Free Fall

'I'm okay,' she said.

He simply pulled her shaded goggles off her face.

'What?' she asked, squinting through the falling snow.

'I wanted to see your eyes.'

Hmm. Figuring turnabout was fair play, she tugged his goggles off, as well.

The air crackled as they looked at each other. Then he rocked back on his heels and let out a breath. 'I thought maybe I'd imagined it.'

'Imagined…?'

Her jacket was unzipped to her breastbone, with only a thermal silk scoop-neck undershirt beneath. With a light touch, he put his bare finger to the pulse racing at the base of her throat. 'This.'

Chapter 3

All Lily could hear was the thump, thump, thumping of her heart beating too fast in her ears. Her clothes felt too tight-or maybe that was her own skin. A heavy anticipation filled the cold air and she tried to tell herself it was something she'd felt often. Had acted on often.

But today, with this man, it felt startlingly, shockingly different.

Again he ran the pad of his finger over her pulse.

She took some comfort in the fact his own, beating at his throat, was no more steady than hers. 'This…what?' she asked.

Something flashed in his eyes. Impatience? 'I'm not sure I can put it into words without getting too graphic.'

Her body let out a shiver, and honest to God, her knees wobbled. 'I see.' At least her voice was steady. 'Does this happen to you often?'

'No. You?'

Feeling as if she could dive into his eyes and happily drown? Wanting to rip her clothes off and take his hands and put them on her body, sure she would die if he didn't hurry? 'No,' she managed. 'Not often.'

His gaze danced over her, from her boots to her legs, her body, her helmet, beneath which her hair was contained in a scrunchie at her shoulder blades. Finally, he met her eyes.

She knew she was nothing that special or extraordinary, and yet when he just kept looking his fill, she found herself squirming. 'What?'

Now he stroked that finger carefully over her jaw. 'At the rescue this morning, I heard the other patrollers refer to you as Slim, but that's not your name.'

'No. It's Lily Harmon.'

' Logan White.' His hand moved from her jaw around to the nape of her neck, where he tugged lightly, playfully, on her ponytail. 'You've had a long day already, Lily Harmon.'

'And yet, given all I have left to do, it's only just begun.'

'An overachiever?'

She laughed. Wouldn't her sisters get a kick out of that accusation? 'Not quite.' His shoulders blocked her view of anything but him, something she found she didn't mind in the least.

'Are you still on duty?' he asked.

'I never really was when it comes to ski patrol today, I'm only on call. I…uh, work in the lodge.' I own it. A fact she usually kept to herself because it changed people's perceptions, which in turn pissed her off. 'I'm on a late lunch break.'

'That works.'

Anticipation quivered through her veins as the snow continued to fall lightly. She thought of all the things they could do on the rest of her break, none of which involved eating. At least not food. 'Works for what exactly?'

'Well, we never finished our little run on Drop Off. You still think you can beat me?'

She stared at him, then had to laugh. A race on the hill. Not ripping off their clothes. Right. 'Oh, I know I can beat you.'

His eyes flashed with the challenge and that in turn set off a little chain reaction of excitement within her. 'Let's go,' she said.

They took the lift, then made their way to the top of the run and looked down at the sharp incline. There were only a few skiers scattered on it, and they were moving quickly out of sight.

'Ready?' he asked.

'Oh, yeah.' She buckled herself into her binding. 'Prepare to lose.'

He laughed, a low, sexy sound she could grow extremely attached to. 'We'll see about that-'

She didn't wait for him to finish his sentence before she pushed off. Cheating? Only slightly. Besides, she'd seen him ski now, and truthfully, she wasn't all that positive she actually could beat him, unless she caught him by surprise in some way.

As the wind whistled past her, the thrill of the run settled in and her heart started pumping in a staccato beat. He caught up, and for a while they were neck and neck in the falling snow, the only sound being the swoosh, swoosh of their equipment pushing at the powder snow.

Evenly matched, she thought with a rush. They were shockingly evenly matched.

Would they be so evenly matched in bed?

Just as the errant thought entered her head, a lone skier suddenly vaulted into action ahead of them, not looking, moving too quickly and recklessly on the trail as it narrowed to a width that allowed for only one person safely at a time. Lily edged ahead of Logan and slowed them both down as she realized the other skier was completely, totally, out of control going into the turn. Even as she thought it, he skidded and began to slide toward the sharp drop-off. 'Hey!' she called. 'Slow down!'

The skier jerked at her voice and, clearly realizing he wasn't going to make the turn, went down in a tumble on his skis rather than fall over the cliff.

Lily began to board around him, planning on getting below him to stop and check that he was okay. But he struggled to get up, all scrambled arms and legs, managing to hook her with his pole as she went into her stop, tripping her into a dive.

She felt herself heading, airborne, directly toward the edge and the falling that waited past it, but then she was landing hard, in a tangle of limbs that weren't her own.

Logan. He sat up, quickly reaching for her. 'You okay?'

No, she was not. She'd fallen. Fallen. She never fell, damn it. She spit out a mouthful of snow and looked around, realizing he'd taken her down purposely, catching her inches from the cliff. Her stomach wobbled at the damage the rocks might have done to her body if he hadn't been so quick-thinking on his skis. Before she could stand, he wrapped his fingers around her arm and held her still. 'That was a helluva dive. Make sure you're okay first.'

The only thing hurting was her pride, and she pulled free. 'I'm fine.' She looked over her shoulder in time to catch the out-of-control skier bolt down the mountain, without so much as a backward look.