id="u9e80f69c-520d-59ef-937f-d0ce670da52c">
THE ADMISSION SLIPPED OUT, but Carter didn’t want to take the words back. Deep down he had missed her and the realness he experienced when he was with her. He knew that it would be easy to say he could be himself around her, but that wasn’t exactly true. With Lindsey he could be the man he wanted to be. He didn’t have to be on his guard with her.
True, they competed, but with her it felt good. As though they were both doing it from a kind place, unlike some other people in his life.
“You have?” she asked.
“Never mind,” he said, getting up from the bed and going into the bathroom. When he came back a few minutes later, she was sitting on the side of the bed looking at the picture of the two them.
“Where did you get this?”
“The hotel gave it to me,” he said. “If you’d stuck around that morning you would have seen it.”
She pursed her lips. “True. Why is it on your nightstand?”
“Because I like it,” he said curtly. He’d already said he missed her—what else did she want from him? To admit that he felt something for her he’d never experienced in any of his other relationships? He knew that was the truth, but telling her wasn’t exactly something he fancied doing.
“Fair enough. And I’m sorry for what I said, Carter. I’ve...missed you, too. I think you scared me when you said it,” she admitted. “Because the truth is, I’ve been thinking about you too much.”
“And why’s that a bad thing?” he asked, moving to sit next to her. Nothing was easy with her. And a part of him thought that was probably the way it should be. His father had always espoused the fact that value was only placed on the things he had to work hard to have. But just this once, he wanted Lindsey and him to have something easy.
“It just is,” she said. “Like I’ve said before, I’m figuring out a bunch of stuff. Each day, even over these past two weeks, I can feel myself changing. And you’re part of it. But none of it is real. It’s that discovery of a life I’d thought I’d lost. But I’m also trying to find a new path.”
When she gazed up at him, he could see a glimmer of uncertainty. Yet he saw hope and tenderness, too.
“And what I feel for you is strong. I meant it when I said I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about you.”
“Me, too. That’s why we can take this one moment at a time. Pretending we don’t want each other or that this is never going to happen again is ridiculous. And if I know one thing about us, it’s that we don’t make dumb decisions.”
“Speak for yourself,” she said with a grin. “I’m not sure about being a team. You and me. I’m so used to being on my own.”
“We wouldn’t be a team per se, we’d be dating. We’d be a sort of couple.”
“Sort of couple?” she asked. “How does that work?”
“However we want it to,” Carter said. He knew himself well enough to know that he didn’t do well with rules. He always wanted to break them. But with Lindsey he wanted to take things slow. No rushing in and just jumping. That was why he’d been careful about keeping his distance when he’d needed to and being himself around her.
“Okay, but just know that I might have to put distance between us. Skiing has always been my main focus, and I’m close to getting that back. I don’t know how to balance anything with skiing.”
He understood that. He’d known her for a long time, and she’d always been one of those people not distracted by the spectacle of international games or tempted to cavort with athletes from other countries. She’d gone to bed early, eaten well-balanced meals and skied.
That was it.
“I thought you wanted to maybe change that. Remember how you mentioned that your twenties were a blur?”
She nodded. “I do, Carter. But it has to be for me. If I figured out anything over the past year, it’s that trying things for other people doesn’t make me happy. And it’s also not real.” She blew out a breath. “I have to figure out skiing for myself, but I want you, too. I like this hot little thing we have and I don’t want to lose it. Can you be okay with that?”
No. Hell no. “Sure. Whatever you need. I’m not a serious kind of guy anyway.”
Liar.
He had turned into the biggest fraud...and why? She had just said she didn’t want anything serious. He knew this was karma. This was payback for all the times when he’d played fast and loose with a woman’s feelings. And it sucked.
He was tired of talking, and would love for just a few moments to hold her in his arms and pretend that the facts he knew weren’t real. Pretend that she was his and he could be with her all the time, not just in this unique little sliver of time when her guard was lowered and he was so desperate he’d say anything to keep her.
So he gave in to temptation.
He pulled her into his arms, tucked them under the covers, and she turned on her side to cuddle close to him. He stroked his hand over her hair as she rested her head over his heart and he felt the minute exhalation of her breath over his skin.
He knew this wasn’t real. That it was a chimera of the one thing he craved most in the world at this moment, but he didn’t give a damn.
She tipped her head and he looked into her sleepy brown eyes.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she whispered. Then she lifted her head, dropped a quick kiss on his chest and went to sleep.
He lay awake until dawn crept in with its pinky-pearl color. In a way he felt as though he had everything he wanted in his arms, but at the same time she felt farther away than ever.
* * *
CARTER ASKED HER to put on the mask and get into his SUV. Given that he liked to play little bedroom games, she wasn’t too sure what to expect.
“Are you going to ask me to take my clothes off?”
“Not yet,” he said with a chuckle.
She felt his hands on her waist, and then he leaned over her, pulling the seat belt into position around her. She heard the door close, but all of her senses were hyperalert. She felt the breeze wrap around her the moment he opened the driver’s door, heard the sound of the cloth of his jeans against the leather seats.
“No peeking,” he warned softly.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m kidnapping you.”
“Will there be a ransom note? My folks already think you are something of a bad boy.”
He laughed, and she was reminded of how much she liked the deep timbre of his voice.
“No
