Mission For Love (Love By Design 6)

“Please don’t say timing, please don’t say timing.” I repeated knowing exactly what he was going to say. I had the perfect spot to watch the finish of the race and I didn’t want to miss Kiara by having to do this task.

“Can you managing the timing? Please?”

“Ah come on.” I said. It was hard to say no to my brother, but I was allowed to complain if I wanted too.

“You’ll still see her.” Remi nudged me as she carried out a box with medals which I lifted from her arms. “Thanks big guy.” She smiled and went back inside for another.

“You owe me, Andrew.” I grumbled and finished setting up.

At least we lined up a massage therapist for after the race

I spent the better part of the morning tweaking equipment and taking silly heavy boxes from Remi. That girl was bound to trip over her short legs if she wasn’t careful. We hired her to work in the bar not donate her Saturday mornings too, but she was insistent on helping, and like my brother, she was hard to say no too.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what might have caught her wandering eye and ever so helpful hands. I growled at Evan who happened to be directing traffic for the race. He was a good cop even if I wanted to punch him in the eye for ogling Remi.

The race started and I finally got to see Kiara.

“Fancy seeing you here.” Kiara strode up to the starting area. She wore running shorts in a neon pink that made her legs look lean and long. Her prosthetic was covered in a matching pink compression sock up to her knee. A tank with pink and blue stripes covered her pert breasts and I was jealous of technical fabric hugging her so tightly. I had a thought that sport bras were equally terrible for women who wore them and the men who wanted to take them off. No front zipper business for Kiara, just straight up spandex that hugged her lean curves. Thank god for sweatpants, that’s all I’m saying.

“Good morning, Kiara and good luck. I see some swift competition out there.” I gave her the genial head nod wishing I’d spoken to her more than the vague passing and dinner over two weeks ago.

“My girls are here in lieu of practice.” She smiled stretching in front of me like it was totally natural.

Things that weren’t natural…the size of my dick in that moment.

“Always on duty coach.”

“Actually, I was wondering if you might want to get that brunch afterwards.”

“Well, now I’m surprised.” I leaned back against the sketchy looking timing van and crossed my arms over my chest.

“I mean, we don’t have you to if you don’t want to.” She said and it really did feel like the biggest tease.

“So you haven’t been avoiding me on purpose.”

Kiara laughed out loud drawing the attention of several people.

“Sadly no. I’ve been genuinely busy.”

“Okay, well. You go out there and win this race and I’ll be waiting here for you.” I pointed to my feet like a bratty kid. “Fr

ee beer and doughnuts. I might even spring for some appetizers inside.”

“Nice, Easton. Might as well find yourself some crow while you’re at it.” Kiara turned around and I was blessed to watch her saunter off toward the starting line. She got right up in the front which I thought was kind of ballsy and hot. Thank goodness the gun start for the race didn’t do more than ruffle me. It would have been mortifying to duck under the creeper van. I guessed fireworks would be my next big challenge.

I understood why she wanted me to find some crow.

This girl could run.

She didn’t win overall, but she kicked ass in her age group winning that. I would have known this if I bothered to look up the past years’ race results, but I was trying to hone in my alleged stalker skills, plus having been away on tours kept me out of the loop. Kiara had won the last five years in her age group and then a few before that as a teen.

I wondered what crow actually tasted like.

I pushed my way through the crowd and grabbed one of the medals walking up to her smiling and heavy breathing face.

“I kind of want to kiss you against that creeper van over there.” Our eyes darted to the van and Kiara chuckled.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. Besides we have our students here and that might get weird.” She patted my chest with her palm and I don’t think she realized she did that until I trapped her hand underneath mine keeping it on my chest. Her hand contracted and nails pressed against my t-shirt covered heart.