For a guy who’s spent his life running faster than anyone else on the field, the idea is strangely appealing.
Then again, I’m finding out that everything about Sage Kauffman is appealing—even when she’s calling me on my shit. Maybe especially then.
“Yeah, well, you know it now. And insane payment or not, I’m not going to waste my time working you out only to have you mess up our progress the second I leave.” She glares at me. “Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Do you? Because that obnoxious smirk on your face makes me wonder.”
“I’m not smirking, I swear.” I hold up both hands in mock surrender. “Don’t hurt me.”
“You think it’s a joke but I know a hundred different ways to make a man cry and only one of them is kicking him in the balls.”
That startles a laugh out of me. “Jesus. I think I’m in love with you.”
“Yeah.” She sniffs disdainfully. “I get that a lot.”
I think back to the bar, to how I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. “I bet you do.”
“Stop trying to distract me.” She rolls her eyes. “Now are you going to tell me what made you decide to hang off the side of that mountain instead of letting the rope do its job?”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Really?” She pokes the no-longer-sore spot hard enough to make me wince. “Are we going to do this again?”
“Okay, okay!” This time when I throw up my arms it’s in real surrender. “I didn’t use the ropes…because I wasn’t wearing any.”
She doesn’t immediately blow up, like I thought she would. Instead, she kind of stares at me, like she can’t comprehend the words that just came out of my mouth. Then again, maybe she can’t. Sage might be hell on wheels when she gets going, but she’s definitely not the daredevil type.
“I’m sorry,” she finally manages to get out. “What did you just say?”
“I said I was free-climbing.”
“Free-climbing.”
“Yeah, it’s where you—”
“I know what free-climbing is. I’m not a moron.” Her voice says, very clearly, that the same can’t be said for me. “Alone?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t a very high rock. I just picked the wrong handhold, and things got dicey for a minute or two.”
“Dicey. For a minute or two.” This time the words are so low I have to strain to hear them.
“Yeah. But really, it wasn’t a big deal.” I gloss over the couple of hair-raising minutes when I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. “I banged up my hand, overworked my shoulder. But ten minutes on the mat with you and already it feels better.”
I’m not even making that up. Sage is a miracle worker. Sure, the yoga stretches helped, but whatever she did to my shoulder a couple minutes ago has it not hurting for the first time since I hit the water wrong all those weeks ago in Acapulco.
“I’m glad to hear that, because it’s going to have to last you.” She turns and grabs her backpack and her shoes, not even bothering to take the time to slip her feet into the flip-flops as she heads for the door.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
She turns on me, poking me in the chest with each word as she goes off. “I’m leaving. I have enough on my plate without dealing with some adrenaline monkeyjunkie with more balls than brains. If you come by the studio tomorrow, I’ll assign you another instructor or refund your money, whatever you want. But this”—she gestures between the two of us—“is done.”
She starts to take off again, but this time I grab her arm. Spin her around. “Look. I’m sorry. I was out there trying to work through some demons, and I made a stupid mistake. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal, because I’m not going to sit here working my ass off to make time to work with you only to have you ruin everything the second you’re on your own.”
She tries to shake my hand off, but I hold on. “Please. Don’t leave. I need you.” I’m not even sure I’m talking about the yoga therapy anymore.
“Yeah, well, I’m not up for watching you try to kill yourself. I won’t do that.”
I shove my free hand through my hair, then curse when it pulls loose from the ponytail and gets in my face. “Look, I swear I won’t do anything that will fuck with my shoulder and whatever you’re doing. Okay?”
“Do you think that’s why I’m upset? You’re out there with a fucking death wish and—”
“It’s not a death wish.” Somewhere deep inside me, anger sparks at the implication—along with another emotion I don’t know how to name.
Sage sees the rage, but when she yanks her arm from my grasp, it’s obvious she doesn’t give a damn. “Maybe not, but it’s something and it sure as hell isn’t healthy. I’m not going to be a party to that.”
“Why do you even care?” I demand. “You’re getting paid no matter what.”
“Seriously? You think that’s what this is about?”
“Isn’t it? You couldn’t be bothered to work with me until I agreed to pay a hundred and fifty grand.”
“Why I didn’t want to work with you had nothing to do with money.”
“Oh, yeah?” I shoot back, leaning down so that we’re eye to eye, snarl to snarl. “What did it have to do with then?”
“This,” she says as she grabs my face. “It had to do with this.”
And then she slams her mouth straight into mine.
Chapter 15
Sage
I’m trembling the moment my mouth hits Shawn’s.
Shaking the moment I slide my hands up to tangle in his hair.
Drowning the moment he grabs me and pulls me hard against his body.
There’s a part of me that can’t believe this is happening, that can’t believe I’m doing this. Here. Now. With this man.
I shouldn’t be. Not with Shawn, who’s everything I don’t want in a man, everything I refuse to want.
He’s reckless.
Impulsive.
Wild.
A shooting star burning bright and free across the sky.
The only problem is shooting stars aren’t stars at all. They’re meteors on the path to their own destruction, burning up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Hard to find, beautiful to watch, impossible to hold on to.
I can try to tell myself whatever I want, even try to fool myself into believing it. But the truth is, I’m catching Shawn on the way to his own extinction, and no matter how gorgeous he is, no matter how sweet or kind or thoughtful he is, I’m smart enough to know that eventually he’s going to burn out and then he’s going to burn up.
I can’t be a part of that, can’t stand by and watch him do that to himself.
But I can’t leave, either. Not when he’s kissing me like I’m the last woman on earth. Not when he’s holding me like he never wants to let me go.
Turns out I’m holding him the same way, my fingers twisted and tangled in his hair like they belong there. I tug a little, bring him closer, and revel in the low groan that comes from deep inside him.
His tongue darts out, slides along my lower lip, and I open myself to him. Let him in. He tastes as good as I remember, maybe even more.
It’s crazy how we’ve gotten here, crazy how a quick, meaningless little hookup in the back of a bar has turned into…this. Because, here, now, there’s nothing meaningless in the way Shawn is holding on to me. Nothing meaningless in the way he’s pressed up against me. And definitely nothing meaningless in the way he’s licking slowly, sweetly, deliberately, into my mouth.
I know I need to be careful, know that Shawn is absolutely the last man that I can afford to fall for right now. But that doesn’t seem to matter as he presses closer into the V of my legs.
As he slides a hand along the outside of my thigh.
A
s he sucks my lower lip between his teeth and bites down just hard enough to send electricity streaking along my spine.
He tastes so good, feels so good, that all my good intentions go out the window and all I’m left with is this crazy beat in my blood, this powerful throb in my brain. It’s a feeling that somehow turns into a desperate, destructive mantra of want him, need him, have to have him. Over and over and over again, the words echo in every part of me.
For a second, just a second, warning bells go off in my head, and I put my hands on his shoulders, start to push him away. I shouldn’t want him this much, shouldn’t need him this much, when this can’t last. When I won’t let it last.
But it’s hard to think of the future when he’s right here against me. Right here, under my hands, charming and exciting me with every stroke of his tongue. Every slide of his hand. Because the way he’s holding me doesn’t say two-night stand. It doesn’t say good time and goodbye. It says that even though this is new and strange and possibly a little bit scary, he wants me, needs me, as much as I want and need him. And that is both the most exhilarating and the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced.
I’ve been around the world with my mother, to the mountains of Tibet and the ashrams of India. I’ve packed up my bags and snuck out of apartments in the middle of the night with nothing more than what we could pack in the car, lived out of suitcases for days and weeks as we surfed from one of her friends’ couches to another.
From the moment I became an adult, I promised myself I’d never willingly go down another path like that. That I’d make sure I was safe and secure and that I’d never have to sneak out of another apartment in the middle of the night again.
And yet here I am, giving myself over to this man who is a bundle of contradictions. This man who creates this beautiful home, but who plays fast and loose with everything from his career to his very life. I’m smart enough to know there is no cushy landing at the end of this, that there’s no place for this to go but bad if I give myself to him.
And yet I still don’t pull away. Despite all the doubts, all the fear burning inside me, I pull him closer with the hands I meant to use to push him away. I open my mouth to him, let him delve deeper, then wrap my legs and arms around him so tightly that I can feel the thud of his heart against my own. Just this once I want to say to hell with the consequences. Just this once, I want to take whatever I can, feel whatever I can, and let tomorrow take care of itself.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs against my lips. “So goddamn beautiful.”
“So are you,” I whisper back. “And I want you so much.” This time it’s my turn to suck his lower lip between my teeth. My turn to bite down. My turn to take his groan into my mouth and swallow it down.
And just that easily the kiss that had already been hard and hot turns ravenous.
His fingers tangle in my hair and yank my head back. I moan a little, arch against him, and give myself up as he invades me. As he devours me.
Lips and tongue and teeth, he uses them all to stoke the flames inside me, to bring me to a frenzied state where nothing matters but the feel of him against me, around me, inside me. Where nothing matters but taking as much as I can get and giving him back even more.
“Sage.” He grinds out my name—dark and deep and so harsh it batters its way through me. Has heat sliding over my skin and flames sizzling along my every nerve ending.
I whimper in response. Half-cry, half-scream, all desperate, burning desire, it’s the only sound I can make, the only thing I can do as I open myself to him. As I give him everything I have inside me, everything I’ve always kept hidden and sworn to keep for myself.
But here, now, as he takes me down, down, down into the abyss, there is no me. There is no future. And there is no fear. There is only him, only Shawn, and the fire he stokes so effortlessly inside of me.
I cling to him at the thought, burrow closer as I call out his name. He takes instant advantage, his tongue once again slipping between my parted lips. It tangles with my own before licking along the roof of my mouth, the inside of my cheek. Somehow my hands are on his shoulders, twisting in the soft cotton fabric of his T-shirt, digging in to the hard, resilient muscles that cover every inch of his beautiful warrior’s body in an effort to pull him even closer.
In an effort to pull him all the way inside of me.
On his lips, my name is half-groan, half-prayer as he presses harder, delves deeper. As he demands everything I never knew I had to give. And takes even more.
He’s biting at my lips now, sharp little nips that make fire gather low in my belly as his hands slide down to cup my ass. He pulls me against him, his cock long and hard as he settles between my thighs, thrusts against my sex.
I cry out and arch against him, lips and hands turning frenzied even before he sucks my tongue deep into his mouth and strokes it. Strokes me. Again and again and again, until all I can feel, want, need is him.
Until security is just a meaningless word, and my fears don’t seem to matter anymore.
Until nothing matters. Nothing but Shawn. Nothing but this.
He slides his tongue along my lower lip, then my upper one, flutters it over my frenulum, and I light up like a wildfire as heat pours through me. Envelops me. Stokes the flames inside me until I fear losing myself—and him—to the conflagration that grows more all-consuming with every second that passes. With every second that he’s touching and holding and kissing me.
“Shawn.” I rip my mouth from his, suck huge gasps of air into my starving lungs as I try to gain some kind of control over my very out-of-control body. But I’m too far gone, every cell and nerve ending I have crying out for everything—for anything—he can give me.
It scares me a little, how wild this man makes me. So wild that I’ll fuck him in the back of a crowded bar. So wild that I’ll drop everything to be with him, even when I know I should be heading out the door. So wild that I can never get enough of him or the feelings he brings out in me.
“I need you,” I tell him as my hands tighten in his hair. “Please. I need—”
I break off as he groans, reveling in the sound even as I tug harder, hold tighter, press closer, closer, closer.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he says without ever lifting his mouth from mine. Seconds later I’m on the table in the corner of the workout room, his body straining against mine, over mine, holding me in place as he slides his hands around to cup my ass. He’s everywhere—everywhere—his body hot and hard and huge as he pushes between my legs. As he lifts and lowers me so that his cock presses deep against my sex.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he snarls. I do as he asks, and suddenly he’s so close that I can feel the outline of his cock through his shorts and the thin fabric of my yoga pants.
“Fuck, Sage!” He squeezes my ass, continuing to lift and lower me in time to the blood roaring in my ears. Then his other hand is somehow in my hair, forcing my head back so that I’m completely open to him, the long, slender column of my neck on display before him.
It’s what he’s waiting for, I decide, as his mouth skims over my cheek and down my jaw to the tender skin of my throat. He pauses there, licking and kissing and sucking at my throat until I can all but feel the bruises bloom. Then he moves lower, sucking another bruise into my collarbone and another into the tender flesh at the top of my breast.
I’m gasping now, my legs tight around his hips even as my fingers clutch at his hair, his shoulders, his back. He’s just as frantic as he tears at my tank top, flinging it across the room before doing the same to my sports bra.
Then his mouth is on my nipple, licking, sucking, biting at me until my entire body is trembling and my eyes are all but rolling back in my head at the pleasure. He rolls my nipple between his lips, between his teeth, before tensing his tongue and flicking it over the tip so fast and hard that my entire bo
dy seizes up in a paroxysm of pleasure.
He does it again and again, until I’m shivering, shaking, until I’m crying out his name as tears of need roll down my face. I’m all but sobbing now, my whole body shuddering beneath him, and he lifts his head for a second to look at my face. To check in and make sure I’m still with him.
I’m not sure what he sees there, but it must be what he was looking for because he ducks his head and starts the same torture on my other breast even as he pinches my first, overworked nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
It’s so much—too much, even, and I push him away as the tension, the need, continues to build inside me. “Stop,” I gasp, even as my fingers tangle in his T-shirt, keeping him from moving back too far.
“What do you need, sweetheart?” he murmurs, one hand coming up to stroke my cheek as the other continues to play with my nipple.
“God, Shawn, stop!” I can feel myself careening out of control and it startles me, scares me, has me clinging to sanity with bruised and battered fingertips. I shove him more forcefully this time and his head snaps back, his eyes meeting mine. There’s a question in them now, and genuine concern as he searches my face. When he takes a few deep, shuddering breaths, it occurs to me that he’s trying to get himself under control. That he thinks I want him to stop for good. I don’t. I just need a second to breathe, to think.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and I nod, my throat too tight with need to speak.
I’m balanced precariously on the edge of the table, ass half in the air and legs wrapped around his hips for balance. With another guy I’d be all freaked out, waiting for him to drop me. But I trust Shawn to hold me up, even as I squirm against him and start tugging at this T-shirt. It takes a couple of seconds to untwist it from between us, but once I do I strip it over his head in one fluid movement.
Then I’m too busy looking at him to remember to drop the thing. He’s so beautiful, so freaking beautiful, with his powerful athlete’s body and the scars he doesn’t even try to hide.