Free Fall. Jill Shalvis

partner gave me a week out here. Said I needed a vacation.”

      “Wow. Nice partner.”

      Before she could ask more, or what he did for a living, they were at the top of the lift. They got off together and skied forward to Upper Way, which would deposit them at the top of the world—or what felt like it at 11,150 feet. They got on with two boarders, who managed to get between her and her beautiful stranger, and this time there was little talk and lots of awe as they all took in the stunning Sierras in full winter splendor.

      When they finally reached the top, Lily stopped to wave to the lift operator and pulled her sunglasses out from inside her jacket.

      The two boarders quickly vanished down the front of Surprise, a lovely, groomed intermediate run that would eventually take them back to the midmountain lift. Her mysterious rebel had shifted forward, meanwhile, to read the large billboard map that exhibited all the runs. A dry-erase board beneath it listed which of them had been groomed and their conditions. He bent to tighten his boots—which gave her the chance to notice that his butt was as extremely fine as the rest of him—then he straightened and pushed off, heading toward the back side and Drop Off.

      “Hey,” she called out, but it was too late. “Damn it.” She went after him. At the lip of the run, she hastily bent and locked her other foot into her binding. He’d already begun his descent, and as she watched, her mouth fell open. He’d said he was an “all right” skier, but the man was beyond anything even close to all right. In fact, he moved like poetry in motion, perfectly in sync with the fall line of the mountain. Was that ever sexy.

      With a grin of anticipation and lust and pure joy, she threw herself off the edge of her world, flying down the mountain after him.

      2

      LILY PASSED HER HOT MAN In Black, waving as she swooshed on by. The beauty of Drop Off was its combination of sheer length and vertical drop, never failing to give her a roller-coaster, stomach-to-her-toes feeling—but today the run had an extra edge to it, courtesy of her sizzling audience.

      The trees on either side of the sharp, creviced run blurred as her eyes watered with the icy morning chill. Still she pushed harder, happily losing herself in speed and adrenaline.

      Halfway down, she leaped into a quick stop and, as she often liked to do, turned to look back up at the cliff she’d just taken. Breath coming in quick, short pants, she swiped at her glasses to rid them of the flakes of powder blocking her view.

      He skied up beside her, stopping close enough to spray her with snow. “Still worried about me?”

      She shot him a droll look. “You failed to mention you were expert.”

      He let out a slow grin. “You failed to ask.”

      True.

      “Race to the bottom?” he asked casually.

      The bad girl in her screamed, Oh, yes! But the sensible ski patroller in her demurred. “Racing on a hill not denoted for such things isn’t wise.”

      He laughed, a sound that scraped low in her belly. “And here I thought you were so tough.”

      She stared into his teasing eyes and nearly drowned in the dark orbs. “Tough and stupid aren’t synonyms.”

      “We both know you’re dying to race me.” Leaning in close, he whispered, “I dare you.”

      He had no way of knowing that she loved a good dare, that she’d never turned one down in her life. Not in second grade, when Tony Villa had dared her to put superglue on their teacher’s chair. Not in sixth grade, when Eric Orlando had dared her to pull down her pants and moon the baseball team. Even though a dare had led her right down the wrong path many, many more times than she could count she’d long ago given up fighting the lust for life that throbbed in her veins. She looked around to make sure they were alone. “I’ll show you ‘tough.’”

      His grin was slow and wicked. “Are we on, then?”

      “You bet your sweet ass.” With no one in sight, making the dare okay in her books, she blew him a little kiss, then leaped forward, going balls out, straight down the mountain. She could hear him on her tail, and then he was right next to her, and for long moments they stayed like that, side by side, the swooshing of the snow beneath his skis and her board a wonderful sound.

      Finally she edged free just a little and eyeballed the next sharp turn. I can take him right here, I can pull ahead—

      Her walkie-talkie chirped, and with a grand sigh for what might have been, she stopped short and answered the call. “Go ahead,” she said to base.

      “Skier disappeared out-of-bounds, on the north face between Surprise and Drop Off. Friends say he has no business being out-of-bounds, and he’s not responding to shout-outs. Danny said you’re already up there.”

      “I’m on Drop Off. I’ll ski between the trees to get over there, see if I can see him.”

      “Chris is on his way, too.”

      Chris had her old, beloved position of Patrol Director, and loved the mountain as much as she did. He, too, was only on call today, but undoubtedly hadn’t been able to resist the fresh snow any more than she had. She clipped the radio back onto her belt and eyed the trees off to her right, knowing she could board through the tightly growing pines and come out just above the area where the skier had gone out-of-bounds. Or so she hoped. She turned to go, then remembered. She wasn’t alone. She eyed her perfect stranger’s long, most excellent form.

      “You think he’s lost?”

      “Or down,” she said. “And hurt.”

      “And so off you go.”

      “Yeah. Sorry about the race. Maybe we can give it another shot later.”

      He nodded, and with a good amount of regret, Lily took off through the trees, which in itself was an adventure on a board with a foot of fresh powder. With the pines packed so close to each other and this part of the mountain so incredibly steep, even experienced skiers ran into serious trouble here.

      But because she knew the entire hill like the back of her hand, she came out of the trees just above the out-of-bounds area on the north face, which consisted of a steep cliff overlooking a valley of rough, unskiable terrain. Despite that and the clear boundary markers, there were still a few yahoos every year who tried to ski out this way.

      Traversing along the edge a little bit, she indeed found a set of tracks. Someone had skied down right here and gone off the edge. She stared at the sign that read Unpatrolled Beyond This Point, Out-Of-Bounds Territory and shook her head. “Idiot,” she muttered. She used her walkie-talkie to check in with base and was clipping it back to her belt when she heard a skier coming. Puzzled, she turned to face Sexy Man In Black.

      “I followed your track.” He stood with ease on his skis, white powder dusting halfway up his long legs. “You going down here?”

      “Yeah.”

      His smile was gone, replaced by an intensity that took her breath every bit as much as his good humor had. “Be safe.”

      “You, too. Careful getting out of here.” She pushed off.

      The terrain was even steeper than Drop Off had been, the way uneven, with the double threat of sheer rock and unmarked cliffs, not to mention the possibility of an avalanche. Granted, there’d been a patrolling team out at five this morning, checking on that very threat, but you couldn’t be too careful.

      Or too careless. This area was unpatrolled for a good reason, and as she maneuvered her way along, following the tracks of the missing skier, she cursed him for putting even more people in jeopardy with his foolishness.

      She pulled up short just before a heart-stopping cliff, gratified to see the tracks ahead veer off to the left. Again, she pulled out her walkie-talkie and verified with base that she was in the correct vicinity, had his tracks in sight and that,