She started slowly, a little unsure during her first rotation around the square arena. He watched her pick up speed with more than a little apprehension, switching directions as she moved.
Forward.
Backward.
Forward.
Backward.
He lost track of time as he stood beside the rink, his grip on the wooden, waist-high wall so strong that the blood was leaving his fingers.
“Christ!” he rasped as he watched Tessa leap into the air in graceful splits. He gulped in a breath, not releasing the air in his lungs until she’d landed safely.
His eyes never left her mesmerizing movements as all thoughts of skating to her rescue left his brain. She didn’t need him. She’d once been the world’s best figure skater, and she was quickly regaining her confidence. Her skills hadn’t gone anywhere. They’d just lain dormant until this very moment, and he felt pretty damn lucky just to be an observer.
She moved as if she was going through one of her routines, substituting easier moves for some of the more complicated jumps that had likely been part of her program. Micah caught a glimpse of her face as she sped by him, her skin glowing, her expression euphoric and expressive.
Tessa was born to perform, but the opportunity had been taken away from her too damn soon. She’d told him that she’d been training to do the next Olympics as the defending gold medalist when she’d lost her hearing. Unfortunately, she’d never had that chance to defend her title.
Flowing back into the center of the ice, Tessa literally became a blur of movement as she started to spin faster and faster before finally coming to an abrupt stop, her beautiful body holding a graceful pose for one breathtaking moment before she lowered her arms.
“I did it. I can do it.” She was panting as she spoke.
Micah could hear her words from the sideline, and he wondered at the amazement in her voice. Had she been convinced that she couldn’t skate? A person didn’t lose those kinds of skills. Tessa—Theresa Sullivan—had been ice-skating since she could walk, and the training during her adolescence and young adulthood had been intense.
He applauded as Tessa bowed elegantly, but he stopped as she dropped to her knees, her hands over her face.
She’s crying.
He jumped onto the ice and breached the distance between them in an instant, dropping down in front of her, completely oblivious to the freezing cold of the ice beneath his knees. “Tessa. What the hell happened?” he asked urgently even though she couldn’t hear him, trying to move her hands from her face.
Loud, heart-wrenching sobs filled the air, and Micah felt his heart hammering in alarm. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she wailed, her shoulders rising and falling as she continued to release her emotions. “I did it, Micah. I skated,” she answered tearfully, finally removing her hands from her face, resting them on her thighs. “I heard the music in my head. I still remember it.”
“Of course you did, sweetheart. You were amazing,” Micah told her soothingly, fucking relieved that she wasn’t injured.
He was taken aback as she threw herself into his arms with wild abandon and continued to cry.
Recovering quickly, he wrapped his arms around her, sheltering her while years of uncertainty and fear were sobbed out on his shoulder.
Micah shuddered. He might be an asshole, but there was no way he could be unmoved by watching a woman like Tessa cry like years of emotional tension were being expelled from her body, in tears of happiness and incredulous relief.
“Thank you,” she choked out between sobs.
He stroked her hair, knowing they were probably the two sweetest words he’d ever heard.
CHAPTER 4
Eventually, Tessa stopped blubbering like an idiot, but she didn’t leave the safety of Micah’s arms. Her entire body was trembling, and it had been so damn difficult to force herself to get back on the ice. But once there, she’d never felt anything more magical.
Her body had taken over, following the sequence of movements that must have been ingrained in her psyche. It hadn’t really been necessary to think much about what she’d been doing. All she’d had to do was listen to the music in her head and skate.
She relaxed against Micah’s hard, well-defined body, savoring the feel of his powerful muscles against her softer form. The sense of connection between them made her release a contented sigh. Her world might be silent, but all the rest of her senses were on high alert.
Micah smelled like rough, male temptation, and he felt like sensual sin. What was just a comforting hug to him was something far different for her.
Don’t even think about it, Tessa. Micah Sinclair is just a friend.
Finally, she pulled back to look at him. “I think I can do this. I’d need to practice the more complicated jumps, and somehow I need to know I’m matching the music in my head to the recording that’s playing, but I don’t think it’s impossible. I’ll just need to make up signals that somebody can give me from the sideline to keep me on track with the music.”
He grinned at her, an unruly lock of hair on his forehead making him appear more carefree than she’d seen him since he’d arrived in Amesport. “Almost nothing is impossible,” he replied.
“Maybe for you,” she answered teasingly.
Some of the things Micah had done in the past just to prove they weren’t insurmountable feats made her heart clench. She’d watched the TV breathlessly as Micah and his well-known team of elite skydivers had performed stunts that had never been attempted before, and she’d breathed a sigh of relief as each one of them finally landed on solid ground. In his younger days, it had seemed that his sole objective had been to set world records, and many of them had still never been broken. There weren’t many crazy things that hadn’t been done in the past by one of the richest and well-known daredevils in the world: Micah Sinclair.