CHAPTER 10
Graham
I’d gone through several muffins and a cup of coffee before I finished my list. I’d hardly noticed when Lauren had gotten up to make the coffee and sat a cup in front of me.
“How long is this list?” Lauren asked nervously.
“Long enough,” I answered vaguely.
We’d never be able to do everything I’d added to the list during the winter. I knew I had at least a few months until I needed to start squaring things away with the Cats and then get to training season.
I scrutinized the list, wondering what else I needed to add. Lauren would hate my entries, but she needed to learn to have a good time without thinking about anything else. She needed activities that would turn off her logical brain. She feared heights, but she could get over that. Her adrenaline would be pumping, taking over every thought except the thrill of the activity.
“You’re scaring me,” she said as she swiped the pad from my hand. “You’ve been at this for way too long.”
“You can cross off the ones you’ve already done,” I told her, knowing she’d never done a single one of those things.
“Are you insane?” she said, her eyes scanning my list.
“I guess I am because I’ve done every one of them. More than once.”
“Tubing? I’ve never been tubing.”
I grinned. “Isn’t that the point? To do things you’ve never done. We have several more days here in Aspen. The chalet is already paid for. We can start with that and move up to snowmobiling.”
She frowned. “I can’t drive a snowmobile. I’ve never even tried. I have a perfectly good automobile.”
Snowmobiling was something people did strictly for fun. And I liked speed. It was exhilarating to fly across the snow.
“You can ride with me. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
She’d be with me during every single activity so I could make damn sure she was okay.
She chewed her bottom lip for a moment before she said, “Okay. No problem.”
No matter how brave Lauren claimed to be about bringing on some challenges, none of them would be easy for her. She wasn’t used to doing things just for fun, or pushing her boundaries. Her mind was always working at problem solving, her reasoning ability so damn good that it didn’t figure she needed to just cut loose.
“I’m not going skydiving,” she said in a horrified tone.
“We can go tandem. I’m an instructor. I can take you with me.”
“No!”
I shrugged. We could work our way into that. “You’d love it if you just try it. Maybe we could just do a zero gravity flight chamber?”
She was silent before she finally said, “I don’t see the point, but I could probably do that.”
Of course she didn’t see the point. Having fun never made sense to her, but she needed to do it.
I motioned toward the pad in front of her and gave her the pen. “Write it down.”
She added it to the list, then said, “Why is skiing on the list? We already ski.”
“Because we’re here in Aspen. That’s something we could do later today. Maybe you could try a more challenging slope.”
Lauren had been skiing for years, yet she’d never joined me and Jack on the more challenging runs. Her time was spent on the kiddie hills. She had the skill to at least bump herself up to a higher level. Not that I wanted to see her on anything dangerous, but there were runs that would be more suitable to her skills.
“I do just fine on my runs,” she said hotly.
“With all of the five-year-old kids,” I added. “You’re better than that, Lauren. Challenge yourself just a little bit. You could handle any run on the mountain, but I’m not asking you to do the expert ones. Just step it up.”
She was the most intelligent woman I’d ever known; she was brilliant. Scholastically, she was an achiever. But taking a risk on something she wasn’t familiar or confident with seemed to scare the hell out of her.
Being gifted gave her a unique perspective of the world, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have emotions. I knew for a fact that she’d always felt like she was living outside of the world and analyzing it instead of living in the middle of the chaos. It was probably safer for her that way.
She looked up at me with apprehension, and I wanted to take the list back. My chest ached from seeing her worried expression.
What the hell did it matter if she wasn’t exactly a daredevil? She didn’t need to be. But I couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that she needed to get over her fears of stepping outside her comfort zone to really be happy.
“Okay,” she agreed, trying to hide her concern. “But I’m not doing number five, either.”
I quirked a brow. “What’s number five?”
“You wrote the list.”
“I don’t have your intellect and skills. I forgot the numbers. My recall isn’t as advanced as yours.”
“Disneyland.”
“What’s wrong with Disneyland? The rides are fairly tame.”
“I’m not a kid.”
I chuckled. “But you can act like one for the day.”
She glanced at the list again. “And I’m definitely not scuba diving.”
Yeah, I figured she’d object to that one. But I’d tackle that later. “Compromise?”
She gave me a skeptical look as she asked, “What kind of compromise?”
“You do Disneyworld with me instead of Disneyland, and I’ll go swim with the big water cows since they’re right there in Florida.”
Her face lit up, and it made me suddenly regret that I’d pushed that off her list because it wasn’t all that thrilling for me. It was obviously something she wanted to do.
“Deal,” she said breathlessly. “But I’d need to save up for the trip.”
“I’m taking care of all the expenses.”
“Graham, I can’t let you do that—”
“Yes, you can. That’s non-negotiable. It’s small money to me now. Let me do this, Lauren.”
“We’ll see.”
I was covering the tab for everything. There was no argument, but since I knew she’d be stubborn, I’d just let her think I might consider her objection. But I wouldn’t. After signing a lucrative deal with the Wildcats, I’d never be poor again. I’d majored in business in college, and although I didn’t have anything close to Lauren’s intelligence, I was smart enough to invest well.
“Are we agreed on the compromise?”
“Yes,” she answered quickly as she changed the list to include our deal. “Why do you want me to eat at the best restaurant in Denver?”
I hesitated before I admitted, “That one is kind of for me, too. It’s the one thing on the list I’ve never done. You know I love food, but I’ve always been too poor to try any of the good places. And I don’t want to do it alone. You’d be doing me a favor if you agreed to that one.”
She nodded immediately. “I’d love to go.”
“Good. Anything else you don’t like on the list?”
“Riding the Sky Coaster over Royal Gorge isn’t going to happen. And I’m not excited with the idea of white water rafting.”
“You will be,” I assured her. “And those are things we probably can’t do during the winter anyway. We’ll save them for spring.”
I’d add more stuff as I went along. One thing I wanted more than anything was to see Lauren laughing and happy. She was way too serious and focused, and I was going to teach her to just enjoy the moment. I doubted that she did anything that she didn’t plan a year in advance, and none of those activities were exactly mindless and fun. Her idea of a trip for fun generally included a conference or some kind of think-tank.
“Will we still be friends in the spring?” she asked hesitantly.
My heart was racing as I asked, “Are you planning on kicking me to the curb? ’Cause that’s the only way we won’t still be in each other’s lives.”
“Of course not.”
I was relieved. “Then consider us friends for life.”
Hell, friendship wasn’t all I wanted. I was getting to the point where I couldn’t look at her without my dick getting hard. I had to put last night down to our drunkenness and leave it behind.
“What about Jack?”
My mood suddenly turned dark. “I know I can’t kill him. But I’m also not planning to meet up with him right now. One slip-up with the law and I could lose my career. I can’t go there. Hope and Jack aren’t worth that to me. They both betrayed me.”
Really, losing Hope had been like dodging a bullet. I couldn’t be married to a woman I didn’t trust. I was lucky to find out about her before we tied the knot. Jack was a different story. We’d been friends since childhood, and his betrayal hurt like a bitch. And that hurt was manifesting in anger. That was always the way I handled being let down. I got pissed as hell and cut that person out of my life. It wasn’t going to go any differently this time.
“I’ll call both of them and tell them to give you some time,” Lauren said.
“It won’t help,” I said huskily. “I’ll never trust either one of them again.”
“I know. But it’s too soon to have a discussion about what they did.”
I knew Lauren was right, so I nodded. “I don’t want to hear from either one of them right now.”
“I’ll take care of it,” she said in a stoic tone.
“We need to get dressed for the slopes,” I reminded her. I needed to be active. If I sat around thinking about how much I wanted to pin Lauren to the kitchen counter and fuck her until she was screaming my name, I’d totally lose it.
How had I never realized how much I wanted her before this trip? Okay, I had been engaged, but I’d never struggled with this kind of lust before—ever!
Granted, I hadn’t seen Lauren that often in person for the last several years, but I’d tried to get back to Colorado at least once a year, usually at the holidays. I’d seen her and hung out with her several times as an adult, but I’d never seen her as anything except a good friend.
Maybe I’d blocked it because she was my friend, but all of those emotions had broken free. I think it would have been better if my lust-filled thoughts about Lauren had stayed hidden from my conscious mind. I wanted to spend time with her, but I knew it would come with a price. My balls would be blue forever, or at least they would until one of us decided on another committed relationship.
The thought of Lauren dumping me because she’d found another guy didn’t sit well with me. Nor did I care for the idea of tying myself to another woman like Hope.
“I’ll be ready shortly,” Lauren said as she headed toward her room.
I caught her around her upper arm to keep her from leaving the kitchen for a moment. “I’m really sorry about last night, Peanut. I know that I hurt you, and I’m not convinced that it wasn’t physical. I hate myself for that.”
She backed up so she could look up at me. “It wasn’t physical. I swear. I wanted what happened. I just didn’t want you to regret it or feel guilty about it.”
I didn’t regret it, and I didn’t feel guilty. I did hate the fact that she cried. “I don’t feel guilty for wanting you. Hell, if I thought we could just be fuck buddies, we’d never leave this cabin today, but I can’t do it, Peanut. I can’t.”
“Why?” she asked breathlessly.
It was a question she hadn’t asked last night, and I’d been grateful. I shifted and grasped one of her hands. When it landed on my cock, I almost groaned. “Because of this. I can’t see you without wanting you, Lauren.”
“But you aren’t drunk anymore,” she said, sounding confused as her palm stroked over my jeans.
“No, I’m not. It seems that alcohol wasn’t responsible for the way I wanted you. I guess I lied when I said you could be any woman last night. I only wanted you.”
Maybe I was being a little too honest, but I wanted Lauren to know that I wasn’t rejecting the offer of being friends with benefits because I didn’t want her. In fact, it was just the opposite. I wanted her too damn much.
I lifted her hand off my crotch and let it fall to her side. “We’re friends. We can’t complicate this,” I told her.
She nodded. “I know. You don’t do complicated.”
“I can’t do complicated. This isn’t a choice,” I said in a raspy voice.
I was mesmerized as I looked into her beautiful blue eyes, her reaction so open and raw.
Mine!
Every damn cell in my body wanted to claim her, and knowing I couldn’t was fucking agony.
To keep myself busy, I plucked off her glasses and cleaned them with my T-shirt before placing them back on her face again.
I couldn’t seem to forget the way her wet heat had surrounded my cock, and the sultry little noises she made when I was fucking her. I’d felt so damn lost inside her, and it had been a fucking incredible state to be in.
Now, I wanted more.
Don’t touch her. If you do, you’ll be screwed.
“Go get ready. We’re missing time on the mountain.” I slapped her ass to set her in gear. If she didn’t get going, I was going to pin her against the nearest solid object and show her how damn good sexual pleasure could really be.
Last night had been sloppy for me. But I knew how to pleasure a female until she was completely sated. I might fuck and run, but I made damn sure any woman in my bed was satisfied before I left.
“Just for the record, I don’t regret it, either. I only regret not finishing what we started,” she confessed in a wistful voice.
It took my body a long time to settle down after she’d exited the kitchen. I hadn’t satisfied her, and that bugged the shit out of me.
Did I really care if I hadn’t come? Actually, I didn’t. It bothered me a hell of a lot more that I left Lauren wanting and crying.
I wanted a damn do-over, but I knew that I wasn’t going to have that chance ever again.