by Addison Fox
His large hands cupped her, his long fingers unerringly finding her nipples through the silk of her bra and Sloan arched into his touch, pressing herself forward into the swirling storm of pleasure.
“You are so beautiful.” His voice was quiet—reverent—in the silence of the room as he touched her and gave her pleasure. Long, restless moments unfurled, one after the other as the dark pleasure built inside of them both.
With suddenly impatient hands, he gripped the material of her shirt and lifted it up and off, tossing it carelessly over the edge of the bed. She reached for her bra herself, anxious for the feel of his hands against her skin without the barrier of silk.
Another wave of heat ignited within her as his oh-so-clever and capable touch again took her body to new heights.
Walker.
What was this attraction between them? Where had it come from? And who would have thought she’d have to travel so very far to find it.
To find him.
Ignoring the creeping thoughts, she refocused on the man underneath her, his large body hers for the taking. She was here now and she refused to cloud her time with Walker thinking thoughts of what was to come.
Tonight was just for them. To give and take pleasure.
To share.
Together.
Restless, Walker shifted them again and Sloan found herself once again on her back as he made quick work of her jeans. He ran his fingers down her legs as he dragged the heavy denim and thin panties off her in one long, smooth move. Lifting off the bed, he removed his jeans and dropped them in the small pile he’d already made with her clothes, returning again to settle himself over her.
“That was very smooth. You practice that one, Counselor?”
Walker’s eyes clouded as his eyebrows slashed over those dark orbs. “You’re not practice, Sloan. Or a conquest. Or like anything else I’ve ever experienced.”
She swallowed hard around the sudden lump in her throat. “I didn’t mean—”
He shifted, placed a finger against her lips. “It’s okay. I just wanted you to know you’re different. What’s between us is different. That’s all.”
“Okay,” she said on a soft sigh that filled the space between them.
The seriousness of the moment evaporated as his eyes took on a bright shine and a wicked grin lit the corners of his mouth. Before she could even guess his intent, he slid down her body, settling himself between her thighs.
Whatever pleasure he’d been able to pull from her body was nothing compared to the great, glorious waves that consumed her as his mouth found her core. The wet heat and long, languorous strokes of his tongue shot electric currents streaking through her in a swirling pattern so like the aurora borealis they’d watched earlier.
Just like the constantly shifting lights, she was unable to grab on to anything, couldn’t hold a single thought as the pleasure drove her farther and farther up.
Closer and closer to the peak.
“Walker.” She breathed his name on a sigh, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears as the moment crested over her, tearing her apart as her body went soaring.
Before she could gather herself—or even regain a moment’s quiet—he ran his hand up the length of her body, then muttered something as he reached over the side of the bed for his jeans. With swift movements he fumbled with his wallet, pulling out a small packet.
She heard the quick tear of foil and wondered how she could be so far gone to have forgotten.
“Let me help you with that,” she whispered against his throat. As she reached for his hands, she was oddly gratified to find his trembling and she took over, rolling the condom down the long length of him with deliberate slowness.
“Ah, Sloan. You’re really trying to kill me, aren’t you?”
“It’s only fair seeing as I still haven’t fully regained my sight,” she whispered as she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his chest.
There were no more words—nothing but whispered moans as Walker braced himself on his forearms and positioned himself between her thighs. Sloan read his intent and gripped his hips and lifted her own until he was fully sheathed inside of her.
She lost herself to the swirling waves of pleasure again as he began to move inside her. Long, smooth strokes as he pulled from her body and then filled her again. He drove her to dizzying heights, so like before yet different as the heavy shape of him pressed against her.
She wrapped her arms around his sweat-slicked shoulders and reveled in what she’d missed for so long. Reveled in the ability to make this large man so vulnerable and open to her. She delighted in the pleasure they brought each other.
The telltale signs of her impending orgasm filled her and she cried out his name. As her body tightened around him, she heard his shout, long and low, as he buried himself to the hilt. Sloan held tight to his large body as his own orgasm overtook him, the play of muscles along his back telegraphing the pleasure that swept through him.
As they both lay there spent, she acknowledged the two facts she’d kept hidden from even herself.
Walker Montgomery wasn’t a fling, no matter how hard she tried to tell herself otherwise.
And leaving Alaska was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever have to do.
“Sloan?” Walker whispered toward her inert form.
“Hmmm?”
“Are you okay? You haven’t moved.”
She groaned as she opened one bright blue eye, then the other one. “I just had two almost back-to-back orgasms, Walker. Where do you want me to go?”
A laugh rumbled low in his chest, surprising him that he had the energy for that. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“To say I’m okay would be an understatement of monstrous proportion.”
Satisfaction whipped through him at her words although the sheer cavemanesque quality of the reaction caught him off guard. “You sure do know how to make a man feel good.”
“Right back at ya, Slick.”
He had no idea why, but her earlier words rose up to taunt him as to her estimate of how many lovers he’d had. His memories traveled over that long, twisting road of adult activities as he thought about the women he’d shared his bed with.
Bright, attractive women who were looking for the same things he was and who knew what they were getting into.
Adult activities, with adult expectations, nothing more.
So why did that thought all of a sudden leave him empty?
Especially when he looked down the barrel of his future and realized that was all that awaited him.
It’s what he wanted. What he’d always wanted.
Wasn’t it?
Chapter Nineteen
Sloan was up early the day of the competition, anxious to capture the thoughts and feedback of the various competitors as they ate breakfast in the Indigo Blue’s dining room. She’d spent the last two days interviewing various women as they arrived in Indigo, but she wanted to capture the excitement that would inevitably drive everyone before the games started.
If her days were spent with the competitors, her nights had been spent with Walker. She’d slept at his house the last two nights, the heat between them growing more and more intense with each passing moment.
A heat that refused to be sated by the passion-filled hours.
With each encounter they shared, she couldn’t escape the nagging acknowledgment that she’d be gone in less than a week.
Realistically, she knew it was for the best. What was between them was meant to stay it its own little box. A box that had no strings and no regrets attached to it. She knew she should focus on the present and not worry about the future.
So why couldn’t she stop thinking about her impending departure?
And the empty nights that would follow.
She shook her head, trying to shake off the maudlin thoughts as she helped herself to a hearty breakfast off the buffet table. Scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and two pancakes for good measure.
“What is it about the pancakes here?” Grier’s sleepy voice greeted her over her shoulder.
“They certainly seem to be a staple,” Sloan agreed as she reached for the ladle of syrup.
“I swear, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had pancakes in the last five years.”
“And I’ve managed to surpass one hand in the week and a half I’ve been here,” Sloan added with a smile. “It seems I manage to find an excuse every day. I’ll chalk up today’s indulgence to keeping my strength up for the competition. Besides, they’re too yummy to resist.”
“Speaking of yummy . . .”
Sloan shot Grier a dark look, but it bounced off that petite back where her friend stood facing the coffee urn.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means. You’ve been doing the down and dirty with Counselor Yummy and yet you’ve not shared one single detail with me.”
The sour taste of guilt rose up as Sloan took her seat. She had held out on Grier and Avery, and somewhere in the back of her mind it has niggled at her like a sore tooth.
Grier joined her at the table, a steaming mug in her hands. “I’ve given you your space because I know you needed it, but I’m done giving you room. What’s going on?”
“Only the best sex of my life.”
“That seems to be going around. Who the hell knew there were all these virile men in the middle of the winter wilderness?”
Sloan kept her tone casual as she probed Grier. Seeing as how she’d not been the most forthcoming soul, she knew it wasn’t fair to ask for the same honesty in return. “You slept with Mick again?”
“I most certainly did not.” Grier actually looked sort of offended.
“You don’t have to look so upset about it.”
“I wouldn’t sleep with him again if—”
“If what?”
Sloan heard the small sigh before Grier took another sip of her coffee. “He has completely ignored me. Which makes him the last man I should sleep with ever again. Well, actually, that’s Jason. Make Mick the second to last man I should ever consider sleeping with.”
“He’s crazy about you. Why’s he staying away?”
“Umm . . . it’s probably the frosty glares and don’t-fuck-with-me vibes I’ve been giving him.”
Sloan laid her fork down. “Grier. What’s going on with you?”
“I really don’t know, Sloan. Honestly, I don’t know. It’s like all these thoughts are jumbled up in my head. The broken engagement. My dad’s death. And then this thing with Mick that just sort of happened.”
She dropped her head on top of her folded arms. “Oh God. I want him, but I’m so afraid to want him.”
“Have you tried talking to him about it? I think he’d listen.”
“And say what?” Grier lifted her head, the storm clouds back in full force in the swirling depths of her gray eyes. “I’m sorry I approached you like a half-deranged, lunatic sex maniac. Are you interested in signing up to be my human vibrator for the duration of my stay in Indigo?”
“You don’t feel that way about him. You know you don’t.”
“Maybe it’s all I’ve got to give.”
“I don’t think you really believe that.”
“Well, how else am I supposed to feel about him? He’s not a guy you get serious with, Sloan, and you know it.”
Sloan felt her friend’s misery as if it were her own. And she understood—on a level she never expected—what Grier was saying.
“What if he is?”
The question hung there between them, shifting like fog. Sloan knew her thoughts about a relationship with Walker changed at least every other hour. She suspected Grier’s on the subject of Mick weren’t too far off.
Sounds from the kitchen shook them out of their musings and Sloan glanced up to see Avery coming through the swinging door with a large platter in her hands. “What are the two of you doing up so early?”
“Preparing,” Sloan said.
“Commiserating,” Grier said at the same time.
“Uh-oh. I likely need some coffee for this.” Avery filled up a fresh mug at the coffee urn and then joined them. “What have I missed?”
“Actually, not much. Sloan was just about to give me all the juicy details on sex with Walker.”
“Oooh. I’m so glad I got a head start this morning.” Avery reached forward for the cream, dumping about half a mug’s worth into her coffee before reaching for the sugar. “That means I’ve got time to sit here and idly gossip with friends. Spill it, Sloan. And use adjectives, girlfriend. The good ones.”
“Amazing. Wonderful. Awesome. Mind-blowing. Oh”—she shot a look at Grier—“multiorgasmic, to boot.”
“What is it with the Alaska air, Avery?” Grier asked. “Does the higher altitude do something to your clitoris or what?”
Avery almost spit out her coffee. “I’m sorry?”
“No, no.” Grier waved an arm. “I’m serious. It’s like something has happened to me. I mean, I like an orgasm as much as the next girl, but there’s something in the air up here. They’re so . . . so easy. And plentiful.”
Avery shook her head as giggles overtook her and Sloan couldn’t help but join in. “You really are a lunatic, you know.”
“Yeah, a half-deranged, lunatic sex maniac.”
Avery’s eyebrows shot up, her expression sobering at Grier’s comment. “What’s this about?”
“Oh, that’s the part you did miss. My avoidance of Mick as sure evidence of my deteriorating mental state.”
“Or fear,” Avery added. Her voice held no judgment, only an honest assessment of the situation. “You could just be afraid of what there might be between the two of you.”
Whatever humor had existed between the three of them was gone and instead, Sloan was struck by the simple truth of Avery’s statement.
Fear.
It had a powerful ability to weaken, delude and muddle a situation.
“Maybe you’re right,” Grier said softly as she looked down into her coffee.
Sloan couldn’t hold back the question from the very deepest part of her conscience. Was she afraid?
No way.
In fact, her relationship with Walker was quite the opposite. It was empowering, even. She was a grown woman, making a choice that made her happy.
“Or maybe it’s a matter of perspective. I know I, for one,” Sloan added, picking up her fork again and digging into her pancakes, “have been so focused on what something with Walker can’t be that I’ve forgotten to acknowledge what it can be.”
She ignored Grier and Avery’s silence, instead taking comfort in her new epiphany as she took another forkful of pancakes. She didn’t have to know where things with Walker were going. And she also didn’t have to spend the next three days worrying about going home.
What they’d shared meant something to both of them. She knew that. Maybe she didn’t need to worry about any of it being anything more than that.
Maybe she should just enjoy what it was.
Sloan had almost convinced herself when a soft, barely audible gasp reached her ears, pulling her attention away from breakfast.
A deep, masculine voice that was a mix of Scotch and sin rumbled across the length of the dining room. “I heard there was some breakfast to be found in here.”
Sloan recognized him instantly.
The six-foot-four-inch athletic frame with shoulders the width of a small car. The shock of black hair that curled at base of his neck. The vivid green eyes every female in New York dreamed about.
Roman Forsyth.
Even if she hadn’t known who he was, the rapidly draining color from Avery’s face would have given her all the clues she needed.
“Help yourself.” Avery waved a careless hand toward the buffet table.
Before any of them could say anything else, Avery stood and grabbed her coffee mug. “I’d better be getting back to the kitchen. The guests will be arriving any minut
e and I need to get a few more things ready.”
Sloan allowed Avery her polite lie—and the breathing room she needed—and shot her a small, encouraging smile. As her friend walked across the dining room toward the swinging door of the kitchen, she didn’t miss the way Avery gave Roman a wide berth.
She also didn’t miss Roman’s sidestep away from the coffee urn, effectively placing himself in her way. Although she couldn’t hear what was said from across the room, she’d have had to be blind to miss the tension as the two of them came within close range of each other.
“That can’t be good,” Grier whispered.
“It doesn’t appear so. She looks like a cat who’s just been thrown in a tub, her back’s so stiff.”
Grier kept her voice low as she reached for her mug again. “I think I just figured out how Avery knows so much about the fear of falling for someone.”
“I suspect you’re right.”
Walker stood with Mick and Roman on the far edge of the town square. The last-minute preparations for the day’s events were nearly complete and the three of them had been put to work setting up the winner’s area.
“It’s damn good to see you.” Mick slapped Roman on the back. “It’s been a long time, buddy.”
“Yeah.” Roman rubbed his gloved hands together. “It’s been a busy year.”
Walker was as glad as Mick to see their friend, but he couldn’t forget his conversation with Avery after the snowball fight.
Roman had abandoned them. All of them, but Avery in particular. To top it all off, the NHL star had missed a lot since his last visit to Indigo.
“I can’t believe the grandmothers are still doing this thing.” Roman’s gaze ranged over the buzz of activity across the middle of town.
From where they stood, Walker could see Jack and Bear setting up the skeet-shooting area. The street in front of the diner had tables set up for the sandwich and beer runs. And his favorite—the mini-Iditarod—was in progress at the opposite corner of the square, with Chooch and Hooch’s dogs scampering around in the snow as their owners worked on setting up their mini sleds for the event.