“Shhh,” he said once more, squeezing my hands. “I won’t let you fall.”
“But you can’t know that, we could hit a bump in the ice or a really slippery patch or—”
“—or we could skate around this motherfucking rink as many times as we want.” He wrapped his strong hands once more around my mittens. “Now breathe. And enjoy this.”
I started to protest again, to tell him how this was a terrible idea and when I did eventually crash and burn that I’d take him with me, but just as I opened my mouth I saw the most amazing thing. Coming up on my right was the equipment counter. And then . . . the fireplace. We’d gone around the rink, all the way around, back to where we’d started.
And I hadn’t fallen. And hey look, there was my hot chocolate. The whole world had literally gone by, and was going by again, while I was in my head worrying about what might happen.
Point taken. I let out the breath I’d indeed been holding, and gave over.
“There she is,” he whispered, feeling my body relax and ease into this. “You’ve totally got this.”
“Well, I don’t know if I got this, but . . .”
“Give yourself some credit,” he replied. “Want to go a little faster?”
I didn’t. So I said yes. Because I knew myself well enough to know that sometimes the very best thing I could do was do the exact opposite of what I wanted.
He pushed off just as the music changed, and I realized why it sounded familiar.
“Is this the Dirty Dancing soundtrack?” I asked as the world began to whiz by.
“Mm-hmm.” He brought our hands down farther, letting go for just the very splittiest of seconds before he firmly grasped my hips. “You said this place reminded you of the movie.”
“It does.” I chanced a look down the mountain toward the hotel that stood across the dark lake, the lanterns winking along the water’s edge. “I thought you hated this movie.”
“Everyone who lives up in the Catskills has been asked about this movie more times than I can count,” he replied, guiding me around the turn with a speed that, if I’d been alone, could have taken out the fireplace. “But it did have great music.”
“We should have a Dirty Dancing–themed weekend up here, how is that not a thing?”
“Because we don’t want to turn our hotel into a theme park?”
“That won’t happen, unless there’s a Johnny Castle roller coaster, in which case I’m riding it.”
“You see, this is how it starts.”
“Are you going to show me your pachanga?”
He dropped a kiss on my neck, swooshed us even faster, and whispered, “You have no idea.”
We skated for a minute or an hour, I have no idea. But it was fast and brilliant and breathless.
“You should take a turn on your own.”
“But I did so well with you, shouldn’t we just chalk it up as a success and not press our luck?”
“Once around the rink, Ms. Morgan, and then you can press anything you want.”
“See, you think that’s going to work on me, but it won’t.”
“You make it around the rink once on your own and I’ll lick your pussy until you black out.”
Next Winter Olympics you’ll see me representing the good old US of A. The event? Speed skating.
Chapter 18
I’d been sleeping with Archie, and very much not sleeping, for three weeks, six days, fourteen hours, and thirty-two minutes. Forty-three minutes if you count the quickie in the broom closet . . . but who counts quickies, really?
Actually, technically, we should count quickies because even with limited time and elbow room, that man can lay it the fuck down. And pick it the fuck up. And lay it back the fuck down again.
We’d been discreet—at least I think we had. According to the rules in my head no one was the wiser that the man who stood at the bottom of the grand staircase each day welcoming guests with a kind word and hearty handshake was the same man who stood at the bottom of my bed, my legs thrown over his shoulders, AND spread me wide with his tongue until I was shaking then flipped me over like a top and thrust into me like a man possessed.
And as someone who has been possessed by this man countless times, trust me when I say it is something to witness.
His focus, his attention to detail, married with his absolute animal strength and wild passion, had laid me bare more times than I could count.
But he counted. Oh, he counted. He was like the accountant of orgasms, tallying them up and filing the total away, always chasing another, always pushing me until I was shivering and wrecked, a ball of sexual energy incapable of surviving another . . . but he always got one more. He knew my body, knew what I could do even when I thought it impossible, knew exactly what I needed.
And let me tell you a little something about Archie Bryant, the man with the buns. He loved it sideways, backways, frontways, and all ways, but what he loved most of all was when I sat astride him in one of those antique rocking chairs, taking him deep and then deeper with every thrust, every rock of that damn chair, my feet scrambling for purchase on the old Victorian carpet while he watched me fuck him wild in the grand gilded mirror that hung in the living room.
I’m telling you, it’s always the guys with the freckles and the glasses. They’re the ones you want to set your sights on. They’re the ones who’ll make you forget your name, but get you to say the filthiest things imaginable.
But today, I had to focus. Today, we had a visitor coming to the hotel.
Caroline Reynolds-Parker was an interior designer from the West Coast. I’d seen some of her work in a small boutique hotel in Sausalito, and later on in a spa just outside Philadelphia. She worked for a small firm in San Francisco, but had been focusing more and more on commercial design rather than residential. Based on her portfolio and reputation, I thought she’d be the perfect candidate to take a crack at shaking things up a bit here in the Catskills.
I waited for her in the lobby, watching as bellmen ran to and fro with luggage. We were getting close to summer now, and things were beginning to get busier. It was still pretty slow during the week, which is why I’d scheduled Caroline’s visit on a Wednesday, but weekends were creeping up to about half full. Compared with how it was when I arrived in mid-March, business was booming.
The doors opened and a tall, slim woman with gorgeous blond hair walked in. Styled to a T with perfect California business casual, she sailed through the lobby with confidence borne by someone who was good at their job, and knew it.
“You must be Caroline,” I said, greeting her with a smile.
“I must be,” she said, answering my smile with one of her own. “If you’re not Clara, then color me creeped out.”
“Don’t be creeped out,” I answered, looking over my shoulder toward the front desk. “Beverly, we don’t have Ms. Parker slated for room six-six-six, do we?”
“No ma’am, we’ve got her in . . . let me see . . .” Beverly, caught off guard, scrambled to find the booking.