doesn’t excuse the insult. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m thinking of Terrence or because I’m tired of their remarks, but for whatever reason, I’ve had enough.

I take a book and smack it on the desktop with a loud
crack
. Their tittering stops.

I begin by correcting her English. “You mean ‘first’. ‘Is English my
first
language?’” My chin lifts. “Do you realize how racist that is?”

“
Non
—
je
—er—”

Teachable moment. I loathe confrontation. My usual habit, to say something defensive and walk out, does not work in a classroom.

I explain the term “racism”, translating it. I take a piece of chalk and write across the board: ASSUME.

“There’s a joke about this word in English. When you
assume
something, you make an ASS out of U and ME.” I translate “ass” in its formal and slang terms.

They’re quiet, and for the first time since I began teaching four months ago, I feel in charge of my classroom. They’re waiting for my next words.

“When you assume things about people based on skin color and facial features, you’re judging based on looks. It hurts. And it will make others think less of you.”

The student says, “
Je n’aurais jamais
—”

I give her a disciplinary stare. She’s both talking back to me and speaking in French; neither is appropriate in my classroom. “If I were a white American, you would
never
ask me if English was my first language.”

My raised voice echoes in the sparse classroom. I lean a hip against my desk, forcing myself into a relaxed stance. “I understand you wanting to know if I speak any languages besides English, especially since I told you my parents are Filipino. But there are more appropriate ways for you to ask me that question.”

I encourage the student to try again. With some help, she manages, “Do you speak another language besides French or English?”

I respond politely, “I understand the Filipino language of Tagalog because my parents speak it, but I don’t speak it myself. I am, however, fairly fluent in Italian and my Spanish isn’t too bad either.”

Taking inspiration from my giant word “ASSUME”, I circle it and create a Venn diagram. “What other things are you tempted to assume when you meet a person of a different race from yourself?”

By the end, the discussion turns into full class participation, in English of course. Lesson plans zip through my head. I have an entire unit on the culture of racism in America: the history, the melting pot, modern immigration debates, and how it’s different in France.

At the end of the school day, I’m empowered, and the need to tell someone is stronger than my urge to check my mailbox again.

The only person I want to tell is Terrence. Regret coils in my chest.

It’s possible he’ll turn me away, but I want to see him, more than I care about my easily bruised ego.

There’s something I want to do first, though.

Chapter Nineteen

I close my eyes and breathe, forcing my lurching heart to normal speed. I’ve finished my errand, and I’d rather not have a heart attack before I even see him.

I walk to Terrence’s building with my shoulders back and my chin lifted. It’s mid-afternoon. He finishes his training ride about now.

Standing outside his door with my finger poised over the buzzer, I choke.

I turn in a circle in the alley. One of his teammates might answer the door. I’m going to be the orgasm-less girl showing up on the twice-a-month guy’s doorstep begging him to get me off.

I’m here to tell him about my day, and I brought something for him. Though if I’m honest, those two things are only the excuse for what I’m really here for: I want his hands all over me again and again.

He won’t want me here. He said yesterday, he doesn’t have time for me with his cycling.

“Aurelia?” Terrence’s voice, behind me.

He stops his bike and swings his leg over to the ground. There’s anxiety in his eyes. “Are you okay?” He takes off his helmet.

His hair is matted with sweat and his face is flushed from riding, his lips parted and lush, his jersey unzipped down his chest, his lower legs bare in his shorts.

God, his legs. His thighs bulge around his knees when he holds them straight, his calves sculpted around his shins. The skin is so smooth it shines, like it’s covered in oil. His legs are completely hairless.

“Do you shave your legs?” My gaze snaps to his face.

His mouth bends in a seductive curve. “Yes.”

“Why?” I don’t know any guys who shave their legs.

“Because it looks good and women like it. Why else?”

He’s flirting with me. My mouth gapes like a fish. “Is that like a Euro thing? Do French guys do that?”

“Don’t you like it?” he asks, his voice lighter. His lip quivers, until he bites it.

He’s about to laugh at me. I stare back at his glistening calves. Yeah. It’s pretty hot. They’re amazing legs.

He wheels his bike up next to me and kisses my cheek. “Oh, Lia, your face is priceless.” He’s made me a little breathless already. “All cyclists shave their legs,” he says. “It’s a thing. For aerodynamics, and it keeps things clean. The grime from the road cuts the skin a lot. Bandages and hair don’t mix.”

“Oh.” I’m strangely disappointed. As appalling as it would be for him to shave them for vanity, it made me feel less guilty for staring at them.

“But it does make them look good, doesn’t it?” He waggles his eyebrows.

“Maybe.” I smile.

“I’m glad you’re here.” He searches my eyes. “I thought about coming to see you this morning, but figured you should probably teach today.”

“Yeah.” I bounce on my toes, excited to tell him about my day. “I taught my students about racism today.”

“You did?”

“Yup. I taught them their assuming was making an ‘ass’ of ‘you’ and ‘me’.”

“Cool.” He holds up his hand and I high-five him. “I wish I could have seen that.”

“Yeah. I was pretty great.”

He leans on his handlebars. “Hot teacher in action.”

I blush in a good way, then remember the other reason I came. “I got a cell phone.” I hold up the little archaic flip device.

“Nuh-uh.” He reaches out to touch it, flipping it open. “I haven’t seen one of these in years.”

“So…” I realize how presumptuous this is, but I force myself to say it. “You can call me, if you want.”

“Really?” His pleased expression makes me glad I presumed.

“I got it just for you.”

“Now who’s teasing me?”

I love how he makes me smile. I missed him today.

“You want to come up?” he asks, expectant and hopeful. “I’m going to make myself a smoothie. You can have one.”

His easy enthusiasm over the smallest things is impossible to resist. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Come on.” He turns to open the door.

“Wait, are your roommates home?”

“I think so, why?”

“Oh. I—well—then I think I’d rather stay down here.” I shift on my feet. I’m not going up there if I have to see them again. The mortification is more than I can bear.

“Why?” His question is light, but he really doesn’t understand.

“After last time, I’d really rather not.” I have trouble looking at him while I say it. “You know, after what I said—yesterday.”

His eyes twinkle. He finds it funny. “You came over anyway.”

“You’re supposed to be resting. I’m in your way.”

“I’m making time for you, remember?”

“I just wanted to give you my new number.”

“That’s it? Were you going to write it on a piece of paper, leave it in the mail slot, and run?”

“Uh…” I hadn’t thought about this part. How do I say,
I need you to get me off, because I can’t do it myself?

My embarrassment escalates until I whimper in my throat. I want to scurry around him and run back into the street. He leans his bike against the wall, leaving his helmet on the seat, and walks to me.

“Hey.” He peels off his glove and cups my cheek. “It’s okay. Stop being embarrassed, please.” His thumb caresses me. “I promise to stop teasing you. You look like a mouse ready to run and hide.”

“Okay,” I whisper. I love his hand on my face. I still can’t look in his eyes, but I breathe and lose the urge to run.

He kisses my forehead, his breath hot against my skin. He smells like sweat and man and bike. I inhale a large dose. He lays kisses across my nose, then on my mouth. His lips are supple and hot. He sucks my lower lip between his, and I lean into him, already growing warm in low places.

He whispers, “Is there something you want from me?”

Just his words make my stomach tighten. I have to close my eyes and concentrate to keep my knees straight. “Yes.”

He kisses me again. “Tell me.”

“I want one.”

“One what?”

“An orgasm.” My voice melts around the words and I hear sex in my voice, low and rasping.

He groans in his chest. “Come up. I’ll run you straight to my room. I won’t let them see you.”

I’m a little dizzy, with him, so I ignore my leftover protests. “Okay.”

He pulls open the door, lifts his bike overhead in one hand, and reaches for my hand with the other. Pulling me up the two flights of stairs, he squeezes my fingers as though he’s afraid to let go, afraid I might change my mind.

“If they say anything to you,” he says, “I’ll kick their asses.”

My awkwardness dissipates beneath his excitement.

He leaves his bike in the hall and charges us into the apartment, barely saying hi to his roommates in the kitchen. I duck my head and hustle after him.

He pulls me down the hall into his bedroom and shuts the door. He rummages around the room, dirty clothes and cycling magazines everywhere. He piles the clothes, shoves them into a little closet and forces the door closed.

The room is small with only a single bed, a narrow window, and a dresser with a laptop on it. He kicks magazines and bike gear—shoes, jackets, gloves—under his bed, tosses the covers onto it, and pats them down to look semi-orderly.

For a sixty-second clean-up job, it’s pretty good.

“I promise to do laundry and make my bed before you come over next time,” he says, digging into his dresser for clean clothes. “I’m going to shower lightning fast, make smoothies, and I’ll be back, okay?”

“Okay.”

He smacks a kiss on my cheek and points to a chair in the corner. “Sit,” he says, and closes the door behind him.

The whirlwind he leaves behind makes me giddy and nervous. Posters cover his walls, some of cyclists I don’t know, one with giant letters saying “Milano-San Remo”. I know where that is in Italy. San Remo is across the border. If he races there, maybe I could go. I haven’t been into Italy, and I really want to go. I haven’t been brave enough to travel Europe by myself yet. Getting from the States to Nice was hard enough. No matter how fluent I am, European transit systems scare me.

I take off my coat and sit in the worn upholstered chair in the corner. My view is full of his empty bed. Though it’s small, it looms in the room. My neck itches. I didn’t think this plan through. My body may be asking for it, but I’m not ready for the full deal. I’ve known him less than two weeks. I hope that’s not what he’s expecting.

Of course that’s what he’s expecting. I begged him for it in the alley.

Finally, the door clicks open, and he rushes inside. Holding glasses of smoothies, he shuts the door with his hip. He’s breathing fast and wet hair clings to his ears. His jeans and T-shirt hide none of the muscles that I swear are still steaming.

I’m in trouble. If he does want sex, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop myself this time.