“Show me what you’ve got,” she said and rolled her hips until her own breath came in mewing cries.
He began to move against her more quickly, digging his hands into the silky flesh of her buttocks. Her head fell back and banged against the wall in rhythm with their movements. She didn’t care. Each time he plunged into her she felt an explosion of sensation rocketing through her body. His slick shaft moved against her clitoris again and again.
Sooner than she would have thought possible, Ariel felt a mounting crest of heat rise through her and as it broke over her entirely she gasped again and again, coming harder than she ever had in her life. As she spasmed around him, Jacob followed her into climax, burying his face against her throat and forcing her hips down on him until they were both exhausted, slumping together in a tingling post-orgasmic glow.
Raising his head, still holding her, their bodies melded into one, he kissed her. His kiss was long, deep, slow.
“Hmmm … ” said Ariel. She lifted a hand to rub the back of her head. “I think I was the one who needed a helmet.”
She and Jacob let their foreheads touch, leaning into each other, laughing.
When had Ariel ever felt this comfortable with a man? Let alone with a man who’d just pushed her dress around her waist and ravished her against a wall? She had never felt so good. Her response was more than physical. Suddenly she realized that her connection to this man, her need for him, had to do with much more than her body. Her response to him was instinctive, rising from the deepest part of her. Overwhelming. Undeniable.
A part of her brain was still thinking clearly enough to find this alarming. Not just sleeping with a subject. Falling in love with him.
Then that part of her brain fell silent — extinguished by the languorous sweetness of Jacob’s kiss, by the feeling of absolute comfort and safety she found within the circle of his arms, the desire for him that flickered, even now, like a flame coming to life, a flower blossoming.
“That was some sprint,” Jacob murmured. “My best yet.”
Twining her hands in his blond hair, she returned his kiss with a fullness, a generosity, a surrender that took both of them by surprise. Jacob’s arms tightened around her. Still kissing her, he carried her to the bed and laid her gently down, her hair spread about her head like a blazing halo.
He sat on the side of the bed beside her and looked at her. Ariel felt that no one had ever looked at her like this before. That no one had ever, truly, seen her, in the way Jacob was seeing her now.
• • •
Slowly, gently, Jacob undressed her. Each part of her body that was revealed to him seemed more beautiful than the last. Finally, she lay before him entirely nude, reclining in complete relaxation, her half-lidded eyes meeting his fearlessly, un-self-consciously.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a perfect body?” he asked.
“Me? Hardly,” Ariel snorted. “Remember, I was a dancer. My body was always wrong. My neck was too short. My torso was too long. My thighs were too big. Even my hair was wrong. Can you imagine Clara in the Nutcracker with hair like Little Orphan Annie?”
“Wow.” Jacob whistled. “Sounds like they did a number on you.”
“I always took it with a grain of salt,” said Ariel. “A dancer has to be more than an ideal body. I never wanted to be the plastic ballerina in the jewelry box. I tried to make being different work for me. Not having the traditional dancer’s body just forced me to try harder. To dance with more energy. To take more risks. My mother used to tell me that I should never try to be someone different than who I was. I should just try to be my best self. And that self would be beautiful.”
Jacob lay down beside her on the bed. He regarded her silently for a long moment, propped up on one elbow. Then he ran one fingertip from Ariel’s delicate ear, down her graceful neck to the hollow between her collarbones. He continued to trace a line between the lush globes of her breasts, down across her tight stomach to the well of her navel.
“You are beautiful,” he said. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Ariel opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again when the look in Jacob’s eyes told her that was serious. He meant it.
He let his fingers slide around her waist, then ran them up to her breasts again, the movement so light that Ariel shivered. Her body broke out in delicious gooseflesh. He moved his fingers back down to her rounded hips and then allowed them to drift even lower, watching Ariel’s face as her eyes began to glow with desire, her lips parting slightly with anticipation. Reaching the tuft that hid Ariel’s sex he ran his fingers through it, feeling the drops of moisture that clung there. He moved his fingers into the soft, slick folds of her labia.
Both of them began to breathe more quickly as Jacob’s fingers moved against the most sensitive parts of Ariel’s body. Spreading her folds with his other hand, Jacob dipped two fingers inside her, his thumb on her clit. Pressing, circling with his fingers, he caressed Ariel until she writhed and gasped.
Unable to resist tasting her, he lowered his head between her legs and groaned at the sweetness collected there. Two fingers still inside her, he laved her soft bud with his practiced tongue. Ariel let out gorgeous moans of pure abandon. Jacob felt his penis swell to the point of bursting. He seized her full buttocks and kept her trapped against his mouth as she tried to buck him away.
“Oh, oh, yes, please, oh,” she was crying incoherently, frenzied by her need. As she came, she arched herself into him, her hands in his hair, rocking her hips with the rhythm of her climax. He released her and held himself above her, gazing into her flushed, nearly delirious face.
Jacob didn’t think she could imagine how hard she made him.
Feeling her swollen vulva press against his lips, tasting the welling moisture that his touch brought forth, clasping her hips with his arms while the waves of her orgasm rolled through her had almost been enough to make him come, too …
Almost.
As her body stilled and her muscles loosened, he quickly stripped off what remained of his clothing. Working his way up her body now, he kissed each part of it he’d run his finger down before. Then claimed her mouth. She gave herself up to his kiss completely.
Jacob’s penis was rock-hard against the inside of Ariel’s silky thigh. Asking with his eyes, he received his answer immediately. She was ready for him again.
Holding himself with one hand, he parted her lower lips with the other. She opened to receive all of him. Each time she shifted her hips, Jacob felt that she’d accepted him more fully, somehow taken him deeper into her center. Everything was electricity, fire. He moved into her again and again, groaning with exultation. This was better than any sex he’d ever experienced — better, maybe, than being on the pedestal at the Paris-Roubaix.
He’d never thought he’d be able to say that about anything.
Pushing the length of his throbbing penis again and again into Ariel’s heated depths, cradling her face as he kissed her full lips, kneading her breasts and clutching her waist and hips to bring her more tightly against him, to lock their bodies together in a melting embrace, he wondered if he’d ever feel anything this good again. He remembered Ariel’s words: We have all night for the longer stages …
What stage were they on? It was impossible to tell. With Ariel, it seemed like the race never ended, like there would always be new heights to scale, new peaks, new triumphs …
He knew he would never get tired of the ride.
Then sensation overwhelmed him, erasing everything but the feeling of Ariel’s body against him, around him, and he exploded inside her.
• • •
When Ariel came back to her senses, she realized she was clinging to Jacob. Her fingertips dug into the muscles of his back. Her thighs squeezed his lean hips. He pushed himself up on his arms, and she thought for
a moment he was trying to pull away from her.
But he wasn’t. He had just lifted himself off her so that he could gaze down at her. The look in his eyes melted her completely. Even though she’d seen him look at her like that before, she could never quite believe it.
He loved her.
He hadn’t said it yet, but those golden eyes couldn’t lie. Ariel stretched her arms above her head and arched up. He lowered his head to kiss her breasts. He kissed her throat. Bit playfully at her lips.
Jacob Hunter loved her. The knowledge blossomed inside of her. It felt nourishing. Exciting. Did he know it? Had he admitted it to himself?
Ariel felt a moment of panic. It wouldn’t last. She wouldn’t be able to hold Jacob Hunter’s attention. She would have fallen permanently, irrevocably in love with him, and he would be gone, speeding through the Pyrenees toward his next romantic liaison.
I need to leave this bed, she thought. I need to protect myself. I need to run away before it’s too late.
There were many reasons why a relationship with Jacob Hunter wouldn’t work. He was a gorgeous, famous cyclist with an international female fan club. She was a career girl who had enough trouble making time to date men from other boroughs, let alone men guided from country to country … well, by the pole star.
To top it all off, she had lied to him about who she was. She had been sent to Colorado to essentially ruin his reputation. Maybe the muckrakers were right. Maybe Jacob Hunter used drugs.
She didn’t think so. She wanted to defend him.
Even if it cost her a job.
Her mind started racing and Jacob could see the cloud cross her emerald eyes. “What are you thinking?” he asked her.
“I should go back to my room,” she said. “I should … I mean … it’s late … You need your rest, your strength … ”
“I need you, Ariel,” said Jacob. He kissed her and she moaned, half-desire, half-desperation.
This affair with Jacob Hunter was going to be a mess. She could think of a million reasons why she should get up and leave. But her body and her heart had another agenda.
Don’t think any more tonight.
She linked her arms around Jacob’s neck. “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot about your legendary endurance. And you forgot something about me.”
“Hmmmm.” Jacob grinned. “What would that be?”
“My legendary dancer’s flexibility,” Ariel whispered.
Jacob’s eyes widened. “Your legendary dancer’s flexibility,” he repeated, a wicked smile lighting up his handsome face. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
So Ariel showed him. Until the morning sun came through the window.
Chapter Ten
Ariel woke up late … in Jacob’s hotel room. But Jacob was gone. She didn’t remember when he’d left her. She’d been deeply asleep. He’d leaned over her and whispered that he was going to train, that she should stay as long as she liked. She remained in his room almost until noon. She showered, humming, enjoying the spray of the hot water against her skin and the smell of the lavender-scented shower gel. The Alpenhof, she thought with approval, got everything right — even the water pressure. But then, as she stepped out of the shower, she was struck by an unwelcome memory.
Today was the day she’d arranged to meet Brian Jenks.
Ariel sat on the side of Jacob’s bed for a long time. She tried to sort out her tangled emotions as she towel-dried her long hair.
More than anything, she felt guilty. Any attempt on her part to prove the allegations of Jacob’s drug use true would be a betrayal of her feelings for him, and of his for her. Could she trust him entirely? Her instincts told her that he was on the up-and-up. But should she take that for granted? Especially if she was considering becoming deeply personally involved with him? Or if … she took a breath … or if she already was deeply involved with him?
Personally. Physically. Emotionally. Utterly. Involved.
She still felt deeply curious about what had happened between Jacob and Jenks. Now that she knew him better, she couldn’t imagine Jacob being involved in a bar room brawl unless there were something important at stake. Sure, he could be touchy, prickly — she’d borne the brunt of it, until he’d warmed to her — but she couldn’t believe he was needlessly violent. She’d seen him behave with such compassion, such gentleness.
Her personal and journalistic curiosity was goading her to keep the meeting with Jenks. Whatever she found out would help her to understand Jacob better. I don’t have to use the information against him, she thought. It sounded a lot like an attempt at self-justification, even to her.
Once she’d made her decision, Ariel turned her thoughts to the distance between Jacob’s room and her own. She considered her two options. Option one: the walk of shame. She could slink back to her room in the same dress she’d worn last night, hopelessly rumpled. Or she could go the short distance down the hall and down the elevator in a robe. Guests did it all the time, coming to or from the pool.
Leaving her dress and pumps in Jacob’s room, she walked outside barefoot, in the terry robe from Jacob’s bathroom. Jacob had left one of his key cards on the bedside table, and she slipped it in the pocket of the robe on the way out so she could come back and retrieve her things later.
Back in her room, she felt jazzed, energetic. After a few moments shifting through her notepads, she threw down her pen and changed into workout clothes. Thirty minutes on the treadmill followed by an hour at machines later, she felt good. Strong. Her hard workout had barely sapped her strength. She was hungry, yes. But tired … not at all.
Ariel strode purposefully through Vail Village. She knew exactly what she wanted. An avocado shake. Why not? She was pretty sure it was going to taste a lot better than her usual midday snack of trail mix and apples.
She looked around the café as she ordered her shake, half-hoping she would run into Steven and Randall. Maybe they’d whisk her away to wherever Jacob had gone to train and she could spend the afternoon in the sun, drinking her avocado shake and watching Jacob’s body make spandex into a downright sin.
That sounded a whole lot better to her than meeting up with Brian Jenks.
She left the café and sat on the hood of her car finishing her shake. It was weird, but delicious. Not the kind of thing she’d drink in New York. But then again, Ariel had been doing all kinds of things she didn’t do in New York. A few elderly women passed by on the sidewalk and smiled at her. Ariel smiled back. Then she sighed and stood up. No one was going to save her from her decision. She had an appointment to keep.
As Ariel drove, she had to admit to herself she liked the sporty rental coupe. She liked the way it jumped forward however lightly she pressed the accelerator, the way it cornered, totally responsive to her steering. Jacob wasn’t the only one who loved speed.
She smiled as her thoughts returned to him — his warmth, his intense, golden eyes fixed on hers, his beautiful body, his commitment to his sport, the passion his touch aroused. She wondered again what she was doing, trying to dig up dirt up on his personal life. Journalists made everything their business. But she was more than a journalist now, to Jacob. She owed him more.
She headed out of Vail. Some of the mountain slopes were timbered; others were bare — brown and yellow with arid grasses, gray and red with glittering rocks, dotted with white and gold wildflowers. She couldn’t deny the beauty of the terrain, but as she wound her way through the canyons, she felt that there was something forbidding about it, too. The landscape looked hard. Above, the cloudless sky was a blinding plain.
In rural New York, the hills were low and rolling. She’d raked enough rocks from her father’s garden plot to know that the soil wasn’t exactly soft, but it was rich and dark and wet, thick with worms. The sky was tiny, a mellow blue, veiled with mists or pillowy with drifting white clouds. Without Jacob
by her side, she felt out of place in this alien terrain.
What was it like in the winter? She didn’t want to imagine the driving snow, the wind and ice. Even in summer, she could sense the latent power of the Rockies. They held entire glaciers in their crags. They could make their own weather. These mountains were so much younger than the weathered New England hills. They were still volatile. Violent.
Ariel was in a strange, flighty mood. When she pulled into Minturn, it was easy to find The Minturn Saloon, where she’d agreed to meet Jenks for a late lunch. Minturn, like Vail, had been developed by its tourist industry, but it retained more of the feel of a frontier town. Looking at the old brick saloon, she felt suddenly like she was in the Old West. This was railroad country. Mining country. She could hear the sound of rushing water. The Eagle River?
She stared at her hands still clutching the steering wheel. Conflicting impulses warred within her. The first: to learn Jacob’s secret. The second: to respect his privacy. To trust him.
She couldn’t make herself get out of the car.
What could Brian Jenks possibly tell her that she should believe more than what she’d felt in Jacob’s touch, seen in his eyes: that he was an honorable man, someone she could believe in. Despite his strange behavior, she trusted him.
She loved him.
She started the car. Jacob had stood her up for lunch on her first day in Colorado. Now she was standing up Brian Jenks. It was some kind of weird domino effect. Maybe just the presence of a New Yorker in Colorado was making the place less friendly. Oh well.
She decided to drive through Minturn — what little there was of it. These tiny houses … were they vacation rentals? Or were these the economic homes of people who lived and worked here year round? While researching, she had glanced at the demographics of different towns in Eagle County but she couldn’t remember the population. She wondered if there was an opera house. Didn’t all Old West towns have opera houses? She drove slowly down the short side streets and turned back onto Main Street.
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