push off. All you need to do is to sit still and pedal along with me, okay? And stop pedaling if I stop.’ Throwing a glance over his shoulder, he saw Bryony clinging onto the handlebars, eyes wide with terror.
Anything but okay, then.
‘Yep.’ She gave a wobbly nod and threw a desperate grimace at Cressy. ‘Great.’
Lying through those perfect teeth and hyper-ventilating too. She was about to get a whole lot more than she bargained for. For a nanosecond he considered stopping, taking pity and letting her off, but the caveman in him overrode that. Now that he’d got her jammed in behind him, he was loath to let her go. True, she might turn into a complete liability on the back, but some strange part of him was relishing the thought of spending a half-hour with his buttocks thrust between her hands on the bars, the two of them rushing through the air together. Despite the fact it was barely eleven in the morning, he felt a sudden compulsion to forget all about the race and pedal off into the sunset, dragging her behind him. It was only a fun bike race after all. Fifty tandems racing ten miles along a road, a linear course rather than laps, and judging by the fancy dress he’d already seen charging round the streets, most of the entries were about the fund-raising, not the speed. But an overwhelming desire to go AWOL, taking the Cherry Bomb with him? Weird, or what? He put it down to too much caffeine.
‘We’ll have a trial run. A couple of turns around the block, see how it goes.’ Laughing over his shoulder in a desperate bid to block out the sunset image, he decided to join in the lie-fest. ‘You’ll be fine.’
As he pushed off, a crescendo of yelps from Bryony rose over the cheers and wolf-whistles of the small crowd. Too bad. He powered on the pedals, clicked up the gears.
‘Go Bryony!’ Cressy’s yell followed them across the car park. ‘You’re gonna have the ride of your life!’
At least someone thought so.
Three swift laps round the block later and she was shaping up better than he thought possible. His barked instructions to sit still and move with him had worked. Now they were coasting down a quiet residential road lined with elegant terraced houses, the screaming had stopped, she’d lost the attitude and her gasps had subsided into small moans. Although this was good news for his aching ears, it was pretty disastrous for his good-behaviour policy, given the way the small mews that she was emitting now sounded sexual enough to drive his libido wild.
He tried to close his ears to the distracting noises behind him. She needed to man up. If she couldn’t take the heat, she shouldn’t go in the damn kitchen in the first place. That was better. Quiet was good. Although maybe she was too quiet.
‘Are you alright back there?’
The reply, when it finally came it was more of a whisper than a groan. ‘No…’
Not sounding good. One glance over his shoulder confirmed that she was green.
Damn. He’d known this was a ridiculous idea; it was his fault, he should never have set off. Just another example of the disaster area his life had become.
Bad decisions, bad calls. When did it all go so wrong? And why did bad follow bad like a toppling cascade of dominos, making it seem like all the good years had been down to luck and nothing else? Yanking the bike into the side of the road, the tourniquet tightened around his gut again as he watched her struggle onto the pavement.
‘Why didn’t you say something?’ That sounded way harsher than he intended no doubt as his own self-recrimination spilled over.
He caught the flare of surprise in her eyes as she sank down to squat on the kerb. With a big shrug, she shook her head. Gulping for air, she brushed a hand across her cheek and a slash of tears streaked the dust. Oh, shit, she was crying. The woman who seemed so goddamn sure of herself, and he’d broken her in three blocks. She swallowed again, rubbed her nose and sniffed hard.
‘Something wrong?’ May be best to act like he hadn’t seen the tears.
‘I don’t want to wimp out.’ Her bottom lip juddered. ‘But I feel sick.’
Unbelievable. ‘Not another one.’ He let out a slow breath. What was with everyone today?
‘I’m too scared to look forward, so I look sideways, but then everything flashes past and makes me dizzy.’
Pulling herself together might help. ‘You need to look forwards over my shoulder.’
She grimaced. ‘It’s all so fast.’
Now he’d heard it all.
‘The speed’s the best bit. The exhilaration. It’s the closest to flying you’ll get without wings.’
‘I don’t do thrills. Or flying.’ She chomped hard on her thumbnail and gave what looked like an involuntary judder. ‘I hate sledging, I refuse to ski, going downhill fast is my worst nightmare, because I hate not being in control.’
A control-freak to boot. Today just got better and better. ‘Great. You’ll just have to postpone your enjoyment until you get back in your armchair then.’
‘I thought that with the flat course it would be okay.’ Her eyes staring up at him were gut-wrenchingly blue.
‘Flat? Whoever told you that?’ Someone clearly forgot to mention the gentle ten mile climb to a big final descent and he wasn’t about to enlighten her. Biting back his exasperation, he pulled his water bottle out of its cage on the bike frame and thrust it towards her. ‘Have a drink, it might make you feel better.’
The shake of her hand as she grasped it sent an unexpected jolt of sympathy through him, making him want to reach out, rub a comforting palm across her back. Yet he held back, firmly, as he watched her lips close around the bottle top. Chasing sunsets? Reaching out? Not him. Not in this life. Even though the vulnerability of her neck as she tipped her head back to drink sent his stomach crashing to hit the deck. She took a long draft, then pulled her legs up and tucked her chin onto her knees.
‘Too many raspberry muffins, maybe.’ Flicking a strand of hair away from her mouth, she gave a rueful grimace and tapped the drinking bottle with one, perfectly manicured, russet nail.
Polished nails and tandems? He should have known better. ‘You don’t have to do this. We can walk back; it’s only round the corner.’
She flew back at him in an instant. ‘There’s no way I’m giving up.’
So, that put him in his place. Again.
‘Okay. We’ll give it one more go. I’ll raise the saddle, so you’ll sit higher. This time you face forwards and we’ll take it steady. You only have to say the word and we’ll stop.’
Hopefully, that would placate her.
‘You don’t understand.’ She fixated on him with narrowed eyes as she unfolded her legs, rubbed her nose again and clambered to her feet. ‘Giving up isn’t what I do.’
Got that now. And staring down your top isn’t what he did, except the way she was standing, tugging at her jacket. He couldn’t help but notice. He swallowed hard, trying to dispel all thoughts of rolling his tongue around what had snagged his attention; but he failed, just as he failed to avert his eyes.
‘Are you cold?’ That was enough to break the spell.
‘Oh, drat.’ She flung her arms around herself, and, dammit, he lost the view of what had the potential to be the most promising set of nipples in the history of the world. Although, on the plus side, he gained an insight into how fast a blush could splash across a girls cheeks – also sexy as hell. Somehow he didn’t have her down as a blusher, but her grimace was telling him she was dying here.
‘Here. Take this.’ In a flash he’d unzipped and flung his own jacket