The Art of Running in Heels

by Rachel Gibson

  “This is the time to tell me to leave.”

  “Do you want to leave?” She licked her lips.

  “No.”

  She didn’t want him to leave, either.

  She didn’t want to be alone with her own thoughts.

  She felt safe with him.

  She liked the way he kissed her.

  “Do you want to come inside for a drink?” she asked.

  “What do you have?”

  “Ginger ale.”

  Silence stretched between them and she thought he might resist the temptation of ginger ale and her. They both knew if he went inside her room, they would end up naked. Which was a bad idea.

  She didn’t know him. a. He could be a killer.

  It was impulsive, and following her impulses was bad. a. Standing in Sandspit with a man she didn’t know.

  Kind of promiscuous. a. She liked to have feelings for a man first.

  “Where is the key card?” he asked.

  “Next to my phone.” Or ending up naked could be good:

  She didn’t know him. a. Would never see him again.

  Impulsive. a. Would never see him again.

  Promiscuous. a. Who cares!

  “I’ll just get that for you.” The desire in his gaze turned even hotter. He wanted to be with her as badly as she wanted to be with him. It was crazy but felt perfectly sane.

  “I’m a helpful guy.” He held her wrists with one hand and lowered the other to dip inside the bomber jacket. Easily, he unbuttoned the shirt. He parted the fabric, and the cold breeze swept across her breasts and hardened her nipples. His lids lowered a sleepy fraction, and he pulled a breath deep into his lungs. “Where could it be,” he asked, and brushed her skin along the edge of her corset.

  “Do you want a hint?”

  “No.” He pulled the phone from her cleavage and stuck it in his back pocket. “I’ll find it for you.”

  “Because you’re a helpful guy?”

  He shook his head and slid his fingers between her breasts. “Because I’m a guy who is dying to get you out of that bra.” He pulled out the plastic card and let go of her wrists to unlock the door. “If you invite me in, that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Now was the time to say no. To herself and to him. That would be the smart thing to do, but she didn’t want to do the smart thing. She didn’t want to go inside the small hotel room where nothing waited for her but her own thoughts of the past few days. “Do you have a condom?”

  “Yes.”

  She pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Come in, Sean,” she said, and he followed her inside. Except for the light from the parking lot slicing through a crack in the curtains, the room was completely dark.

  “Come here, Lexie.”

  “I thought you wanted ginger ale.”

  “I hate ginger ale.”

  She took a step toward the sound of his voice as the bomber jacket fell from her arms. Within the blackness, he tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back. He kissed her parted lips like a man who knew what he wanted and was going after it. His tongue slid inside and withdrew with hot, insistent strokes. He created a luscious suction, and his hand moved through her hair and down her back, drawing her close until the hard bulge of his erection pressed into her stomach and the tingling knots in her belly slid between her legs. She pushed her pelvis against the bulge, and within seconds his hands were everywhere, touching her all over. They pulled at each other’s clothes until they were naked and Sean’s hands were on her breasts, her hard nipples pressed into his palms.

  “Ahh . . . baby,” he said, his voice a low gravel before his mouth found hers once more.

  It was crazy and hot, like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Two people giving in to a purely physical need. An overwhelming need for sex and nothing else. There was no need to talk about it. No need to define it.

  His hand moved down her left thigh and he lifted her leg to his waist. The long, hard length of his erection slid against her, and when he spoke his voice hovered in the darkness. “You feel so good, Lexie.”

  Tiny slivers of pleasure tickled her nerve endings, mingled with the blood coursing through her veins. He thrust against her, both hands gripping her behind. He was right. It did feel good, but not as good as it could feel. She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “Take me to bed.” She lowered her leg from his waist.

  Sean hit the switch on the wall. Blinding light jabbed Lexie’s eyes and she buried her face in his neck.

  “Sorry,” he said as he walked her backward. “I didn’t know where the bed was.”

  He pushed her down on the bed and followed. “And I want to see you.” His gaze followed his hand to her waist and hip and back up to her breasts. He touched her nipple with the tips of his fingers, then lowered his face and sucked her into his mouth. His cheeks drew inward and he moved his hand down her stomach and between her thighs. She moaned and ran her fingers through his hair. The pleasure so delicious, the heat of his mouth so exquisite, her back arched against his wet mouth and hand. He kissed her breast, and his short breaths heated her already hot skin. Then he was on his knees between her thighs. Cool air brushed across her nipples. He reached into his back pants pocket and pulled a condom from his wallet.

  There had been a time in Lexie’s life when she’d thought that a man with a condom in his wallet was presumptuous. She was close to thirty, and was just awful glad he’d come prepared.

  He stuck one edge of the black package between his teeth and ripped it open. Then his eyes sought hers as he wrapped one hand around his hard shaft and rolled the condom down his engorged flesh.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Lexie.” His eyes were sleepy with lust as he knelt between her knees and planted one hand next to her head. “Everything about you is sexy as hell.” Then he thrust into her and she couldn’t help her deep sigh of pleasure. He rested his weight on his forearm, and his other hand grabbed her thigh. She felt him everywhere, his body covering hers as he moved within her, touching and stroking the exact place where her pleasure was centered, in and out, driving her wild. Withdrawing slowly and plunging deep. And with each stroke, he pushed her toward climax. She slid her hands down the contours of his back to the hard cheeks of his behind. Beneath her palms, his muscles flexed with the motion of his slow, thrusting hips.

  “Yes. Right there. Yeess,” she whispered against his mouth, moving with him as he pumped harder, deeper, faster. Heat and desire, flushing her skin and tangling her nerves into hot, twisted knots. “Sean? Oh my God.”

  “Talk to me.” His hot breath touched her face and she sucked him in like oxygen.

  She opened her mouth but the words spinning around in her head were embarrassing, unladylike, and best left unsaid.

  “You feel so hot around me.” Sean didn’t seem to have trouble expressing himself as he drove into her, pushing her harder. “Tight and wet and good.”

  Orgasm gripped her insides with pleasure. It ripped through her, again and again, as Sean’s climax tore a deep, primal groan from his chest. “Lexie,” he said on a harsh exhale as her body pulsed around him. His deep, relentless thrusts pushed her to more intense pleasure. “Do you want more of this, Lexie?”

  “Yes.” She couldn’t think past the second orgasm setting her on fire. And then she did. She opened her mouth and swore like a hockey player. A natural ability she’d inherited from her father’s side.

  Chapter 7

  •love & lust #neverconfusethetwo

  Sean raised a to-go cup and swallowed the last cold dregs of his Starbucks. He glanced at his watch, then tossed his duffel on one of two twin berths inside the private cabin of the Northern Adventure. Earlier, he’d scrambled to book passage aboard the ten-thousand-ton ferry and had to bust his ass to board before the boat left on its daily route across the Hecate Strait.

  The last time he’d seen Lexie, she’d been wrapped up in hotel sheets with drowsy eyes and a satisfied smile. The last time he’d talk
ed to her, he’d told her he’d pick her up in the morning on his way to the dock. Where Jimmy and the Sea Hopper would be waiting to take them home.

  It was cold inside the cabin but not enough to see his breath. He set the cup on the nightstand between the beds, then pulled his Oilers ball cap from his head and tossed it next to the empty cup. Eight fucking hours. He had eight hours to kill until the ferry docked in Prince Rupert. If the ferry docked on time, and if everything went according to plan, he’d have enough time to catch his flight to Vancouver. In Vancouver, he had a four-hour delay before his final flight to Seattle.

  Fourteen fucking hours. Instead of the three-hour trip aboard the Sea Hopper, it was going to take him all damn day to get home. He had Jimmy Pagnotta to thank for the abrupt change to his travel plans. The pilot had called him just before Sean had stepped into the shower at his mother’s house. “I’m at the dock in Seattle. Just about to take off. The press is camped out in the office down here,” he warned. “Just thought you should know.”

  Yeah, swarming press was something he wanted to know about. Especially when it involved a certain runaway bride with the last name Kowalsky. Jimmy hadn’t come right out and admitted that he had something to do with tipping off the media, but only a few people knew where Lexie was hiding out and when she would return. One of those was the Gettin’ Hitched bride herself. Of course her parents knew, but they would never leak information about their daughter. There was the crazy MINI Cooper driver, but he doubted someone who had gone to so much trouble to help Lexie would rat her out. He hadn’t tipped off anyone, and while he could never completely vouch for his mother, he could almost guarantee that she wouldn’t call anyone until he was off the island.

  Sean threw his coat on the spare berth, then sat on the edge of the bed. He wore the same pullover and thermal sweats of the day before, and he bent over and tied his cross trainers. He didn’t need the hassle of the world knowing he’d spent the last two days with the Gettin’ Hitched bride. He’d always avoided that kind of gossipy attention, and he for damn sure didn’t want questions fired at him like a line of pucks on the centerline. Especially fired at him from her father.

  He and the coach tolerated each other. He respected John’s legendary career, and Kowalsky respected Sean’s legendary talent. Until Lexie had told him that John thought he was a nancy-pants with a girly flow, he’d thought they’d come to some mutual understanding. Found common ground and were . . . he didn’t know. “Friends” would be stretching it.

  Sean turned up the thermostat and crawled between the sheets wearing his clothes. He’d slept very little the past few days, and last night not at all. Being around his mother always brought back memories he wished like hell he could forget, but they rushed him at night when the rest of the world grew still. There was no turning them off, no stillness. Just his brain bouncing from one random memory to the next, bringing the same knot of anxiety he’d felt as a kid.

  Until the age of ten when he and his mother had moved from Sandspit to live with Uncle Abe, he hadn’t known how other people lived. He’d had some idea, of course, that other kids’ mothers weren’t sick all the time. Once he’d started school and made a few friends, he’d noticed how different his life was, and that other mothers weren’t living “on borrowed time,” only to have miraculous recoveries. Geraldine had experienced so many miracles, Sean had lost count.

  Until the age of ten, he’d lived in fear of waking up and finding his mother dead. He’d lain awake at night wondering what would happen to him and where he would live once she died, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst were the times she was actually okay. When the crazy roller-coaster ride stopped. Those spaces in time when she’d cook meals, wash clothes, and take long walks with him. When they’d talk about his dad or his school or how many years it would take for him to walk to the moon. It was those times that he loved her so deeply his heart hurt with joy. It was those times that he felt safe and secure. It was those times that made him hate her for tricking him again. Those times gave him hope. This time, this time things would be different. Then she inevitably snatched the good times away, crushing his hopes and pulling him on her chaos roller coaster again.

  That all changed when they moved to Edmonton and he could just be a kid. His uncle provided the stability that he’d never had, and he’d introduced him to hockey. The first time he’d strapped on a pair of his uncle’s old skates, he’d been hooked. Like a lot of Canadian boys, he’d played shinny hockey in backyard rinks and frozen ponds. He’d played peewee and midget and, at the age of sixteen, been big enough and had the skills to play in the major junior league for three years before he’d been picked up by Calgary in the second round of the NHL drafts. He’d lived in Calgary, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and now Seattle. He’d spent most of the past nine years in hotel rooms and arenas. It was often hectic and high-energy but never chaotic.

  That’s the way he liked it. He kept thousands of miles between himself and chaos, thousands of miles between himself and drama.

  Until now.

  Sean rolled onto his back and stuffed one hand beneath his pillow. This time drama would arrive several hours ahead of him. Drama in the form of a tall blonde with a smoking smile and hot body. Lexie was a walking fantasy. A tall, thin fantasy with soft bouncy parts when she walked. Or ran. Or rode him like the queen of the Calgary Stampede.

  His free hand slid beneath the quilt and he adjusted himself through his pants. Having sex with Lexie hadn’t been part of his plan. Of course, her jumping aboard the Sea Hopper hadn’t been in the plan, either. A whirl of white satin, sparkly shoes, and chaos, it hadn’t been in his plan to undress her and brush her soft skin with the tips of his fingers. Sean was used to changing it up on the fly. He could read a play seconds before it happened in front of him and make adjustments. He saw patterns and stayed one step ahead, anticipating his next move.

  He never saw Lexie coming. He hadn’t misread the fear and apprehension in her blue eyes. He saw the vulnerable quiver at the corner of her full mouth, but he’d failed to adjust or anticipate the touch of her hands or the taste of her lips. He hadn’t stayed one step ahead of her drama, and his next move had been a mistake. A big mistake that had landed him in bed at the Harbor Inn. A bad mistake that had felt so good. So good, if he’d had more condoms, he would have repeated the mistake a few more times. He’d tried to draw out the pleasure for as long as possible, running his hands over the soft skin of her belly and between her thighs. She’d been so responsive he hadn’t had to guess where to touch her to hear her moan, or where to put his mouth to make her arch her back and whisper his name in a lusty breath. He hadn’t had to wonder what she’d felt as he’d slid into her hot body. She moaned and writhed and had so many orgasms he’d lost count. Drawing him in even more with each pulse and squeeze of her body. Just as he finally let himself join her, she’d yelled at him to keep hitting her sweet spot and he’d been all too happy to oblige. She’d told him he was good, great, wonderful, then she’d called him a cement head, of all things.

  Sean frowned. He wasn’t a cement head. He played smart hockey. Everyone knew that. He knew the right position at the right time, and he knew the right thing to do with a puck in any situation.

  He wasn’t a cement head, but it was like Lexie had hit him with a brick. While he’d like to blame her for last night, he wasn’t that big an asshole. He’d walked into that hotel room last night knowing it wasn’t right. Not in the least. He should have told her that he was the nancy-pants her dad bitched about before she got naked with him. She should have been informed before she’d made that decision.

  He still wasn’t quite sure how the secret—which was more of an omission—had snowballed into an avalanche. Each time he’d meant to tell her, the timing hadn’t seemed right. Not the first night, the second, or the third. When he’d left her asleep in the hotel room this morning, he’d decided to tell her on the long plane ride back to Seattle.

  Now here he was on a ferry in the Hecat
e Strait, and she was headed home by now on the Sea Hopper. He hadn’t returned to the hotel this morning as he’d planned, and he didn’t feel good about that. She’d deserved better, and once he was home, he’d find her and apologize. No excuses. No distractions. No putting it off until the right moment. She was a nice woman. Once he’d looked past the pretty face, big boobs, and Gettin’ Hitched bride fiasco, she was a smart girl. Not just because she had an apparently successful dog clothes business, but because she had the ability to walk into a room, size up a woman under an afghan eyesore and stupid gel cap, and know exactly how to handle her. Lexie had said it was an inherited talent. Uncle Abe’d had that talent, too. If it was something that really was inherited, it clearly skipped a generation with Sean.

  Sean thought about Lexie and Jimmy chatting via the headset. He wondered how long before the topic of him came up and she learned exactly who Sean was. He imagined she’d get real angry. She’d probably hate him. He didn’t blame her.

  He was a fucking asshole.

  Sean stacked his hands behind his head and stared up at a water spot on the white ceiling. He wondered what John Kowalsky would think when he learned that Sean had spent time with Lexie in Sandspit. The coach would learn about it whether he or Lexie told him, and it wasn’t like Sean had really kidnapped Lexie from her wedding. They just ended up on the same seaplane. John should probably thank him for helping his little girl. Sean just hoped like hell the coach never learned he helped her out of her clothes—twice.