Page 35 of Head Over Wheels

‘If you want to… sit down—’

I just glared at him in response. But instead of looking away from the awkward display of emotion, he studied me – too closely.

‘Just to be clear,’ he began, in a tone that gave me goosebumps and reminded me of isolated Spanish B&Bs with tinyshowers. ‘I would love nothing more than to tackle you onto the bed and touch you until you definitely get lucky again.’

The tingles whooshed to my hairline and, as much as my pride protested, the weakness in my legs was louder. I groped for the armchair by the desk and sank into it.

‘But not for superstition.’

‘You’re the superstitious one!’ I insisted. ‘I’m just desperate.’

‘Exactly,’ he said with a wince.

‘Not that—’ I released a frustrated breath. ‘Desperate for something to go right – not so desperate that I’m settling for you. God, have some self-respect! I thought everyone in this sport was supposed to be on an ego trip.’

‘Not farm boy Walloons, I’m afraid,’ he deadpanned, but I was so all over the place that I didn’t laugh. ‘I have enough self-respect that we can’t do the thing right now unless you want a very unimpressive performance and too much Vaseline.’

He dropped earnestly down in front of me and my throat was tight again – my stomach was tight,everythingwas suddenly tied up in knots. For a guy who warned me he might be shit in bed right now, he had no right to have such warm eyes under those lashes.

‘But I want to help you get your luck back and I have an idea. Can you walk?’

‘If you can.’

‘Just let me get dressed and we can go,’ he said, clutching the towel and flashing a muscular thigh as he stood up.

I shouldn’t have made a habit of ogling him while hedressed, but the chair was comfortable and he didn’t ask me to leave, so I dipped my head and watched out of the corner of my eye as he tugged on a pair of snug boxers, jeans and a soft T-shirt, tossing a hoodie on the bed as he sat to pull on his socks.

‘Can I borrow that?’ I asked, making him look up from his task, his tongue tucked between his teeth. The ripple of something warm and dangerous through me was alarming. It was a goofy action, poking his tongue out when he concentrated, but that didn’t stop me staring as he licked his lip before answering.

‘My sweatshirt?’ he asked with a frown.

I didn’t want to admit how reluctant I was to go back to my room and see Doortje. But I was only wearing a light shirt and it was March outside.

‘Sure,’ he said before I had finished overthinking. He handed me the black hoodie and rummaged for something else in his suitcase, coming away with an old canvas jacket. But as I slipped the hoodie over my head, catching the light scent of his deodorant and unfamiliar washing powder, my skin was oversensitive to the fact that it was Seb who’d softened this material with his body.

And as he shrugged into his jacket and flicked up the collar, he looked edgy and fashionable, while I was wearing a tracksuit, with my hair not properly brushed after washing it. My Italian heritage was screaming in dismay and my libido was screaming something else entirely.

When he shot me a brief smile before heading for thedoor, I suspected everything I did at the moment was doomed to backfire – but I wouldn’t be doomed alone.

I should have been resting – my brain and my body – but instead I was outside, breathing in the tangy air, running my fingers along the irregular brickwork of the old city wall, with its niches and slits and little tufts of hardy grass growing in the cracks. Silvery olive trees grew down into the valley, with a few stone pines, tall and dark in the distance.

Keeping the ancient terracotta bricks under my fingertips, I was less tempted to snatch Seb’s hand. I wanted to say something about the sensation of the sharp air in my overworked lungs, the curl of exhaustion in my spine, the strange feeling of walking companionably in silence.

‘I don’t like surprises,’ I said softly instead.

‘We’re going up there,’ he said, gesturing to the brick edifice at the top of a cliff ahead of us, flanked by cypress trees. Low rays from the afternoon sun hit it from one side, making the enormous church glow orange.

It wasn’t the Duomo di Siena, the cathedral, which I’d visited a handful of times to gawk at its striped façade and gilded interior. This church was blocky and dark and almost forbidding, the way it perched on the hill looking down on the common folk. The crumbling houses of the historic centre of Siena tumbled down the hill before it, clustered as though huddling against the evil eye. Perhaps I had the evil eye, the malocchio my mum had never satisfactorily explained to me, since it didn’t make actual sense, but every Italian respected it anyway.

‘Are you going to make it up the hill?’ I asked.

‘You might have to drag me,’ he rasped. ‘But, if I lay down right now, I think I’d turn to stone, so I need to keep moving.’

‘Wouldn’t want you to become a Sienese gargoyle when you’ve only just signed on,’ I quipped. ‘Dare I ask what we’re going to find up there?’

‘Your luck!’ he said pointedly and maybe he was even more eccentric than the Italians. ‘Here’s the first stop,’ he continued, gesturing to a squat brick construction with three pointed arches.

I peered doubtfully at the old building as he strutted to the archways and beckoned for me.

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