17. Ray #2
“She asked them so many questions. Asked if rehabilitation would get me to the point of skiing again. Demanded the doctors do something to fix me. But they couldn’t, you know?
” He sucked in a deep, shaky breath. I wondered how often he actually thought about this or if it was something he kept buried under the facade of an ex-ski champ surrounded by bunnies.
“She went off on me once the doctor left. Told me I’d been so unimaginably stupid, which in fairness, she was right.
She told me I was useless now, nothing but a vegetable in her eyes.
I thought she was just overwhelmed like I was, speaking from an overflow of emotion, taking her own heartbreak for my situation out on me. ”
“Can I ask…?”
“She was my childhood girlfriend,” he said. His jaw ticked. “Only girl I ever loved. Only one I was ever serious with.”
My heart shattered for him. Pain bloomed in my chest, climbing up my throat. For once, I didn’t see him as this ever-looming annoying presence, but as a hurt human with his own problems. Maybe Mandy was right. “Shit.”
“Mmm-hmm. She left me when she found out that my recovery could take up to a year. Ended up marrying my biggest competitor before I was even able to put on skis again.” His lips formed a tight line, his face an expression of frustration more than anger.
“It was a blow when I realized that she never really cared about me.”
I didn’t know what to say to him. He had just disclosed something so personal to me, something I would never have expected. I wanted to reach out to him, to hug him, touch him. No one should have to deal with things like that, and yet…
“Is that why you…?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I don’t really do relationships anymore. So I guess we have something in common.”
“What did you do? After, I mean,” I asked. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything .
“I moved to New York.” He pushed off the window, taking a step toward me.
“Mandy was out there doing a degree in architecture, and I wanted to be near someone that I trusted and cared about. She pulled me through it all, really. Got a degree in business while I was there because I didn’t know what else to do seeing my whole life had been skiing until then. Met Jackson, introduced Mandy to him.”
“And then you opened the resort?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I figured that was the best way to keep skiing in my life. Told myself I would ski again, and I did, but I’m nowhere near what I used to be. Competing is off the table now.”
None of this was expected. The day I’d met him, when I’d plowed into him going too fast down the mountain, I thought he was just a cocky asshole that liked to pick on newbies.
When I’d seen him in his office and the trophies that he had back in the resort, I thought he was an extra cocky asshole that was a decorated veteran of the sport, retired and living his life to the ideal male dream.
I’d just found out he was so much more than that.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I had no idea.”
He chuckled, and another grin flashed across his cheeks. “It’s fine. There was no way you could have known. And it’s not like anything would be different if you had.”
But it would have been. I wanted to scream it, print it on a t-shirt, paint it in makeup across my forehead.
How did he not see how different it would be?
I wouldn’t have acted the way I had with him.
I wouldn’t have had my walls so high up.
I wouldn’t have yelled at him in a fancy restaurant or assumed he was just another brute like my last boss.
I would have been more lenient. I wouldn’t have run off the dance floor the other night.
Wade’s brow rose again as he watched me. I didn’t know what he saw in my expression or if he could tell what I was thinking. Maybe I had screamed my thoughts without even hearing myself.
“Would it have been?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I breathed. “It would have been different.”
His answering sigh was enough to kick me into overdrive.
I wanted to start fresh with him, take him seriously, see him as the broken human that he’d had to glue back together over the years.
I wanted to wipe the slate clean. I wanted to take back my hesitance around him, take back the thoughts I’d had.
Yes, he could be an ass. But he had his reasons and he was flawed just like everyone else. Just like me, Mom, Dad, everyone.
“I want to try again,” I blurted, the words coming out before I could bite them back.
“Try what again?”
“All of it.”
He blinked at me, hesitance and suspicion feeling like a physical presence in the room, an elephant in the corner. He had to know what I meant. I didn’t want to speak the words, didn’t want to have to ask for it. I wanted a do-over for the other night.
He took a step toward me, and then another, the distance closing too rapidly for me to focus. He sandwiched a leg between mine where they hung off the desk, his body looming tall, every hard line and freckle close enough to touch.
A shiver went down my spine and my skin prickled with pins and needles as his hand gently caressed my cheek, fingers curling beneath my jaw.
He lifted, pulling my gaze up to his. “Am I reading you wrong?” he whispered, his breath fanning out across my face.
The scent of mint and coffee. “Is this what you’re asking me for? ”
I gulped. “You’re not reading me wrong.”
It was like a switch flipped within him. His eyes became soft, and I searched them, looking for a hint of feeling in those deep pools of black and gray.
Lips brushed against mine, so gently I could barely feel it.
“Tell me,” he mumbled. “Use your words.”
My breath caught in my throat, an aching need overtaking any words. I didn’t know how to say it. Didn’t want to say it because then it would feel too real. I wanted this, wanted him.
“Ray—”
“Kiss me.”
Soft lips pressed harder against mine.
His fingers dug into my skin, wanting but not bruising, as he held my head in place.
He kissed me, and the world stopped turning, my lungs stopped working, my heart stopped beating.
I grabbed him by the shirt, tugging him closer.
My lips parted when his did, letting him in, giving him more.
He tasted of fresh mint, and mixed with the morning coffee I could smell on him and the cologne I was so used to, it was nearly intoxicating.
His free hand wrapped around me, resting at the waistline of my pants. He delved deeper into my mouth, the kiss changing purpose. This wasn’t practice. It was need.
Butterflies fluttered in my belly and my skin heated, every piece of me feeling far too warm.
This went way beyond what it had been on the dance floor.
His mouth strayed, kissing along my cheek, my jaw, the soft spot under my ear that made me sigh into him.
His hips pressed in further, seating himself against the edge of the desk between my thighs, and holy fucking shit he was hard.
I didn’t know what to do. My hands shook, my breathing faltered, and as if he knew my body better than I did, he nipped and sucked and kissed at every little spot on my neck that drove me wild.
I knew in my bones that I wanted this as much as he clearly did.
It was too much to ask for, though. Too dangerous.
It walked the line between real and fake.
I didn’t care, though.
My fingers moved before I told them to, wrapping around the little buttons of his shirt and tugging them free one by one.
The idea of touching the bare chest I’d seen the day he was rock climbing was too tempting, all-consuming.
My shaking hands struggled to get the buttons undone, and Wade took over, gently moving my hand out of the way before giving his shirt one swift tug.
The buttons went flying, pinging against the floor, the desk.
“Your shirt,” I said between breaths.
“I have a spare.” His lips found mine again, teasing and raw, and I took every little bit he gave me.
The sides of his shirt hung loosely on either side of his chest and I let myself explore, my fingers and nails dragging along each ripple of muscle.
His skin was soft, warm, and good god I wanted to get my mouth on it.
Fingers toyed at the top hem of my pants, uncertain and hesitant, like he wanted to but wasn’t sure he was allowed.
“Can I?” he breathed against my lips.
“Please.”
I could feel his smirk break out against my mouth at the same moment that he started pulling my shirt out, freeing it from its prison.
The office door slammed and locked, making my body jump, but he pressed his lips against my ear.
“Don’t worry about it,” he whispered, the tapping of his fingers against the desk dragging my attention to them sluggishly.
I noticed a button with the word door written below it.
I wanted to simultaneously run and let him tear me to shreds.
Wade’s hands were far more gentle with my buttons than they were with his own.
He unbuttoned each with precision, letting the sides of my blouse hang open as he finished the last one.
A pang of self-consciousness nearly made me stop, but then he was on my neck again, my collarbone, the tops of my breasts, and it melted away like butter.
He was too good at finding the right spots.
I shrugged my blouse off my shoulders and reached behind my back, aimlessly searching for the clasp on my bra.
My fingers wouldn’t stop shaking, wouldn’t let me be precise, and I whimpered in frustration as I tried and failed to release it.
But then warm hands met mine, unhooking the three little fasteners holding it in place, and within a second my bra joined my shirt on the side of the desk.
Wade stood up straight, taking a moment to catch his breath as he shirked his own shirt, his eyes fucking devouring me. “Beautiful,” he rasped. “Fucking beautiful.”
I could feel the warmth spreading in more than just my cheeks.