by Skye Jordan
“I’m pretty damn sure you could rehab an entire hockey team at once.” He retrieved the board, lining it up near her and stabilizing it with one foot while she set the machine back on the counter. “Hold on and step into the boots. I’ll strap you in.”
“I’m going to regret this,” she murmured, stepping into one boot. “I just know it.”
Once strapped in, she didn’t feel any safer. The boots held her feet at an awkward angle. “You’ve got to be kidding me. How do you do anything in these?”
He grinned. “I’m just that good.”
She laughed, and some of her frustration ebbed. “Okay, Superstar, now what?”
“It’s all about balance.” He put his hands on her hips and tilted her body as he spoke. “Lean back to slow down, lean forward to speed up, tilt sideways to turn. Ready?”
“No.”
“Here we go.”
With his hands at her hips, he walked alongside as he pushed her forward. The board tilted beneath her feet, and she gasped, grabbing for his hands as if that would stabilize her.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “We’re just getting the feel.”
All Julia could feel was the heat growing beneath his hands and the way it tingled down through her hips and between her legs.
He stopped her at the front door. “Hold on, we’re going to turn.”
Wrapping one arm around her waist, he lifted her off the floor and held her against his body as he spun a semicircle before setting her down again. Her T-shirt rode up, putting her skin that much closer to his. He smelled amazing, a blend of shower-fresh and pure Noah, a scent that had become intimately familiar to her over the last week. And one that always made her panties a little damp.
“Oh yeah,” he murmured, sliding her slowly down his body before setting her on the floor.
“This was one of my better ideas.”
All that heat and muscle stoked the fantasies she’d been fighting on a daily—sometimes hourly—basis. “Funny, I was just thinking it’s one of my worst.”He looked down the length of the hallway where it passed through the kitchen and continued until it dead-ended at the door to the gym. “Just for that, you’re on your own.”
“Noah,” she warned.
“Remember forward, back, turn. I’ll walk beside you.”
With his hands poised to catch her if she wobbled, he said, “Get some momentum.”
They spent the next fifteen minutes crawling up and down the hallway until Julia figured out the basics. Then he taught her to turn around the island and again into the dining room to make a circle back to the foyer.
“All right,” she said, leaning back to bring the board to a stop. “I’ve experienced enough.”
“No way. You haven’t experienced anything.” He stood behind her, put his foot between hers on the board, and gripped her waist. “Let’s get a little taste of speed.”
“Oh no.” She covered his hands. “Noah—”
He pushed off, added his other foot to the board between Julia’s, and wrapped one arm around her waist.
“Oh my God.” She gripped his arm.
“Gotta let go, sweetness,” he murmured in her ear. “Gotta trust me and use your arms to help you balance.”
Trust him? No. Trust wasn’t her strong suit. But independence was, so she forced herself to drag her fingers from his arm.
“That’a girl,” he murmured close, shooting tingles across her neck.
This idea was worse than bad. With his heat and muscle surrounding her, his whispered encouragement in her ear. This didn’t just bring back memories of their night together, it put her right back in their night together. And while she should be focused on learning the board, all she could do was wish they were in bed again, just like this, his thick cock sliding deep, deep, deep inside her.
As if he could read her thoughts, his hips eased into hers and his erection pressed along the top of her ass. She was well beyond damp panties now.
He tightened his arm around her waist, curved his fingers around one wrist, and stretched her arm out in front of her. His front pressed along her back, shoulders to thighs. This was the closest they’d been—including all his therapy—since he’d kissed her breath away the day she’d come back to the house with her quasi contract. And while Noah’s body leaned and swayed against hers, her sexual thoughts dimmed with the rise of speed. They whipped from one room to the next, and her heart rate picked up. Her muscles tensed. Her mind fast-forwarded to everything that could go wrong.
“Hold on for a turn.” Noah leaned back to slow them as he came toward the front door, then tipped them back on one edge and spun a half circle with Julia’s squeal of fear—and Noah’s laughter—echoing off the walls. He leaned forward, shooting them down the hallway again, and now laughter bubbled up from the excitement at the pit of her stomach.
He finally pulled them to a stop in the kitchen. Julia was breathing fast, her heart racing when Noah dipped his head, rubbed the stubble of his chin across her jaw, followed by the softest brush of his lips, creating a surge of tingles down her neck, over her shoulders, and into her breasts, where her nipples tightened into knots.
“Enjoy the ride?” he asked, his voice low and sexy and highly suggestive.
Cease and desist. Cease and desist.
The warning repeated in her head like blinking red lights. She’d obviously been watching too much late-night drama on Netflix when she couldn’t get back to sleep after waking from a sexually provocative dream about Noah.
“Yeah,” she said, a little breathless. “I could see how that would be a really fun sport.” When he didn’t let go of her, she added, “Me, I stuck with boring stuff like running, swimming…”
Still, he didn’t move, didn’t speak. Just held her, his face turned into her neck, his lips resting on her skin. His arm remained tight around her waist, his hand burning a print into her belly where it had found its way beneath her T-shirt. And, God, that all felt so damn good.
“I miss you.” His whisper caught her off guard.
She turned her head a little, her brow pulling in confusion. “What?”
“I miss you,” he repeated in barely a whisper, as if it were more a thought than spoken words. “I miss this.”
Holy shit. What the hell was this? No, no, no. She didn’t need this. Didn’t want to see the unguarded sweetness he’d shown her in the bedroom last week. The one that had a way of making her feel so completely safe. Had a way of making her more uninhibited than she’d ever been.
“You miss sex,” she said. “Don’t worry, it won’t be much longer before—”
“I miss sex with you. And I miss you in my bed.” He turned his head and rested his chin on her shoulder, which was when she realized how incredibly still he was. No fidgeting, no rush of excess energy. He was still and strong and completely centered. “I’ve never liked sleeping with anyone. Now I wake up and can’t go back to sleep because you’re five hundred yards away in a different building.”
Her chest caved a little. Emotion tightened her throat. Cease and desist, dammit. “Noah—”
“And if I’m being honest, it’s cutting into my required ten hours of sleep, Coach.” He pressed his lips to her bare shoulder. “I think we need to do something about it.”
She squeezed her eyes closed, gritted her teeth against the need raging through her, and drew a deep breath. “I guess I’ll just have to work you so hard during the day, you can’t help but pass out when you get to bed.”
She felt the curve of his lips on her skin again. His laughter heated her shoulder. “I’ll let you work me hard day or night, but that probably would cut into training.”
She exhaled heavily and turned her head to glance at him over her shoulder. “Noah…” He was right there, his lips just an inch from hers, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded. Everything in her body surged toward him. “God, you make this so difficult.”
“Good. At least I’m not in it alone.” He lifted a hand and pressed it against her jaw,
keeping her head turned toward him, then covered her mouth with his, no warning, no prep, just bam.
His lips felt like they were charged with electricity, little tingles running in chaotic bursts over her own. He exhaled, and his body softened behind her, molding to her every curve. But his arm tightened, and his mouth opened, and his tongue plunged inside with a kind of hunger that told her he’d been suffering the withdrawal too.
He was hot and sensual and tasted so damn good. A sound rolled from her throat—completely against her will. But Noah took it as a green light. He slanted his head, deepened the kiss, stroking her tongue with deliberate and erotic moves that made her think about him fucking her, long and deep and slow.
He pulled back to reposition, lick her lips, suckle her tongue, never giving Julia the chance to speak. And without being able to hear her own denials or think quick enough to spark practical thoughts again, she was sliding toward it would feel so good…
A chime drifted through the house, pulling Julia from her inner battle. It was familiar, incessant, and bristled annoyance up Julia’s spine, something she didn’t understand. All she understood now was Noah’s mouth on hers.
Only he tore his mouth away and looked up the stairs toward his bedroom. “Dammit.” Then he bent to unfasten the bindings on the board and lifted Julia out of the boots, all before she could think straight again. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to get that, but I’ll make it short. I’ll be right down.”
And he was gone, moving up the stairs with a fluidity Julia should be proud of. But now, with a clear head, she recognized the chime—someone was Skyping him on his laptop in his bedroom. And Julia had heard him talking with the girl often enough to know her name was Mandy or Missy or Miranda…or something.
A burst of hurt slammed her gut before anger fired up.
“Hey, sugar.” His voice floated from his bedroom, light and bright. “How’s your day?”
A female voice drifted from the computer. Julia couldn’t hear the words, only the happy, upbeat voice as she started rambling to Noah. Something the woman said made him laugh, and the rich sound she’d come to love floated down the stairs.
She huffed a laugh, half self-deprecation, half disgust, and pressed her fingers to her lips still tingling with Noah’s kiss. “I’m such an idiot.”
She’d been damn close to falling right into Noah’s bed again. And for what? A few hours of bliss? All when he already had another chick on the hook, just waiting for Julia to disappear from his life so he could shift back into most-eligible-bachelor mode.
Christ, how many times did she need to make the same mistakes before she saw them as mistakes before she made them?
“Fucking idiot.” Julia exhaled and bent to pick up the board and set it on the breakfast bar, pulling her walls back up while pretending to check out the wheelbase as Noah’s footsteps came down the stairs.
“What are you doing?” he asked, coming over and standing too close, sliding his hand across her shoulders and raising gooseflesh beneath her T-shirt.
“Just refocusing.” She turned to face him, hiding her disappointment as best she could. “That kiss shouldn’t have happened. But it was just one of those little slips. No need to make it an issue.”
“Julia—”
“I’ve got some great ideas for how to use this toy of yours in the workouts.” She gave him a small smile, one that hurt to force. “Let’s get therapy started.”
Julia sipped hot chocolate from a mug, curled into the corner of an overstuffed sofa inside the Squaw Valley Lodge closest to the only chair lift she allowed Noah to take. It led to two short runs Julia could see, one beginner and one intermediate. Now, she tracked his blue-and-white jacket and red beanie as he drifted farther and farther up the mountain.
This is good. Time apart. We need this.
She kept repeating the idea over and over, hoping it would catch and dull this weird flare of anxiety. Over three weeks of constant contact, and she and Noah continued to get closer. Continued to laugh and learn together. Continued to entertain friends as one big happy freaking family. But as the countdown to Snowmass kicked in, so did Julia’s realization that she had to leave all the happiness and comfort they’d created behind soon.
Someone stopped beside the sofa, but Julia never lost sight of Noah.
“You said you were putting him on the open slopes”—Drake’s deep voice slid into her thoughts—“but I couldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I’m not thrilled with how hard his coach is pushing him. But we don’t have much time, and after watching what he does on that superpipe Rafe’s got carved out of his property, not to mention the crazy shit he pulls on that boarding trampoline in his gym, I figured he couldn’t do much worse out here.” She shook her head as the unease returned. “But it’s a real risk. He’s a damn airdog, and with the height and speed he gets in that ice bowl, one slight mistake would be all it takes…”
Julia envisioned his board hitting an edge of the icy bowl where he practiced, could picture the board going one way, Noah going the other, his feet strapped in and caught in the middle…
Her throat grew thick with fear.
“If he catches that board wrong at this stage of healing… I don’t know. I really can’t say what would happen or how bad it would be. And, yes, it freaks me the hell out.” She exhaled and shrugged. “But he’s been so stoked since he’s gotten back on the powder, if I vetoed this, I was pretty sure I’d catch him sneaking out in the middle of the night to hit it in the dark.”
“Look at you,” Drake said with laughter in his voice.
She pulled her gaze from Noah. “What?”
“When you came three weeks ago, you didn’t even know what a superpipe was, bitching about ‘snowboarder talk.’ Now you’re all ‘stoked’ and ‘airdog’ and ‘hit it’. Before you know it, you’re going to turn into a Betty.”
Julia laughed at his term for a female snowboarder. She hadn’t even realized she’d said those things, but after weeks with the powder maniac, she was talking his language. “No. I tried his practice board once. I’ll stick with swimming, thanks.”
Drake dropped onto the sofa sideways so he could see out the windows and talk with Julia. “So, overall, how’s it going?”
Drake checked in with her every couple of days, but he’d been out of town on business for the last week, so this was his face-to-face update. “Aside from a few Pop-Tart smuggling incidents—all of which I thwarted, I’ll have you know—Noah’s been abiding by our original agreements, though he conveniently forgets what we agreed to and has to be reminded.”
Reminded not to touch her. Reminded not to kiss her. Reminded not to make sexual overtures she barely resisted.
“I’ve got four of his snowboarding buddies coming to the house for workouts every day—and usually end up feeding them all every night,” she continued. “Last week, he started back with Rafe, so he boards in the morning and works out in the early evening. We’ve got two therapy sessions, one before he sees Rafe and one after his workout. If he’s hurting or backsliding, I add one in the middle of the day. If not, I add another workout. Rafe’s pleased with his progress, and Noah’s happy, so I must be doing something right.”
“Then what’s bothering you?”
She shook her head, shrugged. “Just the time constraints and how hard he’s pushing. I’d rather he miss these Games if it meant healing properly and extending his career five years.”
“Julia.” The serious note in Drake’s voice drew her gaze. “If Noah doesn’t make these Games, he’ll lose his sponsors. Even if he could bear that loss financially, those sponsors won’t be there to pick him back up when he’s fully recovered and ready to go again. He’s thirty. They’ll be invested in younger talent. You know how this works. If Noah doesn’t get to Snowmass, his career is over.”
Frustration burned through Julia. “And if he goes to Snowmass too soon, he could end his career and screw up the rest of his life.”
&nb
sp; They held each other’s gazes for a long second in silence. Julia realized she was projecting many of her own fears from the past onto Noah’s current situation. And she knew Drake was thinking the same thing.
“Forget I said anything.” She turned back to the window and searched for Noah’s red beanie. “He’s doing great. We’re on schedule. I’ll get him to Snowmass.” She pointed toward the lift. “Do you see him? He’s on the chair lift closest to us. Third to the top. Sitting with a kid.”
“Should have known,” Drake said, squinting that direction. “I see him.”
“That’s Jake and Finn two chairs back.”
“You mean Trouble One and Trouble Two.”
She chuckled. “Yes and yes. Jake is Noah’s Pop-Tart dealer.”
Noah and the kid he’d befriended—Julia couldn’t tell if it was a boy or girl in all that skiwear—hopped off the lift and slid out of the way.
“Finn told me Noah teaches some camps around here,” she said.
“Until the accident, yeah. There are several really good schools for advanced snowboarders in the area. He loves it. Talks about having a school of his own someday. If anyone could do it, Noah could. He was pretty much raised by instructors and camp counselors.”
She knew all about leaving family behind to train. In her case, she’d looked forward to getting away from her overbearing, judgmental parents. But other athletes hadn’t been as thrilled or done as well away from home.
“I think he found one of his students.” They watched Noah surf the snow as effortlessly as if he’d been born on the slopes, pausing every now and then to wait for the kid, talk to him, then continue on. Trouble One and Trouble Two had skied down the other side of the slope and now sat on a lift floating toward the mountaintop.
“Is that my boy on the bunny slopes?” A second male voice came into the conversation, and Julia looked back to find Rafe O’Neil shaking Drake’s hand. “Tell me it’s not true.”
Rafe was somewhere in his late forties, and handsome in that rugged, year-round-Tahoe-resident sort of way.