by Avery Laval
“Where are we? Or were you serious before? Because this looks like heaven and my body certainly feels like it might be dead after all that skiing.”
Charlie pointed North. “Geneva,” then to the west, “Grenoble,” then east, “Turin,” and finally south, “Monaco.”
“Well, that's amazing.”
“Isn't it?”
“I can see why a person might get lost up here. On purpose.”
Charlie thought about that. Was that what he was doing? He'd always thought he was hiding here. But a person who was hiding knew how to come out of hiding. Someone lost, by definition, didn't know how to get unlost.
He cleared his throat, trying to clear his head at the same time. “I'm not lost,” he said, willing it to be true. “I'm retired.”
“So you say. Why, though, is what I want to know. I watch you out here, cutting the track for me like you've been doing it for a million years. The mountains are where you belong. Nordic, alpine, it's like your feet were born on skis.”
“That's very nice, but really—”
“But really. It's not just how good you are. It's that you're in that magical flow state we all try so hard to get to in our life's work. Why would you quit something that gives you that flow?”
Why, indeed. “It's a long story.”
She just looked at him, blinking.
“One I'm not going to tell you,” he added.
“It's about your brother, isn't it? Brad says you were all joy, no angst, until the games. And they were a triumph for you. Except that your brother wasn't there. Didn't show up.”
“He couldn't show up. He was in Germany.”
“On base, about to be deployed,” she supplied.
“You know everything about me, then?”
“Not even close. But I saw that interview. The one that didn't air.”
Charlie pressed his mouth into a tight line. He usually didn't want to talk about his brother, about that week of his life that was half delirium, half despair. And yet, today, with this near stranger, he wanted to spill it all. Tell her everything. About his parents, the pressures, the comparisons and the competitions. She was looking at him like he was the only man in the world, and he wanted so badly to explain why he needed to stay out of the spotlight, lay low, get his brother back home, back to believing he belonged in their family again. It would feel so good to tell one person, to get it all out there, to make himself understood.
He probably could have told her, too, if she wasn't his agent's minion.
“I know a place in the village,” he said, instead. “Run by a Swiss husband and an Italian wife. She's the chef, but he'll force a fondue on us that you will be glad you didn't refuse.”
“Sounds amazing,” she said, closing her eyes just a bit as though tasting it now and finding it to her liking.
It was amazing, the fondue, rich and creamy and bright. But suddenly, he didn't want fondue. He didn't want a three course meal dragged out in the Italian fashion, hour upon hour of good cooking and good wine. He wanted her.
“Or,” he said, thinking at once of a good hotel, a shower large enough for two, room service champagne, pristine white linens on a gloriously large bed, of long, slow sex and pillow talk and more long, slow sex.
“Or what?” she asked, and he realized he'd left the word trailing far behind him in his torrid fantasy.
“Ah. Or, uh. There's a steakhouse too, an artifact from the games. Very pseudo-American.”
She narrowed her eyes. Those incredible, skeptical eyes examined him now. Could she see what he was thinking? Of course not. Right? And if she could, would she like it?
“We should get back to skiing,” she said slowly. Carefully. His eyes didn't leave her lips as she formed the words. “If I sit too long, I won't be able to get back up. But—”
Charlie grabbed on to that but, thinking of all the ways the sentence could end. But I'd much rather do you right here in the snow, up against that tree. Maybe? But when we get back to the car will you take my bra off with your teeth. Perhaps.
“But?” he prompted.
“But you look edgy. Did I say something wrong?”
He inhaled. Apparently his desire was written all over his face. Lucky for him, she'd misread it. “Let's keep skiing,” he said. “Give me a chance to burn off some of that edge.” And before she could ask him anything else, he was back on the trail, snapping into his bindings without daring to look back.
4
The restaurant was as good as he claimed. Or maybe it was the company. By virtue of her job, Natalie was pretty well traveled, but couldn't remember a trip she'd enjoyed half so much as this one. Funny, since it would probably be her last. She'd spent an entire day with Charlie and the only thing she'd gotten out of him was a pro-level cross-country ski lesson and a serious wake-up call to her private bits. Was it possible he was actually getting sexier the longer she spent with him? Of course that wasn't possible. He started too hot to begin with. What was happening was she was discovering, much to her chagrin, that she genuinely liked this guy. He was funny. Smart. Wild, almost feral in his movements, like he'd been raised out-of-doors but socialized forcibly. Which, she reasoned, might have been the case. She knew about his father, a competitive ski jumper before him, but since dinner started, he'd given her some hints about his childhood and it sounded like it was spent chasing titles and taking lessons. He'd never set foot in a traditional school, until college. And then he'd been on athletic scholarship anyway, living a very different life from the rest of the students, a life of training and curfews rather than cramming and kegstands. She wished that she could have known him then.
Could have been an escape from all that.
It was just the candlelight, Natalie told herself. Or was it the champagne? Though she'd hardly touched it. Maybe it was just Italy. That was all. A country that had perfected romance, in fact, had elevated it to an art. It was getting under her skin, was all. Not Charlie Ahlers. Nothing to do with him.
Still. Somehow, though he had cleaned up so pristine this morning, his stubble was back this evening, accentuating that sharp jawbone and those incredible lips. She preferred him with it. And he’d dressed, too—a crisp white shirt and black pants. He didn’t look like a ski bum. He wasn’t a ski bum at all. She was convinced: he was in Sestriere for a reason.
When he raised his champagne glass to toast their day, she found herself staring, getting warm through her center as though it was she swallowing the perfect pale yellow bubbly. He took a sip and swallowed, and her mouth suddenly went dry. Then her brain shorted out. Why was she here again?
He set his glass down and looked up from the table. Caught her staring, her lips just slightly open. She inhaled quickly and tried hard to think of something to say, to do, to hit the release on this building tension. But it was he who spoke.
“I still don't understand what you're doing here.”
His tone—almost accusing, snapped her out of her reverie. “What do you mean? I came to bring you the contract.”
“And you did, and I told you I wouldn't sign it.”
“So I'm trying to change your mind.”
“But you're not.”
“Changing your mind?”
“Trying.”
She laughed, or tried to. “I'm just so subtle in my persuasion you can't even tell it's working.”
“I see,” he said gamely. “And you're going home tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Then I think the time to play the long game may be over.”
Was that what he thought they were doing? Playing a game? “If you're so interested in helping me do my job, you could just sign the contract.”
“I'm not that interested,” he said with a twist of those incredible lips. “I'm interested in figuring out why you're doing this job in the first place.”
“Really?”
“Really. All afternoon I've been trying to reconcile Natalie Shaffer, assistant to a cutthroat, ruthless, workaholic sports agent,
with the person you actually are.”
“You know me so well already?” Did he? Was that possible?
“I know you're fun. Funny. Honest, and kind, and are not faking when you say you care about my career. I know it's not about the money. When you bring up the skiing, you talk about love and flow, not dollars and cents.”
“Well. You're right about those things,” she conceded. “Yes. I do genuinely care about your career. But I care about mine, too.”
“Why?”
“Because it's my dream, since I was little.”
“What little kid dreams of being a sports agent?”
“Not that. This.” Though she didn't quite understand why she was sharing this with him, she pulled out her phone and opened her online portfolio.
“Oh,” he said, as he started to flip through. “Oh, wow.”
Natalie smiled. “There aren't a lot of jobs out there that pay a living wage, are secure in good times and bad, and send you to every single sporting event you want while you study photography at night. Fewer still where you regularly meet the athletes you dream of photographing and mingle with their publicists and visit the publications you hope to one day be good enough to be printed in.”
“These are incredible,” he said, scrolling through her works one by one. “Why don't you go work for SI or Outside?”
“They're not hiring. Not for paid gigs you can count on. They use freelancers—the best in the business—and that's what I aim to become. Until then, I have student loans to pay off. I didn't ski my way through school. Though now that I know how hard that was, I feel almost grateful to be so universally clumsy on my feet.”
He smiled at her. “You did pretty well out there on the trail today.”
“I just had the right teacher.”
“You must have the right teacher for your photography. These pictures are amazing.”
“Thank you. I feel like I'm getting close.” She peered over the top of the screen to see where he was. “Oh! Keep scrolling right.”
He did and then a crooked smile crept over his face. “Chatsan Cup?”
“Remember that day? Perfect snow and a crazy hill.” She remembered it well, such a bright day, made for action shots, and one skier who stood out on the slopes, talented, fearless, inspiring. “You killed it there. Bradley dragged me along to make himself look important, but he barely used me. I had the whole day free to work. Look at that distance.” She gestured to the next photo, Charlie in perfect form, meters above the crowds, a red, white, and blue eagle in flight.
He couldn't disguise his pleasure at the memory. “I flew that day.”
Natalie took her phone back. “How can you give that up?”
He paused. “Is this my agent's assistant talking? Or the incredible photographer I'm having dinner with?”
“Both.”
“Well, to the assistant, I say, none of your damn business. To you, I say I have my reasons, and they're complicated.”
“Same answer in different words. What are you not telling me?”
Charlie exhaled, a long weary sigh. For a moment she thought she'd pushed him too far. Then he spoke, his voice low, an urgent whisper over the suddenly too-large table between them. “Here's what I'm not telling you: I'm not telling you that it is all I can do not to drag you like some kind of caveman to your hotel and put my mouth on that spot there,” he gestured to the spot where her jaw and neck met, “and find out if you want to tear off my clothing as badly as I want to tear off yours.”
Natalie felt a pop and sizzle in her brain, like the only lightbulb up there had just burnt out.
“You, ah. That is. You're trying to distract me from the conversation.”
“No, I'm trying to get you to focus on something far more interesting.”
“It's working,” she said before she could think it through. “No, wait. Not working.”
“You feel it too.”
She wanted badly to tell him otherwise. But she wanted badly to tell him the truth as well. “I do.”
“Come home with me.” His voice was raspy. Tense.
She started to tell him it was inappropriate. Then stopped herself. “You're not going to sign the contract no matter what I do, right?”
“That's right. I'm sorry, but no.”
“So our business relationship—”
“Is not an issue.”
She locked eyes with him. He was unbending.
“Tell me one thing,” she said slowly. “One thing before I say yes or no.”
He waited.
“Is there anything I could have done? Anything anyone could have done to convince you?”
He thought for a moment. Took another long slow sip of Champagne. “Natalie. Brad Bradley's been doing this for twenty-five years. I'm sure he tells you that all the time.”
“He does.”
“He sent you here instead of coming himself because he has seen my kind before. He knew it was a fool’s errand when I wouldn't answer his emails or phone calls. When I didn't jump at the money. You're here as due diligence, nothing more.”
She nodded. “I knew it wasn't about the money. But I thought maybe, when I got you back on the slope, you’d change your mind.”
“And you would have been right, if it had been about the snow. But it's not. When you told Bradley I was here, at a world-renowned ski resort, what did he say?”
Natalie thought back. “He said it was bad news.”
Charlie nodded. “If it were a matter of getting me back on skis, I would have been hiding out at a beach somewhere. Sailing, maybe. Hang gliding.” He leaned closer to her. “It's not about the snow.”
“So what is it about?”
“It's about doing the right thing and then getting on with my life,” he said with finality, and then, before she could even ask another searching question, he took her hand and shook his head to silence her.
So that was it, she thought. The job she'd done for the last four years was probably toast. She was going to have to find another way to pay for photography classes, to study her craft. Or maybe it was time? She thought of his reaction to her photographs. His reaction wasn't unusual anymore, the compliments, the questions. She was getting closer. Her teachers said it, the photo editors said it. Even Brad had said it, and he’d bought and hung one of her canvas prints in his office for good measure.
For a long moment, Natalie locked eyes with Charlie. This trip. The trip she had thought was a quick jaunt to get a deal signed and let her roommate cool off. Would it instead bring the moment she stopped looking and started leaping?
She leapt.
She turned Charlie's hand over, palm up, and traced a red hot line of desire down the center, slowly, slowly, with her finger. When she reached the tip of his middle finger, she swallowed hard and formed his hand into a fist, closing her own over it, as though she'd put a promise inside.
“Get the check,” she said. “I know exactly where I want you.”
5
In the last ten minutes, Charlie Ahlers had nearly blacked out from desire about ten times. Certainly when she'd dragged her finger across his hand—how on earth could a touch on his palm be sexier than a kiss, he wondered? And then, because he was a man, he’d wondered, What could this woman do with her tongue?
And again after he'd thrown every euro in his pocket on the table, dragged her out to her car, and pushed her up against the little Fiat to find out. He’d discovered her mouth was warm, and she was willing him on, urging him with tongue and hands and her entire body.
And then when she'd driven him like a bat out of hell to the Four Seasons Sestriere, handed the agency's corporate card to the unflappable receptionist and hauled him by the arm to their room, thrown open the door, said, “This is nice,” and started peeling her clothes off.
That was the moment he thought he might actually die from sex, and that it would totally okay with him if he did.
He let her get as far as her coat, her gloves, that whisper-soft scarf, before he t
ook over. Shoved the cashmere v-neck cardigan down off her shoulders, put his mouth first on one collarbone and then the other. He felt frenzied to take her all in and had to remind himself over and again to slow down, slow down. She wasn't helping with that smell—girlie soap and musk and, inexplicably, lemons—and the little moans of pleasure his lips elicited.
He stepped back. Inhaled deeply. Gave her a warning look, telling her with his eyes that one false move and he'd lose control, be ripping her clothes off like they were on fire.
She swallowed, and nodded. “Go slow,” she said, her lips curling around the Os, and even that felt somehow provocative.
Like he was moving through wet cement, he forced his hands to her sweater, found the top button, opened it painfully slowly, eyes on hers all the while. Where the button had been, he found creamy flesh flushed pink—the same desire he felt reflected back at him. He pushed a hot, soft kiss to the spot the button had been and repeated the process with the next button, and the next, until a long slow trail of his lips had made it to the second-to-last button, low enough for him to pull her arms out of the sleeves and take her in.
The bra she wore was a pale, innocent pink—why was he not surprised?—and lacy over half, the top half, and low, low cut, like her breasts were sitting on a shelf to be admired. He admired them. First with his fingertips, then his hands, then with his lips and tongue and mouth. Finally he peeled off the bra, fumbling around the back like a virgin until something came free and there she was before him.
“You are so beautiful,” he said.
She moaned in reply.
He set his lips back to work, and when she pushed him away to unzip his parka he had a chance to observe her nipples—they were a slightly more intense shade of pink than her bra, and tight, budded, responding to his touch as his whole body did to hers.
His coat off at last, he unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt and yanked it over his head. He pulled her to him, his lips taking hers for the first time since they'd stumbled into the room. Her kiss was the opposite of her words, urging him on, urging him to hurry, but he ignored her, kept his lips soft, dipping into her mouth slowly, slowly with his tongue. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore.