by Jill Shalvis
Sara put her hand on his jaw and smiled up at him as if he was her entire world.
Lily sighed. It was cute. Beautiful, even. But not the world she’d chosen for herself. “Why is everyone up so early?”
“I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.” Sara patted her belly. “I came in to get my stuff done.”
“And I drove her in.” Matt smiled into Sara’s eyes.
“Oh, goody.” This from Gwyneth. “No more kissing on the desks.”
Lily rolled her eyes, but her mind was still on what Gwyneth had said about risking herself. She looked at Sara and Matt, so wildly in love, and wondered if she was this gone over someone, would she still want to go on the crazy rescues? And if the worst happened, and she died…would she go with no regrets?
She loved her life, and would have sworn she gave it her all, without holding back.
But she did hold back.
She held back where maybe she shouldn’t—in matters of the heart—and for the first time, she asked herself what she was missing by doing so.
Gwyneth kicked Matt’s feet off Carrie’s desk, then nudged Lily past the lovebirds and into her office.
Lily went straight to her desk and the piles there, determined to sidetrack Gwyneth from the line of questioning they were headed for. Logan. “Do you want to go over the summer brochures? The pictures came back, they’re not bad at all. Oh, and the ads for the statewide campaign are due today, and I haven’t even had time to look at them…. Wait. Where are they?” She flipped through the piles, no longer trying for a distraction since she’d found a real one. “They’re here somewhere, they have to be.”
“You need to organize.”
“Don’t start.” She shifted piles aside and kept searching. Damn it. She knew exactly which pile she’d put the advertising material in, but it was gone. Damn, she didn’t need yet another problem, another reason for Gwyneth to assume she couldn’t handle things. First it had been the out-of-bounds signs, then the bakery order, then the party—it was as if someone was specifically out to cause trouble for her.
She looked at Gwyneth, who was standing in front of her desk with the pinched look to her face that said she was gearing up for another lecture, and knew that she couldn’t share her sudden suspicion with her sister—Gwyneth would think she was being ridiculous, passing her own incompetence off on some mysterious prankster. So she started riffling through the papers again. “We need to make a final decision on this stuff, and then decide where to place them. And now that the cafeteria is doing so well, I want to put in separate ads for that in all the Tahoe-area dailies and magazines, as well.”
“So you’re sleeping with another skier.”
Lily’s hands went still. “We’re talking about the missing ad file.”
Gwyneth came close and put her hands over Lily’s. “I’m worried about you falling for some ski bum who sees you as his meal ticket to old age.”
“Logan is the furthest thing from a ski bum I’ve ever seen.” She pointedly resumed searching for the missing ads. She didn’t want to even think about falling for Logan, let alone discuss the possibility out loud—and especially not with either one of her sisters, who could be guaranteed not to understand.
Gwyneth didn’t say anything and Lily tried not to look at her, but finally the silence became too heavy and she lifted her head.
“You didn’t make a joke or scoff it off,” Gwyneth said quietly.
“Scoff what off?”
“The possibility of you falling for him.”
“It’s only been a few days.”
“So say it. Look me in the eyes and say you aren’t falling for him.”
Damn. Lily looked her right in the eyes, opened her mouth and…nothing came out.
“Good God.” Looking shaken, Gwyneth perched a hip on the desk. “Maybe you’d better tell me about him. All about him.”
“I’ve got to find that file. If we don’t, we miss our placement date. As our accountant, you can’t possibly approve of that.”
“For once, I am not interested in money. Start talking, Lily.”
LOGAN WOKE UP ALONE AND BIT back his disappointment. Apparently fun time was over for Lily, which was fine. After all, in a few days he’d be back in his world, far away from here, living his life, doing what he did best.
And like Lily, he’d be far too busy to lie in bed all morning, no matter how tempting.
He got up, showered, then headed outside. The weather was clear, the previous day’s storm long forgotten and he skied for several hours before stopping at the lodge for something hot to drink. He was sitting on the outside deck, which overlooked the terrain park, where the boarders did their tricks, when a shadow fell over him.
Squinting into the bright sunshine, he looked up into a pair of whiskey-colored eyes. Lily smiled and gestured to the spot next to him. “Taken?”
“It is now.” He scooted over for her.
She wore boarder pants and a soft white hoodie sweater with the Bay Moon Resort logo on the arm. It zipped to just between her breasts, with two fluffy tassels hanging down. He wondered if she was wearing one of her sexy camisoles beneath, and if her panties matched. “Why did you run off this morning?”
“I didn’t.” She met his steady gaze and blew out a breath. “Exactly.”
He flicked a tassel. “Then what, exactly?”
“I had work.”
“Did you get it done?”
“That’s a matter of opinion, but I’ve got a few hours.” She looked at him. “To be with you.”
Unable to help himself, he touched her jaw and the scratch there from yesterday’s rescue. “Then why aren’t we still in my bed wrapped around each other, me buried deep inside you, with you panting my name in that sexy little whisper you have?”
She let out a soft, little laugh as the pulse at the base of her throat took off. “Maybe I had something else in mind.”
“Like what?”
She lifted a challenging brow. “Scared?”
“Should I be?”
“I can’t imagine what I could dish out that would scare you,” she said.
“Imagine again, then,” he said. “Because everything about you scares me, especially after watching you hang off that cliff yesterday.”
Her smile faded.
“No, never mind.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. We both know I’d have done the same thing in a heartbeat, and have more times than I can count. It just seems that when it comes to you, my reasoning seems to fly right out the window.”
“Because you care.”
“Hell, yeah, I care.” He touched her jaw again, his own tight. “More than what makes sense.”
She said nothing but covered his hand with her own and held it to her, staring at him for a long moment. Finally, she stood. “Come on.”
“Where to?”
She drew him to his feet. “Does it matter?”
He looked down at her and felt his heart tug hard. “Not really.”
“Then it’s a surprise.”
LILY DROVE. “IT’S NOT FAR.” She took the narrow, windy mountain road around the back of the lodge. It led into the thick of the woods, where the towering pines blocked out the sun and shrank their world to the inside of her car.
“Where are we?” he asked, enjoying the ride.
“Still on our property, actually.” She turned onto another road, which had been plowed only one lane wide, with fifteen-foot-high snow berms on either side.
Logan held on as the road twisted and turned, wondering what they were going to do if they met another car coming in the opposite direction. But thankfully they didn’t.
“Here we are.” She pulled up to a tiny log cabin with smoke coming out of the chimney and what sounded like an entire pack of dogs barking and howling nearby. “Bring your jacket and gloves.” She got out of the car, cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, “Mary!” and the unseen dogs redoubled their effort. He raised his eyebrows. There wasn’t much chance a
nyone could sneak up on this place.
A woman poked her head out of the cabin and grinned broadly at Lily before she vanished. She appeared a moment later wearing a snowsuit, a beanie and that same grin. “It’s a perfect day for this.”
“I know,” Lily said. “You too busy?”
“I have three reservations, all for later, so you’re in luck. Come on.” She eyed Logan up and down and then back again. “What, about one-ninety?”
“One seventy-five,” Lily said, and the two women exchanged a look and then a grin.
Logan realized they were talking about his weight, and looked curiously to Lily, but she just smiled and led him around the back of the cabin.
There were two long kennels there, filled with what looked like wolves but turned out to be an intriguing mix of huskies and malamutes.
“You ever been dog sledding before?” Mary asked him, as the three of them walked toward a long sled that was sitting between the kennel buildings. The noise level rose even further, accompanied by the dogs trotting around in their individual indoor-out-door runs, jumping up on the chain-link fences that separated them from the sled and doing a damned good imitation of a bunch of teenagers trying out for a baseball team.
He shook his head. “No, never.” A new experience. Rare. “You know, it’s like they’re all yelling, ‘Pick me, pick me.’”
Lily and Mary laughed, and he looked over at Lily. She was smiling at him, excited and happy, and he felt a surge of that himself. Sure, the dog sledding would be a new experience—but so was whatever he was feeling for Lily.
He and Lily paused beside the sled as Mary chose the dogs, speaking quietly to each in turn. She harnessed them one by one, hooking them up to the long leads that were stretched out in the snow in front of the sled. When two of the dogs already harnessed began to bicker, snarling at each other, she quickly stepped between them giving their collars a little shake, and then talking them down.
“They’re so eager to go that their energy spills over,” she explained. “And there’s always one that wants to better its position in the pack.”
“Kind of like people,” Lily said, sharing a grin with him that warmed him right through.
As soon as the six dogs were in place, Mary unwrapped the end of the reins from where she’d staked them, holding them tight as the dogs jostled, tails and ears held high, straining against the leather straps.
She handed the reins to Lily, who held them similarly tight. “You know the drill. Enjoy yourselves!”
He and Lily sat on the sled, low to the ground, with Lily’s back snug to Logan’s front, her hips between his, their legs stretched out in front of them.
Nice, he thought, and wrapped his arms around her, slipping his hands beneath her jacket and sweater and indeed finding another soft camisole. He slipped beneath that, too, and felt the bare skin of her stomach tremble at his touch. Everything within him trembled right along with her.
“Put on your gloves,” she said.
“Why?” He let his hands roam, enjoying the way he affected her breathing.
“Trust me,” she managed. “You’ll need them.” She adjusted the reins and said something to the barking, excited dogs, but his mind wasn’t on the leisurely dog sled they were about to take, it was on Lily’s warm, beautiful body so snug to his, and he slid his hands up and covered her breasts.
Her back arched, her head grinding into his shoulder as she thrust her soft curves into his hands, her nipples boring into his palms while her bottom rocked to his crotch.
Oh, yeah. She wanted him every bit as crazily as he wanted her. This was going to be an extremely nice, leisurely, seductive ride.
Then she yelled a command and the dogs leaped forward, barking like a frenzied wolf pack. The sled jerked into motion, faster than any roller-coaster ride, made all the more stomach-dropping because of their close proximity to the ground, which rushed by Logan’s eyes so fast he couldn’t even take it all in.
And she just laughed, his fearless warrior. It was all he could do to let go of her breasts and wrap his arms around her, holding on for dear life. “My God, does this thing have brakes?”
“Brakes? We don’t need no stinkin’ brakes!”
He would have sworn his heart was in his throat as they took the narrow, windy trail, and he gripped her with white knuckles, making her laugh some more.
But truthfully, her joy spilled over, catching him up in her exuberance. With the wind in his face, his arms full of a slim, strong, lovely woman and the emerald forest whipping past them at staggering speeds, he felt his own laughter bubbling up as they climbed the trail.
They came to a small lake, the surface made of smoothest ice, circled on all sides by awe-inspiring peaks. On the north shore was a waterfall, frozen solid. It felt as if they were alone in their very own world.
When Lily steered the dogs onto the frozen water, he held his breath. She slowed down, and all around them a silence reigned, suddenly broken by an earth-shuddering crack, which echoed between the mountaintops like bullet fire.
“What the hell?” he gasped.
“It’s just the ice cracking.”
“Oh, is that all?” His arms tightened on her reflexively, and she turned her head and bit his jaw.
“Scared?” she asked.
Spitless. “Nah.”
“Don’t worry.” She grinned. Grinned. “It’ll hold us.”
“That’s good,” he managed. “Can we admire this from the shore now?”
“Baby.” But she steered them back. Logan didn’t let out a slow breath until they were once again on the trail.
“You okay?” she asked.
He slid his cold hands back beneath her clothes. “I am now. How about you?” He plucked at her nipples.
Her hands jerked on the reins but as he well knew, she couldn’t possibly let go, so he did it again. “I can’t think when you do that,” she said unsteadily.
“Thinking is overrated.” And again…“Feel out of control?”
“Y-yes.”
“Good.” He bit her ear. “Now you know how it feels.”
She wriggled her butt, the motion having a desperate feel to it. He slid one hand down her tummy and between her thighs, loving the sound that ripped out of her.
“Keep us on the road,” he said gently when she started to lose track of the reins. Then he pressed his fingers against her.
“Ohmigod.”
“The tree, Lily. Watch the tree.”
She managed to steer them clear but let out a strangled sound of desire and a shiver when he slid his fingers inside her loose pants.
“Warm enough?” he asked, dipping beneath her panties to find hot, wet flesh that made him groan.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be cold again,” she managed.
One hand between her legs, the other up her shirt, wanting her so badly he couldn’t see straight, he looked around them for a place to stop.
She let out a choked laugh and took them back to the small cabin. As they climbed out of the sled Lily handed the reins back to Mary, thanking her with a hug. Once out of Mary’s hearing, she nudged him with her shoulder. “You were thinking we could get a little action out there.”
“We got a little action.”
“I meant real action.” Her eyes were filled with wicked intent as she danced a single finger down his chest and hooked it into the loose waistband of his ski pants.
He was already so hard he could have pounded nails into steel.
She leaned into him. “I know one more thing we can do out here…”
Yes.
“Follow me…” And she backed away from him, still giving him that mind-blowing smile that promised him the moon, then she turned and ran around the corner of the cabin.
She was crazier than he. They couldn’t go out there and just—It was cold. Someone would see—
Ah, hell. He loped after her, turning the corner and—
Took a snowball directly in the face.
The
icy ball fell apart on impact, dripping little shards of snow down his face and into his collar. Shocked, frozen on the spot, he blinked the ice off his lashes and stared at her.
She clapped her hands over her mouth, which didn’t hold her laugh in.
“Lily?”
“Yes?” she asked around her gloved fingers.
“You’re going to want to run now,” he said silkily, pulling on his gloves and bending to scoop up a handful of ammunition, careful not to pat it together too tightly.
With a laughing scream, she whirled and ran, but he easily beaned her in the back.
Her mistake was that she stopped, laughing as she glanced at him over her shoulder.
He caught her, tumbled her to the snow, a wriggling, screeching, desperate-to-escape woman, and with a grin, he held her down with one hand to her chest, using his other to sprinkle snow in her face.
Then he let her escape.
She crawled away a few steps, then turned back to him, taunting. “Is that the worst you can do?” She grabbed more snow, chucked it at him, and then when he bent for a handful, took off running.
Once more he caught her, mostly because she let him, and again, he took them both down to the snow, capturing her wrists this time, hauling them above her head, holding her captive while he tugged down the zipper of her jacket, spread it wide open.
“Logan,” she warned, her breasts heaving with each laughing breath. Her nipples were hard, pressing against the material of her sweater, begging for his touch, which he planned to give. “Don’t you dare—”
He stuffed a handful of snow down her sweater and then patted the material.
She squealed and he bent his head, taking her frozen mouth in his. It heated instantly, and opened to him. He absorbed her soft moan and matched it with one of his own as their tongues, hot in comparison to the rest of them, slid together. Still restrained by his hand, hers flexed, and she arched up into him. Oh, yeah, he loved that, and he lifted his head long enough to tug his glove off with his teeth. He cupped her face with his bare hand now and whispered her name.
Her body writhed against his, and he let her hands go to gather her even closer. She opened her legs to accommodate his hips, and he rocked them to her, going even harder at her harsh breathing, at the unfocused, needy glaze in her eyes. They were out of control and he didn’t care.
