High Heels & Bicycle Wheels

Contact alert. Nudging him with her shoulder as she stiffened. All huffy, then, with a shake of accusing.

‘Which wouldn’t have happened if you’d put on the brakes.’ Judging by the shrill, he’d caught her by surprise there.

He returned her nudge, just for badness, and saw the whites of her eyes for his trouble. ‘We won. Winning’s what matters every time, even if it was just for fun today and hopefully we raised lots of money for good causes too. But asking a competition cyclist to brake on a final hill… Seriously, it’s not going to happen.’ Leaning back, he gave a low chuckle. ‘It’s like asking a tiger to turn vegetarian.’

Wow. Great view down her top from this angle. Trying to damp down his grin of appreciation for that and simultaneously ensure that his perving would not be discernible on camera. Good boys didn’t gawp at boobs, full stop, even if the sight was unavoidable. And she was still wearing his jacket. He made an instant mental note to leave it that way.

‘So Jackson, you’ve had huge success over the years – what’s your secret? How come you’re such a winner?’

A bit deep for a Saturday lunchtime in a car park. He blinked away the view of the tender skin at the top of her cleavage and focused on the mic instead as he searched for a suitably swift retort to shut up Ms Sure-of-herself.

‘I always get inside my opponent’s head, it’s a great advantage to be a mind reader.’ He tilted his head to see how she took that one, cocked a challenging eyebrow at her. For a first timer she was holding her own alarmingly well.

‘On top of all your other gifts you’re a mind reader too?’ Her voice went up an octave and she sent him a disbelieving smirk.

‘Yep.’ He felt a grin spreading slowly across his face. It was rare to find an interviewer so delightfully…how could he put it…reactive. That had to be the rookie coming out and he couldn’t resist the fun.

‘Okay! Great! So prove it then, tell me what am I thinking now?’

She pursed her lips determinedly, and dragged in a huge breath that brought her boobs at least six inches closer to his face, making the view he couldn’t resist returning to even better. Hmmm, soft flesh. Delicious, tantalising, even if it did belong to someone, who, now she’d recovered herself, obviously took pleasure in pushing him.

Half-closing his eyes, he slid out his reply. ‘At a guess I’d say you’re thinking I’m hot…’ Holding back his smile, he waited in anticipation, and wondered how far as a good-boy he could push this. Interview boundaries were new territory for him – his whole career as a bad-boy he’d relished in saying exactly what he pleased and damn the consequences. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure he could recall an interview where there’d been underlying smoulder like this.

Whatever reaction he’d been hoping for, he hadn’t counted on traffic-light-red cheeks, or the spluttering into her hair.

‘Wwww…wh…what?’

He caught the panic in her eyes as she opened and closed her mouth, doing a pretty full-on impersonation of a goldfish.

Holy crap, he’d meant to needle, not cause the woman to do a total stall on camera. Who’d have thought the shiny armour plating of Ms Bossy would have been so quick to crack? He’d had his fun, but he wasn’t completely heartless.

He swooped in to rescue her. ‘Easy assumption, bit of a cheat, given most women find me irresistible.’ As she was still picking her jaw up off the floor, he bashed on. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, I’ve yet to meet a woman who doesn’t fancy the pants off me!’

‘Not at all arrogant, are you?’

He breathed a sigh of relief as she came back at him and resumed staring down her top. Opponents were way more fun when they were fighting on all cylinders. And what he’d thought was smoulder between them was fast escalating into full blown fire.

‘Hey, cheeky!’ One swift smack on his arm from her sent his grin wild. That had to be for the inappropriate sight line, given the way she was dead-eyeing him.

‘So Tiger, are they going to let you out of your cage any time soon? Any plans to return to racing?’

And all credit to her for the way she bounced back from the brink with that blinder of a question he had no intention of answering. Diversionary tactics were called for. He fired up the famous charm. He had no idea at what point exactly this interview had morphed from plain Q&A to out and out flirt, but somewhere along the line it had. And to hell with it; he was going in for the squeeze now, and good-boy was just going to have to suffer the consequences.

‘Only if you promise to come with me.’ Stretching an arm around her waist, he squished her hard against him, reeling at the way she smelled like heaven as he struggled to disentangle her hair strands from his chin stubble. However, she was weirdly delighted that she’d pushed him into grabbing her.

‘Fabulous offer, Jackson. But you can dream on.’ With a toss of her head, she shot him a wicked smile. ‘Unless you discover the brake lever, that is.’

Nice retort. She’d had him for breakfast and now she was spitting him out. Not sure if the pain of being publicly humiliated by Candyfloss-on-a-stick was sweet or not. But regardless of the push of those delectable breasts against his chest, he was wrapping this up, and fast.

‘Great, well thanks for the ride, Bryony. Screaming aside, you were awesome. We make a great team.’ Giving her one last nudge with his hip, he tipped her a lazy wink. Stuck around long enough to watch the pink flow into her cheeks.

Then quick handshakes all round to the rest of the gawping crew.

And he was getting the hell out of here, before good-boy suffered any more collateral damage.

Chapter 6 (#ud846b7ad-119b-5645-a760-22801099d197)

‘Hey. Without the pink shorts, I almost didn’t recognise you.’

Bryony knew it wasn’t true. Jackson had clocked her as soon as she strode into the empty hotel bar three hours later, eleven miles up the coast. He’d watched every step of her high-heeled progress across the long room, almost as if he’d been expecting her.

‘Pleased I’ve found you. Cressy remembered she’d booked you in here and your car was the final giveaway. I’ve brought your jacket.’ She held it out to him as if to justify her arrival, now strangely reluctant to let it go. ‘I’m the only one staying on tonight; the rest of the crew have gone back to London. I’m off to Northumberland in the morning, so I got the delivery job.’

Why the heck was she making the frantic excuses? Cressy and her ‘go-geddim’ cries obviously had her running scared. Running guilty more like, given she’d not exactly been mortified when he’d driven off leaving her wearing his top, and not minding at all that she had to leave the elegant streets of Scarborough and wind all the way to this isolated hotel that stood proud and lonely on the wind-raked cliff top. Just because he was the hunk of the century. For one more glimpse of his decorative awesomeness. Nothing to do with the way he’d sent white-hot shivers through her whole body when he’d grabbed her. And totally excused by the fact that she never dated, so she really couldn’t be interested. Could she? She shot him her best pro smile, just to prove this was work and nothing more.

‘Miss Organization. Always last to finish. Why does that not surprise me?’ Jackson climbed off his bar stool, and pulled out another for her. ‘Might as well have a drink now you’re here? Bit of a trek, but worth it for the seclusion. And best of all, no press – apart from you, that is.’

The lazy smile he slid her unleashed a single butterfly in her chest. Then another. Designer-threadbare jeans never looked so good on a guy. Impossible not to lock onto the bulge of his groin as he pushed up onto the bar stool again. Then the whole damn flock were loose. Five hundred butterflies. Choking her, with their frantic fluttering.

‘The views here are awesome too.’ Hauling her attention upwards, with that dark grin of his. ‘Once you look out to sea that is.’

Loving the way his cheeks creased when he smiled, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, that tan that was way deeper than any British summer gave. Just for a minute she soaked up the whole charisma of this super-athletic guy who was entirely at one with being head-and-shoulders above his nearest rivals. The whole superhuman quality was disturbingly familiar, reminding her an awful lot of her older and supremely successful brother, Brando. And, yes, Jackson had picked her up there. Again. But this time she wasn’t playing.

‘I’m sure the views are spectacular.’ Determined to keep this professional, not risking an acknowledgement of where her eyes had landed, or that he’d caught her out. Again. ‘So what can I get you to drink, Jackson?’

His eyebrows raised in surprise at the ease of her offer. ‘Thanks, but it’s my shout. The beer is good and cold, if you like that.’

‘Beer it is then.’

A drink with the boys. No harm in that. She did it all the time. Didn’t usually make her heart thump this badly though. As the barman pushed beer and a glass across the bar, she waved away the glass, picking up the bottle. They were two colleagues, sitting, with their elbows and their bottles on the bar. Nothing more.

‘I admire you for what you did today.’ He shot her a sideways glance. ‘It took guts.’

She shrugged, knowing he didn’t have to say this. ‘I don’t usually make that much fuss.’

‘Even so – and before you jump on me, I’m not being patronising – you did really well.’ The gravel in his voice sent a twang through her chest, his lips curving deliciously as he played mischievously. ‘Backside sore?’

Not holding back, then, although there was something simultaneously charming and disarming about his directness.

‘It could be worse.’ She grimaced. Not that she should be discussing it with him, although talking like this made the drink more matter of fact. Somehow safer. Like she was simply one of the guys. Boy-talk was good.

He swirled his beer round in the bottle, angled his head and studied her through narrowed eyes.

Dragging in a breath, she stood up to his scrutiny.

‘And I like that you aren’t throwing yourself at me.’

Wow. That came out of left field. Tag-line for Jackson Gale: expect the unexpected.