The Thrill of It All Read online

He pivoted his wheelchair toward her as she approached. There was a cup of tokens in his lap.

  She swallowed. “I didn’t know you, um, came here.”

  “First time.”

  Angling his chair, he gave her room to get back to her stool. She returned her token cups into the holders, then gestured toward the Lady. “I’m, uh, playing here.”

  “I know. You were heading for the restroom when I wheeled up. Your friend over there let me know this machine was taken.”

  She nodded, dropping into her chair. “We do that for each other.”

  “We?”

  Instead of looking at Peter, she looked at the Lady. “People around here who know each other.” Her fingers itched to grab a token, to start her play again and let the lights, the sounds, the Lady herself, soothe the nerves that were starting to fray. But with him watching, she felt her usual helplessness.

  What did he want? What if he wanted to talk about that kiss? She couldn’t do it, she just couldn’t, because that would lead to a confrontation between herself and Peter and probably another between Peter and Magee and—

  To quiet the turmoil inside her, Ashley reached for a token and quickly fed it to the Lady.

  clickety-click-clack, twinkle, purr, ping ping ping ping

  From the corner of her eye, to her relief, she saw Peter position himself in front of the machine on her left. Without another word, he inserted his first token.

  Relieved, Ashley blew out a silent sigh and dipped back into her own plastic cup.

  clickety-click-clack, twinkle, purr, ping ping ping ping clickety-click-clack, twinkle, purr, ping ping ping ping

  Soon, the hypnotic sound began smoothing out all the edges that Peter had roughed up. As the silence between them continued, she was able to pretend it was a stranger beside her and she slouched down in her chair and lost herself in the gambling.

  “Relaxed?”

  At the sudden sound of Peter’s voice, Ashley bolted upright in her chair. Tokens rattled against plastic. “Huh? What?”

  “You seemed upset when you left the Bivy. Feeling better now?”

  “Yes.” She poured the last tokens from her first cup into one hand and rubbed them between her palms. “You know I don’t like arguments.”

  She could feel his eyes on her, but she pretended she didn’t and slipped another coin into the slot. But the twinkle, the purr, the ping ping ping ping, none could take her away like she wanted when Peter was looking at her. Still, she deposited another token and reached for the Lady’s arm.

  “I know a lot about you, Ash.”

  The low, sexy note in his voice caused her hand to miss. It fell into her lap. She stared at it, remembering that when he’d kissed her it was the same hand that had curled behind his head to hold him close to her. She’d been helpless against the urge to keep him near.

  Helpless.

  The word shivered through her mind again and she didn’t want to think about it, to think about the two of them together—certainly not kissing!

  “We’ve known each other a long time.” Her hand rose toward the Lady again, but she didn’t have the strength to pull on the arm. Instead, Ashley pressed the roll button. The lights flashed, the cherries and oranges and grapes whizzed around. She hoped they would whisk her back to that insulated, peaceful place. “Seven years.”

  It was her own words that kept her out now, though. Seven years, and suddenly she was recalling their first date. Peter had been the first climber she’d ever gone out with. The only climber before Simon, the only climber other than Simon. And though it was Simon she’d married five years ago, she’d always considered Peter as hers. Not in a romantic way, but in the way of…of…

  She looked over at him. “You’re one of my best friends.”

  He smiled. It was a roguish, boyish smile. In her mind’s eye she saw once again that roguish, boyish young man who’d had her briefly, then let her get away.

  “Why didn’t you fight harder for me?” she asked, then clapped her hand to her mouth, astonished that she’d voiced the thought.

  “Ah, Ash.” Peter’s smile died. “I—”

  “No, no.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I said that, what I was thinking.” Reaching out, she stroked the cool, solid case of the Lady, trying to steady her nervous insides.

  In desperation, she started feeding the Lady token after token after token. She didn’t want to think of the past, the future, the present, anything.

  “Ash, Ash. Stop, Ash.” Peter grabbed her hand and held it tightly. “Listen to me.”

  Ashley couldn’t meet his eyes, so she stared down at their linked hands instead. He had climber’s hands, the fingers long and limber, the knuckles scarred. Simon’s had been similar, but bigger, so much bigger, that when he’d touched her she’d felt so safe.

  Peter’s touch frightened her.

  She tried to pull away, but he hung on. “Ashley, I was a screwup when we first met. My father had accused me of it since the day I was born, so I’d spent over twenty years proving him right.”

  She shook her head. “You were never a screwup.”

  His voice softened. “You’ve always been so damn loyal. It’s one of your very best qualities, you know. But if I wasn’t a screwup, I was careless. With the people around me, with what I wanted for my life, with my own physical safety. Magee and Simon knew that. It’s why they stopped climbing with me. It’s why I wasn’t with either of them when I had my accident.”

  Now she was hanging on to him, because thinking of him in that crevasse, broken and alone, made her feel shivery and scared again. Helpless.

  “So I don’t know if you got away because of my stupidity or if I never had a chance against Simon, Ash, but I know this. I know you loved him.”

  She nodded. Grief over his death had knocked her to her knees. That’s when the casino had become her haven.

  “But Ash…maybe our time is now.”

  Her head jerked up. No, no. “No.”

  “Whatever’s going on between you and Magee—”

  “He makes me feel safe.” Like Simon. Magee didn’t need her. Magee didn’t need anything from her. So she couldn’t mess it up. She couldn’t fail him in any way.

  “I don’t care. I won’t let you go so easily this time. I’ve changed, Ash.”

  “Peter, you’ve got to understand. You are changed, and—” The expression that overtook his face halted her. He looked stunned. Hurt.

  “Oh.” Oh, Peter. He thought she meant he was changed because of his paralysis.

  His hand released hers. “I understand.”

  “You don’t—”

  “I do!” He rubbed his palms over his thighs, his voice tight. “What was I thinking? Why would you want to be with half a man?”

  Oh, my God. Her throat burning and her heart aching, she reached out to caress the Lady like a touch-stone. What she wouldn’t give to be so solid and so powerful. If she was, then it wouldn’t matter that Peter was half a man at all. She rattled the tokens in her cup, hoping that he would leave soon and that they and the Lady would be enough to deaden this new pain.

  Because she knew who the real screwup was. It was her. She was a weak woman, so weak that she’d been prepared to deny the truth that Peter had seen.

  But he was right. She could never be with Peter.

  She could never be with half a man.

  Magee’s arms automatically closed around Felicity’s back as she gripped his waist between her thighs. His heart slammed against his chest as he scanned the parking lot, looking for a threat. “What is it? What the hell is it?”

  For an answer, she took his face between her hands. Something crackled beside his ear as she leaned in to buss him a big one on the mouth. “Ben’s okay!”

  He shook his head to clear it. “What?”

  It was a piece of paper that had crackled, and now she waved it in front his eyes. “A note! He left me a note on the windshield of the car.”

  “What’s it say?”


  She squirmed and Magee loosened his hold so she could slide to the ground. “He says he’s fine. ‘Tell Mom not to worry. Tell her I’ll be home in a few days after I take care of some business.’”

  Magee narrowed his eyes. “What kind of business?”

  Felicity waved the question away. “Doesn’t say. Doesn’t matter. I’m free! Free!” With a grin, she leaped back at him.

  Her impetus sent him stumbling back, but he looped his arms around her again and blinked down at her exuberant smile. “Free, exactly, of what?”

  “Conscience-free. Worry-free. Stress-free.” Her smile widened. “Take your pick. Tomorrow night, after my obligatory afternoon at the trade show, I’m outta here.”

  The “for good” she didn’t say lingered in the air. It floated around them as she cupped Magee’s face once more and moved in for another boisterous smooch. But instead of letting her have her brief, happy smack, he speared one hand in the hair at the back of her head and glued her mouth to his.

  She’s outta here for good.

  The thought making him reckless, he commandeered the kiss. Not letting up, he moved his lips over hers until her mouth softened and he could thrust his tongue into the sweet heat inside. His tongue tangled with hers and then the kiss became reckless, too, each of them wildly angling their heads to find the most pleasurable fit. Sparklers burst in his vision and he broke away to drag in oxygen.

  “God, God.” He rested his forehead against hers, not sure if he would live.

  She replied by raggedly breathing against his mouth. The uneven, humid warmth made him desperate to kiss her all over again. Heat flashed over his skin.

  “Let’s have sex,” he said hoarsely.

  Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. “N—”

  “Shut up,” he interrupted roughly. “Just shut up. We have to have sex.” Quick sex, like an inoculation against this fever of lust that spiked anytime she was near.

  “What about…” Her voice breathless, she swallowed, started again. “What about those rules you mentioned that night in the desert?”

  “This is a new day, baby. A new game. Aren’t you tired of denying yourself?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “But I don’t do—”

  “—things like this,” he finished for her. Her scent was in his head, her taste on his tongue. She was already in his blood; it seemed only fair that he’d get to be in her body. “I know. But it’s not all that difficult to have a one-night stand, I promise. Just follow my lead.”

  A laugh choked out. “Magee. Come on, I have priorities.”

  “Then let me help you straighten them out.” It was the only way, damn it, to get her out of his system. “You’re leaving tomorrow. We’re alone. Time to do it.”

  “Well, that’s romantic,” she complained.

  He let her sag in his arms, her body sliding down his until the warm notch between her legs nudged against the head of his hard-on. “Does that feel like romance to you, dollface?”

  Her eyes closing, she moaned.

  His gut muscles tightened and his cock clenched, so damn ready that its pulse was pounding more insistently than his heart. He lifted her a couple of inches and then let her slide back down, his breath hissing in at the wild flash of pleasure as she rubbed over him.

  She moaned again, eyes still shut. “What are we doing?” she whispered.

  “We don’t need to pretend with each other, do we, Lissie?”

  Her lashes lifted.

  “This is about scratching an itch,” he said.

  She made a face at him. “You’re making me feel like a pest.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Holding his gaze, she rolled her hips, stroking him with her heat. “Does that feel like pestiness to you, Magee?” She rolled her hips again.

  He flinched, his fingers digging into her hips. “Be careful, Lissie.”

  At the name, her eyes glowed and she moved herself over him once again. “Lissie’s never careful.”

  “Huh.” Punched by another fierce jab of need, he could only grunt as he stumbled backward to find the door with his groping hand. “Let’s do it then.”

  He staggered inside the Bivy. There was music playing over the speakers, Cake’s “Short Skirt/Long Jacket,” the stuttering drumbeat mimicking his unsteady heart, the bass line driving just like his overwhelming urge to mate. The first table was as far as he could manage to carry her.

  With his forearm, he swept the small surface clean of the bar and appetizer menus, then laid Felicity on her back. He stepped away, ready to tug off her shoes, but she crossed her ankles behind him and pulled him forward again.

  “Take off your shirt,” she said.

  He lifted an eyebrow.

  Her nostrils flared. “Take off your shirt. I remember your chest. I want to see it again.”

  His cock jerking against his belly, he yanked off his T-shirt and tossed it aside. Under her gaze, his pecs swelled. “Now you.”

  She smiled, and slowly lifted her hands to the row of buttons running down the middle of her blouse.

  Damn. He saw why she was wearing that little cat smile of hers. There must be a hundred small buttons, shaped like tiny flowers or some other symbol of sexual torture. The unfastening of each one took an hour off his life.

  He’d lost less than half a decade when he couldn’t wait any longer. Without bothering to stop her, he shoved at the fabric, pushing her hands away as well as catching his fingers beneath the band of her bra so that it was lifting up and away, too.

  She was bare to him, her eyes wide.

  The song ended, and in the brief lull before the next came the sound of truck tires on the nearby highway. Her gaze darted for the door. “Did you lock it?”

  He cupped his hands around her breasts, the skin hot and soft against his palms. She jerked, her heels snapping him forward so the bulge in his jeans brushed against the intersection of seams at the crotch of her pants. Her eyes widened more; his cock pulsed.

  “Did you lock it?” she insisted.

  He almost lied. But then he shook his head and pushed against her, steadily increasing the pressure as a flush moved up her neck to her face. “You want me to stop?”

  Her head rolled back and forth on the tabletop as he rolled her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. “Somebody…somebody might come in.”

  “I don’t care.”

  She arched against him as he flicked his thumbs across the raspberry-flushed tips of her breasts. “I do.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He was locked against her by her un-yielding inner thigh muscles. “When you let me go, dollface, I’ll rush right over there.”

  Then he distracted her by leaning over to bite at that pink, delectable mouth. She lifted her body to him, her hard nipples branding his chest. His vision was blurring, so he broke the kiss to give them a moment to breathe. Brushing back her feathery, choppy layers of hair, he looked down into her high school sweetheart of a face. Paired with her willing little body, she slayed him.

  All at once, something else twined with the lust coursing through his bloodstream. Something treacherous that softened his knees and dizzied his head. His fingers curled into her hair, pulling it a little, punishing her for this new symptom of the disease she’d infected him with. Candyass, he accused himself. It was just sex.

  “This is going to be fast,” he ground out, pushing his pelvis into hers. “Fast and hard.”

  Her flush deepened. “What?”

  There couldn’t be tenderness. She might like that, but he didn’t want it, couldn’t want it. “It’s part of the cure.”

  Her eyes were big again. She was panting. “I…like it fast and hard.”

  He laughed. “I’ll bet the Bivy you’ve never had it fast and hard in your life. With you, a man would plan out soft sheets and champagne and the fricking opera before getting around to fu—excuse me, making love.” It sounded like an insult, and that’s how it felt to him—the idea of some other man between Felicity’
s thighs.

  Christ, he was making his own illness worse.

  Maybe she knew, because she showed mercy and twined her arms around his neck and brought him close for another kiss. Lust took over again, engulfing everything else in his head. He leaned on one elbow and played with her breasts with his free hand, getting her nipples stiff and sensitized for his mouth.

  Then he moved lower to suck one between his lips. Her moan vibrated against his mouth. She held his head to her breast, the place between her legs feeling even warmer and damper against his hard-on. He gentled his lips, licking the nipple softly and then pulling back to blow against it, watching with fascination as it lifted chill bumps over the other breast.

  He licked his way toward that one, lost in the satin of her skin and the sweet scent of her. “So pretty,” he murmured against her flesh, gently stroking his whiskered cheek across her nipple. “So hot and so pretty.”

  Breath shuddered into her lungs and her hands stroked through his hair. The ends trailed against her skin as he moved to the other breast and rubbed his stubbly chin against that nipple, too. He could see her face, her dark lashes resting against her flushed cheeks. “Look at me, baby,” he commanded.

  Her eyelids quarter-lifted.

  He smiled, wanting to take that sensuous look with him to the grave. “Feeling good?”

  Arching against his cock again, she smiled back lazily. “What happened to fast and hard?”

  He froze. Damn! She’d done it again, diverted his good—no, bad—intentions! He wrenched back, breaking the vise of her ankles.

  “Get your pants off.” The order came out harsh and thick. “Get your pants off now.”

  His jeans were already unfastened and he shoved them and his boxers toward his knees. Without waiting for her to obey, he took her mouth again, fast and hard, and grabbed for her zipper. He missed, his fingers sliding beneath her waistband, and he felt her naked belly against the back of his hand.

  He groaned.

  Then he heard the distinctive creak of the Bivy’s front door. Voices talking, laughing, then breaking off as whoever it was coming in caught sight of, he presumed, his bare ass in its compromising position.

  Damn. If he grabbed for his pants, he’d expose Felicity and her naked breasts. Damn it. The group didn’t sound as if they were turning around and leaving.