Descent Read online

  Fran nudged Caroline in the side. “What?”

  “Go talk to her.” Fran nodded toward a woman sitting at the end of the bar.

  “Who?”

  “Who, hell, Caroline. The woman over there you can’t stop looking at.” Fran lifted her head and nodded in the direction of the woman sitting three tables away. She had long blond hair, and what drew Caroline’s attention were the firm, tanned limbs jetting out from cutoff jeans and a yellow tank top. God, she loved summer in the Rockies.

  “Go on.” Fran nudged her.

  “I’m not leaving you here. We came to have a drink, not for me to pick up a woman.” Caroline took another sip of her water. The woman was striking, Caroline thought as she glanced over quickly. “And for God’s sake, Fran,” Caroline looked at her watch, “it’s three in the afternoon.”

  “You’re here, she’s here, who gives a shit what time it is? I’d dump you in a heartbeat if I had someone like that looking at me like I was dessert.”

  “What are you talking about?” Caroline looked up as the bartender placed another bottle of water in front of her.

  “You know what I mean. I’ve dumped you on more than one occasion in just this situation when some guy caught my fancy. And she’s looking at you as much as you are looking at her and you both know it. I’m a big girl. I can find my way home. Now go.”

  Fran elbowed her off the stool. Caroline had a decision to make. She could either go over and introduce herself or be harassed by Fran for weeks about this missed opportunity. The last thing she wanted was the latter and she wasn’t sure she was up to the former. It had been a long time since she had started a conversation with a total stranger and even longer since she had been touched by one. Fran was right; she did need a time-out from the nonstop training schedule she had been on. Maybe a little R&R would give her the break she needed before the long trek of events began. Once the first race began, it would be nothing but pressure and competition for the next twelve weeks. The woman looked her way, and even though Caroline was out of practice, there was no mistaking the look of invitation in the woman’s eyes. Caroline didn’t need to be asked twice.

  *

  “Shit,” Shannon exclaimed into the neck of the woman in front of her. It was her favorite word when she couldn’t think of anything else, and the way her orgasm had just rocketed from the tip of her toes through the top of her head, there was nothing else she could think of. Jackie was every bit as adventurous as Shannon had hoped she would be.

  A few minutes earlier when Jackie rounded the corner of the trail, Shannon stepped out from behind a wide pine tree and without saying a word they both disappeared into the thick forest. They had only gone about thirty yards when Shannon was grabbed from behind and pushed up against a large boulder. In an instant one hand was under her shirt, the other inside her bike shorts, and warm, wet lips were on her neck.

  She was more than ready, having thought about taking the ride operator out here in the open, under the bright sunshine. Outdoor sex was her favorite and the anticipation had her primed. Jackie had an exquisite mouth and talented fingers. She licked, sucked, and fondled Shannon until she exploded and fell limp, squeezed between Jackie and the hard rock. She let herself be taken away a second time and a third before stilling Jackie’s hand with her own. Between the high altitude and the blazing orgasms, Shannon’s head spun. She gave herself a few moments to enjoy the sensation then, catching up quickly, had Jackie’s shirt over her head and her shorts down around her knees in seconds.

  She reversed their positions pinning Jackie to the smooth face of the rock. She didn’t waste any time on kissing her, but went straight for the luscious breasts that had tormented her thoughts during the eighteen-minute ride to the top of the mountain. She licked and sucked her way around one large breast, then the other without touching the erect nipples. Jackie grabbed her hair and pulled her closer.

  Shannon concentrated on evading the tempting peak and slid down her body planting hard kisses and quick nips on the exposed flesh. She was tempted to linger and tease Jackie’s clitoris, but when she realized that her entire pubis area was fully exposed, she could not stop the overwhelming desire to bury her tongue in the pale flesh.

  Jackie willingly spread her legs allowing Shannon the access she wanted. She opened her eyes and looked up. Jackie’s hands were on her own breasts, her head thrown back as if worshiping the sun riding high in the cloudless sky. Shannon’s own desire sparked again as she devoured the scent and taste of Jackie. In a matter of minutes, Jackie grabbed the back of her head and shuddered against her mouth. Shannon tasted the orgasm and with her own trembling hand brought herself to climax again.

  Chapter Three

  Caroline woke in her own bed with only a vague recollection how she got there. It was still dark and she sat up to see the clock. “Three a.m.? Oh God.” She flopped back on the hard mattress. Her mouth tasted like tissue paper, and when she climbed out of bed, the muscles in her normally flexible legs talked back to her.

  Paula? Paulette? Pauline? Caroline struggled for the name of the woman who, over the course of more hours than she could remember, had fucked her senseless. She stepped over her dog Max and stumbled into the bathroom. She didn’t know what she needed more, to pee or take two aspirin. Necessity and Mother Nature forced the former and she tried to push the aching muscles to the back of her mind.

  She had started riding as a way to lose weight when she was in her early teens and had fallen in love with the freedom she felt careening down the mountainside. She missed the early days of riding simply for the sheer joy of it. Exploring bike paths, making her own trails in the deserts of Phoenix, the mountains of Moab or Monument Valley. Every ride was an adventure, an investigation of the terrain, the challenge to her body. And it was her body that reminded her that she had been taken on a very different physical adventure yesterday afternoon.

  Paulie, yes, that was it. Paulie had quickly agreed to a game of pool, a drink, another drink, and an early dinner. Caroline was dessert. Or was it Paulie that was dessert? She certainly was a tasty treat even without the whipped cream she offered to pull out of the fridge. They had spent the remaining hours after dinner and before midnight doing almost everything imaginable to each other. At least Caroline thought it was everything. She knew what went where and why, but Paulie had surprised her a few times. She would have to remember those moves for future reference. Not with Paulie of course; that was definitely a one-time thing. But she would keep that technique and new skill in the back of her mind for when the right opportunity came up.

  She dropped back into bed for the few more hours of sleep she needed and when her alarm went off at six, she cussed at it. She shuffled into the shower and under the hard, hot spray. She racked her mind to remember what she had to do that day. Riding was a given but there was something she needed too. Note cards! That was it. Her supply of note cards was getting dangerously low and she would have to stop off at OfficeMax on the way to the library.

  Caroline was in the final stages of preparing to defend her dissertation on supernova-driven interstellar turbulence and she found that by outlining her main research points on large index cards, she could better organize her thoughts. She knew the data like she knew every bend and dip on her favorite downhill trail, but she was nervous. This was the big time. Her future would be set when she received her Ph.D. in astrophysics. She was going to work for NASA. It was a dream she had since the first time she looked into the sky with the cheap telescope her father bought her for Christmas. Now, after almost twenty years of school, the last seven at Columbia University, everything she had ever worked for was within her grasp.

  She was scheduled to stand before a committee of the faculty only three weeks after the final race in the championship series. The actual date she had been given was out of her control. The committee had determined the date and she could either accept or decline. By declining, she would have to reapply and if accepted wait an additional year before the committee m
et again. Her hands were tied and she had to make the best of it. It would be difficult to concentrate on both her thesis and her races, but Caroline was bound and determined to finish both of these chapters in her life at the top.

  *

  Shannon ripped open the envelope with the familiar return address of Mount Holyfield Academy embossed in the thick white paper. MHA, as the students called it, was one of the most prestigious girls’ boarding schools in Connecticut. Acceptance was limited to two hundred each year and it had been widely rumored that the daughters of several presidents had been denied admission. Shannon knew how she had received one of the coveted slots, but hadn’t really thought about her school years in, well, years.

  Christian and Virginia Roberts were the richest of the rich in Palm Beach. Christian was lucky enough to be born into wealth while his wife was skilled enough to marry into it. Shannon was their only child and they provided her with everything. Every earthly thing money could buy, that is. Everything except love.

  Her parents didn’t know how to love unconditionally. They had not grown up in warm, loving households, but had been raised by a series of nannies and governesses. Her mother had gone to MHA and it was without question her daughter would as well.

  Shannon rebelled against the confinement money placed on her. She hated the parties, events, and vacations she had been forced to attend that bored the ever-living hell out of her. The clothes her mother wore were starched within an inch of their life. The dresses were made of only the finest fabric, and her shoes the latest style direct from the runways in Paris. Elizabeth had dressed Shannon in her image the first four years of her life, but it was on her fifth birthday when Shannon strode into the room in a pair of the most expensive pants she had cut off at the knees. She remembered the look on her mother’s face and wasn’t sure if it was shock for what her child had done or the embarrassment her child caused. Either way, Shannon ceased to be the apple of her mother’s eye.

  A crisp invitation detailing her ten-year reunion gave Shannon a paper cut. While she sucked the small slit in her finger, she read the information that invited her to dine, reminisce, and reconnect with her fellow alumni. And cough up money, she thought to herself. At least three times a year MHA tracked her down and attempted to guilt her into contributing money to the school. Her parents had doled out enough of their cash while she was there, and Shannon saw no reason why she should after she left. Her education there was done. She had no intention of attending the two-day event.

  The invitation and the rest of her mail still in her hand, Shannon detoured into the spare bedroom she had converted to an office. She’d bought the cabin four years ago and it was pretty much in the same condition as when she unlocked the door after getting the keys. It was small by Big Bear Lake standards. The house itself was only two thousand square feet, sitting in the middle of half an acre of prime lakefront property. She hadn’t done anything to the interior other than hang a picture here and there. The solid wood floors were covered in throw rugs that she had literally thrown on the floor. They were called throw rugs for a reason, she had told one of her many overnight guests.

  Two stripped bike frames, a dozen wheels minus their tires, several boxes of components, and a variety of other biking gear created an obstacle course Shannon stepped around before she reached a crowded bookshelf. It took several minutes for her to find what she was looking for—a thin, hardbound book a little larger than a legal pad at the bottom of a pile of other, much smaller books. Shannon loved to read and saved practically every book she had read. Every wall in the room was filled with bookcases containing hundreds of books ranging from lesbian fiction to the supernatural to home repair manuals.

  The book weighed very little and just looking at the image of the majestic eagle soaring over a mountain filling the cover brought back memories. Shannon plopped into the worn recliner in the corner and hesitated before opening the dusty cover. She shouldn’t, she told herself. Don’t go down memory lane without a map. Or at least a plan to get back out. Ignoring her inner voice, she opened the book to the familiar page.

  The picture of Caroline was so clear it was as if Shannon was looking at the real thing. A baseball cap pulled low on her head partially obscured her face but not enough that you couldn’t see the twinkle of mischief in the dark eyes, the slight scar above the left eyebrow, a freckle just below her right cheekbone. She was laughing, her teeth perfectly straight and blistering white. Shannon knew Caroline’s hair was shoulder length, but in this picture it was pulled back and through the opening in the back. This time the soaring eagle was embroidered on the front of the cap.

  The picture didn’t do her justice. Actually, since her picture was with all the other graduating seniors she was really more a young woman than a girl. A very sexy, sensuous woman. And all woman. Staring back at Shannon was her first real girlfriend. Not one of the girls she had fiddled around with in the backseat of a car or the last row in a movie theater. Each time they were together it was as if one moment she was floating on air, then riding a roller coaster the next. Shannon remembered how completely out of her mind she was for Caroline. She thought about her when they weren’t together, and the last thing at night, and when they were able to sneak away for some together time, she was totally focused on her and only her.

  Shannon often thought she was in love with her. She was a girl with the perfect family, the knockout body, and the intelligence to match. But she also scared the holy hell out of her. Caroline challenged her in ways Shannon didn’t think possible. She made her think and stretch her imagination. She made it safe for Shannon to dream. The sex was incredible, as sex is when you’re seventeen, but it was everything else about her that drove Shannon to carelessness when it came to her. That same carelessness was how she felt going down the mountain with nothing between her and the jagged rocks and trees below but her skill and nerve.

  Shannon had tried not to think about Caroline over the years. Their paths intersected more often than she cared but not as much as they could have. She competed on the European circuit while Caroline had remained on the American tour. When their schedules did coincide, by some unspoken agreement, they were both careful not to cross too closely. What would she say if they had? What would she say to Caroline Davis if she really took the chance?

  Chapter Four

  The plane touched down in Montreal forty-five minutes late. Caroline grabbed her backpack from under the seat in front of her and prepared to wait while the other one hundred eighty-nine passengers jockeyed for position in the narrow aisle. She could understand those that had to make connections and, thankfully, she wasn’t one of them. After almost six hours of traveling she wasn’t quite to her final destination of the first race of the series but was close enough to still be in a hurry.

  When the crowd thinned Caroline stood, careful not to bang her head on the overhead compartment. She had done that twice on this trip; the second time a nasty curse shot out of her mouth before she had a chance to stop it.

  After stopping at the ladies room, Caroline followed the signs to baggage claim. The carousel for her flight had not yet started to spin, and her fellow passengers were standing three deep in anticipation of their bags passing within reach. She heard her name being called and turned to see a man in his twenties dressed in cargo shorts and a T-shirt with the phrase “I went down on Mount Brome” in red letters across his impressive chest. He was holding a handmade sign with her last name on it, signaling to Caroline he was her ride.

  “Over here, I’m Caroline Davis,” she called after raising her hand. The look on the man’s face turned from one of bored acceptance to immediate interest. Caroline cringed. She had seen that look many times. At five foot five inches, her muscular body caught more than her share of attention from both sexes. Sometimes she was flattered, proud of what her hard work had produced, and other times she was just plain disinterested. Since the looker was a six foot male, this was definitely one of those times. The forty-five-minute drive to the m
ountain was going to feel much longer than that.

  “ Mademoiselle Davis, bienvenue à Montréal. Je suis votre pilote Jacque. Welcome to Montreal. I am Jacque, your driver.” He repeated in English with more than a touch of a French accent.

  “Thank you,” Caroline replied. Her French was practically nonexistent, but she had picked up on his greeting. When she replied, his eyes betrayed his interest and she groaned to herself. The last thing she needed was to have to dodge a suitor.

  “Let me take that for you,” he said in English. “Do you have other bags?”

  “Yes, I have two and a bicycle carrier.”

  A voice overhead told the waiting crowd that their luggage was now available on carousel twelve. A moment later a buzzer sounded and bags of all sizes and colors started spitting out of the conveyor belt tumbling onto the circling carousel.

  “Mine are blue hard case with stickers of bikes on them.” Caroline had learned early in her traveling career to make her bags as distinct as possible. It never ceased to amaze and irritate her when people could not identify their own luggage. She shook her head as a man practically took out several other waiting passengers while attempting to read the small luggage tag on a bag as it passed by.

  “There is one of them,” Jacque said drawing her attention back to the luggage moving by. He stepped forward and retrieved her suitcase, lifting it as if it were filled with feathers instead of her biking gear. No matter how little she packed, her helmet, knee pads, shin guards, and chest protector took up most of the room and she needed two bags to contain all her gear. Jacque snagged the second bag.

  “We must go to the other side for your bicycle carrier, mademoiselle. The oversize bags are not delivered here.”

  “Yes, I know,” she snapped more sharply than she intended and immediately softened her voice. “It’s over there, isn’t it?” She pointed to the far side of the baggage claim area. God, she was irritable. Maybe she needed a nap, or a good night’s sleep. Maybe she just needed to stop thinking about Shannon Roberts. But that was easier said than done as she scanned every face in the area for the one that had tormented and teased her dreams for years.