Free Fall

Before she could return the smile, she was jostled from behind, and might have fallen flat on her face but for the man with the brain-cell-melting smile on her right. His gloved hand settled on her arm, holding her steady. Grinning her thanks, she used the moment to take a good look at him, at the dark, wavy hair that called to a woman’s fingers, at the complexion that suggested both a tan and an Italian heritage and at the wide, firm mouth that immediately brought to mind a long night of hot sin.

She couldn’t see the eyes behind his mirrored Oakleys, darn it, but at her lengthy perusal, he arched a slow brow. His smile became just a little heated, and in his easy stance she detected an edge, an aura of danger, a delicious, spine-tingling shiver of attitude.

God, she loved a fellow rebel.

And then there was his physique—all hard length and sleek power. His lightweight black jacket fit snugly to his broad shoulders and chest, loosely at the waist. His cargo ski pants were loose, too, but in no way hid the effect of his long legs. Here was a man who kept his body in prime condition—possibly an athlete.

Yum.

“Single?” he asked as the line shifted closer to the lift.

She knew he was asking if she was single for the lift, but she answered for both that and her personal life. “Very.”

He smiled again, and together they moved to the front of the lift. The operator was Eric, a twenty-five-year-old ski bum who’d been running lifts for seven years now. He gave her the thumbs-up sign. “Drop Off, dudette.”

“That’s where I’m heading now.” She couldn’t wait to have the icy wind in her face, the feel of the slope beneath her.

“Drop Off?” the magnificent male specimen next to her asked as they sat on their chair, swinging into the air over a popular intermediate run called Calamity Alley.

The snow looked like endless yards of corduroy, thanks to the grooming crew working nights on the snowcats. “Drop Off is a run on the back side, off the north cornice,” she said.

“Sounds like a good place to start.”

“Oh, no,” she said with a laugh. “It’s a horrible place to start. It’s a double-diamond run, expert only.”

And the Sierras had been dumped on last night, making it all the more challenging. A blanket of fresh white powder lay as far as the eye could see, coating the trees on either side of the runs below like stoically swaying hundred-foot-high ghosts. Lily’s adrenaline began to pump. She lived for powder days. Lived to huck herself off Drop Off, a two-and-a-half-mile run with a wicked three-thousand-foot vertical drop.

The man next to her pushed up his sunglasses, showing his eyes for the first time. Melting chocolate, was her first thought, and good Lord, but she was suddenly starving for some. “Double diamond?” he repeated.

“Yes. Have you been here before?”

He shifted his broad shoulders forward to adjust his narrow backpack to be more comfortable between his spine and the chair. “No.”

“But you have skied before,” she guessed, as evidenced by his ease getting on the lift.

“I do all right.”

He certainly looked all right. More than. And yet, just because he did, didn’t mean he was a good skier. She’d actually discovered that the more good-looking someone was, the less skill they required to get through life, skiing included.

Far too many times she’d been pulled in by a pretty face only to discover that all the expensive gear was merely a front. An illusion. Not that it had stopped her from enjoying said pretty face, but she understood and appreciated the fine art of one-night standing and happened to be extremely selective. It’d been a while since she’d indulged, but suddenly, looking into eyes the color of expensive, dark, rich mocha, she decided she was due.

Past due.

But whether she slept with him or not, she wouldn’t have any casualties on her conscience. If this hunk of amazing flesh couldn’t ski, she’d happily point him in the direction of the bunny slopes and go on her merry powder way. “I’ll get you a map at the top so you can find the right runs for you.”

“Thank you,” he said, sounding amused. “But I can figure it out.”

A bunch of loud catcalls and woo-hoos burst in the air. The four guys on the lift behind them had gotten a nice look at Calamity Alley, smooth and freshly groomed. They were young and exuberant, brimming with an unmitigated joy that was contagious enough to make Lily smile.

The devastating hottie next to her had shifted to look, too, putting an arm up along the back of the chair to do so. The material of his gear crinkled, and through the icy morning came the scent of his soap, his shampoo…and more. Clean, pure male, she thought with an inhale that had her nostrils quivering.

His eyes met hers, first with humor—he’d caught her sniffing him!—and then with an answering crackle of awareness and attraction. She just knew that he was thinking stuff, all sorts of wicked, unspeakable, bad-boy stuff, and suddenly the morning chill dissipated. She didn’t look away, she couldn’t, and neither did he. The moment stretched out, sizzling in intensity.

Far beneath them, a lone skier took the mountain in a series of long S-turns. She shifted her attention downward, nearly quivering, though now she wasn’t sure it was just the need to follow the fall line on her own freshly waxed board that had her senses on full alert.

“You get down there a lot, I take it, since you’re a local.” He nodded to her ski-patrol jacket.

“Born and bred.”

“You’ve been boarding a long time, then.”

And skiing, too. Her grandpa had put her on a board at the tender age of two. She’d been a holy terror ever since, as any living member of her family could attest to. “How about you? Where are you from?”

“Ohio.”

“Long way from home.” She loved hearing their guests’ stories. Plus, she just loved his voice, low and just a little husky. “So what brings you here, besides the wonderful resort and the fact we have the best skiing on the planet?”

“My partner gave me a week out here. Said I needed a vacation.”

“Wow. Nice partner.”

Before she could ask more, or what he did for a living, they were at the top of the lift. They got off together and skied forward to Upper Way, which would deposit them at the top of the world—or what felt like it at 11,150 feet. They got on with two boarders, who managed to get between her and her beautiful stranger, and this time there was little talk and lots of awe as they all took in the stunning Sierras in full winter splendor.

When they finally reached the top, Lily stopped to wave to the lift operator and pulled her sunglasses out from inside her jacket.

The two boarders quickly vanished down the front of Surprise, a lovely, groomed intermediate run that would eventually take them back to the midmountain lift. Her mysterious rebel had shifted forward, meanwhile, to read the large billboard map that exhibited all the runs. A dry-erase board beneath it listed which of them had been groomed and their conditions. He bent to tighten his boots—which gave her the chance to notice that his butt was as extremely fine as the rest of him—then he straightened and pushed off, heading toward the back side and Drop Off.

“Hey,” she called out, but it was too late. “Damn it.” She went after him. At the lip of the run, she hastily bent and locked her other foot into her binding. He’d already begun his descent, and as she watched, her mouth fell open. He’d said he was an “all right” skier, but the man was beyond anything even close to all right. In fact, he moved like poetry in motion, perfectly in sync with the fall line of the mountain. Was that ever sexy.

With a grin of anticipation and lust and pure joy, she threw herself off the edge of her world, flying down the mountain after him.

2

LILY PASSED HER HOT MAN In Black, waving as she swooshed on by. The beauty of Drop Off was its combination of sheer length and vertical drop, never failing to give her a roller-coaster, stomach-to-her-toes feeling—but today the run had an extra edge to it, courtesy of her sizzling audience.

The trees on either side of the sharp, creviced run blurred as her eyes watered with the icy morning chill. Still she pushed harder, happily losing herself in speed and adrenaline.

Halfway down, she leaped into a quick stop and, as she often liked to do, turned to look back up at the cliff she’d just taken. Breath coming in quick, short pants, she swiped at her glasses to rid them of the flakes of powder blocking her view.

He skied up beside her, stopping close enough to spray her with snow. “Still worried about me?”

She shot him a droll look. “You failed to mention you were expert.”

He let out a slow grin. “You failed to ask.”

True.

“Race to the bottom?” he asked casually.