She was happy on her own. But she could love a man like that. Who’d learned to respect. Who knew when to chase and when to wait; when to lead and when to follow.
She gave him one last instruction; one he could work with. “Analyse this.” She took a fistful of his hair and ran her nose along his jaw and up to his ear. He did smell of the sea. She licked around the rind of it and his body jerked under her. He tasted of it too. She was thirsty for more. She nibbled along his bottom lip and he thinned it by laughing, a depth of the ocean sound that came from his broad chest. The first fresh kiss was light, but his lips were so hot they must have scalded her lungs, she was panting and he was pressing her harder to him. He tried to anchor her by bringing his knee up, but forgot he had skates on. He growled in frustration into her open mouth then used his hands as leverage and flipped them, knocking the last remaining conscious breath out of her with a gasp as she landed on her back. Now he bore down on her, but not with near enough pressure. She squirmed to have him closer, crossed her arms behind his head and pulled, then wrapped her legs around his hips, crossing her skates over his butt to hold him.
He learned all about using the toe stops on Damo’s skates to rock his body against hers. “Fuck, I love you like dick.”
His, she was going to like his. There was no way she wasn’t going to sample it and confirm that, but not here. She’d done a million mad and wonderful things on skates but never had sex wearing them, though it was certainly possible, and God, if he kept sucking her collar bone like that, it was probable. It was als
o a very bad idea, though now he had his hand under her shirt, hot fingertips on her stomach, and she had hers under his, digging into the trench of his spine, she couldn’t remember why, and gave in to the onslaught of feeling roaring through her body with the pulse of Ant’s touch and the rhythmic thump of The Knack’s My Sharona.
When she was more than ready to be skin to skin, to negotiate the distance between denim and skates, he rolled them again, bringing her with him and tucking her hard into his side. He was breathing heavily and she rose and fell on his air intake. He nuzzled her forehead. “That was some skating lesson, doll.”
She knew how very gone she was when his deliberately provocative endearment didn’t make her want to vomit. “Don’t call me doll, babe.” She’d been gone on him for weeks now, but scared, so scared of him being another boof-head boy who’d break her heart by serving up the same old macho bullshit every other man she’d ever liked had. She came up on her elbow so she could see his face. The Kinks were singing You Really Got Me.
He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ll call you anything you want me to.”
“Did you mean what you said about me making you want to be better?”
He shook his head. “Nah, that was just so I could get in your bite me pants.”
She socked him in the stomach and he gagged, his torso lifting off the track before he collapsed back down. “God, Bree,” he choked out. “I was joking.”
“I know you were. If I’d thought you weren’t I’d have really hurt you.”
He captured her hand as though that would slow her down. She had two knees, two elbows, a killer kick, and she knew how to head-butt if it came to it. But when he brought her palm to his lips, every fight reflex in her body went on holiday.
“How did you get to be such a fighter?” He said it with a kind of wonder in his voice.
“I had a choice, be cute and girly and patronised for the rest of my life or fight. I chose to fight, here and for what I want in my career.” She watched his face carefully, because he might not get this. Might find it odd she didn’t want to be coddled and protected. “And I fight for what I want in my life too, even if it makes me hard to love.”
He stroked a hand through her hair, smoothing it back. At some point it had come out of its ponytail and was all over her shoulders. He looked oddly fierce. “Who said you were hard to love?”
She shrugged. “You want a list?” She wanted him to understand there were others who’d never bothered to stand up to her, or for her, or put on skates when they knew they’d make a fool of themselves.
“You’re not hard to love, Bree. You’re...” he faltered, closing his eyes as if centring himself. When he opened them again she was hit with the sensation of falling. She clutched him, wrapping her leg over his hip to save herself from bottoming out. “You’re fucking awesome. You kill it at work and you’re so brave on the track it scares me. You deserve to be loved right.”
She swallowed hard. “It’d take a special bloke to be able to love me right.”
“Is the position open?”
“You thinking of applying?
“If you’ll have me?”
She looked away. He was too much. He always had been, but like this, focussed on her with all his smarts, he made her brain freeze up for fear of it not being real.
“Don’t, Bree. Don’t complicate it. I told you I’d settle for being your friend. But if you won’t have me there either, I’ll buy a pink shirt and a top hat and join your cheer squad.”
She sat up and shook her head. She couldn’t look at him in case she teared up.
He followed her to a sitting position, took advantage of her confusion and wrapped her in his arms. “You can have Kitty Caruso and your corporate career. Don’t give it up. You love it. I hate you might get hurt, but it’s not about me.”
It was easier to talk about being Kitty than to acknowledge how important this great hunk of annoying, wonderful man who had her tucked into his chest had become. “We’ve lost our sponsor, so the Tricks will probably fold anyway.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
She spun in his arms to look at him. “Has Toni said something? Has she worked it out?”
“She might have.”