For almost a full four years after I left the Olympics, I traveled the world and lived like a bohemian bum, moving from one thrill to the next. I slept in cheap hotels or on friend’s couches. I only had with me what I could carry in a duffel bag, always seeking bigger thrills, more dangerous adventure. I ate poorly and slept even shittier. In fact, it’s how I met Kynan… base jumping off Angel Falls in Venezuela. I was jumping with a parachute. He went before me and jumped with a wingsuit. I saw him zip away, knowing jumping with a parachute was going to be way too boring for me.
What started then was a friendship that spanned many years, and is still going strong to this day. We were friends first because I was involved with someone else. Later, when I was unattached, we screwed around. When we could, we’d meet up to experience death-defying jumps or swimming uncaged with Great Whites. We’d fuck like crazed animals, and then we’d go on our way. We’d keep in touch with periodic emails or calls. It was a good friendship with a great benefits package while it lasted, but it was never exclusive.
It stopped when Kynan brought me on board to The Jameson Group. Of course, he didn’t own it back then. Jerico Jameson did, and I had to pass his muster first. But when I accepted the job, we both knew we couldn’t be involved sexually since he was in a position of authority over me.
And that was fine by me. It was just casual anyway.
So I told most of this to Dr. Anchors. The adrenaline and stress of my lifestyle. The poor nutrition and running my body into the ground. Always traveling and never resting. How I hadn’t even known I was pregnant until I miscarried because my period was never regular.
That I miscarried within hours after a harrowing bungee jump off the Macau Tower in China.
Dr. Anchors listened to me patiently, which included a rundown of my more dangerous work with The Jameson Group.
When I ran out of steam, he said, “Rachel… just because you miscarried once, it doesn’t mean it will happen again. And there is no way of knowing why you miscarried. It could have been one thing, or it could have been several factors, but the truth is that miscarriages are all too common in the first trimester.”
That didn’t make me feel better. Nothing would make me feel better, because no one could ever know the devastation it had caused me. Well, no one but Kynan. He had been in Macau, too, and he went to the hospital with me when I started bleeding badly. The boyfriend who had accidentally gotten me pregnant weeks before with a broken condom was long gone. He had never been long-term material anyway, so there was no reason to even track him down and tell him.
Yes, Kynan watched it all and let me cry on his shoulder, a vulnerability no one had ever seen before, nor has anyone since. Then he offered me a new path to pull me away from my grief.
The Jameson Group.
And here I am, repeating things all over again.
I make it to the stage, intent to climb the catwalk above for another check. I won’t be moving my rifle up there, which is currently locked in our cargo van outside, until just before the doors open.
I put my foot on the bottom rung of the ladder that connects to the scaffolding above when I hear Bodie behind me. “Hey… Hart. Wait up.”
Christ, he looks yummy in black cargo pants, a tight black t-shirt with the Jameson logo on the front pocket in white, and a holster with a Glock on his hip.
“What’s up?” I ask in a cool tone. Him calling me Hart rather than Rachel tells me this is business.
He walks right up to me, but rather than stopping a respectable distance from me, he backs me up into the ladder, his hands coming to hold the rungs by my head and caging me in. Bodie dips his head and murmurs, “Tonight after we wrap up here… I’m coming to your room.”
A shiver of anticipation runs up my spine, but I act offended. “What makes you think—”
“You’ve ignored me for two days,” his deep voice rumbles right over me. “Ever since the doctor’s office. I don’t like being ignored.”
This is true. We had a nice but brief chat after I talked privately to Dr. Anchors, and I told Bodie when the next appointment would be. Then we left in separate cars. I haven’t seen him until today, even though he’d texted me the last two nights telling me he was at The Wicked Horse waiting for me.
There was some hesitation on my part because I didn’t want to risk being seen by anyone else in the group. Mainly, though, I just avoided him because I don’t want to be a “thing” together. I want to keep it as causal as can be, and that means we don’t see each other every night.
The longer I drag this conversation out, the better the chance someone will stumble upon us in this intimate pose. Truth is that I want Bodie again, and tonight would be perfect. We’re staying in L.A. after the concert, and don’t fly out until morning.
“Fine,” I say before slipping out from between him and the ladder. “Come to my room, and we’ll get it on.”
Bodie snickers and steps back into me. I hold my ground, refusing to even lean slightly away. His lips come very close to mine, but don’t touch. His breath whispers over me, and I have to press my legs together when he says, “You know, Hart… there was a part of me that was kind of hoping you’d fight me a little. I was looking forward to making you submit.”
“In your dreams,” I mutter.
Bodie laughs and steps away from me. He gives me a quick wink and turns on his heel, walking away from me with a confident strut.
Maybe I’ll put up a little bit of a fight tonight. I never mind being overpowered in the bed.
CHAPTER 7
Bodie
Not sure I’ve ever seen anything more perfect than Rachel Hart opening her hotel door to me stark-ass naked.
Beautifully, artfully naked without an ounce of shame. She’s fresh out of a shower, and her hair is a million times blacker all slicked back and wet. It exposes with more clarity the cut of her cheekbones and the fullness of her lips. Her eyes blaze with need and her hands reach for me, snagging the waistband of my jeans.
I pull my shirt off in a hurry. She helps me out of my shoes and pants.
There’s no gradual seduction of my cock. It’s concrete hard and ready for her, but I’ve got something else planned first.
Batting Rachel’s hands away when she reaches for it, I pick her up and carry her to the bed. I toss her down and then take her by the ankles, sliding her to the edge of the mattress. One hand goes to the back of a thigh. I push it up high and outward, spreading her. My other hand goes right in between, dragging an index finger through the lips of her sex.
Rachel lets out a huff of a pleasure, and her hips tilt. I press the very tip inside of her, find her soaking wet, and then withdraw. I just wanted to know if she was as fucking turned on right now as I am, and we haven’t even kissed. We’ve only anticipated being together.
Now it’s time to make her feel good.
I sink to my knees on the floor, push her legs further apart, and slam my mouth on her pussy. Rachel doesn’t wax, but she keeps herself very trimmed. My tongue easily finds her swollen clit, and she grunts from the first contact.
My lips circle the sensitive flesh, suck lightly. When I release, I murmur against her, “Mmm. You taste fucking good, Hart. Like sweet baby mama.”
She snorts.
Another tiny lick and her hips shoot off the bed. “You’re so sensitive. Is that a pregnancy thing?”
I look up at her to find her watching me with glazed eyes. When my words penetrate, she starts to laugh. I give her a wink and dive back down, stabbing my tongue inside her pussy.
“Bodie,” she barks out, her hands coming down to fist my hair hard.
I fuck her hard and deep with my tongue a few times, then lave softly at her sensitized clit. She tries to push her pussy into my mouth, but I pull back. When she settles, I give her a little of what she wants. When she starts getting greedy, I slow it down.
Finally, when she’s begging me and pushing hard on the back of my head for me to make her come, I batter at her with my to
ngue, teeth, and lips until she’s screaming out her release. I don’t stop, working her down gently until she’s a writhing mass of tortured nerves under me.
Laying my chin on the top of her pubic mound, I look up her body. Her tits are big, her nipples pebbled hard. She lifts her head and looks down at me blearily.
“You’re so fucking beautiful all spread out under me, completely boneless,” I whisper. She rolls her eyes, and her head falls back to the mattress.
I lift my head, look down at her pussy. My dick is aching to slide in.
My hands glide down her inner thighs, and I peel her open with my thumbs to stare. It’s fucking gorgeous.
“This cunt, Rachel,” I say softly, and her head lifts back off the bed. I glance at her, and then back down to my prize. “All swollen and dripping wet. All mine.”
I tap on her clit, which is protruding a bit, begging for more action. Rachel hisses in response.
Not able to stand it a moment more, I rise from the floor and my hands go under Rachel’s ass. I lift her from the mattress to drive deep into her.
Slick, hot, tight as fuck.
“Mmm… mmm,” I can’t help but groan in absolute relief.
“Oh, God,” Rachel mutters.
She looks amazing from this angle. Fingers clutching onto the bedspread, ass in the air, and her eyes burning as they laser into mine.
I slowly pull out, almost to the tip, watching my cock shine with her juices. When it becomes too unbearable, I plunge back in.
“Yes,” she whispers fiercely, and I’m done.
I let her drop to the bed, fall onto her, and push back into her deep. My mouth comes down on hers, and my torso flattens against her. My hands grope and clutch, finally finding hers, and I lace our fingers together as I pull them above her head.
And while I’m touching every single part of her I possibly can, I start to fuck her furiously hard. I race for the end and gladly plunge over when I can feel her start to contract around me, crying out her second orgasm.
I punch my cock in deep one last time, grab her lower lip with my teeth, and growl out the world’s best fucking orgasm while I shoot what feels like gallons of cum into her.
“Jesus,” I groan against her mouth before rolling to my side. She has no choice but to come with me since my arms encircle her. I lift her leg over my hip and keep myself planted inside of her while I let my heart rate come back down to a normal level.
Rachel is silent, but she seems content to lie like this. Her arm is draped lazily across my ribs, her face pressing into my neck. I’m content to stay this way as well, because I’ve never been averse to cuddling.
Something about the fact that my stomach is pressed against the stomach of the woman who is carrying my kid makes it special. If I weren’t so comfortable right now, I’d want to stick my hand in between us and touch her belly. That would probably freak her out, though, so I abstain.
“Is this weird?” she asks, and the sudden sound of her voice startles me.
Leaning back so I can look her in the eye, I ask, “Is what weird?”
“What we just did?”
“Sex?”
“Well, yeah,” she says almost hesitantly, as if she’s now doubting that what she thought might be weird actually isn’t at all. “I mean… we’re coworkers. We’ve known each other for a few years. Now we’re fucking. It’s just weird, right?”
“I’m pretty sure the weirdness comes from the fact we’re pregnant,” I say with a chuckle. “The fact we’re fucking is just a bonus.”
She gives a reluctant smile along with a chastising look. She wants me to be serious, but I’m feeling too replete and high on amazing sex to be.
I decide to change the subject. “Did you fill Kynan in on everything we learned at Dr. Anchors?”
Turns out, between our meeting with him and whatever Rachel discussed with him privately, there just wasn’t a whole lot. We were loaded down with literature on what to expect throughout the pregnancy, and had a good idea of what would happen on the subsequent follow-up visits. Dr. Anchors said there weren’t many limitations on Rachel this first trimester—at least physically for her job. She told me she’d described to him what all she did. Technically, she was as fit and physically sound to perform her job now as she was before she got pregnant. Of course, this might not hold true two months from now when she starts to show, and the baby could be more susceptible to injury as it grows.
“I filled him in,” Rachel says. By the tone of her voice, I’m thinking it wasn’t an enjoyable conversation.
“What’s he have a problem with?” I ask.
She gives a tiny shrug. “I guess he’s just worried about the general risk of sending a pregnant woman on the more dangerous ops.”
“Is he going to sideline you?”
Rachel doesn’t answer me directly. Instead, she asks. “Do you think I should be sidelined? I mean, this is your kid. What are your worries?”
I’m totally surprised by her graciousness toward my feelings on the matter, but I’m also careful in my answer. “Rachel… you know your body better than I ever could. I understand the risks, but pregnancy isn’t a disability. I guess right now at this stage, I don’t believe there’s much you can’t do. So, unless you’re worried about something…”
I let myself trail off, leaving it up to her to complete that sentence.
Chewing on her lower lip, Rachel considers this for a moment. “There are risks in everything.”
“You could be hit by a bus tomorrow crossing the street.”
She tries to pull away from me, but I hold her tight in place. “I’m a higher risk because of my age.”
“Because of the age of your egg, not because of what you do for a living,” I point out. I’d read all the literature they sent home with us and some additional stuff online. “I don’t think you need to stop living your life because you’re pregnant. I think you need to look at each mission, where it will be, and what the actual risk is. You can make decisions as opportunities are put in front of you.”
Her lips tilt up in an attempted smile, but the light of it doesn’t reach her eyes. She’s conflicted about something, and I’m wondering if this has to do with what she wanted to talk to Dr. Anchors about. She said it was about personal female stuff, and I took her at face value. But now…
“Do you know how Kynan and I met?” Rachel asks softly, and the change of subject and fondness in her voice throws me completely off.
“Um… no. I don’t believe so.”
Rachel wiggles slightly, not to pull completely away, but to put enough distance between us so she can look at me without craning her neck backward.
“After I retired from the Olympics, I spent a few years just traveling around the world and indulging in all my adrenaline-rush whims.”
“Adrenaline-rush whims?” I ask with a laugh. “Now that’s a term I’ve never heard before.”
She chuckles. “Skydiving, bungee jumping, free diving, base jumping, rock climbing. You name it, I did it. The scarier the feat, the more I wanted to do it.”
“Damn, Hart,” I murmur, dropping my hand to her ass and giving a playful squeeze. “That’s kind of hot.”
She grins. “I met Kynan just about an hour before he dove off Angel Falls. Just over thirty-two hundred feet. We became fast friends after I jumped off after him.”
I can’t help the low whistle of respect and appreciation that blows through my teeth. I like the flow of adrenaline, but not sure I like it that much.
“I don’t always appreciate danger,” she says. This time, the smile is gone from her face. She’s being as serious as she can possibly be, and it causes my belly to flip a little. “I might not like hearing it, Bodie, but if you’re worried about the baby in any way as we proceed along, you need to be vocal.”
“I will,” I promise. Why she even needs to tell me this is beyond me, because nothing could keep me silent if my kid was at risk.
This seems to satisfy her, and she gives a
grateful nod. That unsettles me… that she seems to need me to be a checks and balances against her. It also reassures me that when Rachel said she was going to let me be involved, she truly meant it.
More than anything, though, it shows me she cares for this baby at least to the degree she wants to carry it to term. An adrenaline junkie such as herself who doesn’t want to be pregnant wouldn’t think twice about risks. That person would roll the dice with a que sera sera attitude.
There are a million ways I could poke at this more, but I don’t want to do anything to make Rachel clam up on me. Right now, she’s happy to let me fuck her and be involved in this pregnancy. I know a good thing when I have it.
But the one thing that has happened since finding out about the pregnancy is that I’ve become infinitely more curious about this woman. She’s smart, beautiful, and sexy as sin. She’s also one of the most capable people I know, and I trust her with my life. She has agreed to carry a baby for me, and I owe her the world because of that. It’s safe to say Rachel Hart has gone to the top of my favorite people list.
And I want to know more about her.
I roll to my back and bring Rachel with me. She gasps in surprise, but doesn’t fight when I arrange her body to lay mostly on top of mine. I even put a hand to the back of her head and force it to my chest. It takes her a slight moment to understand what I want, but she eventually settles down on top of me.
“Okay, you have to tell me how a woman goes from being a winter Olympian to traveling around the world jumping off cliffs?”
Her body shakes slightly against me in a silent laugh. I’m not sure if she’s even aware she’s doing it, but her hand spreads over my chest, her thumb idly stroking my skin there.
“My parents are well off, and when I say well off, I mean I don’t have to work if I don’t want to because of a nice trust fund. But I had some endorsements during my Olympic career, which meant I had enough money to indulge in those whims. I didn’t travel extravagantly, but I did travel the hell out of this world. I’d often just sleep in cheap hotels or stay with friends. I once spent two weeks driving around Australia in an old VW bus that doubled as a bed for me.”
Wicked Choice (The Wicked Horse Vegas #4) Page 6