Slope of Love (Love in Bloom: The Remingtons) (19 page)

“It’s a little complicated. But what isn’t?” He smiled down at her. “We’ll figure out all the details that are worrying you. I promise.” Rush placed his hands on her arms and she winced. His eyes fell on her shoulder. “You said you’d tell me if your shoulder worsened. I can’t even touch your arm? Babe, you’re in no shape to practice.”

“I’m fine.” She shrugged away from him. “And we decided it was my decision, remember?” Her shoulder had been worsening all afternoon, and she knew practice would be a bear. She felt like the whole world was spinning around her, and somewhere among the chaos was Rush—sweet, caring, supportive, loving Rush—and she was stumbling to find her footing and a clear path to him that didn’t include injuries or trouble focusing.

“Yes, but, Jayla, this is only one competition. It’s not the Olympics, and it’s not even a huge competition. You’re taking a risk by—”

“Really, Rush? Not a huge competition? You and I both know that the minute I start thinking like that, I’m done.” She stared him down and knew that regardless of the words he said, somewhere in his mind, he agreed.

“Before last night I would have been right there telling you to push through the pain. You know I would. That would have been hard, but now?” He narrowed his gaze and nearly stopped her heart. “There’s no more pretending. I can’t even fake myself out. I love you, and making love to you revived every emotion I’ve ever stifled. Now I’m supposed to just stand by and watch my girlfriend take a risk that you know damn well you shouldn’t?”

She took a step closer to him and spoke far more calmly than she felt. “I’m an Olympic skier, like you. We compete. We train. We push through our aches and pains.”

“And you’re also my girlfriend.”

“So support me,” she pleaded. “Don’t ask me to do less than you would if you and I were still just friends.” She hooked her finger in the waist of his jeans. “If we hadn’t admitted our feelings to each other, or slept together, you’d be pushing me, not mollycoddling me. So act like we never did.”

His eyes softened as he lowered himself to the bed. “You thought that was awkward with Kia? What the hell do you think practice will be like?”

If my shoulder is any indication—it’ll be two hours of hell.

RUSH MADE A point of standing a good distance from Jayla, knowing there wasn’t a chance in hell that he’d be able to keep from reaching out and touching her at some point—even with Coach Cunningham’s steely stare burning a path between them.

“Today is Thursday. You’ve got less than two days before the North Face Competition, the last competition of the season. Less than forty-eight hours to shave time and prepare. That means no more late nights. No more partying in Allure or coming in at three in the morning.” He locked eyes with Patrick, then paced a path with his heavy boots. “Any injuries, ailments, issues I need to know about?” He slid his gaze to Jayla. “No colds? No aches or pains? Jayla? How’s that shoulder?”

“Fine, Coach.” She stood with her shoulders back.

Rush watched the coach narrow his eyes as they drifted to her right shoulder and held for a beat.

He nodded. “Good.” He addressed the group again, his dark stare rolling over each of them with the fierceness of a rabid dog. “Press will be all over this mountain during the next few days. You need to be on top of your game at all times.” He stopped pacing and crossed his arms over his thick chest. “Training. Let’s really kick it up out there. If you can feel your face, you’re not going fast enough. If your leg muscles aren’t rubber when you leave the slope, you haven’t trained hard enough. If you don’t fall into bed at night barely able to keep your eyes open, you haven’t trained hard enough. Get out there and make me proud.”

The coach held Jayla back from the group. Rush could tell by his hooded eyes and serious face that he was lecturing her. It took all his willpower to keep moving forward toward the chairlift and to keep from
coddling
Jayla. He wanted to tell her she could do this—and at the same time, tell her she didn’t have to.

He caught up to Cliff and Patrick by the lift.

“What’re you doing out until three?” Cliff asked Patrick.

“You mean who am I doing?” Patrick winked at Rush. “Let’s see…You want a list?”

Cliff shook his head. “Kia was out here at five practicing yesterday and she said you and Jayla were here the day before,” he said to Rush. “Patrick and I have been hitting the downhill in the mornings. You wanna come tomorrow?”

“I’m usually at the gym by six thirty. Can we go earlier? Five thirty?” Rush glanced behind them and saw Jayla making her way toward the slopes with her head down.

“Yeah. As long as Patrick can get his ass outta bed.” Cliff elbowed Patrick in the ribs.

“Shit, I can skip sleep altogether if I need to. I’ll be there. What about Jay?” Patrick asked as they reached the lift.

“I’ll ask her.” Rush waited for Jayla while Patrick and Cliff took the lift up the mountain. She wasn’t giving away anything with her blank stare. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Is that how we’re playing it?”
Goddamn it
. The boyfriend in him warred with the competitor as they settled onto the lift.

Jayla stared in the direction of the snowcapped mountains as the lift rumbled and swayed beneath them. The clear night sky was picture perfect, and it should have been a romantic ride up the majestic peak, but Rush’s stomach and chest tightened.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah.” She leaned against him as they neared the top of the mountain.

“If you want to talk, I’m right here.”

She finally looked at him, but before he could read her eyes, she lowered her gaze and fiddled with the edge of her ski pole.

“Thanks,” she said as the lift slowed at the top of the mountain. “It’s nothing, really.”

The first two runs down the mountain sucked. Rush was sidetracked by Jayla and dying to know what the hell the coach had said. Jayla was right. If they hadn’t slept together, he would have pushed her for information and wouldn’t have thought twice about pushing her harder when she refused. Now the dynamic had changed. By the stern look on Coach Cunningham’s face, he assumed that Jayla’s times weren’t cutting it.

And now the coach was heading his way.
Christ
. Just what he needed.

“You didn’t take my advice seriously.”

It wasn’t a question or a statement. It was an accusation. Rush pushed his goggles up on his forehead. Best to play ignorant.

“Coach?”

Coach’s eyes turned to liquid steel. “One of the students’ mothers said she had an issue with Jayla’s teaching style.”

Goddamn Kelly Baker.
He clenched his fists.

“Now, I talked to the other parents, and I got a pretty clear picture of what Jayla’s teaching style is like, not that I had any concerns, but I have to follow through. She’s a damn good teacher, but you know how these things go. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out, Rush. She couldn’t say enough about
you
. Wanna tell me what the hell you’re doing? I usually don’t hear about your sexual escapades until they hit the gossip magazines, and that’s usually after the season’s over when you blaze a path through whatever women are in your way.”

“It’s bullshit, Coach. Kelly Baker has been coming onto me after every class, and I told her I wasn’t interested.
That’s
what this is about. You know Jayla’s an awesome instructor. Shit, she’s ten times better than me.” He saw Jayla heading back over to the lift. “I assume you’ve told Jayla?”

Coach Cunningham glanced at Jayla, then back at Rush. “Not yet.”

“Then what…?”

The coach raised his eyebrows.

He realized it was none of his damn business in his coach’s eyes. “Sorry, Coach. Out of line.”

“You’ve got one more day of that damn workshop. Do whatever you have to, to keep yourself away from that woman, and for shit’s sake, Remington, you couldn’t have picked a worse time to suddenly start turning away women.”

No shit
. Rush joined Jayla by the lift, wondering what in the hell she was hiding.

JAYLA KNEW SHE was shutting Rush out, but she couldn’t help it. She could barely process her conversation with Coach Cunningham without wanting to either kill somebody or cry, and neither of those were viable options. She hated weakness and she wasn’t a killer, so she was left shutting out the world.

Her shoulder burned like a son of a bitch as she tried to take off her skis. She switched to her left hand and finally freed her boots from their tethers. Rush sat beside her and unclipped his skis in a matter of seconds.

“Patrick, Cliff, and I are hitting the slopes at five thirty tomorrow morning. Want to go?” He took off his hat and gloves and stuffed them in his pockets.

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Great.”

He started toward the equipment room, and when she didn’t follow, he returned to her side.

“You okay?” His eyes drifted to her shoulder.

She gathered her gear and gritted her teeth against a sharp pain that radiated down her arm.

“Here.” Rush took her skis and carried them with his. “Come on.”

A command.

You know
.

Rush put the equipment away with sharp movement and without looking directly at Jayla. He also didn’t say a word about her shoulder. And she hated him as much as she loved him for it. It was really hard to stay silent with him doing all the right things. As they headed out of the building, he lifted his arm to sling it over her shoulder. Then he lowered it back to his side, and her heart squeezed a little again.

“Are you hungry? Want to grab something to eat?”

The tension in his voice eased in a defeated sort of way, and as she looked into his trusting eyes, she knew she didn’t want to hide anything from him. She stepped closer and touched his stomach. The right side of his lips lifted into the sexy little grin that made her knees weak.

“Are you hungry?”

He lowered his forehead to hers. “For you.”

Okay, so maybe telling him could wait a little longer. She needed the comfort of her best friend turned lover, and as they made their way down the hill toward the cabins, she felt that funny little twinge in her nerves again. Whose cabin should they go to? Would he have to run out at four in the morning to grab her clothes again? Should she bring clothes if he wanted to go to his cabin?

As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “My place or yours?”

The idea of him running out at four in the morning didn’t sound good at all. “Mine?”

“And here I was looking forward to seeing you in my clothes again.”

She climbed the porch steps, and he stood behind her as she unlocked the door. He gathered her hair over one shoulder and nibbled on her neck. Her hand froze, and her entire body shuddered.

“Aren’t…? Aren’t you…?” She closed her eyes.

He settled his mouth over the curve where her neck met her shoulder.

More. Yes. Oh God
.

“Worried about…everyone seeing?” she finally managed in one long breath.

He took the keys from her hands. “Only if you don’t get inside before I take this further.” He unlocked the door and then closed and locked it behind them, tossed the keys on the counter, and kissed Jayla as they kicked off their boots and stumbled by the kitchen, dropping their coats to the floor. On their way into the bedroom, he pulled back from their kiss long enough to pull his shirt over his head, and when he moved to gently do the same for her, she gasped a breath as he lifted her arm. He froze and his eyes went dark.

“I’m fine.”

She covered his mouth with hers as he removed her bra and went to work divesting himself of his jeans before helping her do the same. When he lowered his mouth to her breast, her mind went blissfully blank. She buried her hands in his hair and held him against her, urging him to take more of her. He ground his hard length into her, and—
oh God
—she wanted to disappear into him. She brought his mouth back up to hers. He deepened the kiss, taking her right up on her toes as he loved her tongue, her teeth, the roof of her mouth, then brought his mouth to the column of her neck and drove her into a frenzy of need. She ran her hands down his chest, feeling the muscles pulsate beneath her fingertips. She lowered her mouth to his nipple and licked him lightly, drawing the sexiest, hungriest moan from his lungs, which sent her hands roaming and groping his rippled chest and stomach, the muscles along his sides. Breathing hard, kissing, tasting his salty skin, her hands wandered south.

“Jayla.” One lust-filled word sent her head lower, kissing the path of his muscles as they led her to his thick, hard length. She took him in her mouth with fervor, sucking, touching, stroking him and taking pleasure in the way he rocked into her. He tasted salty, hot, and oh so good. She felt his hands in her hair, urging her to take him deeper. She grabbed his hips and felt his body shudder as she drew him out slowly, then licked the length of him, lingering on the sensitive, bulbous tip, before taking him back into her mouth and eking out a deep, masculine groan from Rush that made her go weak.

“Christ, you’re gonna make me come.” Rush’s thighs tightened.

A few more deep sucks and she felt him—impossibly—swell a little more. She loved torturing him, owning him in that possessive way. She sank lower and licked his balls as he writhed against her. When she found the courage to meet his gaze again, the heat in them drew her up to his succulent, sweet mouth. He laid her down on the bed and tasted every bit of her flesh. She clutched the sheets as his hands gripped her thighs and spread them apart. And his mouth found her, loved her, teased her, until her body felt like it was wrapped too tight and needed to escape her tingling skin. She clawed at his shoulders. Every stroke of his tongue drew a sound from somewhere deep within her.

“Oh…Ru…” Every word ended with a heavy breath.

He shifted his position and took her inner thigh in his mouth. She sucked in a breath at the new sensations—hot, wet, sharp. He slid a pillow beneath her hips and her legs fell open. His strong hands moved up her thighs in an erotic slide of strength and heat that rattled her insides. He gripped her hips, holding them still as he devoured her once again. She struggled against the force of his hands, needing to arch her hips into him, clenching the sheets so hard her fingernails speared her palms. An orgasm tore through her, and she cried out his name. And then Rush was above her, her scent still on his lips. She opened her eyes, unable to think past her sex-fogged mind. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he pushed into her, deep, sure, and strong, over and over, as she clawed for purchase. His skin, his muscles, and—
Oh shit
—she gasped at the pain in her shoulder and stopped him cold. His eyes met hers, filled with worry.