Page 66 of Going for Gold (Sweet Cravings 3)

"Okay." I felt like I knew where this was going. But he was taking this so seriously to help me. I'd do whatever he needed me to do in order for us to win this thing.

Tim grabbed my hips and thrust hard against my ass.

Alina was laughing in the back of the room. If I didn't love hearing her laugh so much I might have considered punching Tim in the face. Instead I just did what he said.

"Harder, Lucas! Thrust harder!" Tim thrust against my ass again.

And I couldn't help laughing.

"Let's take five," Tim said and let go of me. "Kristen, Alina, come here."

"You seemed to enjoy that," I said to Alina when she reached us at the front of the room. She was still laughing as I wrapped my arms around her.

"I'm pretty sure that was sexual abuse."

Tim cleared his throat and handed Kristen and Alina each a shoebox. "Now that we have the general movements down, you should probably start breaking these in."

Alina lifted the box to reveal sparkly blue stilettos. I was starting to wish she's actually be the one in the dance. Tim had shown me the sketch of the outfits and Alina would look amazing.

"How are we supposed to dance in these?" Alina asked. "They're so high."

"Practice makes perfect." Tim clapped his hands together. "Get to it."

Kristen was already putting them on. "I would have preferred flats, but these shoes are amazing. Great choice, Tim."

"I knew you'd love them. Alina, come on." He snapped his fingers. "Time is of the essence."

Alina put on the shoes. She was about six inches taller in them, but still a lot shorter than me. They made her legs and ass look even more amazing. One more day.

"Back of the room, you two. Okay, Kristen, let's do it from the top. Bump and grind, people!"

The music started blaring again.

I literally had no idea what I was doing. But Alina was doing a pretty good job following Kristen's lead. And my favorite part was coming up again. Alina twirled around and bent low, pressing her ass against me again. It hit me in just the right spot now. I tried to think of something depressing so I wouldn't get a boner. My athletic shorts certainly weren't going to hide anything. Puppies dying. Rodrigo. Shit. I let go of her waist and ran my fingers through my hair.

She turned around. "Are you okay?"

"I'm good. You can do that move for as long as you want."

She laughed. "So, I've been thinking. You said you were going to be able to visit Em more if you won gold. Does that mean you'll be coming to the east coast a lot now?"

I smiled. Was she really worried that once the ITAs were over we'd never see each other again? Couldn't she tell how much I liked her? I could see a future with her. This wasn't just some meaningless fling. "I was already motivated to visit more. And now that I've met you?" I grabbed her waist and pulled her in close. "I'm probably going to be there all the time." I leaned down and kissed her. Her hands immediately wrapped around my neck, drawing me closer to her. Kissing her made my head spin.

"Understudy love birds!" Tim yelled. "Pay attention or I'll make you run laps!"

Alina laughed and turned around again, picking up the dance right where the song was. She leaned down and flipped her head back, whipping her hair through the air.

But now I was having trouble focusing. For some reason it had just hit me. There weren't that many events left. Brazil was down by one gold. If that stayed the same until tomorrow night, it was going to come down to the last event of the ITAs, the women's volleyball final. Brazil and the USA were both guaranteed to get a silver or gold out of it, so I assumed one of Rodrigo's other operatives would be in play to rig the game in favor of the games going to a tiebreaker. If Brazil was up by one silver and down by one gold, the game would be rigged against the US. Alina would lose. She wouldn't get enough money to save her bakery. And I couldn't do anything about it.

Chapter 28

Saturday

Alina

The spectators were already filing into the stands. We had passed by the line outside the volleyball arena. It was going to be absolutely packed. This was the last game of the ITAs. And we were definitely going to win. We were going to bring home the last gold for the USA. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"Alina, are you okay?" Kristen asked and sat down next to me.

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