The Complete Tempest World Box Set

by Mankin, Michelle

  “Yes,” she answered, her voice muffled as she bent over to comply with my directive. She straightened and I got impossibly harder just looking at her naked. Dark hair like a frame for her exquisite face. Sultry sapphire eyes. Parted lips. Rosy nipples.

  “Your ass is perfection, but you need to turn so I can see it better. Ah, babe,” I said, when she did. “I wish I could squeeze it right now. Are you wet?”

  “Yes.” She gave me a coy look over her shoulder. Sexy as fuck.

  “Show me?”

  “How?”

  “Touch yourself. I wanna see if you can make your skin glisten for me.”

  Shifting to part her legs, she glided the tips of her fingers over her pussy and then did more. She sucked on them. “Salty,” she whispered, looking up at me through her lashes.

  “You’re gonna kill me,” I admitted on a groan.

  “I wish you were really here.” Her damp lips formed a wistful smile. She swiped her fingers along the bottom one. “I wish you were kissing me. Your firm lips. Your talented tongue. Your long slow kisses.” She paused and her gaze smoldered. “I could come just from that alone. I almost did.”

  “Melinda.” I cursed low. I was in way over my head with her. “Then imagine I’m kissing you right now, imagine my tongue touching yours, and put your hand on your pussy. Grind into your palm. That’s right. Just like that. Good girl. I’m pumping my shaft. I’m close. I’m imagining kissing you deep, swallowing your breath, thrusting my tongue into your mouth as fast as your hips are rocking into your palm right now.

  “Sager.” Her lids fluttered closed, long lashes shadowing her cheekbones. She shuddered with desire and moaned. The image of her flushed pleasure sent me right over the edge, too.

  • • •

  Melinda

  I thought my routine had been difficult before, but I quickly discovered how much I had been mistaken after only one day with Katherine, an uber fit athlete with long straight chestnut hair and a no nonsense demeanor.

  After a brief introduction, we rode to the top of the mountain and she accompanied me to the starting gates. She then drilled me for an entire hour about my pull. My teammates completed several runs while pretending not to listen as Katherine corrected me over and over again until I finally came out of the gate to her satisfaction.

  “I know you want to be fast on the course, Melinda. But a proper starting position will practically guarantee an edge over your competitors. I’ve watched your tapes. You’ve become sloppy. I want those hands off the grips quicker. I don’t want you playing catch up on the course. Your number one competition on the course should be yourself. I want you being proactive rather than reactive. Ski your race and not anybody else’s. Got it?”

  I nodded.

  At lunch, she had me study videos of myself. I didn’t think she disapproved of what I had been doing. I got the idea that she thought I had been lacking the proper focus. She pointed out several things she wanted me to work on while watching me like a hawk to make sure I downed every drop of the protein shake she had specially blended for my lunch.

  “I’ve looked at your numbers. Your BMI is borderline low,” she explained catching my frown. The gloppy green drink tasted awful like ground up cow bones and spinach, and I felt bloated after drinking it. “Most athletes are in your current range. But you’ve lost too much weight too rapidly recently. I don’t want you counting calories anymore. I want you focusing on proper nutrition. You need to maintain muscle mass.”

  In the gym, she ran me through drills that were familiar, but she added in an hour in the pool at the end of the trampoline and mat work.

  “Swimming is a strength and endurance builder. The water provides resistance to all your muscle groups at the same time.” She didn’t say a lot while I followed her instructions but I found myself glancing at her often wanting to receive one of her little nods that hinted that I had won her approval.

  By the time I finished my last of twenty laps in the Olympic sized pool I could barely climb out of it with my rubbery arms and legs.

  “Good work today, Melinda.” A nod and a compliment. I felt euphoric. She handed me a towel. “I’ve got a meeting with the team coaches, but I want you to eat a vegetable egg white omelet from the cafeteria. Every bite of it with plenty of water. I know you’re tired and you may not feel like it but you need to replenish what you burned off today. I’ll see you at the lifts first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Alright. Thank you,” I said.

  “My pleasure.” I thought of Sager saying those words to me and lost all focus for a moment. “You have a lot of potential and a lot of natural talent.” My eyes widened. “I admit the salary and perks were more of an initial incentive than where I thought I could take you professionally, but I’ve changed my mind. If you continue to work as hard as you did today and follow my program without fail, there’s a good chance that we can have you within striking distance of the podium at the World Cup.”

  After that I felt like I was made of air and practically floated over the cobblestones on my way back through the village.

  I came back to earth by the time I reached my building. All the additional training started to catch up with me. The adrenaline from Katherine’s praise wore off, and since I hadn’t eaten my legs turned from rubber to lead. I couldn’t remember ever being more grateful to see my front door. I planned to go straight to my bed and crash, but my roommate blocked my path when I entered the condo. “What’s going on?” I asked her puzzled by the peculiar look on her face.

  “I was just leaving.” She grabbed her purse from the entryway table and brushed past me on her way out the door. That was when I saw him.

  My heart fluttered inside my chest.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Sager

  “Hey, Blue.” I closed the distance separating us and swept her into my arms. Her skin was chilled from being outside and her muscles felt warm and overly taut as if they had been worked beyond their limits. I frowned suspecting she had been going at it too hard and noting that her team Canada track jacket had failed to adequately shield her from the near freezing temperature outside.

  “You didn’t tell me you were coming. What happened? How can you be here?” she sputtered into the wool of my navy jacket where her face remained pressed. I felt her arms quiver around my waist but she didn’t loosen her hold. “You said you couldn’t leave Mary’s estate.”

  “My bandmates covered for me. I had to see you.”

  She tipped her head back, exposing her pretty face. An additional question brimmed as her gaze met mine. “Did they know you were coming to see me?”

  “Yeah, they certainly did.”

  “Oh.” Her lips formed a surprised circle. I couldn’t resist. I pressed my mouth to hers, savoring for a long moment their warm satiny cherry surface. She let out a sweet sigh as I lifted my head. I eased back to look at her.

  “I don’t know why you’re so surprised. They love you.”

  She snorted. “Not anymore.”

  “They do. People get mad and disappointed when someone they care about does stupid shit but if they’re not unreasonable they get over it. No one in Tempest is blameless when it comes to making wrong choices, Melinda. We’ve all got our issues for sure. We may be a lot of things but being hypocrites isn’t one of them.”

  “But King...”

  “Don’t worry about Juaquin. He’ll come around eventually. He thinks he’s protecting me by withholding his approval.”

  “Eventually is never going to happen with April. I doubt she’ll ever forgive me.” Her sapphire eyes filled with a sadness that she didn’t try to hide. Conflicting emotions warred within me. On the one side, I was glad Melinda wasn’t holding back her feelings from me, but on the other side I was frustrated knowing there was nothing I could do to help her mend the rift with the Mine’s bartender.

  “Give her time, Blue. She might surprise you.”

  She didn’t look convinced. I touched the tip of my finger to
her nose. “Did you eat dinner already?”

  She nodded.

  “Shit. I wanted to take you out. The Rim Rock restaurant nearby gets really great reviews. I had a seat reserved by one of the fireplaces. I wanted to spoil you.”

  “I’ve heard it’s a romantic place but I haven’t been. I would love for you to take me there some other time.”

  “Done. I want to show you off, Melinda. I want you on my arm. I want everyone to know you’re with me now. And I want to take you to bed and make love to you again and again before I have to leave in the morning.” I watched her carefully to see how she would react to all that honesty.

  “I’d like that, too.” She beamed, and the clouds cleared from her eyes. She moved her hands to my forearms and squeezed. I felt the warmth of her through the sleeves. “The fridge is fully stocked thanks to Beth Tate. Let’s stay in. I’d like to cook for you.”

  “You cook?” It was my turn to be surprised.

  She nodded. “My dad certainly didn’t. I taught myself the basics.” She released me and took a step back, unzipping her track jacket before tossing it onto one of the living room chairs. The tight Alpine tee that remained outlined her breasts in a distracting way. I tried not to stare as I unbuttoned my coat and threw it on top of hers. “What do you like to eat?” she asked drawing my attention back to her face.

  “I spent most of my youth eating Mexican food. Do you have chorizo and homemade corn tortillas in there?” I quipped knowing there was no chance she did as I followed her into the small efficiency kitchen. She opened the fridge, and I took a step back to give her some room.

  “No. Sorry.” She laughed. “But there’s plenty of protein. My new coach is all about the meat. How about I sear a steak and roast some asparagus for you?”

  “Sounds great.”

  She turned her head to smile at me, her sexy lips curving up so high her lone dimple winked at me from its home on her cheek. That smile hit me square in the center of my chest and did insane things to me that I would never admit to her so soon in our rebooted relationship.

  “Have a seat.” She gestured at the barstools in front of the bar. “Talk to me while I cook. How’s everything going with the guys? Tell me how many songs you have now?”

  “Things are clicking really well. The album is almost finished. We set aside some songs for future use only because they don’t really fit the theme we’ve decided on for this one.”

  “That sounds really exciting.” With practiced movements she set a steak on a broiler tray to bring it to room temperature and then drizzled it and the asparagus with olive oil and salt and pepper.

  “Yeah it is. It feels like the songs were meant to be. They’re coming out so easy and so fast. Each time we get one mixed down, we start right in on the next one. We haven’t talked about it. We aren’t even trying to understand it for fear we’ll jinx it. It feels very spiritual.” I remained standing as I tried to explain. I didn’t want to sit with her so near. I wanted to touch her, to express somehow without scaring her how pleased I was that she was going to all the trouble to prepare a meal for me. Moving in behind her, I dropped my face into the crook between her shoulder and neck and trailed my nose across her rose petal soft skin, inhaling deeply and filling my lungs with her sweet fragrance. She sparked my imagination. I saw in my mind an image of a stargazer lily blooming in a bed of fresh snow. I pressed my lips to the sensitive skin beneath her ear. I could feel the shiver that rolled through her afterward. My cock swelled inside my jeans. It was all I could do to keep from rocking the hard length of it against her. “What’s the theme?” she asked sounding breathy. “Of the album, I mean.”

  “Rough and real,” I rumbled in reply before I straightened and removed my hands from her hips. I needed to think about something other than getting rough and real with her on the kitchen floor. “Southside stuff. Songs that speak to us.”

  “That’s cool.” She washed her hands, dried them and set aside the towel before spinning around to face me. “You said on the phone that you wanted me to hear something you wrote with King.”

  I nodded. “Do you have a guitar?”

  “Yes. I play it some. I love making music. It’s just that in my heart music is a distant second to skiing.”

  “I’m glad to know you haven’t given up music. You’re great on the guitar and the keyboards, and you sing like a dream. But I’m curious. What is it about skiing that you love so much?” I wanted to know everything about her. Maybe if I understood her better I would gain insight into why she seemed so reluctant to go all in with me. “Is it the adrenaline?” I wondered if her pursuit of Dizzy had only been the thrill of the unattainable. Until April our rhythm guitarist had never given any chick more than fifteen minutes of his time.

  “My dad thinks that’s all it is.” Her brow scrunched. She seemed to be giving serious consideration to my question. “But it’s more than that. It’s the mountains. I feel like I’m on top of the world up there. It helps me put things in perspective. When they drop the gate, and I go up in the air I feel like I’m flying. Then it’s the adrenaline. And the competition. Not how fast but how much faster I need to go. The challenge of pitting myself against the others. One kicker, one turn, one jump at a time.”

  “You’re extremely focused when you race.”

  “You have to be hurtling down the side of a mountain at up to one hundred sixty kilometers per hour.”

  “You better be. I don’t want anything to happen to you, Blue.”

  “Thanks.” Her eyes glassed up. “That’s sweet.”

  “Don’t thank me for caring.” I reached for her, drawing her head to my chest. Fingers tunneling deep into the heavy strands of her hair, I stroked her back with my other hand.

  “I’m sorry. I get emotional when I’m tired. If I had known you were coming I would have been more pulled together.”

  She tried to withdraw, but I didn’t let her.

  “That’s why I didn’t tell you, I don’t want the fake stuff, I want the real you.”

  She made a disbelieving sound. “No guy wants that.”

  “I do.” I tilted her chin up to let her see the sincerity in my eyes. I wanted more for sure. I wanted her to see how she had affected my soul from the very beginning. But though I knew it was a good idea to be transparent with her, I also knew I had to take things slowly.

  “Let me show you what I mean.” I didn’t have my sketch pad, or I would have shown her on paper. I had left Timmon’s estate with the snow pouring down and only my wallet and the keys to the Hummer in my pocket. “Is your Martin in the bedroom?”

  “Yes.” The oven timer dinged. “Mine is the one on the left.”

  “I can find it,” I told her.

  “I’ll put the food in. How do you like your steak?”

  “Medium rare.”

  “That won’t take long.” She returned to the task, and I headed to the mouth of the hall just beyond the small living room. Her bedroom door was open. An oversized Tempest concert shirt lay on the floor. The bed remained unmade, the sheet and comforter thrown back as if she had hopped out of it and flown out of the room in a hurry. She probably had. Her workout schedule sounded intense. A Sitka spruce maple topped D28 rested in a stand in the corner. I carefully picked it up and carried it back into the living room. Melinda was in the dining nook beside the kitchen setting the table for one, her long hair free of its ponytail holder. I suspected she had let it down for me knowing that I liked it that way. Sexy. Sweet. Thoughtful. Maybe not as uninvested in a relationship as she seemed to want to believe.

  “I don’t have any wine or beer. It’s just water or a sports drink I’m afraid.”

  “That’s fine. This is already fancier than I’m used to. Don’t fuss. Sit for a minute.”

  She nodded and sank into a chair.

  “Ok.” I cranked the machine head a little tighter on the D string. “The name of the song is ‘Beauty’. It’s not finished yet. I only have the first part worked out. No chorus. But i
t’s you that inspired the words, Melinda. The way you move. The way you look at me. The way I feel when I’m with you.”

  Today I saw a vision

  My future recognized

  Hope for a tomorrow

  Reflected in your eyes.

  Artistry your movement

  Redemption in your soul

  Seal what once was broken

  Two parts make the whole.

  I strummed the chords as I sang glancing over to see what she thought.

  Her lip trembling, she returned my gaze with gathered tears in her eyes. “It’s…I…It’s wonderful. I love it.” She blinked the moisture away and attempted a tremulous smile. “It reminds me of one of my favorite songs.”

  “Purple Rain.” I knew Prince was her number one artist. I liked him, too. But I planned on moving him out of that spot. I wanted to be the only one in her heart.

  “But you’re wrong. That song isn’t me. I’m not like that.”

  “It’s you.” I set the guitar down carefully on top of our coats on the living room chair and crossed to her, taking her hands just as the oven timer dinged behind her. “Leave it,” I insisted when she started to get up. I drew her body closer to mine and brought her hands up to my chest. “It’s who you are with me. It’s who I see. You don’t get to define what I see when I look at you, Melinda. You are the image of beauty to me.”

  “Sager.” She drew in a ragged sounding breath. The blinked away tears reappeared. She twisted away. I let her go because I think she got where I was coming from. She needed to deflect. That was her way. But the truth would sink in. In time I would make her believe it.

  “Have a seat,” she said over her shoulder. I pulled out a chair while keeping my eyes on her. She grabbed an oven mitt and withdrew the tray from the oven. My stomach grumbled. The aroma of meat and the heated olive oil made my mouth water. She arranged everything on a plate and brought it over to me.