Barree's Blades: The Olympic Series - Book Two

By Patrizia Murray

It’s a long hard road to the Olympics for skater Barree LeDuc. When she meets Ramsey Gibbons, an arrogant bobsledder also on the road to the Olympics, they have to balance training and performance schedules, as well as the contempt each feels for the other’s sport. Ramsey thinks figure skating is too prissy and pretty to really be considered a sport, while Barree tells Ramsey that running, pushing a bobsled, then jumping in and riding to the bottom of a hill hardly constitutes any athletic endeavor. After all, she has been training for this since she was two years old. Ramsey picked up his so-called sport only a couple of years ago. How can that compare with her lifetime of training? In the meantime, sparks are flying between them off the ice, on the road to the next Olympic Games, so what are they going to do about it?

The drama increases by the addition of Gus to Barree’s performances, and you have the perfect triangle which could derail all their chances for Gold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrizia Murray
• Release date: Nov 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310030673

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Barree’s Blades

The Olympic Series: Book Two

Patrizia Murray

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Barree’s Blades

Copyright © 2014 by Patrizia Murray

First E-book Publication: May 2014

Cover design by Bella Media Management

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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Dedicated to Family, who indulge my writing, without understanding it or making judgments on the inner workings of my mind, and the Ladies who Lunch.

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Acknowledgements

Valley of the Sun Romance Writers of America, Glendale Chocolate Affair, and readers of like minds to mine.

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Chapter 1 - Qualifying Round

Ramsey Gibbons was fascinated with the lithe, graceful sprite that was Barree LeDuc. She mesmerized him every time she was on the ice, while he did his warmups and stretches in the Elite Athlete lounge. She was beautiful, yes. However, the ethereal look about her as she sped around the ice rink, spinning, jumping, turning, stretching upward, or backward, spreading her legs and gracefully moving her arms and body, made him hard every time he saw her.

He was not too tall, but broad shouldered and very strong, muscular looking with a hard body most women went wild over, and most men envied. He worked hard every day to keep his body in shape like that, but although other girls looked at him with stars in their eyes, Barree never gave him a second glance. He continued stretching, eying her from each position. His ripped sweat pants had dinosaur tracks from his college team, up one leg, and had certainly seen better days. The sleeveless t-shirt showed off his beautiful frame, as well as some black tribal tattoos circling his biceps and the dino footprint inked on his pec right below the five colored Olympic rings.

Today, Barree was dressed in a red track suit, which covered up her spectacular legs. She wore it whenever she started until she had warmed up enough to discard it. The pants always came off first, so he could see what kind of body suit she had on today. Once she warmed up more, off would come the top, and he could see all of her; that is, all that wasn’t covered by the skin tight suit.

Once in a while, she was trying out a new costume to see how it bent and flowed with her leaps and crossovers, and that was the real treat. Then he could see her skin and how her figure filled out the tiny dress, and those were the times he cemented his feelings for her. Yes, he would have her, no matter what.

He couldn’t make himself look away. The lounge wasn’t the ideal place for him to stretch, but he couldn’t make himself do his stretches and warmups in the gym or even at the bobsled venue, because that would mean he didn’t get to look at Barree at all. Damn. One of these days she’s going to figure out that there’s no real reason for me to be here. She’s going to think I’m a crazed stalker, and maybe I am. I need to get up the nerve to talk to her, but I keep hearing everyone call her the Ice Queen. She doesn’t have any friends, never comes to the parties, just seems to work on her skating all the time.

Ramsey had read her Facebook page, and had devoured everything he could find on the internet about her life, her dancing, her skating, the competitions, but not a word was there about her private life. No boyfriends, no hobbies, no education beyond high school and some correspondence courses she was taking that would some day lead to a college degree. She was young, maybe even too young for him, but he didn’t care about that. Age is just a non-essential number.

He saw her sometimes in the gym too, but the more he watched her, the more he wanted her. She was like a drug. He loved everything about her from her dark hair, usually caught up in a pony tail or a bun, or sometimes a braid, down to her brown sugar eyes, the creamy skin that tended toward tanned, the slightly more than a handful boobs, the pert little skater’s bum with its well developed glutes; hell, even her knees were sexy. It’s amazing that she exercises so much and doesn’t get muscle bound like those body builders you see on TV. Her body just gets sexier and sexier the more she works at her skating.

Ramsey knew that she knew he was there. He heard her talking to some of the other skaters about art versus muscles. The skaters always felt that what they did was art and sport rolled into one. They had little regard for sports that only used muscle, such as bobsledding. He knew that bobsledders were the bottom of the pole in terms of beauty. How much beauty could there be in ducking your head down inside a tin can going a hundred miles an hour? If it wasn’t an Olympic sport, it would be relegated to Disneyland. In fact, he knew that most bobsled tracks offered rides to the public so they could experience a much slower, safer, and watered down version of what he did on a daily basis.

How embarrassing! They certainly couldn’t give the public a skating experience, now, could they, unless it was just to skate in circles or something like that. You could do that anywhere. You didn’t need an Olympic venue to skate.

If skating was beautiful, then bobsledding was scientific. The runners, the bodies of the sleds, the traction shoes, the angles of the turns, it was all part of that ‘faster, higher, stronger’ part of the Olympic slogan. People worked relentlessly on perfecting the best shape of sled, the best kind of runners, the shiniest paint that wouldn’t catch even a puff of wind resistance, even the least wind resistant body suits they wore. It was science at its best, no beauty about it.

The thrill of steering down a narrow track, with danger at every turn, was something few people ever got to experience, at least not at the level and speed that Ramsey did. Sometimes he felt the ride tighten up his chest, his balls and his dick so that the descent was more like an orgasm than anything else.

He wondered if skaters ever felt like they were having an orgasm when they executed a jump or a turn. He thought not. Maybe he’d get a chance to ask Barree if he ever got his head out of his ass and asked her for a date. He wasn’t sure yet if he really wanted to try explaining to someone as close minded about his sport as the skaters were, exactly what he did and why it was important to the team. If she was that obtuse about bobsledding, maybe she wasn’t the kind of woman he should be hanging out with anyhow. But the lure of that compact little body and that gorgeous face were just about more than he could take, and he had a massive hard on more often than not.

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Barree had noticed the big bobsledder watching her. I suppose he’s attractive, if you like the type. Always needs a haircut, clothes that look like they’re due for the rummage sale, neat tattoos that I might like to have a closer look at. But no way am I letting him know I’ve noticed him. I bet he has an ego as big as the moon. I haven’t got time for men and all their demands and needs. I just wish he wasn’t so close all the time. He gives me shivers when he looks at me. I wonder why that is?

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Chapter 2 - Baubles, Bangles, Beads, and Sequins

Barree looked over the flimsy little outfit she planned to wear. It was only half sewn together, so it was a little difficult to imagine what the finished product would look like. This was a new seamstress for her, and she had to ensure that the woman understood her exacting needs. She spoke to the seamstress, but at the same time, organized the thoughts in her head. She approached costumes as she did skating. Everything she did, wore, or thought was aimed at creating the