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She inclined her head as she dragged her thumb along the side of Lydia’s hand, and her breath caught at the way Lydia’s eyes fluttered prettily at the caress. She squeezed Lydia’s hand gently, the touch as beseeching as the pitch of her voice as she asked, “Can I get you a drink?”

Her pulse pounded in her ears as she waited for Lydia’s response. This was so much more than attraction—it was like every cell in her body was vibrating with the needed to know this breathtakingly beautiful woman.

Lydia’s smile turned almost shy as she nodded. “I’d like that.”

When Lydia had come over to the main house after dropping her bags off, it had been with the intention of unwinding with a drink and enjoying the view while waiting for Eve and Aspen to arrive so she could say hello before politely excusing herself to go back to her room for the night. She knew that Eve wouldn’t have minded if she’d blown off this little welcome cocktail party and just gone to sleep like she absolutely ached to do, but Michael wouldn’t be getting in until the morning, and it had seemed wrong for her—as Eve’s other honor attendant—to not put in an appearance since she was here.

Of course, she’d forgotten all about all of that the moment she’d laid eyes on Zann, and now here she was, three hours and several drinks later, curled up on an outdoor sofa that was just barely big enough for two. The exhaustion that had been her constant companion for the last few months had disappeared, replaced by a glorious, electric buzz the moment Zann had first taken her hand, making her feel like she could go without sleep for the rest of her life.

“Backcountry skiing is, like, the complete opposite of their training,” Zann said as she leaned forward to put her empty glass onto the edge of the fire pit, “but when I offered them the chance to heli-ski, they totally jumped at it.”

Lydia had kicked off her heels not long after they’d claimed the small sofa by the fire pit, and she tucked her right leg under herself as she pulled her left knee up to her chest to rest her chin atop it as she listened. She knew how to ski, but didn’t really follow the sport at a competitive level, and the insight she was gleaning into that world, paired with Zann’s perspective of capturing it from a filmography angle, was fascinating. Zann was a natural storyteller, but for as captivating as her stories were, they had nothing on the hushed, smoky timbre of her voice or the way her eyes danced with an ethereal energy as she spoke so passionately about her projects.

“So,” Zann continued as she settled back into the sofa, “Aspen drops Hans and Geoff off at the top of Mount Hayden with Brigid Keane and Henriette Aubert, and while they’re plotting their course, I rig myself into a harness so I can hang out the side of the ‘copter to get the aerial shot of their run.”

“You didn’t want to ski the Hayden couloir with two Olympians?”

“Oh, I wanted to,” Zann admitted, her variegated ochre eyes crinkling with her wry grin. “But I also very much enjoy, you know, not dying, so…”

Lydia arched a brow in surprise. When Zann had started telling her about how she’d spent the last year following two Olympic skiers in their preparation for the Games, she’d assumed that Zann had a personal affection for the sport. Why else would she dedicate twelve months of her life to documenting something so niche? “Wait, so you’re not a skier?”

“Not like that,” Zann chuckled as she rifled a hand through her hair.

Lydia’s stomach fluttered as she tracked the way the long, onyx strands slipped slowly through Zann’s fingers, and she bit her lip against a fresh flare of attraction. She’d known more than her fair share of beautiful women, but Zann was downright ethereal with her expressive eyes, full lips, and a jawline and cheekbones so sculpted that models surely cried with envy when they saw her.

The quirk of Zann’s brow suggested she was perfectly aware of the effect she was having on her, and, figuring that two could play this game, Lydia made a show of slowly licking her lips as she reached out to touch her arm. She smiled as Zann’s pulse jumped visibly in her throat and dragged a finger over the defined line of her forearm. They had very purposefully not touched since their initial handshake, and she gasped as the heat of Zann’s skin spread up her arm and down her chest to coil in a molten, expectant pool low in her belly.

She was no stranger to wanting or being wanted, but this was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

It was fucking intoxicating.

The electricity in the air around them became more pronounced as Zann’s gaze dropped to her lips, and she licked them again reflexively as if preparing to be kissed.

A low, almost pained sound cracked in Zann’s throat, and her chest lifted and fell with a purposeful breath as she dragged her dark, dark eyes back to Lydia’s. Her throat bobbed once, twice as she re-centered herself, and when she spoke again, her voice was shadowed and rough in a way that made Lydia think of silk sheets and sweaty, tangled limbs. “What was I saying?”

Lydia smiled and stroked the tip of her middle finger along the crease of Zann’s wrist, delighting in the shiver that rolled through Zann’s body at the caress. “Skiing,” she prompted as she pulled her hand away.

“I…” Zann’s gaze dropped to where Lydia had just touched her. “Damn.” She blinked as she looked back up at her. “Skiing. Yeah.” Her chest lifted and fell with a purposeful breath. “I…” She huffed a laugh. “I can do the blacks at most resorts, so I’m not bad, but I’m nowhere near good enough to even consider tackling that steep of a chute, let alone with a camera.”

“That’s—”

“A very special kind of stupid,” Zann finished for her with a grin. “But, thankfully, Hans and Geoff are precisely that brand of stupid—which is why I brought them onto the project in the first place—so we were able to get some insane ground-level shots as well as the aerial. Anyway, once the sun got high enough that we had good light to film, I gave the guys the okay to hit it. Aspen and I pulled back to circle as Hans dropped into the chute to get a spot about halfway down to shoot from, and once he was in position, we ran it. Everything was going great until this monster blast of wind kicked up out of nowhere, knocked me sideways, and my foot slipped right off the skid.”

Lydia sucked in a sharp breath.

“So, it was a good thing I had the harness, because now I’ve got one knee on the deck of the helicopter, my other leg literally dangling in mid-fucking-air, and I’m doing everything I can to hold my camera steady because they were only halfway down the chute and I wasn’t willing to waste a take.” Laughter danced in Zann’s eyes. “Meanwhile, Aspen was properly freaking the fuck out because she, and I quote, ‘doesn’t have insurance for this fuckery!’ and I was just glad that I wasn’t running sound because I was cackling like a madwoman.” She shrugged. “You know, as you do when things have gone completely sideways but everything’s also still kinda working, and your buddy is not-so-quietly losing her ever-loving shit.”

“I…” Lydia shook her head. She could appreciate the need to laugh in the face of danger, but still… “To be fair to Aspen, I’m pretty sure that I would’ve been losing my shit, too. So what happened?”

“They finished the run, Aspen took us down slowly, and I got my ass back upright.” Zann grimaced. “Strained my groin, though, so that sucked. It hurt to walk for weeks afterward.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, then we threw everyone back in Aspen’s bird and took off for another peak.”

“That’s insane.”

“It was definitely one for the books,” Zann agreed with a roguish, far-too-charming smile. “Oh…”

Lydia straightened at the way Zann’s smile turned adorably sheepish as her gaze cut to a point just off her shoulder. “Wha—”

“Hey, Stella,” Zann said. “What’s up?”