After Midnight

He strode back into the room with all the grace and elegance of a tiger.

She forced a smile and what she liked to think of as her game face. The expression she used in the press room after a bad run, or when she’d had to go in front of the media and act as though it hadn’t mattered that her career in skiing was over after her fall.

Watching his muscles moving with each step he took, she realized he was a perfect specimen. Not like her body, which was broken and bore fresh scars. She envied him his healthy body. Tamping down her roiling emotions, she shook her head. She wasn’t going down that path tonight.

Instead, the sheet falling to her waist, she drank him in.

“Dammit.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked in alarm.

“You make me want to start all over again.”

“Start what?” She wasn’t following him.

“Sex,” he said. “I’ve just had you but I want you again. Want to take my time and make sure that I haven’t missed one glorious spot on your body.”

She arched one eyebrow at him. “I don’t think you did. But first I want to hear why you think I’m special.”

He rubbed a hand over his chest and came to sit next to her on the bed. “Gorgeous, you’ve always been special to me.”

That was a nonanswer if she ever heard it, but it was New Year’s Day. He was her little gift to start out a fabulous year, and she guessed from his tone that discussing their past wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.

She sighed, but the drinks and her emotions were catching up with her. She traced his tattoo and thought of all the risks she’d taken in her life and how they’d paid off for her. Carter Shaw was the biggest one. She’d come to his room for a night of pleasure and hopefully to jar herself out of the sameness that her life had taken on.

That was it.

It was hard, though, because she was a planner, and to face any situation knowing that she didn’t have a proved strategy made her edgy and scared.

* * *

IF SHE’D BEEN any other woman, he would have been happy to climb back into that bed and have another round of mind-numbing sex. But this was Lindsey. His gorgeous Nordic angel who’d always been different. And tonight was no exception.

She kept touching him in that innocent way of hers that turned him on, but more than that, she seemed to touch him as if she wasn’t thinking about it.

“Tell me about this tattoo.”

That she’d changed the subject kind of let him off the hook and also disappointed him the tiniest bit. He wanted her to demand some answers from him, not let him keep skating by on the surface. But she saw him the way every other woman did. She was different to him but he wasn’t different to her.

It hurt for a split second before he shrugged it aside and shifted to lie next to her. He pulled a couple of pillows closer and propped them under his head.

“What about it?”

“When did you get it?”

“On a trip to Japan with my dad when I was a teenager.”

“How on earth did you convince them to give you a tattoo...or did your dad okay it?” she asked with a smile.

Carter thought of his old man and how, back then, he’d been sort of his enemy. Now that he was an adult they got on well, but growing up, his dad had seemed like this guy who had never really lived or ever done anything daring. The exact opposite of everything that Carter wanted to be. His mom had died in childbirth, and his dad had never recovered.

“No, he didn’t approve. But I was on my own, spoke decent Japanese and looked like I was eighteen. I knew from the moment I’d seen the mountain that I wanted it. I wanted to snowboard down it, learn its paths and twists and turns. Try to capture some of its wildness.”

He lifted his head and stared down into her pretty brown eyes. She smiled in response. “That’s almost poetic. Watch it, Shaw, your badass image is slipping.”

“I got ink at sixteen. That’s pretty badass,” he retorted, trying to push aside the feelings she called easily to the surface. He wasn’t one of those guys who spent much time thinking heavy thoughts. So he could only blame Lindsey and this evening for stirring up those old memories.

“And now you’re twenty-seven and retiring? Time flies, doesn’t it?” she said, rolling onto her back and lifting her arms up above her head.

The movement forced her breasts into prominence, and he reached over and feathered his fingers across them. Slowly stroking her skin, which was very smooth and very warm. Addicting almost. He never wanted to stop touching her.

She turned over again, facing him. “I don’t want to talk about the past.”

“Me, either.”

The present was way more interesting than the things he’d done in the past. For instance, this was the first time he was close enough to hold Lindsey in his arms. Close enough to notice that on her rib cage just below her breast she had a small birthmark. He leaned in to kiss it.

“What are you doing?”

“Memorizing you. Trying to make sure I know every inch of you.”

“I thought it took guys a while to recover after sex,” she said.

He shook his head and laughed. “Some guys. Some of the time. I think it depends on the woman and man. It’s not taking me any time with you.”

“Why do you think that is?” she asked curiously. “Is it back to me being special?”

He caressed her side, starting at her shoulder and working his way slowly down to her hip. “I don’t know why. It’s not something I’ve ever analyzed. Why would I? Sex is supposed to be fun, not figures put in a spreadsheet.”

“Is it?” she mused. “That hasn’t always been my experience, but then I haven’t done the amount of experimenting you have.”

“Gorgeous, you’re pushing me. I’m not sure why.”

“I’m scared,” she admitted. “This seemed like fun in the bar, but now that I’m up here, I don’t know how to act or what to do next. I’m not used to that.”

He sighed. “There is no right or wrong action here. We make up our own rules, okay?”

He wanted her to be different, and she was. She made him feel alive in a way that only snowboarding had before. Something he’d never found in any of his personal relationships. Maybe it was just the novelty of sleeping with a girl he’d wanted since he was seventeen. Or maybe it was just the place he was in at this moment in his life.

But he didn’t want her to think they had to behave in a certain way. With other woman he’d been different—happy for the sex, but not wanting anything more. It had been casual and friendly with no feelings getting hurt. But this was Lindsey, and he needed more.

More? How much more, he had no idea. This was all new to him, too.

“Okay, so what kind of rules should we have?” she asked. “Are we going to do this again?”

“Um...I thought that was obvious,” he said, gesturing to his erection.

She laughed, and the sound washed over him like a warm bit of sunshine on a cold day.