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Authors: Beth Bolden

Tags: #Sports Contemporary Romance

Summer Attractions (5 page)

BOOK: Summer Attractions
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It shouldn’t have been a surprise because she was practically grinding against him and he was only human, but he must have seen the knowledge of it in her eyes because he took her hand and led her outside to the cool breeze and to what, she was certain he knew, was sanity.

The problem was she didn’t want sanity any more. She wanted to rub against him and let their bodies overrule their minds.

She stumbled onto the boardwalk, not drunk exactly, but euphoric, and completely determined to stop if him if he claimed they’d gotten carried away.

She knew what he wanted, and was even more sure what
she
wanted.

“That was fun,” she said, and all her bumbling indecision seemed to have melted away under a samba beat and too much
cachaça
.

He stopped pulling her then and let her hand drop, turning to face her. Jemma could already tell by the indecision etched on his face that he was going to make an attempt to turn her away.

“Maybe too much fun,” he said and for the first time that night, Jemma felt him grow more distant, not less. She didn’t like it all and so she took a step toward him and then another, until she was entrenched in his personal space. Not quite as close as they’d been dancing, but very nearly. Almost enough that if she glanced up at him, and leaned in just enough, their lips might touch.

His eyes were so dark, just the color she wanted her coffee to be in the morning, and she couldn’t wait to drink him up. “I think,” she said softly, and was a bit rewarded to see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, “that you liked it.”

He smiled, his lips suddenly curling into something naughty and decadent, and the thousand traffic lights holding her back flashed green one at a time like a chain of dominoes, urging her onwards. “I could say the same for you.”

She threw him the most flirtatious look in her arsenal. “Why don’t you, then?”

He nodded once, then again, clearly quite amused by her. “I shouldn’t. We should get you back to the hotel. You must be exhausted.”

Jemma felt her window slipping away, felt him closing up as she pushed harder, and if she hadn’t been several
caipirinhas
down, she might have backed off.

She didn’t. She tilted her head up just enough so that all it would take was a single movement in and they’d be kissing. “Not
that
exhausted,” she retorted. And then closed that last bit of distance and kissed him.

If she’d been thinking clearly, she might have thought the most difficult part would be convincing him they both wanted to go past kissing. It might have been the alcohol or the stars overheard or even Rio itself, but once they fell into each other, that was it.

He kissed long and slow but insistent, like he was dying of thirst too, and couldn’t seem to get enough of her touch. Sober, she might have worried about the way she touched and where she touched and the fingerprint-sized bruises she was probably leaving all over him. But the
cachaça
in her blood was a blessing because there was no worry, only the freedom to enjoy giving and taking pleasure as he angled his head to kiss her deeper.

At some point he must have moved them, because she felt the cool press of stone against her back. A wall or a building of some sort, and then his hands were moving across her stomach, her legs, burying in her hair and tilting her head so his lips could find her neck.

For someone so tied up during the day, Jemma was quickly discovering that his still waters ran deep and hot. He had so much passion and it was all hidden away, buried, and she wondered briefly, for the split second she could truly think, why he had let her find it.

His hand curled around the curve of her ass and she shuddered a little. “We shouldn’t,” he murmured against her skin, all while his kisses and his touch all seemed to contradict his words. Her only response was to let the rest of her inhibitions fly and slide her palm down his chest to where he rested hard against the zipper of his jeans. He shuddered as she cupped him.

And then there was no more talking.

Somehow—she wasn’t quite sure of the details, but she was fairly certain they involved some sort of pedestrian taxi—they made it back to the hotel. Under the dim, sophisticated light of the lobby, she glanced over at him, his lips berry red and the bottom lip swollen from her teeth, and she wondered if he was changing his mind, his expression distant and remote.

But from the moment he slid the key into the lock, and the door closed behind them, she was on the bed and he was on top of her, sliding his hands underneath her clothes and loosening buttons and zippers and stripping his own shirt and pants off impatiently.

Jemma wiggled out of her jeans and just managed to throw them to the floor before he was back, crouching on top of her, a hand reaching under and cradling her head as he looked into her eyes, like he was searching for something. Only later would she remember and realize he’d been searching for coherency, for permission, for certainty that she wasn’t doing anything she didn’t want to do.

But in the heat of the moment, Jemma didn’t know and she didn’t care, she only wanted to kiss him more. So she did, pressing her lips to his insistently and as persuasively as she knew how.

His hands were rough but gentle on her skin, and even though they’d never met before that day, it didn’t feel like the first time. It felt like the first time after a long time apart, like he wasn’t discovering what she liked for the first time, but merely reacquainting himself.

His fingers slid lower and found her wet and desperate for him. She let out a high pitched whine as he teased her with the tips of his fingers. It seemed obvious, but she couldn’t help but shudder a little as he buried his face in the curve of her neck, mouthing into the damp skin about how much he wanted her. She could feel it too, the hard ridge of him against her thigh, and suddenly it felt like they’d waited long enough. The whole evening had, at points, felt like one long bout of foreplay and she was just about done with waiting.

She wrapped her legs insistently around his waist and urged him, her fingers reaching down to stroke him once, then twice, until he was moaning into her skin. She felt him reach down beside the bed and come up with a packet. She raised herself to watch him put the condom on. His movements were fascinatingly abrupt, quick and methodical, and she was suddenly not just desperate for sex with him, but desperate to
know
him better. And maybe that would have scared her, but she was still so relaxed from the rum, and then he was holding her knees and nudging at her entrance with his cock and all thought disappeared as he slid home.

He was big and it had been so long for her, she was grateful for the alcohol because it meant she didn’t tense. But even then, he groaned at how tight she was, and Jemma held him still with the back of her leg, letting him know she needed a minute.

Gabe swore, something low and filthy in Portuguese as she shifted around, adjusting to his length inside of her.

He’d been at points both rough and gentle with her, even the former tinged with a ghost of the latter, but Jemma had a feeling he too had been pushed to the brink of his self-control and when she let him go, she was going to need to be ready for whatever that wild look in his eyes foretold. She finally urged him forward with her calf, and he fell into her, caging her with his body as he fucked her in long, unrelenting strokes that sent heat sizzling through her veins. She could only grip the firm muscles of his shoulders and hold on as he carried her away, reminding her of everything she’d been missing.

He flipped her over, wrapping an arm around her waist, the other sliding down to rub her clit as he pounded into her. Jemma moaned, trying to dampen her cries with the cotton sheet, as she finally exploded, clenching around him and sending him into his own orgasm.

They lay there a long moment, sweat cooling on their skin, and for the first time since she’d stepped off the plane, Jemma felt suddenly very unsure. Everything had seemed right and she’d been in control, and then all of a sudden, she wasn’t. She’d toppled over into another plane of existence where nothing made sense and she was flying blind.

He got off the bed and went in the bathroom. She heard the sink turn on and then off. She rolled over and saw him walk back into the bedroom, his muscled body half-shadowed in the moonlight streaming in from the window. He pressed the washcloth into her hands and she cleaned up as he sat, silent, on the edge of the bed.

She knew she should ask him if he was going to stay, or ask him
to
stay, but a wave of fatigue and remnants of the rum hit her then, and she was only vaguely aware of handing him back the washcloth and her head hitting the pillow.

And then there was nothing.

For one painful moment when the alarm went off the next morning, Jemma couldn’t remember where she was or why she’d set it so early. A headache pounded away happily at her temples, and she might’ve groaned, but then she realized, much slower than if she hadn’t ingested multiple
caipirinhas,
that she wasn’t alone.

The other side of the bed was occupied by a large figure, a brown, muscular calf poking out of the sheet when she dared to glance over in the body’s direction.

The events of the evening inexorably came back to Jemma in one messy package: flirting at dinner, the
caipirinhas
, the dancing, even more
caipirinhas
, and then the kiss followed by an embarrassing seduction attempt that had actually,
shockingly
, worked.

But what had followed hadn’t been embarrassing in the slightest. It had been incendiary and freeing. Now all that remained was for Jemma to look Gabe in the eye again after what they’d done together.

She lay perfectly still on her back, the lazy swish of the fan the only noise in the room, and counted to ten. She told herself when she finished, she would rise from the bed, create lots of noise heading to the bathroom, try to make herself presentable, and then confront the elephant in the room.

Jemma reached ten. She squeezed her eyes shut and counted to ten again.

Really, the issue was she was horribly out of practice with the morning after. She hadn’t had a one night stand since her freshman year of college, since before she’d become friends with Colin. It had been a long time and along the way, she’d turned careful and safe and into an absolute chicken shit.

Jemma acknowledged this about herself as she crept into the bathroom silently, dressed silently, grabbed her purse and room key silently, and finally, and most importantly, escaped the room silently.

As it turned out, while she’d been able to seduce Gabe—with the help of a not-insignificant amount of bootleg Brazilian liquor—she wasn’t quite able to face the consequences of that decision without a stomach-curdling amount of awkwardness.

There was an elegant little café on the veranda of the hotel, and Jemma could see tiny gold tea stands stacked with pastries on the tables. She hesitated at the entrance, but ultimately stopped by the quick to-go coffee counter instead. She didn’t want to be dawdling downstairs when Gabe eventually discovered that she’d disappeared.

Coffee in hand and beginning to feel a bit more human, Jemma stopped at the concierge desk and asked for the best method to reach the destination she’d spontaneously decided on while in the elevator. Even better, Jemma discovered that for the duration of the Games, the hotel was offering a special tram up to the mountain.

Five minutes later, Jemma tossed her coffee cup into the trash as she headed outside to cram herself onto the shuttle.

The shuttle ride was long and steep, and by the time it reached the top, Jemma was sure she was a tad green.
Maybe not the best idea with a hangover
, she thought, but then she stepped out of the van and the fresh breeze up high was so refreshing, she felt better almost instantly.

In front of her, the statue of Christ the Redeemer spread its arms, majestic and awe-inspiring. Jemma felt her breath catch at how huge it seemed up close, veritably towering over the entire valley.

She walked closer, trying not to jostle anyone or let herself be jostled in return. Like the concierge at the hotel had warned, there were many,
many
tourists in town for the Games, and Christ the Redeemer seemed to be a popular destination for all of them.

BOOK: Summer Attractions
9.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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