Forcing herself to unwrap her arms from the man’s neck when he shifted above her, she moved into a sitting position as quickly as she could, given the fairly deep hole they’d made in the snow.
Using her snow-covered gloves to brush away the ice crystals all over her face was messy work, and when she started to say, "Thank you so much. I hope I didn’t hurt y—" she finally got a good look at her savior.
Oh. My. God.
She’d never seen a man this good looking before. Ever. Maybe in a movie or magazine, but never live and in person.
Mortification rode her even harder at the complete and utter fool she’d made of herself in front of him. Her luck really was that bad. Not only because she’d fallen face first into the snow, but also because she’d been unable to stop herself from rubbing all over him like a cat in heat.
She may even, she suddenly realized with a huge flash of dismay as she blinked at his perfect face, have moaned aloud at the sinfully delicious feel of his body pressing hers into the cold snow.
Amazingly, he wasn’t looking at her with disgust. Instead, there was a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his green eyes. "Rescuing you was my pleasure. And no, you definitely didn’t hurt me at all."
Despite the depths of her mortification, her own lips were on the verge of turning up at the corners. "I’m not a very good skier," she admitted, before adding, "But you probably already guessed that."
"You thought that little girl was in trouble, didn’t you?"
She had to laugh at herself. "She’s probably been skiing since she could walk, huh?"
He nodded. "I’m thinking we should keep an eye out for her in the Winter Olympics in another ten years or so."
Something like this would have had Rob laughing at her the rest of the day. But this man was simply laughing with her.
"I’m Noah."
"I’m Colbie."
"Colbie," he repeated in that low, rough voice that sent shivers running across her skin as they shook hands...or thick ski gloves, anyway. Shivers that had nothing to do with the icy mountain they were sitting on and everything to do with him. His green eyes darkened slightly as he said, "That’s a pretty name. Unique, too."
She’d never, ever had to forcibly restrain herself from launching herself at a man to steal a kiss. A kiss she knew with one hundred percent certainty would blow her mind. But he hadn’t saved her so that she could maul him.
He brushed a lump of snow off her forehead and when she shivered, he said, "You’re cold."
She couldn’t tell him she was shivering at his nearness and from naughty thoughts of the things she wanted to do to him. Not to mention all the things she wanted him to do to her.
If she were Mia, she’d be wowing him by saying something sexy and witty about how he could keep her warm. Of course, since Colbie was feeling anything but sexy and witty right at that moment, all she could think to say was, "We should probably find our skis before they take anyone else down."
Without waiting for his agreement, she started to make her way back up the mountain, but they were close enough to the tree line that the snow was really soft and really deep, and a couple of steps were all it took for her to fall in again.
Noah reached for her. "Hold on to me."
Grateful—and more turned on than she could ever remember being with nothing more than a man’s arm wrapped around her waist—she moved back up the mountain with him until they found all four of their skis.
Ignoring his own, he picked up hers and said, "Sit, and I’ll put them on for you."
As the quiet one in school, she’d learned to excel in other ways. Everyone had always told her how capable she was and she’d done her best to live up to their expectations. When was the last time she hadn’t had to take care of everyone else? Even last night with her girlfriends, she’d tucked each of them into their beds, drunk and giggling, before cleaning up the cabin’s kitchen and living room and finally getting to bed herself. For once, it was a pleasure to let someone else take charge for a few minutes.
Watching Noah slide one of her skis into place on her ski boot, she said, "You look like you’ve done that before. Do you have kids?" Her unsaid question, "Or a wife?" hung between them.
"No wife. No kids." He attached her other ski. "But I used to be a ski instructor back in college."
She made a face. "I’m pretty sure the last instructor I took a class from quit."
He gave her that breath-stealing grin again. "I’ve always thrived on a challenge."
What was he saying? Was he offering to spend the day with her?
A fantasy of spending an entire day with Noah, his hot eyes caressing her, his hands on her as he picked her up when she fell, spun through her brain. If she could manage to redeem her earlier performance, would he reward her progress with a kiss? Or more?
Watching her carefully, he said, "All you need to do is listen to your body. It isn’t about the skis or poles or your feet or the mountain. It’s only about you. And how you feel." His seductive words wrapped around her. "I could show you how to do that, Colbie."
"You make it sound so easy," she said in a far less steady voice than she would have liked.
"Not necessarily easy," he countered, "but worth it."
She was tempted, so very tempted to take him up on his offer. But how could she forget what had happened at Christmas with Rob? He’d wanted to spend the weekend at a ritzy ski resort in Colorado and had promised her that it would be no big deal to teach her how to ski well. Of course, after only an hour on the mountain, he’d started cursing when she’d accidentally cut him off and he had to take a nosedive in the snow to avoid crashing into her.
Almost certain that any impromptu lesson with Noah was bound to end the same way, and not at all in the mood to look any more like a fool than she already did, she forced herself to turn him down.
"You came to have a good time today. Not to surmount the insurmountable challenge of teaching me to ski. Besides," she said, grasping for any reason she could find, "I’m here with some girlfriends for the weekend."
He made a show of looking all around her. "Your friends let you go skiing by yourself?"
"Not exactly," she admitted. "I didn’t want to hold them back, so I told them to go on without me to the harder runs."
"Sounds to me like you’ve got the whole day to yourself, Colbie." The way he said her name felt like a heated whisper across her skin. "Let me prove to you that I’m up to the challenge."