Filthy Secret

Sawyer knelt down, his fingers firm on her calf as she guided her foot into the first skate, and God it had been too long since she’d had sex if this was enough to make her panties damp. “We’re just here to have fun, right? There aren’t really any rules.”

Jo swallowed hard. “Oh. Uh. Well, I’d like to make it through the evening without breaking anything.”

“You won’t break anything. Just take it one step at a time and trust yourself a little. You’ll be fine.”

“Your faith in me may be misplaced,” she said, and why, why couldn’t her nervous default be to clam up?

“And you might just be stronger than you think.” Sawyer looked up at her, his dark-brown eyes framed by those gorgeous gold lashes, and suddenly, talking was the last thing on Jo’s mind. He shifted forward, so close that she could smell the woodsy scent of whatever soap he used, and her heart did a backflip as his strong, sexy mouth formed a smile.

“So, what do you say? You ready to take a little risk?”

Because trusting her voice not to betray her was a bad idea, she nodded. Standing was a bit tricky, but after a minute of gingerly testing her balance, Jo managed to tiptoe/shuffle her way to the edge of the ice. Sawyer stepped out first, gliding in an effortless half-circle to face her, and ugh, nothing about this could end well.

“Would this help?” he asked, holding both of his now-gloved hands out to her, and Jo bit the bullet, placing both of her hands in his, squeezing through mittened fingers. Taking a fuck it breath, she stepped out onto the ice. Her equilibrium squawked, making her knees wobble and her heart brew up a fresh batch of adrenaline, but she death-gripped Sawyer’s hands to steady herself.

Holy shit, it worked.

“There you go.” Sawyer moved backward slowly, pulling her along with him. It wasn’t the most graceful thing Jo had ever done-she wasn’t even sure she was doing the hard part with the way Sawyer was guiding her movements-but she wasn’t sprawled face-first on the ice, either. They made it a quarter of the way around the rink before Jo began to push off to create her own momentum. By the time they finished one full lap around the outskirts, Sawyer was able to drop her hands and skate beside her, albeit a lot more slowly than the other people gliding past them.

“I’ve got to hand it to you,” he said with a grin she felt in a whole lot of places. “You’re doing far better than I did when I gave this a shot last year.”

Surprise sparked, lifting her chin. “You’ve only been skating for a year?” He looked so confident, gliding in sure movements over the ice.

“Yep. I started to clear my mind, if you can believe that.”

“It is kind of relaxing,” Jo admitted. “Once you get past the fear of face- planting on a very hard, very cold surface.”

Sawyer laughed softly. “I spent my first few months in a helmet, so, yeah. I’m in touch with that fear.”

“Really?” Her balance wavered a bit-the turns weren’t easy-and he cupped one hand beneath her elbow to steady her.

“Yeah. As it turns out, one TBI is all it takes to earn you all sorts of cranial precautions.”

Jo spun through her mental database and came up empty. “TBI?”

“Traumatic Brain Injury,” Sawyer said. “Sorry, between the medical terms and the military, there are a lot of acronyms and abbreviations.”

Wow. He’d said he’d been injured, and that it had been enough to cut his active duty short, but… “That sounds really serious.”

He paused for a second before admitting, “It is. I did a lot of rehab. Physical therapy. Occupational therapy. Social support. You name it, and chances are, I did it.”

“Oh, my God. That must have taken forever.” The worst injury Jo had ever had to contend with was a broken finger, which had been splinted for a handful of weeks, then healed. She couldn’t even imagine having to tackle something as serious as a brain injury.

Sawyer gave up a small nod. “It took the better part of a year, and I won’t lie. A lot of it sucked. But it’s also how I started skating.”

Jo took a second to concentrate on making it around another curve on the ice before saying, “That’s not very traditional PT, is it?”

“Nope. Like I said, we had to take a lot of precautions, and I didn’t start until I’d had a ton of other rehab to be sure I was good to go.”

“So, why skating?” she asked, unable to curb her curiosity.

Sawyer’s smile sent a shot of warmth deep through Jo’s belly. “Because it scared the crap out of me.”

“No offense, but that sounds like shitty therapy.”

She jammed her teeth over her bottom lip-why, why couldn’t she do that before her thoughts tripped directly out of her mouth?

But Sawyer surprised her by laughing. “I thought the same thing, at first. But it turns out, taking me out of my comfort zone was just what I needed to clear my head. My support team helped me choose something that was safe enough for me to try, but that would also challenge me. My dizzy spells were nearly all behind me at that point. Being on skates gave my brain and my body a good workout. Plus, it let me face doing something that scared me.”

“Okay, but if skating scared you, why choose it instead of something safer?” Jo asked. “I mean, I’m terrified of heights. I know better than to go to the top of a skyscraper-or try zip lining-to face that fear. It’s only going to make me more scared.”Content protected by Nôv/el(D)rama.Org.

“There are some things I knew better than to try,” Sawyer said, gliding along for another beat before continuing. “Like you said, some fears are always going to run too deep. But I wasn’t scared of skating like that.”

Jo’s brows lifted toward the brim of her red knit hat. “Then why were you scared of it?”

“Because it was something I wasn’t sure I could do. Something I was pretty sure I might really fuck up, actually. And it was the first big risk I took after coming home.”

The words hit her right in the chest, making her pulse tap faster. “And that’s why you brought me here?”

Sawyer shrugged, but he didn’t drop his gaze from hers. “Skating taught me how to trust myself again. Kind of a risk worth taking.”

At any other moment, Jo probably would’ve felt too cautious, or at the very least, too chicken to act on the feeling pulsing through her. But Sawyer had faced a traumatic brain injury, for God’s sake, and he’d trusted her enough to tell her about it. The least she could do was get bold and give him a little trust in return.

So she reached out and grabbed his hand. The move slowed them both to a halt at the outermost edge of the ice, and before Jo could stop herself, she slid in front of him, leaving barely an inch between their bodies. His pupils flared enough to make her breath catch in her throat.

But still, she moved closer. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Sawyer breathed. His fingers tightened around hers, his stare dropping to her mouth. He didn’t move, though, giving her the lead.

Jo took it. Pressing up, she touched her lips to his. She’d meant it as a quick gesture, little more than a brush of their mouths. But he exhaled at the contact, a soft sound coming out of him that turned her boldness into pure impulse. Jo threaded her arms around Sawyer’s shoulders, bringing their chests flush, and he responded by reaching up to cup her face with his gloved fingers as he deepened the kiss…

And then froze, as solid and still as the ice beneath their feet at the sound of a throat clearing.