The man she mistook for the edge had a closely cropped beard and a mile-long body. Not one of those beards that were cool by means of neglect. One he cared for on a regular basis. A man who took stock in himself. She inventoried the full length of him. The only thing more impressive than his length was the girth of his chest. Like some kind of Viking warrior.
He’d closed his eyes again, more absorbed by his float than by the strange woman gawking at him. She positioned herself a few feet away and resumed her own float. Closed her eyes and imagined the warmth enveloping her was the Napa sun—fields of grapevines spilling through valleys between rolling hills. A soft breeze over her skin.
Her arm bumped against his again.
She crouched up out of the water. “Oh, God. I’m really sorry. There must be a current in here.”
“It’s okay.” Viking man sat up, breaking his float and parting his hands across his face. In the wake of his hands, a luminous smile rose, promising he wasn’t annoyed.
Oh, he was many things other than annoyed. Handsome, intriguing, but definitely not annoyed. “I’m done in here now anyway, I’ll just…” She glanced toward the indoor-outdoor pool and pointed in that direction. Facing him, she rose out of the water, all too aware of the bikini bottom riding up her backside as salt water cascaded down the front of her body.
The water line danced beneath his pecs, the underwater lights playing over his face. He spread out an arm over the surface. “There’s plenty of room. You can stay if you want.”
It was cold, standing here like this. And wasn’t he so inviting? She gave a little shrug and lay back down.
He resumed his float, too. After a few moments of silence, the warm water eased her back toward relaxation. But now aware of the tendency to drift, she paddled with the arm nearest him to overcome the current and keep her distance.
“What are you in for?” His eyes remained closed as he spoke.
“Sorry, what?”
“You know, people come here for a reason. To de-stress, escape reality.” He addressed the vaulted warehouse ceiling.
“You want to know what reality I’m escaping? That would take a long time.”
“I got time.”
“Which, I’m sure, you’d rather do a million other things with than be my therapist. Are you a therapist?” She lifted her head to catch his answer.
He smiled wide, cheeks pushing into sideburns. Thankfully, his eyes were still closed or he’d notice her staring. “No. I’m a risk manager.”
“So you’re escaping work stress?” Though he didn’t seem terribly stressed to her.
“I’m starting a new job so just taking a time-out. Plus, mitochondria.”
“What?”
He opened his eyes and swiveled his head to her. “Stimulating your cells going from heat to the cold plunge pool…it’s good for the mitochondria. For longevity.”
She gave a shiver of her shoulders despite the warmth spreading through her from his gaze. “I never could do those cold plunge pools.”
“Oh, you gotta try it. It’s invigorating.” His eyes widened with excitement.
Dip her body willingly into a bone-chilling fifty-seven degrees? The exact temperature had etched itself in her memory during the introductory tour. Not her idea of fun, but his enthusiasm alone was almost convincing. “I don’t know. Maybe someday.”
He closed his eyes and addressed the ceiling again. “You never said why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you’re here.”
“Stress.”
He shook his head sending little ripples toward her. “Doesn’t count.”
His probing wasn’t offensive, just unexpected. But she felt compelled to call attention to his nosiness. “Sorry, I thought you were a stranger I’d only just met.”
“Precisely. We’ll never see each other again, so you can tell me anything you want.”
That was the weirdest pickup line she’d ever heard. Was it a pickup line? He did have a point.
She didn’t like to talk about it, but despite his imposing form, something about him put her at ease. There was a warmth to his presence that had nothing to do with the heat of the pool.
She let out a sigh. “It’s the anniversary of…something unhappy I didn’t want to think about for a while.”
He broke his float and sat up. “Oh, man. Sorry. Now I made you think about it.”
“Yeah. You did.” She came up to a crouch. But once she stopped paddling, the current urged her toward him and before she could dig her heels into the bottom of the pool to anchor her, she was inches away from the honey-colored skin of his chest. She lifted her gaze to his eyes. “So what are you going to do about it?”
As he considered her question his face became serious. He was treading with his long arms sort of uselessly since the pool was only three feet deep and he rose out of the water a lot farther than she did. He had light gold-green eyes flecked with dark, like lichen on a black sea rock. His beard and moustache were trimmed neatly around his lips. She imagined him clipping the orderly line in the mirror. She flicked her eyes back to his, but he was looking lower. At her lips.
A thrill tickled through her.
His arms stilled. He locked his gaze with hers. Her breath stopped in her throat as he reached a hand toward her. Droplets of water fell from his arm and plinked into the pool. His hand continued to reach behind her head. Heat flushed her face. He cupped the back of her neck, sending zings up her scalp. He pulled her toward him and—surprisingly—she allowed herself to drift close, the exaggerated slowness of moving through the water adding to the surrealism of a strange man gathering her near.
Her heart began to race. She tilted her head to catch those lichen eyes bearing down on her before she closed her own.
His lips covered hers. Tiny prickles from his beard tickled the skin around her mouth and contrasted with the smoothness of his lips. Assured, yet gentle lips that tugged at her own and her heart along with them. He smelled of something comforting she couldn’t quite place, and a sharpness cutting through that—of his soap or aftershave, pleasant and stirring at the same time. He tasted a little salty. Delicious.
His tongue swept her upper lip and heat surged in her chest. Instinctively, she replied with a swipe of her own tongue across his. At the contact, her head swirled and she staggered backward out of the kiss.
Sheesh, they were in public after all. And not to mention, complete strangers.
She stood out of the water and tried to get a hold of her buzzing nerves. “That was pretty risky for a risk manager. But your plan worked.”
He rose, towering over her, water cascading down him like some sort of Aquarian god rising to battle. “I didn’t exactly plan it. You asked me to distract you.”
“I don’t usually do this sort of thing.” She pointed to him then herself, a gesture that didn’t quite capture kissing a complete stranger but would have to do.
“Neither do I, I promise.” That inviting warmth in his eyes coaxed her to believe him.
But the haze of emotions swirling in her brain—a confounding mix of aroused and apprehensive—threatened to overwhelm her. In a voice higher than her usual speaking voice, she said, “I’m going to the waterfall now.” Before turning to leave, she picked out the bikini bottom bunching in her behind.
“Wait. What’s your name?” His voice was a desperate reach.
“Does it matter?” She turned back and crossed her arms over her chest, exposing the stretch marks of her abdomen again to his view. But better that than her hard nipples. “I thought we were never going to see each other again.”
He turned his palms out. “That was the stupidest thing I ever said.”
“Well, I think it’s probably best.” She was trembling, but not from the cold. From the unexpected charge of that kiss. Never mind he’d left her breathless and disoriented in the best possible way. He was a complete stranger. She turned her back on him and walked out of the water.
Her whole body thr
ummed as she dipped into the warm pool that connected to the outdoor waterfall. She dove beneath the Plexiglas divider and surfaced into the cool air in a little alcove surrounded by a cloud of steam. At the end of the outdoor pool, a waterfall pounded into the churning bath below. She swam over and positioned her shoulders under the hot sluice.
As the water beat down on her upper traps, she thought about that kiss. Searing. Intimate. Holy shit, how did that even happen?
Maybe even more surprising was how easily she’d welcomed the kiss. A man she’d known all of five minutes. But despite his warrior appearance there was something gentle about him. His insistence on discovering some personal detail of her life had flattered and amused her. She’d felt a natural pull to him that she hadn’t felt for a man in a long time. But even so, she wasn’t sure she could just plunge into whatever he’d tried to start by kissing her.
For the next hour as she moved from steam room to jet pool to hot cold plunge pools, not braving more than a toe dip in the cold pool, she kept tabs on the Viking from afar. Never did he enter the same pool as she did. A relief and also not.
Chimes sounded out, the reminder her session was up in ten minutes. She didn’t want to leave the cocoon of warmth, face the stark reality of the Chicago winter outside these doors, and return to lie in her bed, quiet and alone in a too-empty apartment. She’d sneak a few more minutes in the eucalyptus steam room before she left.
In the candle-lit corridor on the way to the sauna, she turned the corner and came up against a wall of chest.
Viking Warrior’s chest. Inches from her face.
Between his expansive pecs, a cozy swath of dark hair gathered and came to a stop above his solid abs.
“Sorry,” he stepped aside. “Oh, it’s you.” Upon recognizing her, cheer jumped into his voice.
Her heart lifted. But the heat in his eyes threatened to sear a hole right through her.
She glanced quickly to the floor while hugging her chest. “How are your mitochondria?”
“They’re confused.” His voice took on a sanguine quality.
She shivered at the change in tone, a distress she’d caused, tempting her to look up and somehow erase his discomfort, but she tightened the embrace of her arms. “Can’t decide if they like hot or cold better?”
“No, because you’re hot and cold.”
His eyes still pressing on her, the memory of that kiss chased away the cold. But she couldn’t meet his gaze.
“Maybe I’m confused, too.” She grabbed the round metal handle of the steam room door.
“Hey,” he started, a little above a whisper, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She looked up. The candlelight reflected in his eyes, liquid with warmth and apology. Radiating an intensity she wasn’t strong enough to withstand.
“You didn’t scare me,” she said. “Good luck in the new job.” She walked into the cloud of steam and let the door close behind her.
In the women’s locker room, she peeled off her wet bikini and wrapped a towel around her chest. Why had she walked away from him like that? If there was one thing she needed in her life it was more pleasure. Those few seconds of his lips on hers had been the most physical pleasure she’d known in years.
She hadn’t been intimate with a man since her divorce from Nate. Four years. After she lost Brady…she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of pretending to be happy across the table from a stranger. She’d focused on just putting one foot in front of the other to get through each day, one moment at a time.
In front of the mirror next to the lockers, she blow-dried her hair. Instead of her face in the mirror, she saw Viking man’s chest in her mind’s eye. A wall of strength she imagined exploring with her hands. An ironic laugh escaped her. There still was a woman somewhere inside of her, not simply the shell of a mother.
Cloaked in the essential oil scents of gardenia and lavender from the baths’ skin care line, she pulled on her winter coat and hat and returned to the lobby to check out.
Viking warrior stood at the counter, towering over the short woman opposite him punching her register screen. His hair was lighter now that it was dried—lighter than Passi’s own sandy blonde hair—gold under the incandescent pendant light above the counter when he moved just so.
“What’s the name on the reservation?” the receptionist asked him.
Passi kept an eye on him as she sank into the couches and waited her turn to check out. But it seemed he hadn’t noticed her emerge from the women’s dressing room. She removed her hat, because she was still inside the thermal baths after all. And no point in disguising her identity in case he might…
“Arsenault. Magnus Arsenault.” He reached to his back pocket for his wallet.
Passi’s eyes went wide as the receptionist took his credit card. Magnus. An appropriate name for such a substantial man. Then her mind went straight to the gutter, wondering how substantial he might be in the places she hadn’t been able to see. She’d bet her last dollar Viking warrior was fully equipped for all kinds of battle.
He signed his slip, glanced at his watch, and turned to leave. Without a single, curious turn of his head, he strode through the waiting area, past where she sat on the couches and left the building.
Her stomach clenched as she took her turn at the check-out counter. Perhaps he hadn’t recognized her all wrapped up in her winter garb, her hair blonder now that it was dry. But he hadn’t even turned a curious eye to see who had been sitting there.
When Passi got home she put on her pajamas and crawled under her covers. The encounter with the Viking at the baths had left her unsettled—like how she’d felt once when she’d fallen asleep on the El and woke, confused, the train having reached the end of the line and changed directions while she slept.
The signals of life were all mixed up. She was supposed to be somewhere other than here, but she couldn’t figure out where that was or how to get there. All she knew, if she were to be honest with herself, Viking man—Magnus—was a train she should have taken. But she’d walked away.
There had to be a man out there, patient and understanding enough to take care with her. Viking man might have been that man, but now she’d never know.
Somehow he’d reached past her guard and kissed her tenderly. Those lips. His rippling wet body when he rose to his full height after the kiss. Oh, why had she let him walk away?
Under the covers, she slid off her pajama bottoms. Last time she tried to overcome the orgasm-squelching side effects of her anti-depressant, she’d fantasized about the hard young guy trimming the trees outside her building. She’d imagined she invited him inside for a lemonade, which turned into sex up against the wall in her entryway, fast and furious while his supervisor knocked on the door. The thrill of being caught had almost worked to push her beyond the numb barrier caused by her medication, but not quite.
Her mind floated back to Magnus. She slid her hand down over her thatch of hair.
Viking man walked into the bedroom. Naked. “There you are,” he said to her sitting on the bed. Substantial everywhere. Upright and ready. Magnus.
Oh, knowing his name made this so much hotter.
She pulled the covers down, revealing her naked breasts to him.
His eyes went wide, appreciating her before he riffled through her drawers and found a pair of tights. “I know how you like it.”
He beckoned her near with a hand. She crawled on hands and knees to the side of the bed, ending at the level of his sturdy erection. He gathered all her long hair in one hand and tied it in a ponytail with the tights. The extra length he wrapped around his hand and pulled a little so the line was taut. The smooth tip of his sex skimmed over her lips and she took him inside her mouth. He smelled comforting with a dash of spice and tasted a little salty, just like he did at the baths.
“You like how I taste and smell, don’t you?”
Oh, she did. She nodded, moving him up and down along with her.
“You want my cock inside you
, don’t you?”
She whimpered, heat surging to her nipples.
“I want to make you come. What do you want me to do to you? Anything you want. Say it.”
“Fill me up with you.”
He leaned his head back and moaned. “I want to fuck you so badly.”
“Fuck me, Magnus. Fuck me with your Viking cock.”
“You asked for it.” He turned her around, keeping the slightest amount of tension in the fabric connecting his hand to her hair. Rubbed his hard hot tip over her slick opening. Then thrusted inside, all slippery, robust goodness. Two more naked Viking men—who looked exactly like Magnus—walked into the room.
Okay, this fantasy was getting weird. Oh, fuck all. Just go with it, Passi.
“They’re here to help. I’m going to tell them how to make you come. You want that?”
She whimpered her assent.
“I know what you like. You want them to play with your nipples while I fuck you. While they stroke themselves and wish they were me. Don’t you?”
“Yes, Magnus.”
“But only I get to fuck you.”
“Yes, Magnus.”
They all did as promised.
Her hand worked furiously under her sheet, her nipples screaming beneath the fingers of her other hand. All these images brought her body to the tightest of tension, the highest of precipices.
“Now when you come, I’ll be still to feel you clench around me, then I’m going to fuck you fast and hard.” His hands tightened the rein on her hair a degree. “Tell me: yes, Magnus, I want this.”
“I want this. I want you, Magnus.”
She catapulted off the edge, stars exploding behind her eyes and her whole body seized and rocked with waves of glorious release. She lay there panting for a while before a ridiculous grin overtook her face.
Thank God for Viking men named Magnus.
Who cared how dirty and bondage-y and orgy-like the fantasy had needed to be? For the first time in months, she’d had an orgasm.
A Beautiful Fire (Love at Lincolnfield Book 4) Page 23
