Stuck Landing

by Lauren Gallagher

  And I didn’t stop. The second my tongue met her sweet, wet pussy, there was no stopping if I wanted to. Not when a single circle around her clit made her curse, or when my fingers sliding up inside her made her gasp and shiver. No wonder I couldn’t stop ogling her or fantasizing about her—this woman was a drug, and I was addicted. Her soft little gasps. The tanginess of her pussy. Her strong fingers in my hair, and her thighs quivering beneath my hand. God, yes. More.

  She gripped my hair and pressed her pussy against my tongue, grinding against me as the shower swallowed her moans and whimpers. I fluttered and circled faster, and she made more—and louder—delicious, helpless noises as her powerful legs trembled beneath her.

  Natalya slurred something in Russian. Her whole body tensed. Her breath caught. I gave her all I had, keeping her there at the edge for one, two, three more seconds before she clapped her hand over her mouth, moaned, and shuddered violently. I kept a hand on her thigh so she wouldn’t collapse, and kept licking her clit until she pushed my forehead away.

  I rocked back on my heels and looked up at her. Wet. Shaking. Nipples standing up. Skin flushed. Eyes shut. Holy Jesus, this woman.

  Out of breath myself, I stood, and before I’d even found my balance, I was in her arms again. Pinned to the wall again. Kissing her again. Tasting her pussy and her mouth and . . . holy fuck, I needed more of this woman.

  She touched her wet forehead to mine. “I couldn’t resist. I just want you so bad.”

  “M-me too.”

  “We should go.” She swallowed. “Might . . . get caught.”

  “I know. We will. In a minute.” I kissed her again, and she didn’t protest.

  Eventually, though, we turned off the shower and returned to the dressing area. We were still alone, which probably should have been a relief, but I just didn’t care. I couldn’t. I was tingling and trembling too much to give a damn what anyone else thought about the sex we’d had in the shower.

  But now that we were coming back down, dread set in. We’d crossed that line again. We’d had sex even after we’d sworn to stay friends and colleagues and whatever.

  What now?

  Natalya turned to me as she put on her bra. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, I . . .” I looked down at the bra in my own hands, which I didn’t even remember taking out of my gym bag. “Just . . . um . . .”

  “Worrying?”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry. I probably overthink things, and I know that, but I—”

  “Relax.” She came closer and put her hands on my waist. “We have chemistry. It is what it is.”

  “I know. But I’m . . . I mean, sex is all I’m good for right now.”

  Natalya’s grin weakened my knees all over again. “Then maybe that’s all we need.”

  I chewed my lip.

  “Anna, we don’t have to do anything serious. Maybe . . . maybe we can fool around, nothing serious or exclusive, and the rest of it?” She shrugged. “We’ll see how it goes.” She gathered my hair and smoothed it into a ponytail, then rested her forearms on my collarbones, raising goose bumps all over my hot skin. “If it turns into something more, then it does. By then, you’ll have been around me enough, maybe it won’t bother you so much that I like men too.”

  I swallowed, shame tugging at my gut, especially as I wondered if it was possible for me to let go of that uncertainty.

  “Just give it a chance,” she whispered, drawing me in. “You never know, right?”

  “No, you . . .” Her lips. Her body. God, she was close. “You never know.”

  Natalya smiled, then kissed me, and yeah, I could see giving this thing a chance. It was an easy decision when we were standing here like this, an orgasm still tingling between my legs and her soft lips against mine.

  But would it . . .

  Could we . . .

  Are we asking for . . .

  To hell with it. “Okay,” I murmured between kisses, my heart speeding up all over again as renewed excitement rippled through me. “We’ll see what happens.”

  She kissed me again, then flashed me a triumphant grin. Her eyes flicked toward the clock on the wall, and she scowled. “I have to be on set early tomorrow. I should go.”

  “Me too.”

  We held each other’s gaze, and I could feel the One more kiss? vibrating in the air between us, but that wasn’t a good idea. Tempting, yes. But then we’d be here all night, and we both knew it.

  We separated and continued putting ourselves back together so we could leave the gym and go back to the world that apparently still existed outside. We dressed. We made ourselves halfway presentable. We both pulled our hair up in tight, wet ponytails and slung our gym bags over our shoulders.

  Then, together, as if nothing had happened, we walked out of the locker room.

  Jeremy waited for me, and though he didn’t glance at his watch or his phone, the slight lift of his eyebrows—not to mention the way his eyes flicked toward Natalya, then me—were about as damning as could be. He was a parent, after all. He had the whole you’ve been up to something look down to a science.

  Natalya gently elbowed me. “I’ll see you at work.” She winked, then headed for the door.

  Jeremy watched her go. When he turned to me, he didn’t say a word, but he knew. The ghost of a smirk on his lips, the slight narrowness of his eyes—yep, he knew. But he just shook his head as we started toward the parking lot.

  Before I could speak, he put up his hands. “I know, I know. Not a word.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  In silence, we walked out to the car. He did let a little snicker slip out as Natalya drove past—probably because I nearly tripped over my own feet—but I let it go.

  We took our seats in the car, and as we buckled our seat belts, he said, “So, gym tomorrow night?”

  I glared at him, and of course, he burst out laughing. I tried to keep glaring, but I couldn’t help it and started laughing too.

  I playfully punched his arm. “Asshole.”

  “Hey, hey!” He started the engine. “I’m just being supportive of your new commitment to fitness.”

  “Sure you are.”

  Chuckling, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward my house.

  My phone vibrated. I turned it over, careful to keep the brightly glowing screen tilted away from Jeremy while he drove in the darkness.

  No surprise—the message had come from Natalya.

  We should do dinner sometime.

  A shiver reignited all those nerve endings still glowing from my orgasm.

  What was I thinking? We’d just finished agreeing to fool around and see how the rest of it went, and we were already talking about an actual date? Bad idea. Too much potential for drama. Too . . . too hot to ignore. Too damned tempting.

  So, despite all my hang-ups and reservations, I wrote back, Definitely. When & where?

  When and where turned out to be almost two weeks later at Racine’s, a little restaurant overlooking the water fifty-some-odd miles down the coast.

  That wasn’t to say we hadn’t seen each other, or hadn’t slipped off for some one-on-one time—my office and the locker room were getting a lot of mileage these days—but actually carving out time for a leisurely dinner? That had taken some doing.

  And finally, here we were. On a date. Oh God—were we really on a date?

  Apparently we were, because when I walked in and saw her, she smiled from the table she’d already claimed by the window. Her hair was down, tumbling over her shoulders, and she had on a cute gray blouse and a little silver chain that sat just right on her collarbones.

  Our eyes met. That smile threw me off-balance, but I made it to the table without losing much of my dignity, and my heart sped up as I took my seat across from her. There was a glass in front of her, and suddenly I needed one in front of me.

  Yep. This is a date. Here goes.

  Jeremy sat a couple of tables over with Scott. Though he was enraptured by his boyfriend from the moment they
sat down—those two were as adorable as Hunter and Kevin—he sat facing the door, with his back to the wall. Scott was used to Jeremy glancing past him every time someone came in, and they carried on in their own little world while Natalya and I carried on in ours. What the production company didn’t know wouldn’t hurt any of us.

  At our table, Natalya’s lips quirked as she perused the menu. I was supposed to be looking it over myself, but that little twist of her mouth held my attention. Big surprise. We hadn’t gone a day without finding a few minutes to sneak away and fool around at work, and I swore I was still dizzy from the orgasm those gorgeous lips had given me in my office yesterday. This woman was definitely addictive.

  “Are we ready to order?” The cheerful waitress startled me. I hadn’t even heard her come up to the table. As I shook myself and looked up at her, she asked, “Or do you need another minute?”

  Natalya raised her eyebrows.

  “Um.” I quickly scanned the menu, and when my gaze landed on something reasonably familiar and safe, I said, “I’ll have the pot roast.”

  “And you?”

  Natalya gave the menu another glance. “The lemon chicken, please.”

  The waitress jotted it down, took our menus, and disappeared.

  Alone with Natalya once more, I refused to let the silence set in, because then I’d just start staring at her—again—so I poked at some ice cubes with my straw. “So, um . . . you used to be a gymnast, right?” Okay, it was a lame start since we both knew damn well I knew she’d been a gymnast, but it was a start, so I didn’t apologize for it.

  “All of my childhood,” she said. “Almost made the Olympics. Almost.”

  “That must have been frustrating.”

  “It was.” She sniffed with quiet amusement. “You’ve never heard a Russian coach get angry.”

  “I’ve heard a studio exec get angry. How do they compare?”

  She laughed. “Close, actually. And to be fair, I think he was more pissed at the judges than at me. I should’ve won.” Her lip curled. “The bitch who took bronze ahead of me didn’t even stick her landing.”

  “She didn’t—” I paused. “Okay, at the risk of sounding completely stupid, since I used to watch gymnastics all the time but never really knew much; what exactly does that term mean?”

  “Stick the landing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Land perfectly.” She planted two fingers on the table as if to mimic a gymnast landing after a vault. “You know, not stumbling or wobbling.”

  “Right. Got it.”

  “You can have the best routine ever, but the second you land, if there’s even a hint that you’re not perfectly balanced, you’re fucked.” She rolled her eyes. “And it’s up to a bunch of judges who are usually more interested in how we look in our leotards anyway.”

  Squirming a little, I wrinkled my nose. “I always wondered about that.”

  “It’s . . .” She sighed. “All right, it isn’t that bad. But there are some who obviously don’t care about form and technique as long as they get to see Lycra stretched over teenage tits and ass.”

  I made a gagging noise. “That’s why I always hated judged sports. My brother and I both rode dressage horses when we were kids, and I just couldn’t deal with everything being dependent on some asshole scoring us. Especially when the pretty girls always seemed to win as long as their horses behaved halfway decently.”

  Natalya laughed, oblivious to what that did to my body temperature. “I know that much too well. And I was never judged on what an animal did, just what I did.” She picked up her drink and muttered around the straw, “Well, me, my looks, and the laws of physics.”

  “Yeah, equestrian competition means you, the laws of physics, and the half ton of intent and intellect you’re sitting on.” I absently drew lines in the condensation on my glass and tried not to imagine Natalya on the mat or a horse. “Amazing how things fall apart when one of those things decides not to cooperate. Physics, I mean. Or the horse. Or—” You sound like an idiot. Stop. “You know what I mean.”

  She nodded, her smile doing nothing to untie my tongue. “Mm-hmm. I do. So you stopped riding?”

  “I don’t really have time anymore.” I kept dragging my thumbs through the sweat on my glass, just for something to occupy my hands. “My brother still rides, though. He trains warmbloods on the East Coast.”

  “Doing what he loves, loving what he does?”

  “Very much so.” I paused. “So when did you stop gymnastics?”

  “When I was seventeen.” She shrugged. “My joints and my back were starting to have problems. Another year or two, and I’d have started getting hurt, so I retired while I was still on top.”

  “Smart move.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve done it sooner.” She gestured at her back. “Did plenty of damage.”

  I let go of my glass and wiped my damp hands on my napkin as I forced my brain to focus on the conversation. “I thought you hurt your back in a stunt.”

  “I did.” She twisted a little, as if just talking about it made her hurt. “But there was damage long before. Stress fractures. Things like that. The one that ended my career just made it all worse.”

  I shuddered, squirming in my seat. “My brother has the same problem with the horses. He says they’re aging him at twice the speed of time, especially in his back.”

  Natalya laughed. “Sounds just like gymnastics. And stunts.”

  “I’m sure. How did you get into that field, anyway?”

  “Which one? Gymnastics or stunts?”

  “Well, both.”

  “I’ve been a gymnast since I could walk. I don’t remember ever not being one.” She paused, eyes growing distant for a moment, but then she shook herself and went on. “After I retired, I emigrated, and I was looking for work. Any kind of work. I hated everything I did—waitressing, working as a store clerk.” She scowled. “No money, either.”

  “Ugh, I know the feeling.” I reached for my glass again. “I’ve waited many, many tables in my day.”

  “Right, so you know.” She shifted in her chair. “Then I worked with a Cirque du Soleil show for a year, which was better than waiting tables.”

  An image flashed through my mind of Natalya in one of those brightly colored skintight costumes, and I almost dropped my drink. Jesus fuck. So much for getting my brain back on the rails.

  I shook myself, and when I met her gaze, a devilish smile curled the corners of her mouth. My cheeks burned—busted.

  “So. Um.” I cleared my throat. “With your injuries, weren’t the acrobatics a problem?”

  “Sure.” She half shrugged. “It was only meant to be temporary. Something to keep me fed until I could find something permanent.”

  “Which turned out to be stunt work?”

  “Strangely enough, yes.” She laughed. “Wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but I liked it.”

  “How’d you get started in it?”

  “Another acrobat knew a stunt coordinator in LA and got me in touch with him. The guy kept trying to recruit me, but I wasn’t sure if that’s what I wanted to do. Then he got desperate because one of his stuntwomen broke her back.”

  I blinked. “Did he tell you that in the interview?”

  Laughing, she nodded. “He was quite honest. Said he needed someone who wasn’t scared of dangling off the same cliff where this girl had just fallen, and I said, ‘Scared? Pfft. I dangle from all kinds of shit during the Cirque shows.’ So, he told me to put my money where my mouth was. And I did. And he gave me more work. And . . . here I am.”

  “Still in one piece.” Still pretty limber, too. I gulped and hoped she didn’t notice. “That, um, says something.”

  She snorted. “One piece? Only because there are bolts and screws keeping me that way.”

  “Could be worse, right?”

  “Much.” She laughed. “So when was the last time you rode?”

  Last time I— A horse. Right. Really, brain? I clea
red my throat. “It’s been too long, actually. Don’t really have time to keep a horse, though, so . . .”

  “You know, they have rides on the beach down in . . . Clay . . . Cal-lay . . .”

  “Kalaloch?”

  “I think?”

  I smiled. “Took a while for me to learn to say it. It’s spelled completely differently, but they say it ‘clay-lock.’ And anyway, they have a place where people can ride?”

  She nodded.

  “That would be a blast.” I straightened. “Hey, maybe when we have an afternoon off, we should go!”

  Her eyes lit up, sending electricity crackling down my spine. “We should!”

  Her enthusiasm was contagious, and I grinned. “Yes! I’ll look around online. I could really, really go for a ride like that.”

  “Me too.” She shrugged. “I mean, I’ve only ridden a few times, but I loved it. I’ve always wanted to try it again.”

  “And riding on the beach would be a ton of fun.” I paused, and panic crept up my spine. Yeah. It’d be fun. And romantic. Was that too far? Oh hell, we were already on a date. Why not?

  Natalya cocked her head. “Something wrong?”

  “Well.” I took a drink to moisten my suddenly dry mouth. “I guess I’m . . .” I hesitated. “Okay, here’s the thing. I love this.” I gestured at us and the table between us. “Going riding? A blast. What we did in my office yesterday?”

  She grinned, and we both shivered.

  Squirming in my seat, I said, “I like it. All of it. But . . . what exactly are we doing?”

  “Eating dinner. Talking about horseback riding.” She shrugged. “Sleeping together when we want to.” She leaned forward, eyes locked on mine. “You’re overthinking it. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “I’m . . .” Guilty. Exhaling, I rubbed my neck and avoided her gaze. “I just don’t want to fuck this up.”

  She laughed. “You’re such a director.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no script and no diagram, so you’re worried about it. Just like any director would be.”

  I shifted in my seat. “Okay, I guess that is kind of . . . me.”