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  Wincing, I closed my eyes again, ignoring the images of Anna, then Sophie, tumbling toward the trees. “I promise to work on my issues, and let you do your job, if you promise to quit acting like you’ve got something to prove to me.”

  Her warm hand disappeared from my arm. When I opened my eyes, hers were inches away.

  “Ummmmm, right. Because a woman like me, in a job like this, never has anything to prove.”

  “Not to me you don’t, and not to anyone else here.” I grabbed her hand in mine, bereft from the loss of physical connection, and not thinking about how it might look. Actually, not caring how it might look. I needed her full attention.

  “You do realize every ’troller you’ve ever worked with is in total awe of you.”

  She yanked her hand back. “Bullshit.”

  “Seriously. Sam hired you away from Blue Sky for a reason. For a lot of reasons actually, all having to do with your skills, your training, and your reputation.”

  “You sure it wasn’t just to meet his minority quotas?”

  “Positive.”

  “Huh.” She sipped her beer, her expression pensive. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks.” I went back to staring at her mouth.

  ****

  I drained the last of my beer, doing my best to ignore the way Max ogled my mouth. Like he was going to devour me. His stare put my lips on high alert, begging for him to close the distance between us and do it.

  Not that any devouring would be going on, even though I had to admit Max wasn’t an asshole. Not by a long shot. Knowing what he’d been through, it seemed stupid and self-centered to be pissed he never returned my emails or calls. The man deserved a medal for putting his life on hold and taking care of his sister like that.

  While I still thought his keeping me off the dangerous jobs was bullshit, at least now I understood why. He didn’t have a problem with me, he had a problem with himself.

  Which left me with my own problem to deal with…Max was still my boss, still off limits, but now that we were talking again, sharing again, I wanted him even more.

  High time I got the hell away from him before I ruined that reputation of mine, and both our careers.

  I yawned, my head heavy on my neck. Dreams of tumbling into my empty bed floated through my brain. Of lying flat on my back and stretching from the tips of my fingers to the ends of my toes, then sinking into oblivion. “It’s past my bedtime.” I stood, swaying a little, from the tired more than the beers, and slipped on my down jacket.

  “Me too.” He returned my yawn. “Want some company for the walk?”

  Having somebody to navigate the uneven, boot-packed trail with in the dark sounded like a good idea. Having Max walk back with me sounded better, and worse. But I couldn’t resist stealing a few more chaste moments with him. “Sure.”

  He pulled on his jacket and we headed for the door. Two crunching steps into the frozen snow, his footsteps stopped. So, I stopped.

  “Forget something?” The cold bit at my cheeks and made my nostrils burn, but the stars were a-fucking-mazing. People who lived in cities didn’t realize what they were missing. My eyes fixed on the zillion tiny lights. His rested on me. The silence stretched on too long.

  “Max?”

  “Yeah.” He exhaled in a loud rush. “I left something in the office. You mind stopping?”

  “No problem.” I could’ve walked home by myself, but after our conversation, I wanted to stay close to him. Wanted to wrap my arms around him and make the guilt and pain go away, or at least distract him from it for a little while.

  His sincerity. His honesty. The vulnerability on his face when he shared the story of his sister’s accident. All were a big part of the Max I remembered. The Max I’d fallen for two years ago. Even if we could never be anything more, I’d settle for another five minutes alone with him as friends.

  We crunched our way across the brightly lit base area, eerily quiet at this hour with the lifts closed and skiers gone for the day. His keys jingled as he opened the door and led us into the slightly fetid heat of the patrol room. A fluorescent glow seeped through the windows. Without turning on the lights, he tossed his jacket over the back of a wooden chair and made his way to his office.

  If I sat down, I’d fall asleep. So, I shucked my jacket and checked the coffee machine in the white light shining through the windows, making sure it was ready to roll in the morning. Then I washed the two mugs sitting in the sink. With nothing else to do, I headed toward Max’s office.

  “Did you get what you needed?” I put my hand on the cool, brass knob and opened the door the rest of the way, blinking in the bright light. Max sat, head in his hands, elbows on the piles of papers covering his desk. His fingertips flattened against his skull.

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice muffled by his posture. He lifted his head and his gray eyes met mine. “No. I take it back. I didn’t.” He stalked around his desk, closing the distance between us. Not breaking eye contact. “Not yet, anyway.”

  A delicious shiver ran straight down my spine.

  I took a small step back. My heel hit the corner of the baseboard and I stumbled. Max caught me. His strong arms wrapped around me. His lips slid over mine, warm and soft and hard and fierce all at the same time. His hands moved to my face, cupping my cheeks with a gentleness that didn’t match the sharp nip of his teeth on my lower lip. A rush of wetness flooded my panties.

  Even though I couldn’t—shouldn’t—have him, I hadn’t gotten what I needed either. Not in a damn long time. And I needed this. Him. Now. Even if only for a few minutes.

  I opened my mouth and sucked in his tongue along with his moan.

  He turned us and trapped me between the wall and his lean torso. Slid his tongue in and out of my mouth in deep, long strokes until it was his turn to swallow my moan. I dug my fingers into the muscles of his shoulders and arched my back, trying to fuse every inch of us together.

  Strong fingers wrapped under my knee, lifting it. Holding it in place. Spreading my legs. Making room for his thick, muscular thigh. Making me wet. His tongue dipped and swirled in time to the press and release of his leg against me, firm and delicious and not nearly enough. Not by a long shot.

  I rubbed against him like a cat in heat, searching for bliss. Or maybe he was rubbing against me. Either way, my pussy ached and throbbed and I couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop.

  He released my mouth and leaned his forehead on the top of my head, panting. His eyes squeezed shut, lines of tension radiating out from their corners. “I’m sorry.”

  “About this? Don’t be. I didn’t exactly slap you and tell you to fuck off.”

  “I mean for everything. For never calling you back. For not letting you do your job. The job you’re so damn good at. I promise I’ll never do that again.”

  “It’s okay. I get it. We’ll work it out.”

  Max pressed his lips to the crown of my head and twisted his fingers into my hair. “For a second today, I thought I lost you.”

  His hoarse whisper wrapped and curled down my spine. I couldn’t imagine what he saw, what he felt, when I rag-dolled toward the trees.

  I slid my fingers up and cupped the rigid muscles of his neck. The hurt and fear and raw emotion radiating off him threatened to overwhelm me. Made it hard to talk. Maybe because my heart had expanded and floated up into my throat.

  I swallowed hard, but the words still came out tight. Rough. “I’m not that easy to lose.”

  “Thank God.” He dropped another kiss on my hair and cupped my cheek, tilting my head until our eyes met. “I don’t think I could stand losing you again.”

  His lips brushed mine once. Twice. Hesitated against mine, and disappeared.

  Dammit. Instead of demanding entry, he was saying goodbye. My heart sank like a boulder to the pit of my stomach.

  Our bodies were still glued together, but he didn’t move. Terrified of breaking the spell, I couldn’t move. I didn’t want this to end. Not yet. Maybe n
ot ever.

  He didn’t realize it, but he’d lit a bonfire inside me big enough it wouldn’t be so easy to put it out.

  “You’re amazing. And, right now, I want you more than life itself.” Max smoothed the hair back from my face, longing written in his eyes. “But we should stop.”

  “Yeah. We should.” I used my grip on his neck to close the distance between our mouths. “Just not yet.”

  His lip was firm and fleshy between my teeth. I let it slide out nice and slow and circled my hips against his leg. He groaned and his fingers tightened behind my knee.

  “Anyone ever told you, you are trouble?” he growled.

  “All the time.” I rocked my hips, pressing my clit against his leg. Pinning his hard-on against my stomach. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Nope. Not at all. You are definitely my kind of trouble.” His mouth crashed into mine.

  He grabbed my other knee, lifted me up on the wall, and shoved his cock against the centerline of my jeans. Sparks shot along my spine, and the bonfire inside me raged.

  I yanked his head back and slid my teeth along the corded muscle in his neck, tasting salt. He circled his hips, sending the flames higher.

  Working my way up his neck, I nibbled his lobe and breathed into his ear. “I need you to fuck me.”

  His cock twitched against me through his jeans. “We can’t.”

  “Sure we can. It’s late. We’re alone.” I flicked my tongue. “No one will know.”

  His knees gave a couple inches on a low moan. “You’re killing me, Soph.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.” I nipped the rim of his ear and circled my hips. “Take off your pants.”

  Chapter Eight

  Fuck me.

  Literally and figuratively.

  I was in deep.

  What the hell was I thinking, bringing her here? Kissing her? I wanted Sophie so damn bad, but we couldn’t do this. Not here. Not anywhere. Not as long as we both worked on Ski Patrol for Emerald Mountain. I couldn’t be responsible for her losing her job or ruining her career.

  I tore my mouth off hers, doing my best to ignore the way she kept rubbing against my dick. To ignore how good it felt to finally kiss her and touch her and grind into her, because this needed to stop.

  “Seriously, Sophie. As much as I want to—and believe me I want to—we can’t.”

  “Sure we can.” She smirked. “All you have to do is yank my pants down, whip your dick out, and slide it home.”

  “You know what I mean.” I studied her face. Her eyelids hung at half-mast. Her lips were red and plump. Her cheeks were flushed. And her arms and legs were wrapped around me like she never planned to let go. “This was a bad idea.”

  Still, I didn’t step back. Didn’t set her down.

  “Too late now. No takebacks.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall, exposing the long, tempting line of her neck. Her hips rubbed against me in small circles, each one sending jolts of pleasure straight to my balls.

  I slid one hand out from under her ass and around her hip, playing with the line of bare skin where her shirt ruched up. Her body tensed in my arms. The slow, languid hip circles stopped. I met her gaze. Gone were the half-lidded eyes, replaced by steely determination.

  “Don’t fuck with me, Max. Either we’re doing this or we’re not. I say we’re doing this, but if we’re not, put me down so I can go home and get my beauty sleep.”

  Shit. I wanted her. I wanted to wrap my arms around her tiny frame and drive into her, hard, and let her know how much I wanted her. How much I loved her.

  My brain screeched to a halt. Love? When did that come in to the picture?

  I searched around in my memory banks, trying to figure out when lust and attraction and respect had morphed into something more. Not one, single moment came to mind. Instead a slide show flashed through my brain…

  Sophie, tossing forty pounds of fencing over her shoulder and skiing down a run like it was nothing. Sophie, laughing and joking with the other patrollers. Sophie, holding a kid’s hand and taking the time to talk to him and calm him down after he dislocated his shoulder at the terrain park, then reducing it like a pro in thirty seconds. Sophie, lying naked in my arms, sharing crazy stories from her childhood. Sophie on all fours, crying out for me to fuck her harder.

  “We’re doing this.”

  But no way could I take her back to my room and risk someone seeing her doing a two a.m. walk of shame. I buried my tongue in her mouth and swirled it around, tasting every sweet inch of the slick surface inside. Grasping her ass with both hands, I lifted her off the wall and slammed the door shut with my foot. Balancing her against my chest with one arm, I used my free hand to turn the lock.

  That was all I could manage in terms of thinking straight. From here on out, I was going to leave all the thinking to my small head. I’d figured out what to do after this, after this.

  ****

  My ass hit the hard edge of the desk and we were a blur of hands and mouths, both trying to get to bare skin like our lives depended on it. His shaking fingers raced to undo the buttons of my shirt. His cool fingertips grazed my skin, raising goosebumps when he slid the fabric off my shoulders and down my arms.

  My nipples puckered, tight and sensitive. He bent and wrapped his lips around one, sucking, turning sparks to flames. My moan came from somewhere near my soul.

  I lost patience with his buttons and ripped his shirt over his head, running my nails down his chest, watching red lines and goosebumps appear. Loving the way his muscles twitched under my fingers.

  He growled, shoved me back, dipped his head to the spot where my neck met my shoulder and sank his teeth into my skin with just the right amount of force. When his fingers pinched the nipple he’d been sucking, the two lines of heat met at my core. My hips twitched against air. My panties were officially soaked.

  I arched my back, silently begging him to move his mouth lower because no way was that enough. “These need to go,” I mumbled, grasping at the button on his jeans while he slid tongue and teeth along my collarbone and plucked my other nipple. Lines of fire shot across my skin, making me quiver. It was all I could do to stay on track and shove his pants and boxer briefs down over his ass until his cock stood hard and proud between us.

  I wrapped my hand around it. It twitched and his moan rumbled against my skin and straight to my slick pussy. I slid my hand up and down his length, squeezing hard at the bottom of each stroke. Enjoying the smooth glide of his silky skin against my palm.

  One of his hands cupped my tit, his fingers alternating between caressing and pinching while he nipped and sucked down my neck. That combination of hard and soft drove me fucking crazy, and he knew it.

  My skin was hot and desperate for his next touch. His next kiss. His next bite.

  With his free hand, he ripped open the button of my jeans and fumbled at the zipper. “Stand up.”

  I did as I was told, keeping my hand around his cock. Sliding it up and down.

  He shimmied my jeans and panties down and pressed my ass against the desk to slip them off my ankles. The cold wood shocked my bare skin, a stark contrast to the heat building to epic proportions inside me.

  A wrapper crinkled. I smiled as his hands gripped my thighs and spread them apart. He stood inches away, lean and strong, his broad shoulders and defined abs stark in the harsh fluorescent light. I wanted him in me, on me, over me. Every way I could have him.

  I tried to tug him in closer, slide his cock to the spot I wanted it most, but he resisted.

  One splayed hand shoved against my sternum until my back hit the desk. Papers crinkled and shifted underneath me. I released my grip on his cock and pushed to my elbows.

  I wanted to sear the sight of him standing between my legs in all his naked glory into my brain forever. Wanted to watch his long, thick cock slide in.

  We’d barely started and already I didn’t want it to end. Because who knew when I would get another chance.


  His big hand slipped down my belly. He pulled the skin above my slit taught with his thumb, and my swollen clit popped up. He rubbed a circle just above it, teasing me until my hips twitched with his every movement.

  “Mmmmmm. I like you like this.” His thumb moved to my clit.

  I bucked.

  “So responsive.” His thumb slid down further, circled my hole, and dipped in and out while his fingers took over the job of rubbing my clit. “So wet.”

  A roman candle exploded inside me each time his finger swept over my swollen nub. Each time his thumb slid in and out, spreading wetness and fire. “Dammit, Max. Fuck me.”

  I didn’t have to ask twice. With a growl, he yanked his hand away and slammed into me, filling me until the deep ache morphed into the best kind of burn. I fell back on the desk, papers sticking to my damp skin. His fingers found my clit again and tremors shook me each time he flicked it.

  “Harder.” I wrapped my legs around him and pressed my heels into his firm ass for leverage. Met every stroke with my hips. “More.”

  His arms circled around my back and he stood, lifting me, shifting his angle. My whole world became his cock slamming deep inside me, over and over.

  I dug my fingers into his back, not caring if I left permanent marks. A guttural scream ripped from my throat, mixing with his tortured cry, and I spasmed around his twitching cock.

  My body trembled, partly from the orgasm and partly from the emotions whipping through me. Being with Max again was almost too much. Maybe more than I could handle. And not nearly enough. He held me close, one arm around my waist, one hand cupping the back of my head, tucking it into that spot on his chest where it fit just right.

  The high-speed beats of his heart thrummed in my ear. His hand smoothed my hair, so sweet and gentle. I loved his special mix of rough and tender, serious and sweet, so much—in bed, and out.

  He nuzzled his face into my hair and took a deep breath. “You okay?”

  “Mmmmmm hmmmmm. You?”

  “More than.”

  Max, this, it was something special. Something that didn’t come around every day. Something I wanted with all my heart, even though my head knew it couldn’t happen.