“Sorry if that got out of hand. My control disappears around you. I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you, gorgeous.”
He was getting himself back under control. Giving her that rueful smile of his that made her heart soften and her fears sort of melt away. “Me, either. You make me forget everything I thought I knew about you.”
“That’s because you didn’t know me at all.”
She was beginning to believe that. But who was the real man? Did she really want to know? Could she handle him now when she was just barely able to limp forward toward finding herself again?
And could she live with herself if she didn’t? He had shown her a world and an experience she’d never found with another man. She really wanted to believe that it was better because she’d experienced it with him.
After all, this morning he’d given her back a piece of the winter world she’d used to love so much. While sledding down the slope wasn’t nearly as fast as hitting the Super G course on two skis, it felt like a huge step back to her old self.
LINDSEY’S CONDO WAS a little embarrassing now that she saw it through Carter’s eyes. She’d always lived sparsely mainly because she and one of her parents—usually her mom—had stayed in this sort of temporary housing during her years of training. Once she’d turned eighteen and started to live on her own, she’d sort of just kept it sparse.
But now as she led him into the two-story condo, she realized how plain and boring it might seem. Carter was surely used to more luxurious accommodations. And this entire bring-him-back-to-her-place-for-sex thing seemed to be backfiring.
“Nice place,” he said. “I’m a fan of the Nordic open-air interior design, too.”
She couldn’t tell if he was serious or having fun at her expense. But she let it go. “Want a drink? Maybe something hot?”
“The only hot thing I’m interested in is you.”
“Really? I don’t feel hot,” she said. Unless being a big, fat, hot mess counted, and she was pretty sure it didn’t. But for right now she shoved that aside. She wasn’t going to be able to get what she wanted from him if she let her doubts and fears plague her. And unlike standing on all that freshly packed snow earlier, this fear was a lot easier to conquer.
She heard the sound of the television next door coming on. The walls in this place weren’t exactly thick. “Sorry about that.”
“I have lived in apartments before, so I know what it’s like. Why’d you choose this place?” he asked, coming into the room and taking off his coat. He sat on the ottoman to remove his boots.
He was getting comfortable and acting normal. It made her realize how out of sync she felt. She took off her coat and picked his up, hanging them both on hooks by her front door. Her father had put them up when her parents had visited over the holidays.
She kicked her boots off and set them under her coat. Carter came over and did the same with his.
“So why do you live here?” he asked again.
“It’s close to the lodge. When I was cleared to ski again, I came back here thinking I’d go straight into training. My coach—do you know Peter Martin?”
“I do. Not sure he likes me very much,” Carter said with a huge grin.
“Why does that not surprise me?” she replied. “You do tend to annoy a lot of people.”
“I know. I like it.”
She knew he did. That had been obvious from the first. “Anyway, I got to the top and couldn’t ski down, and he suggested that maybe I stay here and teach classes so I’d be on skis every day as a way of getting used to it again. But so far it hasn’t worked.”
“Yet it did today. You went down a slope—”
“A tiny one. That hardly counts.”
He gave her a chiding look. “But you did it. And we crashed—”
“You did that on purpose,” she said.
“You’re right,” he admitted, taking her hand in his and lifting it to his mouth. He kissed her palm and then placed her hand on his chest. “Guilty as charged. But I had enough of waiting to hold you in my arms. I don’t think you can appreciate how much I want you.”
She thought that maybe she could. She wanted him, as well. With each aching breath she took she wanted to feel his naked body pressed to hers again. She wanted to see if in the cold light of day he’d been as sexy as he’d been the night before.
Had it been the night and the champagne that had made it seem magical? Surely it had. No man could make her feel so alive. A mountain, maybe. Taking a run down a dangerous slope, definitely. But Carter Shaw—surely she was remembering it wrong.
She felt her pulse beating a little more quickly, and her lips felt dry thinking about his mouth pressed to hers. A slow burning heat brushed over her from head to toe, and her clothes felt too restrictive and she wanted...just wanted things that she’d never thought she would.
He watched her with that uncanny gaze of his and she felt as though he could see all the way through her fears and her doubts. Straight to the heart of her, where she questioned everything she’d experienced with him the night before.
“Gorgeous, what am I going to do with you?” he asked.
A tingle of anticipation swept through her, and she guessed that this was her chance to try out all the risqué things she’d always sort of wanted to try but had never had the right guy to do it with. But this was Carter. The live-for-the-moment poster boy and her chance to do all the things she’d always deemed too dangerous.
“Kiss me?”
He smiled and then lifted one of his hands, pulling the ponytail holder from her hair very carefully so he didn’t snag even one strand. He ran his fingers through her hair, fanning it out and pulling it forward over her shoulders. Then he tunneled his fingers through it, tipping her head back, and very slowly lowered his head toward hers.
She kept her eyes open this time. This kiss, she wanted to see his emotions, ascertain what he felt and try to figure out if she was doing this right. Because if she’d learned anything from watching Carter over the years, it was that he knew how to roll with the punches. He moved effortlessly through life and didn’t get slowed down by emotional entanglements. Something she knew she had to master before she started to like him any more than she did at this moment.
It could be just sex. Sex was healthy and something she’d never denied herself, but any other kind of attachment wasn’t. She’d been focused on skiing and being the best in the world. There hadn’t been time for a relationship when she’d eaten, drank and even dreamed about her downhill runs. She had to remember that.
But as his lips moved over hers, just rubbing lightly, and he dropped nibbling kisses along the line of her jaw to her ear, all the while whispering hot promises about all the places he wanted to ravish her, she knew she was in very real danger of forgetting.
* * *
LINDSEY KEPT HIM on his toes, always dancing just out of his reach, which normally was exactly what he wanted and needed. But today he didn’t. Today he wanted to hold the woman who was so brave and strong but didn’t see those qualities in herself. Today he wanted a few moments where he didn’t feel as if he had to chase her. And now that they were at her condo—her sparse, nondescript home—he had hoped he’d be able to relax.
But this was Lindsey and she surprised him. Never more so then when he held her in his arms. She wanted him. That was obvious from the flush of her skin and how she kept coming back into his arms when normally she would have been running for the hills.
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