“Coach says it might take a while,” I say. “But we should not…panic.”
She lets out a long breath and shivers.
I start shrugging out of my jacket.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“You’re freezing.”
“But you have nothing but the race suit under that.”
“And expensive thermo underwear. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not taking your jacket,” she protests, “unless you’re using it too.”
“Like we cuddle,” I mutter, half a joke, half invitation I’m not sure I mean to make.
Then I tell myself what the hell and slide over to her bench, close enough that our knees knock. The contact is small and stupid and sends a spark straight up my thigh.
I lift the open jacket and hook an arm behind her back, palm landing on the solid line of her ribs through all the layers, and pull her in against my side. She comes easily, fitting along with me like we’ve done this before. Her hip presses into mine; my body notices immediately, even if my brain is still pretending this is only about warmth.
Chapter 4
The Pull
ZLATA
This is insane. I should be panicking right now, and maybe I am. Maybe it’s the adrenaline that made me say those things, imply we cuddle.
I don’t mind gondolas, not really, but hanging in the middle of nowhere, stuck in the air, makes my lungs remember I don’t like small, closed places where I can’t get out if I change my mind. And I’m sitting next to him, my thigh glued to his rock-hard muscled thigh. Next to a man I’ve dreamt about a thousand times. Even talking to him feels embarrassing; it feels wrong, knowing what I’ve already done to him in my head, long before he ever knew my name, before I knew how his voice sounds when he says it.
His arm is solid around my back, hand warm on my ribs through all the layers. Every small sway of the cabin rocks me tighter into his side. My heart is beating so hard it’s practically dry-humping my sternum; I’m half-convinced he can hear it through the jacket. The window is just a black and white blur now—trees, snow, nothing I can anchor on. All my awareness has shrunk to three things: his body, the creak of the cable, and the stupid little voice in my head that keeps whisperingonce-in-a-lifetime.
“Are you aware,” I breathe out, because apparently my mouth has given up on filters, “that women dream about you? Right?”
He goes very still, then sucks in a sharp breath. “Now that you mention it. It does make sense, but…”
“…you never thought about it that way?”
“Never really,” he admits. His thigh shifts away an inch, a polite retreat, and my leg follows on instinct, as if it has its own agenda. Traitor.
Silence again. Not empty—packed with wind, fear, and all the things I absolutely should not be saying to an almost-stranger.
“We’re not unlike men,” I say finally, mouth twisting. “We do have fantasies. Like you do.”
“Perhaps my imagination is not that wild,” he says, and I hear the grin in his voice without daring to look at it.
He turns his head; I feel his gaze on my profile, hot and focused. My eyes stay locked on the scratched plastic of the window. Side-vision gives me the edge of his jaw, the stubble, the stupidly pretty mouth I’ve already pictured againstmy skin.
“Are you still cold?” he asks, and his arm tightens, pulling me a little closer.
I lean in too fast, too eager, but I don’t correct it. My hip slots against his, my shoulder under his chin. I could pretend it’s all about body heat. I don’t.
“Much better now,” I admit.
We sit in silence. His thumb moves once, a small absent circle against my side. The cabin creaks and sways again. My brain flickers through every bad-decision warning I’ve ever ignored. Eva’s voice in my head, toasting to unhinged, wild Zlata. Peter’s voice, nastier, calling my racing a kids’ hobby and my body frigid unless it’s drunk.
I exhale slowly and chase the panic into something I know how to hold on to. Skiing. Always skiing.
