The Blind Date

by Alice Ward

  But it still felt like a weight was on my chest as I laced on my running shoes.

  It was all my fault. I’d failed Brody by making him seem like some poor soul who’d never race again. Maybe I’d done it for the pity. I’d failed Locke by telling off those reporters. I’d failed my parents by not being able to hold this sponsorship together.

  I’d failed everyone.

  And I deserved to suffer.

  I grabbed the resistance chute off the shelf and headed outside. The wind was so powerful it took an effort to push open the door to the gym. When I got out to the beach, it was deserted. I stalked past the dunes, watching the giant waves crashing in the distance. I’d never seen them so big or angry before.

  Seagulls squawked overhead in warning as I set out, and as I looked up, I saw their white bodies silhouetted against a black-clouded sky, approaching from the north.

  With the chute attached to me I took a few steps, but it was like a firm hand was holding me in place.

  Another few steps, running hard, but something pushed me back.

  It was okay. You deserve to suffer after what you did.

  So I pushed farther, savoring the suffering. All the crazy routines Rinaldo had put me through, pushing weighted dummies across the floor, lifting more than my body weight? This was harder.

  Good.

  I wanted harder. I wanted impossible. I wanted to run until I had the life slapped out of me, because maybe then I could sleep.

  I hadn’t been able to sleep well after the night with Locke in the gym. I’d given in, laid myself bare for him, and I knew from the look on his face that it had gone too far. I could tell from the way he’d handled me with kid gloves as I got ready… he regretted it. And he should have. I was just a tomboy grease monkey. Making me look girly was just putting lipstick on a pig.

  Maybe it’d have been better if I never tasted him at all. Then I wouldn’t know what I could never have again.

  They say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. But I’d known all right. I’d known from the minute he made my heart race at that Daytona Beach restaurant, the first second I saw him, that I was a goner. I knew when he took me aside and railed me with questions that we’d had a magnetic connection. I’d never felt that way before, never had any man look at me like that before.

  Now I feared no man ever would again.

  The wind and the surf roared in my ears as I pressed on, fighting against the resistance of the chute. My thighs and calves burned, but it was a good burn. One I deserved.

  The black clouds were almost overhead, and I wished that they would suck me in, pull me away from this place, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

  Because I was done with this place. Better to call it quits now and admit defeat quietly than have it happen on national television in front of a few million people.

  I slowed to a stop, but just as I did, out of the blue came a gust of wind that knocked me flat on my ass, causing all the air to whoosh out of my lungs. I sat there, momentarily stunned, wondering what else could possibly happen to me. As if I wasn’t low enough.

  And then, to my horror, I burst into tears.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Locke

  She sobbed quietly, her knees drawn up to her chest as the storm drew closer. The chute pulled at her, but she didn’t fall backward.

  I approached her carefully as if approaching a wounded animal. I knew I was witnessing something she didn’t want anyone to see. But I was hit with the overarching need to comfort her, to be there for her, whether she wanted me there or not.

  When I was steps away, she jerked toward me suddenly and buried her face in her knees. “Oh, God!” she cried out, wiping at her cheeks. “Go away, Locke.”

  I knelt beside her but kept my hands to myself. “I’m not leaving you like this. I’m not the asshole you seem to think I am.”

  “I’m not crying,” she insisted, her voice muffled as she spoke into her knees. “I got sand in my eye.”

  I chuckled softly at her stubbornness. “Well, then, let me take a look. I can help you get it out.”

  “I’m fine. You can go.” She brushed some sand off her bare shoulder, realized it was everywhere, covering her legs and clothes now, and dropped her chin on her chest. “I fucking hate sand.”

  “Really?”

  “Why? You like it? It’s just fancy dirt, and we got a lot of dirt in Arizona.”

  I nodded. “Love everything about it. Even when it gets into my swim trunks. I grew up here, you know.”

  She didn’t say anything. She was obviously not interested in an in-depth conversation. But suddenly, I wished she was. I wanted to know more about her.

  Instead, I studied the resistance chute on her. It was blowing behind her, and on a girl that was barely a hundred and ten pounds, would probably send her airborne soon with the way the wind was blowing. I reached over and started to unfasten it, but she yanked away.

  “What part of I’m fine don’t you understand, pretty boy?” she snapped, whipping around to face me, her eyes puffy and red. A huge gust of wind hit, and it pulled her back a few inches. I grabbed at her arm to make sure she didn’t fly away but didn’t try to unfasten it again.

  “I told you, you don’t have enough experience to run with the chute just yet. Especially in this wind. And I just don’t want you to get caught in a wind and blow yourself home.”

  “Well, maybe I do,” she mumbled and finally unfastened the chute herself. It tried to tear away and shoot into the sky, but I grabbed it before it could escape and pulled it in, straining to collapse it into a tight wad.

  “Okay, so that’s it? You want to leave? Go back to Arizona?”

  She nodded.

  “It isn’t because of me, is it?”

  “Not everything’s because of you.” She wiped at her eyes. “And there’s nothing you can do to make me stay. You’re wasting your time so you might as well go.”

  “Fair enough.” I shifted back, stretching my calves. I wasn’t ready to leave, but maybe she thought I was because she tensed.

  I took that as an invitation to stay.

  “I’m just a big ol’ waste of time,” she muttered.

  Very carefully, I reached over and grabbed her hand. It was cold as ice in mine. I traced a pattern on the top of it as we just sat there, shoulder to shoulder as the clouds rolled closer.

  This was the calm before the storm.

  I shrugged. “And I’m betting you’re not.”

  “I am a waste,” she insisted, but even her insisting was weak, all spirit gone. “You know, not a single person in that room thought I was a serious contender. They all thought I was some big joke.”

  “And that’s why you’re going to prove to them that you’re not one,” I said as the wind picked up, fiercely whistling around us. “That’s what the Emma James I know does. She tells them all to go fuck themselves.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe she has left the building. I’m tired.”

  “Well, no wonder. You’ve been trying to run against this fucking storm,” I said as darkness fully spread over us, the last of the sun swallowed by cloud cover.

  She jumped as another bolt of lightning flashed through the sky. The clap of thunder that came afterward was almost instantaneous.

  She blinked as the raindrops started to fall into her eyelashes but otherwise remained motionless, like she wanted to lay there and be consumed by the storm. The rain caught in her hair and ran down her cheeks, turning the sand on her skin dark. She seemed stunned by it. Maybe, desert girl that she was, she wasn’t used to rainstorms.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I told her, pushing to my feet.

  I took her by both hands and lifted her to her feet. The sky opened up then, and rain started to fall in sheets.

  I loved the smell of rain at the ocean, loved the way it magnified the heady scent of the sea. I loved how the rain painted the sand and how the clouds on the horizon melted into the ocean, so it was just one, lo
ng wall of color. Storms on the beach were always a thousand times more intense than anywhere else. I could’ve stayed out there with her and watched it all night, if it weren’t for the danger of lightning.

  Holding her hand, I guided her quickly through the dunes, toward a long, narrow fishing pier that jutted out into the water. I’d taken shelter here before when unexpected storms hit, but this one was a doozy. The waves were crashing nearby just as loud as the thunder, and lightning seemed to be coming from every direction. The wind was blowing the dune grass flat, and debris bounced along the sand’s surface like tumbleweeds. Rain fell like a waterfall over the darkened planks of the pier, but underneath, it was dry.

  The scent of the damp wooden planks of the pier was yet another one of my favorite scents. I inhaled it deeply and turned to Emma, who was hugging herself. She was soaked to the bone, shivering in her meager bra and gym shorts, her dark hair matted against her face. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. I was humbled by this rare glimpse of vulnerability.

  And it only made me want her more. Her hair was darker now, and it amplified her brown eyes, making them as wide as platters. She was beautiful when she played dress up for Victoria, but she looked her best now, fresh from a workout, skin wet and glistening. I wanted to feel that skin of hers against mine. Wanted to taste her again.

  I laid out the parachute on the sand and knelt on top of it, beckoning to her. “Come here.”

  I thought she would fight, but she didn’t, for once. She quietly came up beside me and sank to her knees on the chute, trembling.

  I was soaked through, too, or else I would’ve offered her my shirt. The most I had to offer her was body heat. I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her to me. Her body was chilled, shivering, and her damp skin felt alive against mine. Her hair smelled of rain and shampoo.

  You okay?” I murmured into the skin of her forehead.

  She answered without a word. No, she was all action now. She placed a hand on my shoulder, shifted onto her knees, hooked one leg over my body, straddling my lap. Her eyes were so sad. Before I could ask her what she was doing, she lowered her mouth onto mine.

  We kissed ravenously, oblivious to the storm around us because the storm between us was even more electric. I ran my hands down her spine, feeling the dampness of her skin as she kissed me. But she had all the control as she commanded me, letting her tongue do the work inside my mouth. Though her skin was cold and wet and a field of goose bumps, her tongue was hot and smooth. And as desperate as mine.

  She broke the kiss, breathless, and lifted my shirt over my head, casting it aside, and then her hands wound their way down the muscles of my back, faster and faster, like she couldn’t get enough. “I’m going to fuck you,” she whispered into my ear.

  It was the one area of her life she felt she could control, so I let her do it. Maybe I wanted it as much as she did. Maybe I wanted it more.

  In seconds, her hands were on my gym shorts, tugging them down my hips so that my cock, hard and ready for her, sprang free, pointing the way up my stomach. I’d been ready for her, ready for this, since the second I saw her.

  And I had no condom. Fuck.

  “Emma, are you on birth control?”

  Her eyes widened as if the very idea of protection had been lost on her. “Yes. The pill. I take it every day.”

  I nodded, believing her. There weren’t many women I’d believe… but I trusted her. Would she trust me too? “I was tested last month. I’m clean. But if you…”

  I groaned as she pulled away the meager fabric of her boy shorts and positioned herself over me, sinking down. It felt even better than I’d expected. Smooth, slick, surrounding me like a glove.

  Buried balls deep inside her, I gazed into her eyes, awed at this woman. How had we arrived at this point? And why had it fucking taken so long? Because this was, without a doubt, the most sublime experience of my life. I was right where I needed to be.

  We were wet, covered in sand, and the rain poured all around us, offering us its curtain against the prying eyes of the world. It was strange. Outside the pier was chaos, and yet together, we were still, quiet, just basking in the perfectness of this moment. She just held me there, not moving, staring down at me with dark, heavy-lidded eyes. The wind held a chill, but there was an inferno between us, and I was in danger of exploding beneath her. My thighs tensed as I told myself to hold on, keep it together, because it was clear she needed this, needed me to give her something to ease this ache inside her.

  And I intended to.

  Without warning, she lifted until her wet heat slid up my cock to the very tip before sinking back down. She did it again, moving her hips in a circle as she took me in and let me go, moving as slow and steadily as she fucked my mouth with her hot tongue.

  It was too good. Too damn good. I’d never fucked bare before, and the sensation was incredible.

  “Dammit, Emma,” I breathed, taking her earlobe into my mouth as she rocked on me, sinking deeper and deeper every time she came down.

  She was moaning now, tilting her head back, her hair whipping around her face. From the way her body tightened, I knew she was close. Somewhere along the line, it was as if I ceased to matter, and now, it was all about her, finding a way to get past her fears, giving her back control in a world that had changed so abruptly in the past weeks.

  I lifted the bra top up, needing to feel her breasts under my hand as she rode me faster and faster, chasing release. I knew the second she found it, I’d come too. I couldn’t trust myself not to. But it didn’t matter. She needed this now.

  I needed this.

  When she threw herself against me, her muscles spasming, I followed, exploding, groaning into her neck as I experienced the most intense orgasm of my life.

  I held her against my heart, feeling them thudding together as thunder rumbled from all directions, shaking the ground beneath us.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Emma

  The storm didn’t last long. When the sound of thunder retreated down the coastline and the wind died down, the sun began to poke out from the dark storm clouds again. Locke didn’t stir, except for moving his fingers in slow, lazy circles on my upper arm.

  Funny how I’d felt so wrong only a moment before, and suddenly felt so right. I couldn’t help but wish I could stay there forever, resting on that silky parachute, my head upon his rock-hard chest, listening to his heartbeat. If that was my forever, I would have been satisfied, even if I never got to compete in another race again.

  That was a scary thought. Racing had always been my life. But here, with Locke, alone, I felt a completeness I’d only ever achieved while tearing around the oval. I wanted to believe he felt it too, but I had no idea.

  I had no idea about so many things in my life right now. It felt like all the pieces of my life had been tossed up in the air, with no knowledge of where they would land.

  I shivered against his warm body.

  He kissed the top of my head. “Cold?”

  “A little.”

  He wrapped his arm tighter around me, pulling the parachute around us for added protection. “Does it ever rain like this in Arizona?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “Not often. Once or twice a year.”

  It seemed odd. A man like Locke had obviously had his share of women. But of all the things he could think to talk to me about, when he finally spoke, it was about the weather. Maybe it was because we both knew this wasn’t supposed to happen. Maybe because if he spoke about the race or UnCaged, too much of the real world would intrude, and it would only make the wrongness feel bigger.

  I lifted his hand up, threading my fingers through his. He had long, manicured fingers, not a bit of dirt to be seen. Me? I always seemed to have motor oil or grease on mine. “You need dirt under your fingernails,” I told him.

  He chuckled. “I do?” He was silent for a long time. “Would that make me less of a pretty boy?”

  I thought about that. Probably not. He was too pretty, just a little
dirt wouldn’t mar that prettiness. He was almost a model of beauty, it was hard to believe he ever even had a hangnail or a bad hair day.

  The funny thing was… I didn’t feel ugly or less than beside him, even knowing I was a frizzy ball of sweat and sand, he looked indescribably sexy, with his abundant russet hair a sexy mess on his head, his stubbled jaw without a pore, his skin tan and even.

  And I just fucked him.

  Holy shit. I just fucked my boss, Locke Cage, the billionaire president of Uncaged Fitness.

  I wasn’t ashamed. Not yet, at least.

  I held him closer, closing my eyes as if that would keep the rest of the world away. Of course, it had to end. We couldn’t stay. Eventually, those pieces of my life would land. And maybe, most likely, it would hurt.

  “I suppose we should be going back,” I said, and I could hear the reluctance in my voice.

  Slowly, those pieces of my real world intruded. The press conference, my parents, the race… but as much as I forced them away, I knew that was what waited for me the second we stood up and went back up the beach.

  And what would happen between Locke and me?

  I didn’t want to call something so beautiful a mistake, but this was a mistake.

  One that couldn’t happen again.

  It didn’t matter that I’d never met a man who made me feel the way he did. We couldn’t happen. We weren’t supposed to happen. What we’d done had to stay a secret. If his sister found out, or anyone found out… what would it look like?

  Maybe it wouldn’t look like anything unusual. Because maybe he did this with every woman he met. He was a god who could have his choice of any woman, after all. But I’d seen the tortured look in his eye, and I recognized it because the same thing was going through my head too. He had been as helpless to resist our attraction as I was.

  I sighed and held him closer, knowing I needed to let him go.