Streaking for Silver (An Olympic Medal Romance Book 2) (5 page)

“Maybe you should call down and ask her to come up so you can listen to her side of the story,” Marty said.

They were together in Hunter’s room following the remainder of the Olympic Games on television. It seemed surreal sitting in his room watching events that were going on a short distance away, but Hunter wasn’t interested in being under the scrutiny of the media any more than he had to. Besides he had other more pressing issues to deal with, despite feeling like he’d been betrayed, he was torn between listening to what Solange had to say and leaving her to her creepy older boyfriend.

“She pretended to be single, Marty, she betrayed me, and I never want to see her again,” Hunter said, although what he really wanted to do was to run to the lobby and sweep her into his arms as she told him that everything was just a big mistake.

“Stop being unreasonable, buddy. This could be your only chance at love and you want to throw it away without even letting her give you her side of the story. That’s stupid. Here’s the phone, call down and find out if she’s still there, and ask her to come up,” Marty said, picking up the room phone and handing it to Hunter.

“Aren’t you the same guy who was telling me I should hookup with some of the locals yesterday?” Hunter said, punching keys into the phone.

“That was yesterday, but when you’re reasonable, it’s good to consider all of your options,” Marty said.

The receptionist picked up the phone and Hunter turned his attention to her.

“Hello, this is Hunter Fitzpatrick. Is Solange Marcus still there? Let her up, I changed my mind,” Hunter said quickly into the phone, his heart racing with anticipation and excitement.

“I'm really sorry, Mr. Fitzpatrick, but they already left.”

“They?”

“Yes. She came here accompanied by a female friend. They insisted I call you again, but I refused and as she left I think I saw tears in her eyes—”

Hunter hung up before she could finish her sentence. “She’s gone, Marty, and she was crying when she left,” He said in a panic. He got up and swiftly moved to the closet. “I'm going after her.”

Marty’s eyes widened. “Dude, are you out of your mind? The paparazzi are hovering out there on the perimeter like flies with their super-telephoto lenses.”

“Well, maybe I have lost my mind, because I think I’m in love with that girl.” Hunter said, pulling on a fresh pair of jeans and a T shirt, before grabbing a pair of sneakers. “I’m going to find out the way that they came in, because they must have come in without the media spotting them.” He shoved his wallet and his cell phone into his pocket and made as if to head for the door. “If you’re coming along, we’d better get going, but if you’re not then you can lock up for me when you leave.”

“There’s no way that I’m letting you go out there all alone. I’d like to be a see how everything pans out for you in this intriguing saga,” Marty said, getting up and following Hunter out of the room.

They took the first elevator downstairs and Hunter quickly ran to the reception desk. “What direction did they go?”

“That way Sir, although they’re long gone by now—”

Hunter dashed off before the receptionist could finish what she was saying. If Solange had come here it had to have been for a good reason, and he wanted to hear her out. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even need to hear her out, he just wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her that he loved her, and that he was not going to let anything come between them. That is, if she felt the same way. They ran in the direction the receptionist indicated, and Hunter hoping against hope he wasn’t too late.

“Don’t worry, we can sneak up to his room and confront him directly,” Ashley said, leading Solange through a couple of corridors until they got to some stairs.

They took the staircase and began running up to the next landing, from where they called for an elevator car, Ashley quickly punched in the floor number. Solange felt a surge of adrenaline rushing through her body as the elevator car began making its way up. The doors slid open and Solange led the way out, trying to figure out which direction the room was. They walked up to the door and knocked, but there was no response. Just then a member of the housekeeping staff came by and they hurried over to her.

“Hi, we have a surprise for Mr. Fitzpatrick, and we were hoping that you would let us surprise him by opening his door for us,” Solange did not even know where she got the guts to lie like that.

“You must be his girlfriend. You two looked so happy kissing on television. I would die for something like that to happen to me,” the room steward said dreamily. “I'm sorry, but Mr. Fitzpatrick isn’t here. I saw him and a friend dashing out of the room a couple of minutes ago and taking the elevator down. They looked like they were in a hurry.”

“Thank you so much. When he comes back, please tell him that Solange was here to see him,” Solange said as Ashley grabbed her hand and they made for the elevators. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this, Ash? Was he running to find me, or running away from me?”

She had this really strong feeling within and it made her wish that the elevator could move faster. The doors opened and as they dashed out, the receptionist did a wide-eyed double-take.

“Which way did they go?” Ashley asked quickly. The surprised woman pointed in the direction from which they’d come.

They whizzed past her, finding themselves in some sort of laundry room. The staff there looked equally surprised to see them, but it was as if they had gotten used to having drama in this building. They ran into another corridor, out of the building and into the parking lot and directly into some sort of melee. There was a small crowd of people standing around some incident on the perimeter road. Solange and Ashley ran over to see what was happening, and that’s when she spotted Hunter and another man, whom she also recognized from the swimming competition.

“Oh my god, what happened here,” she said, dashing onto the street where Hunter and the other man lay.

“From the look of things, I would call this a hit and ran,” A bystander said.

“Has someone called an ambulance?” Solange said, skidding so hard next to his prone body, she skinned her knees. She didn’t care. Hunter was hurt and she

“No, Hunter, you can't die on me now. I need you,” Solange said whispered to him, anguish making her lose any filter she might have employed with him before. She wiped a trickle of blood oozing out of his hairline to his face.

As her training kicked in, she checked his pulse and was ecstatic to find one despite being knocked out. She hoped that he had not broken any bones in the ordeal. She glanced over to his friend where Ashley was checking his pulse and gave Solange a thumbs-up. It was a good thing that both of the men were still alive, but they needed medical attention, because there could be internal injuries.

She then went back to Hunter and sat down on the road, picking up his head and placing it on her lap as his blood sipped into her pants. Her eyes had already teared up and she couldn’t hold them back, letting them flow freely down her cheeks as moments later an ambulance arrived accompanied by a doctor. Solange was thankful that they had physicians stationed at The Village.

“Please move aside, Miss, I need to check if the gentleman is injured,” the doctor said to her as he walked over to them, with several EMS crew members in tow.

“Doctor, please tell me he’s going to be alright,” Solange cried as Ashley pulled her away from Hunter so that the doctor could perform his examination.

“From the look of things here, I think that these two are very lucky not to be dead. At first glance they have some bruises and contusions, and the impact knocked them out,” the doctor said after examining them for some time. “They will require x-rays to check for fractures, and will need to stay under observation at the hospital for a day or so to monitor any concussions or other internal injuries they might have received, but apart from that, they were lucky not to have any apparent broken bones.”

Solange breathed a sigh of relief. She could not imagine being able to live without Hunter even though she knew so little about him. She was in love with him and wanted to know every little detail about him and his life, apart from what he had already told her. She wanted to know what he enjoyed eating the most, and where he liked hanging out when he was not at the office or training in the pool. She even wanted to know what color of boxers he preferred so that she could be the one to buy them for him. She was not a very religious woman, but at that moment, she said a silent prayer thanking God for keeping Hunter and his friend safe. It would have been tragic not only for her, but also for his mother, if he had died.

She rode in the ambulance with Hunter, while Ashley rode in the other one with his friend, sirens blaring. When they got to the hospital, Solange was devastated when the doctors asked her to wait outside while they checked Hunter out.

“Don’t you worry, girl, he’s going to be alright. Who knew that you would fall so head over heels for another man this soon after Jerome,” Ashley said to Solange as they sat in the waiting room.

“I know it’s improbable, but I couldn’t help it. It’s like we were made for each other. I can’t explain it. How’s his friend doing?” Solange asked.

“Marty woke up in the ambulance in dire pain, but he wasn’t in too much pain to call me an angel,” Ashley said dreamily.

“I may be head over heels, but is that love at first sight I’m witnessing here?” Solange asked, sniffing dramatically.

“I don’t know. It’s too early to tell, but we’ll see with time,” Ashley smiled. “Let’s first deal with their injuries, if there are any.”

“I guess you’re right,” Solange said, getting up as she saw the doctor walking towards them. “Doctor, how are they, are they going to be okay?”

“Yes, they’ll be fine. It’s a good thing these young athletes are in such prime physical condition. You may now go in and see them, although one of them is still unconscious,” the doctor said.

Solange hurried towards the ward, her heart was beating wildly as she got into the room where Hunter was. She quickly made her way to his side and sat on the bed beside him.

“How on earth did you get hit by a car?” she wondered aloud as she took his hand and began massaging it.

She sat there silently waiting for him to wake up, her mind drifting to Ashley and what she’d freely admitted to her. She loved Hunter Fitzpatrick after a chance meeting on a plane and a couple of weeks at the Olympic Games. She figured Hunter would want to know how his friend was doing when he woke up, so she decided to go check on him.

Solange could remember Marty from the swim meet when Hunter had won his silver medals, but she had not known that Ashley would be attracted to him. She got up and walked out, heading to the room next door where Ashley and Marty were. When she got to the door and peeked in, they were talking as he winced in pain.

“So, that’s… what happened,” he was saying to Ashley as she sat beside the bed looking at him with big sympathetic eyes.

“Oh my god, that is unbelievable, and you are very lucky that you got away with scratches,” she said,

Solange could tell that the two were attracted to each other by their body language.

Not wanting to interrupt them, she moved away from the door and headed back to the other room. Hunter was still out when she got there, and so she sat beside him and took a hold of his hand. She does not remember how long she stayed seated there before she finally drifted off to sleep.

There was a slight ache coming from his side and it took a while before Hunter remembered that they had been hit by a car while crossing the street in their bid to locate Solange. His head felt heavy, almost as if it had lead on it and it was pounding.

He wondered where he was, because it felt comfortable, although the surface on which he was lying was stiff, his eyes fluttered open. The first thing that he saw was the ceiling and it was not familiar. The scent in the room told him that he was in a hospital, although he had no idea how he’d gotten there. On one side of the room there was a window and on the wall in front of him there was a television. As he turned his head to look towards the door he realized that there was someone next to him, her head lying beside him on the bed. Her hair was blonde and the scent of the perfume that she was wearing told him exactly who she was.

He felt his heart skipping a beat as he tried to raise his head so that he could see her more clearly. She shifted in her sleep slightly, and it was then that he realized she was holding his hand. His mind was full of questions but he would have to ask her later.

How had she gotten here and where was Marty? What if Marty had died? He did not even want to imagine it, because Marty had been hit by a vehicle because of him. He laid his head back on the bed and squeezed her hand, and that is when he heard her moaning, just before she raised her head and looked at him, her blue eyes brightening up when she saw that he was awake.

“Hunter, you’re awake,” she muttered excitedly. “Why didn’t you wake me up when you woke up, and what time is it?”

“I wanted to watch you sleeping, and I have just woken up. Where is Marty?” he said.

“Who?” she had a confused look on her face, and he feared for his life. Maybe Marty had died and been taken to the morgue.

Hunter tried to raise himself but the pain coming from his side was too much and so he went back down. “He’s the guy I was with when we got into the accident. Don’t tell me he didn’t make it.”

“Oh, your friend with the ponytail, you don’t have to worry about him, he’s in the next room, and as a matter of fact, he’s talking to my best friend, Ashley,” she smiled at him as he relaxed, relieved at the information. “How are you feeling, the doctor said you don’t have any broken bones, but he you do have a concussion, which they’d like to monitor overnight.”

“I do have a slight headache and pain in my side, but otherwise, I think I am alright,” he said. “How did you find us, I mean, the receptionist told us that you had already left the hotel, unless you were the ones that ran us over?”

He laughed, actually very happy that she was the first person that he had seen when he had woken up. Even if he had been going to heaven, if she was the first thing that he set his eyes on there, he would have been pleased.

“I can't believe that you can say that,” she said, pretending to look annoyed as he laughed even harder. “Well, the thing is that we never really left. I needed to see you whether you wanted it or not. When we got to your room you had already left and we were determined to find you. We found you lying on the road and called for help. And you are such a stubborn man, why didn’t you want to see me?”

“Your crazy husband, boyfriend, whatever the hell he is to you, attacked me the other day and so I think that I should be the one asking the questions here,” Hunter said.

“Husband? Who the hell told you I am married? I don’t even have a boyfriend currently.”

Hunter looked shocked at what she said.

“What? But that guy told me to stay away from you because you were his woman.” Now he was even more confused as he wondered who that crazy guy was.

“How do I begin this,” she said, squeezing his hand a little. “Jerome was once my boyfriend but I broke it off with him a few weeks before we came here. He took it badly and has never accepted it. From the behavior he’s exhibited to you, I'm sure you can understand one of the reasons why I broke things off with him. He took advantage of the fact that I was the team trainer while he was the manager. I guess we spent too much time together and I lost focus of my priorities, ending up with him. I swear to you, that chapter of my life is now dead and buried, and that is what I came to tell you.”

“So, that means he was just being a jealous jerk after he saw us kissing on television,” Hunter wondered aloud, remembering the kiss that she had given him.

“Yes, and that was the sweetest and most passionate kiss of my life, Hunter,” she said, standing up and sitting on the edge of the bed so that she could have a better look at him.

“There is something that I must confess too, Solange, that kiss was something that I will never be able to get out of my mind,” he said, feeling his blood beginning to boil as she began lowering her head towards his.

He swallowed when he saw her licking her lips, every nerve within him coming alive with desire despite his situation. Her lips touched his softly at first, before he put his hands around her head and pulled her onto him with force. Their lips locked together, his tongue searching her mouth as they began kissing.

His body was suddenly on fire in ways that he could not explain, and he even felt his cock beginning to harden. Solange adjusted her mouth slightly so that their lips could fit together perfectly as they kissed deeply. He ran his hand down the small of her back, and none of them noticed the door opening as the doctor entered the room.

“I'm sorry to interrupt you,” a voice made Solange jump away from him as they both turned to see who the intruder was. “But now that you are awake, how you are feeling?”

Hunter smiled when he saw the way that Solange's lips were swollen from the kiss, a pink blush powdering over her cheeks at being caught off guard. As she straightened herself, he could see that her nipples had pebbled as they pressed hard against the top that she was wearing.

“Like I overdid it in the weight room,” Hunter said.

“You two must be newlyweds,” the doctor said.

Hunter and Solange both looked at each other and Hunter actually wished that what the doctor was saying was true. He could see the passion she was feeling in her eyes, and he wondered if she felt the same way, or if she was just after having a good time with him and then moving on as soon as they got back home. The woman was practically driving him crazy, and now that he knew the truth, he wanted her more than ever.

“Anyway, tell me. Is there any pain anywhere specifically?” he asked, planting his stethoscope into his ears and placing the sensor on the back of his wrist.

“Well, there is a slight pain that I am feeling on my right side and a headache that is fading away slowly. Other than that, I think that I am good to go, doctor,” Hunter said to the doctor. “Do you think that I can be discharged today?”

“It is advisable for you to stay under observation,” the doctor said, pulling the stethoscope away and hanging it around his shoulders.

“But what if you discharge him and then he can come back tomorrow for checkup. I really don’t see the reason why he has to stay there,” Solange said, looking from the doctor to Hunter.

“I know that this is probably not the right thing to do, but I think that you can probably take better care of him than our nurses from the love that I can see in the air,” the doctor said, winking at her before he turned to Hunter. “I'll just go ahead and process your discharge papers for you.”

He picked up the folder that was hanging at the end of the bed and then headed out of the room. Hunter and Solange stood there looking at each other awkwardly, and for the first time in his life, he was at a loss of words. Love in the air, if the doctor could see it, then maybe it was actually there.

“I'll just go and check on your friend to see how he is doing,” Solange said, turning and walking out of the room as Hunter admired her figure from behind.

Solange was his dream come true and he intended to make her his. He could still feel the effects of the kiss that they had just shared, and if it had not been for the beddings that covered his body, he would have had a hard time hiding his erection from both Solange and the doctor. He was feeling so aroused, he could feel goosebumps on his forearms despite the fact that the room was warm.