by Jo McNally
She took the water and drank deep. It was cold and refreshing. Then she handed it back with a wide grin. “Thanks.” She gestured toward the view. “This made it worth it. I can’t believe I climbed to the top of a mountain!”
He chuckled, his laughter warm and deep. “You didn’t ‘climb’ a mountain. You hiked up a mountain path after I drove halfway up here. And we’re not at the top.” He looked over his shoulder. “But I can get you a little closer to it. Come on.” He took her hand and gave a gentle tug. It felt oddly right to have her hand in his. He led her to the bus-sized boulder and she discovered there was a little path to the side that allowed her, with minimal climbing skills, to scramble to the top of the rock.
“Here,” Nick said, tugging her back to the cliff wall. “From back here if you look out, it’s like you’re standing at the edge of the cliff with nothing below you. Without the risk of falling a few hundred feet down the mountain.”
He was right. If she put her back to the rocks, the boulder was wide enough that it hid the grassy opening and trail, showing nothing but the lake and mountains.
“It’s like flying.” She barely whispered the words, but Nick nodded in agreement.
“That’s what it’s like when you climb a peak. You’re on top of the world, and it feels like no one has ever been there before you.”
There was something magical about standing here, sharing this moment with him.
“You’ve only been here a month—how did you find this amazing little secret up here?”
“It’s not exactly a secret. Blake said it’s a pretty popular spot for the locals, because it’s such an easy walk...” She huffed out a laugh and he grinned. “Easy for the kids who like to climb up here, anyway. They call it the Kissing Rock.”
She didn’t answer right away. Gallant Lake seemed to inspire a lot of romantic names for places. Amanda called Cassie’s apartment a love shack, and now she was standing on the Kissing Rock.
“It’s a stone with a view,” she said. “What makes it a Kissing Rock?”
Nick shrugged, and the movement caused his arm to rub the length of hers, pointing out how close they were standing. She could step away. But she didn’t.
“I guess it’s been called that for generations. People came up here with picnic lunches, and maybe the view, um...inspired them. Or maybe they came up in the evenings and watched the sun setting, like it’s starting to do now, and they were alone at the edge of the world like this...” He looked down at her, his eyes dark and his emotions hidden. Was he pressing more tightly against her? Or was that her leaning in? “And I imagine a young couple might feel their inhibitions disappearing up here. No one would see them. No one would know if they stole a kiss or two.”
They were facing each other now. She wasn’t sure how that happened, but they’d both turned, so it was mutual. The sun was warm. A soft breeze rustled the young leaves in the trees that lined the view toward the lake. There were birds singing, but it felt like silence. Like a warm, safe cocoon of silence and...safety.
...you know in your heart you’re safe with me...
They were so close she could feel the vibration in his chest when he spoke.
“It’s a little like Vegas, I guess. What happens on Kissing Rock stays on Kissing Rock.”
His hands were resting on her waist. How had that happened? And hers were on his biceps. His strong, hard biceps. This was an afternoon for new sensations. First was fun. Then pride. And now? Now she was feeling something she hadn’t felt in...maybe forever. Sure, Don made her want to be with him. He’d paved the way to make it feel inevitable. But she’d never felt this pool of warmth deep in her belly as she flexed her fingers against Nick’s arms and saw his nostrils flare in response. She’d never felt the tingle of excitement that had moved her so close her pelvis brushed across the zipper of his shorts, earning a low, strangled sound from him as his grip tightened on her.
He turned, putting her back to the rocks. Blocking the sun. Blocking everything but this new kind of burn. Not one of pain, but one of need. She whispered his name, and he closed his eyes, holding them tightly closed as if having a battle with himself. She said his name again, and he shook his head. His eyes didn’t open until he started to speak in a voice filled with gravel and deep with emotion.
“This isn’t why I brought you here. I didn’t plan this...” He cupped her cheek with his hand. “There are a hundred ways this can go wrong...”
She rested her hand over his on the side of her face. “I can’t believe you’re the one being timid right now. You.” He smiled at that, but he didn’t make a move. Oh, God, why wasn’t he making a move?
He closed his eyes again, shaking his head slowly. “This is a mistake.” He stepped back, moving his hand away from her face and running it through his own hair. “We’re coworkers. We hardly know each other. We’ve both got baggage. You’re not...”
A chill ran through her veins. Nick didn’t want Cassie. Of course he didn’t. He was a cool, confident ladies’ man, and she wasn’t his type. She was a timid bookworm who jumped and flinched at everything, and big, bold Nick West, hero cop, didn’t want someone like her. Nick wanted a fearless woman who swung from cliffs and rode a mountain bike. A woman who didn’t need self-defense lessons. She straightened and moved out from between him and the rock face.
“Of course. You’re right. I’m sorry.” Damn it to hell, there she went, apologizing again. Apologizing for this mistake. Apologizing for being who she was.
Nick reached for her, but she tugged free, moving to the spot where they’d climbed up onto this stupid Kissing Rock. The sun was getting lower, and they really should get back to the Jeep and back to reality. The reality where she understood her place and knew her limits. She took hold of a small tree and put her foot on a root that had acted like a ladder rung on the way up here. But her heel couldn’t grip that damp, round root the way her toes had earlier. Before she knew it, she was falling, her butt hitting the rock hard and catapulting her forward on her hands and knees on the ground. The fall, and abrupt halt, stunned her into silence. But it had the opposite effect on Nick, who was scrambling down while calling her name and cursing.
“Cassie! Are you okay? Damn it, Cass, say something!” He hit his knees next to her just as she sat back and rubbed the palms of her hands on her jeans, wincing a little. The mud softened her landing, but her wrists were still sore. And her knees. And her butt.
Nick’s hands were running down her arms now, and then her back, before running up her neck and holding her face from each side. “Are you hurt?”
“Other than my pride? I don’t think so.” She gently pushed his hands away, not ready to fall into that temptation trap again. She stood, and he rose with her, one arm around her waist to steady her. The pain in her hip, where she slammed into the rock, made her grimace. “I’m such a klutz. I bet you’ve never seen your mountain climbing buddies do that move. As you know, my hand-eye coordination is subpar at best...”
“Cass, I once missed a cleat on a rock face and fell twenty feet before the rope caught me. But my harness was too loose and I ended up hanging upside down fifty feet in the air, swinging back and forth like a pendulum, with my ass exposed to the whole world.”
She couldn’t help a short laugh. “I would have liked to have seen that.”
“Oh, you can. My buddy caught it all on his phone, and it briefly went viral on the rock climbing forums.” His hand ran down her back, stopping at her hip when she flinched. “Yeah, I thought I saw you bounce off the rock right there. You’ll have a hell of a bruise. Do you think it’s any more than that?”
She took a few steps. She was sore, but that was probably as much from the climb up as from the fall. “I’m good. We should get back before it starts getting dark.” He nodded, but he didn’t head for the trail. Instead, he walked straight to her. She put her hands up and he stopped, his chest brushing aga
inst hers. “Wh-what are you doing?”
He stared at her hard, then slid his arms around her. She didn’t resist when he pulled her up tight to him. “I’m doing what I should have done up on that damn Kissing Rock. Or maybe what I shouldn’t have done. I don’t know. I only know there’s no way in hell I’m leaving this mountain before I’ve kissed you.” Her fingers twisted into his shirt, just to make sure he didn’t change his mind again. He didn’t move, waiting for her consent.
She tugged on his shirt and lifted her chin.
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
And just like that, his lips were on hers. His kiss was firm and commanding. In control without making her feel overpowered. And skilled. Oh, so skilled. She parted her mouth and his tongue was inside her in a flash. She melted against him, trusting him to hold her upright, and he did, with a low growl of approval. Their mouths moved as one, in a dance as seductive as a tango. He took and she gave, then she rose on her toes and took from him, and his fingers gripped her waist and held her there. Her hands were eager to be part of the game and slid up so she could clutch the back of his head. Their teeth clicked together and apart and together again, and it wasn’t enough for her. She wanted more, and she stretched even taller to meet him. To have a moment of control all for herself. As if knowing what she needed, Nick bent his knees, then lifted her up so her head was above his. The kiss never broke, but now she was the one being demanding. She was the one taking over. Her hands cupped his face. He stared up at her with a fire that mirrored hers. Startled, she pulled back.
Nick let her slide slowly down to her feet, his eyes never leaving hers. He kissed her again, but this kiss was different. This wasn’t the experienced player using his skills to leave her legless. This was a kiss with more uncertainty in it, as if he was exploring some new territory where he’d never been before. Tender, cautious and slow. He drifted from her lips to her chin, then down her neck and up to the tender skin below her ear, then back to her lips. She was drunk on him. Drunk on Nick West. And she was hopelessly dependent. Craving her next fix before this one even ended.
Then his lips were gone from hers. He’d set her at arm’s length from him, staring at her in bewilderment, then turning away.
“Holy shit, Cass.” He shook himself as if to shake off whatever spell had come over them both. “What the hell was that?”
“Uh...a kiss?”
“Baby, that was a lot more than just a kiss.”
Baby? Cassie did her best to ignore the endearment. It didn’t seem as if Nick was using it that way anyhow.
He stared at the ground, then looked out to the lake, and the sun lowering beyond it. He kept his back to her.
“We should get back to the truck before it gets dark. Can you walk?”
What just happened? That kiss had seemed electric...until Nick flipped off the switch and pushed her away. But then again, Don always told her she was a boring lover.
“I’m sorry...” Every time she said those words, it burned her. But this time they felt appropriate. Clearly, she’d had a different experience than Nick had. “I’m not very good at that stuff. Kissing. Sex. All of it...none of it...whatever...”
Chapter Eight
Nick stared at Cassie in confusion. What the hell was she apologizing for? She’d just rocked his world with a kiss that would forever raise the bar on any future kisses that came his way. And did she say she wasn’t good at sex? No way did he believe that. Not after a kiss that had him turning away to hide the erection tenting his shorts. If he didn’t get her off this mountain, they’d be joining the decades-long list of couples who’d consummated their relationships on the Kissing Rock. And as much as his body wanted that to happen—right now—Nick knew Cassie deserved better. This wasn’t where or how he wanted it to happen. If it happened. And it probably shouldn’t happen. But damn...
She turned away, her head hung low. He had to fix this, and fast.
“Cassie, I don’t know who the idiot was who told you that you weren’t—” he raised his fingers into air quotes “—‘good at this,’ but he was wrong. Like, really wrong. Like, he couldn’t have been more wrong.” He walked toward her. “Did you not feel how great that was?” How could she not have felt that?
Her cheeks flamed. “I did think it was pretty...great. But then you stopped...”
He chuckled softly. “Uh...I had no choice. It was either put some space between us or embarrass myself like some middle school teen. You had me thinking some very impure thoughts, Cass, and if we’d stayed that close, you would have felt just how strong those thoughts were.”
Her brows furrowed, then rose in surprise.
“Oh...”
Nick wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the color in her cheeks deepened even further.
“Oh!” Her mouth lifted into a slightly proud smile. Damn straight, girl. “Oh. I thought...”
“You thought, once again, that you’d done something wrong. That’s always your first response, isn’t it? Why is that?”
Her smile vanished, and he kicked himself for speaking his thoughts out loud. But instead of avoiding the subject, she looked at him and nodded.
“It’s generally my go-to. I...I had a lot of years of someone telling me I was doing everything wrong. Apologizing becomes habit after a while.” She ran her fingers through her dark hair, smoothing the ponytail that had been mussed from her fall, and then from their kiss. “And you seemed to be...fighting it. Up there...” She glanced up to the top of the rock. “We were so close, and you started listing all the reasons we shouldn’t...”
Nick couldn’t help laughing. “That little speech up there? The list of all the reasons kissing you was a mistake? That was me giving myself a verbal cold shower.” He ran his hands down her arms and caught her hands. “Being that close to you had my blood rushing to places it had no business rushing to. Not in the middle of the day on the side of a mountain. Rattling off that list cooled me down enough to step away and gather my wits.”
He squeezed her hands. “But when you got upset and tumbled down the side of the rock trying to get away from me, I knew ‘space’ wasn’t what I needed. Or at least, it wasn’t what I wanted. But if I thought being close to you was a turn-on, kissing you was... Well, like I said. That was more than chemistry. That was a whole damn laboratory fire going on.”
She held his gaze, and he could see her mind racing and stalling and crashing. Yeah, he should have just kissed her again before she had a chance to overthink things. She swallowed hard.
“But you weren’t wrong... It’s a mistake. We do work together. And we do have baggage. And we don’t know each other that well...”
He let her pull away, sensing her rising panic.
“Now who’s taking the cold shower?” He grinned, and she did her best not to grin back, but failed. He shook his head. “First—I think we know each other pretty well. I’d like to think we’re friends, even. We may not have shared our life stories yet, but that can be remedied over dinner some night. Second—everyone has baggage. That’s an empty excuse. And third—yeah, we work together. But I’m not aware of any rules against fraternization at Randall Resorts International. I’m not your boss, and we didn’t kiss in the office.” He shrugged. “Honestly, so far all we’ve done is have a stellar kissing session at the Kissing Rock. I’d like to have another stellar kissing session with you somewhere else, but that’s your call, Cassie.”
“I... I’m not good at this...” She held up her hand to stop his objection to the way she always put herself down. “That’s not self-pity, Nick. I mean I’m not...experienced...at dating, or relationships, or kissing guys on mountains. I don’t know how to navigate what happens next.”
“Okay. Executive decision time.” He took her hand and tucked it in the crook of his arm. They headed for the trail. “Let’s stop worrying and get away from this damn rock. What happens at the r
ock, stays at the rock and all that.” Cassie snorted in laughter. He liked all her laughs, even the snorting ones, so he kept lying to her. “No, really. No one has to know, and our friendship doesn’t have to change. On Monday, we’ll have a normal day at work, and a normal gym session afterward, like today never happened. And if one of us decides we need to pursue this—whatever this is—we’ll discuss it like adults. Deal?”
She glanced his way quickly, careful to also watch where she was stepping as they went down the trail. He wasn’t fooling anyone. Nothing would be the same between them, and the thought made him sad. He’d enjoyed the teasing and fun they’d shared. Watching Cassie gain new confidence and strength as they worked out together. He didn’t want to lose that. As tempting as it was to pursue more kisses, or perhaps more than just kissing, he didn’t like the thought of anything changing their existing relationship.
“Of course. That makes sense.” She was playing along. “Nothing needs to change... Oh!” She stumbled on the trail, but Nick caught her waist and kept her upright, resisting the sudden and unexpected urge to pull her into his arms, bury his hands in her hair and kiss her senseless.
Bad idea... Too complicated...baggage...coworker...
“Exactly. Nothing needs to change. Nothing at all.”
* * *
“Cassie-girl, where are you this morning? Nora called your name three times to tell you your cappuccino is ready.”
Cathy set the foam-topped mug in front of Cassie on the window table inside the Gallant Brew. “Is everything okay? You haven’t heard from Don...?”
“No, Aunt Cathy. It’s not that. I’m just tired. I overdid things a bit yesterday.”
That was the understatement of the century. She’d not only agreed to hike Gallant Mountain with Nick West, she’d also kissed the man. More than once. And she’d liked it. A lot. Definitely overdone.
