Rule Breaker

by Joanne Rock

  Cursing himself for getting distracted by his attraction to her, he shifted back to professional mode. Her safety came first.

  “I’m going to work fast, okay?” He didn’t want to surprise her by manhandling her, but he also didn’t want to linger outside his own sleeping bag given that the temperature was probably hovering around fifteen degrees.

  She nodded uncertainly, her blue eyes locked on him.

  Getting to his knees, he leaned over her to retrieve his coat. Then, he wrapped one arm far enough around her to lift her shoulders. With his other hand, he tugged the corner of the sleeping pad back where it belonged, trying not to notice her soft curves pressed against his chest for one delicious moment. Once he had that smoothed out, he felt along the zipper near her shoulder until he found the drawstring and gave it a tug. The puffy down closed in around her face, leaving just her eyes, nose and highly kissable mouth visible.

  Finally, just when the chill was starting to really bite through his clothes, he laid his coat over her and retreated to his own sleeping bag. He burrowed down fast, zipping up the fabric all the way.

  “You must be freezing.” Her gaze tracked his movements in a way he welcomed.

  That flattering caress of her eyes was the only thing keeping the cold at bay now.

  “The temperature has definitely dropped a few degrees,” he admitted. “I’m going to wait a minute before I turn off the light.” He wanted his arms to warm up first.

  “You should take your coat back.” She lifted her head a bit as she turned to look at him since her peripheral vision was impeded by the bag. It made her look like a mummy.

  “I have a better idea.” He didn’t want her to give up the coat. “If we share it, we’ll both be warmer.”

  “Okay.” She nodded her assent.

  “Just until the chill goes away,” he assured her, already warmer at the thought of holding her against him.

  “Of course.” Her breath huffed out in a cloud between them. “I’m not worried about anything...more happening when we’re on the verge of icing over.”

  He suddenly didn’t feel one bit icy, but he didn’t plan on sharing that with her. Sliding one arm free of his sleeping bag, he snaked it under his coat and wound it around her midsection. He pulled her to him, so her back was to his chest, her rump tucked into his lap.

  She made a soft squeak, but she pressed into him, her body plastering itself to his through the layers of down between them. For a moment, he simply held her there, his nose pressed into the back of her hood, his arm brushing the underside of her breasts. She felt good.

  Not just because she was warm. April Stephens was soft and pliable in his arms, fitting just right. He slid his other arm under her head for a pillow, figuring she’d keep him warm enough. The protective urge flared along with a lot of other urges he wasn’t going to think about.

  Much.

  “Better?” He spoke the words against her neck through the sleeping bag.

  He felt a shiver go through her, but he’d be willing to bet this one was the good kind.

  “Much.” When she spoke, the vibration of sound hummed along his arm where he held her.

  With the snow falling in soft swishes against the canvas tent and a beautiful woman spooned against him, he could almost forget they were still in a potentially dangerous storm. How long had it been since he’d slept with someone in his arms all night? Normally he avoided relationships with those kinds of expectations. He never would have imagined that the financial forensics investigator would be the one who broke his private, unspoken rules about sleepovers. He’d sworn off deeper relationships after he and his brother had fallen for the same woman back in their college days. Brianna had wreaked havoc on him, but she’d done an even worse number on his brother.

  “How’s your nose?” he asked after a long moment, knowing frostbite could set in fast. “I think that’s the only place you have to worry about now.”

  “Mmm.” She made a sleepy sound and snuggled closer to him, her hips rocking in a devastating swivel.

  And damned if his body didn’t answer the call.

  Grinding his teeth against those urges, Weston let go of her long enough to flick off the flashlight. Then, he went back to holding her.

  Tomorrow, he’d have to deal with the fallout from coming to her rescue tonight. He wouldn’t be able to ignore her anymore after this, wouldn’t be able to threaten to call security if she asked too many questions. For that matter, he’d be dodging her queries about his former mentor the whole way down the mountain while he tried to keep her safe through a potentially dangerous descent.

  But since tomorrow would come soon enough, he wasn’t going to borrow trouble now. For a few hours, at least, he planned to enjoy the hot dreams sure to come from having a sexy woman curled in his arms like she was meant to be there.

  Three

  Sunlight pried at April’s eyes the next morning.

  Too early, she thought, for it to be so bright. Her body was exhausted. And hot.

  Pulling herself from layers of sleep, she struggled to figure out why she’d be so warm. Her limbs were pinned by a heavy weight on one side. Her nose was buried against...a man?

  Memories of the night before returned in a moment as blinding as the sun streaming across one side of her face. The avalanche threat. The trudge through deep snow only to make camp with Weston. Falling asleep in his arms.

  Which was a spot she’d clearly enjoyed, based on the way she was wrapped around him now like a second skin. How had her sleeping bag unzipped enough to allow so much proximity? She had one arm threaded under his to splay across his strong back. One thigh tucked between his. Her cheek and nose were pressed tight to his chest, where his heartbeat slugged. The fabric of the thermal shirt he wore hugged every inch of him as tightly as she did.

  But the point of all the heat she felt was focused in the cradle of her hips, where the most intriguing part of his anatomy stirred.

  Her breath caught in a strangled gasp as she scrambled back.

  Weston let go of her immediately, making her realize he’d been awake the whole time. Which only added to her flustered state.

  “Good morning.” His voice was rough from sleep, his tone polite and reasonable, though she detected a hint of mild amusement.

  “Is it?” she asked, confused to note her covers twisted around one knee while the rest of her remained under the warmth of his heavy coat.

  Her gaze went to his body, where she caught a glimpse of his powerful legs and narrow hips before he shifted his own sleeping bag over him like a blanket.

  “We’re still here,” he reminded her. “Whole and warm, ready for another day. I’d call that good news after the weather conditions we faced last night.”

  Belatedly, she noticed the snowdrift on one side of the tent was almost halfway up the canvas wall. No doubt that had helped insulate them against the cold, along with the natural body heat they’d gained by wrapping themselves around each other.

  “I don’t know how my sleeping bag unzipped.” She couldn’t help but raise the issue, since it embarrassed her to think she’d helped herself to Weston’s body during the night.

  She liked to think she had a stronger-than-average sense of personal space. Healthy boundaries. And while she’d been fine with pressing together through the fabric of two down barriers when they’d been trying to go to sleep, she felt completely undone at the idea of waking up with her leg between his thighs.

  Lifting her gaze to his face, she was stunned all over again to notice how little space still separated them. During the night, at least, it had been dark enough that she couldn’t see his perceptive hazel gaze on her.

  “You probably did that in your sleep.” He was a kind man to give her a face-saving excuse for why she was attached to him like a barnacle this morning. “I woke up a couple of hours into the storm and realized
I was burning up, so I unzipped my sleeping bag and used it like a blanket.”

  “Hmm.” She was all too aware of how hot things had gotten during the coldest night she’d ever spent outdoors.

  Talking about it wasn’t going to make her any less flustered.

  If anything, her body still tingled with awareness everywhere she’d touched him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so alive, like every nerve ending had been awakened at the hands of this man. Why did he have to be someone so important to her investigation? For a moment, she wondered what might have happened between them if she didn’t have that professional duty holding her back.

  Well, that and the fact that Weston was anxious for her to take her questions and leave Mesa Falls Ranch. She couldn’t do that until she’d tracked down answers, and she’d do well to remember that barrier between them since she’d been so quick to tear down the physical ones. Her subconscious obviously wanted him, even if the rest of her knew that was a very bad idea. She needed this job. The order, the respectability had saved her in so many ways. Without it? Hell, she couldn’t even consider risking her job for anyone.

  “How do you feel this morning, April?” he asked, jarring her from her worries. “Are you ready to try the descent now that the snow has stopped?”

  Sunlight beckoned.

  And so did the chance to resurrect boundaries with the compelling man next to her.

  She nodded, already mentally ticking through today’s to-do list to keep herself from thinking about Weston. “I can have my gear packed in five minutes.”

  * * *

  Her five-minute prediction turned out to be optimistic. April hadn’t counted on how much the deep snow would hamper her efforts, or how much her mother’s phone calls would distract her.

  She’d ignored the first two times the notifications chimed as she laced up her boots and loaded her backpack. But by the third time the chime sounded as they began the descent, she was too worried not to pick up.

  Weston had insisted on walking in front of her to check the soundness of the snow. He’d given himself the much harder job in the process, since his powerful stride cleared a path for her. Even so, the deep, fluffy powder was exhausting to wade through.

  “Mom?” she answered once she fished the device from her pocket, knowing she needed to make this brief. For her own safety, she had to focus on what she was doing. “Is anything wrong? I’m on the mountain, so it’s not the best time—”

  “I just wanted you to know that I’ve fired the cleaning service.” Breathing heavily, her mother sounded tearful.

  Anxiety spiked, but April tried not to let it explode into full-blown panic. The cleaners were expensive because they specialized in helping people like Holly Stephens. April had hired them, not her mom, so she didn’t think they could be fired so easily.

  “I’m sorry they’ve upset you.” She dragged in a long breath of the cleansing cold, preparing to smooth things over with the company. “Can I speak to Emily and maybe I can get things sorted out?”

  “It’s too late for that!” Her mother’s voice rose an octave. “I tried calling you before it came to that, but you were too busy to help.”

  April swallowed convulsively. She loved her mom, but she hated this stress. It was difficult enough when she was in the same town as her mother, but now, many miles from her Denver home, there was nothing she could do to fix things.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” She kept her voice low, hoping Weston couldn’t hear all of this. Even though he wore a fleece headband around his ears today instead of a balaclava, she wasn’t banking on it. “I’m in Montana right now, hiking through snow and hazardous conditions or I would come over—”

  “It’s no problem.” Her mother cut her off, a new curtness in her voice. “I just wanted you to know so you didn’t harass me about the cleaning company anymore. Emily wanted me to throw out one of the brand-new bolts of fabric. Have you ever heard of such waste?”

  With some murmured words of sympathy, April was able to extricate herself from the call a few moments later, but the worry remained. Keeping her mother safe required more time and money every year, sacrifices April would gladly make if it truly helped. But when her mom resisted more and more frequently, it made her efforts feel futile.

  “Everything okay?” Weston called back over his broad shoulder, lifting his goggles to look at her.

  For a moment, as she saw the concern in his expression and heard it in his voice, she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to have someone like that in her life. Someone who cared about her daily trials. Someone to share the burden with.

  It was a crazy, foolish thought for someone like Weston to inspire, since he was decidedly off-limits as a key to her investigation. Besides, the life of a wealthy and influential rancher was a world apart from the one she lived.

  “Everything’s fine,” she lied, needing to resurrect some mental and emotional boundaries with the man she’d spent a memorable night with.

  “Didn’t sound fine.” He slowed his pace so she could catch up with him, his hazel gaze tracking her, sliding right past those boundaries she needed. But perhaps he read her reticence in her eyes, because he changed topics as she neared him. “Are you warm enough? Am I going too fast?”

  Grateful for the reprieve from talking about her mom and even more grateful to seize on the topic of climbing, which had always been her favorite escape from her home life, she launched into questions about the terrain. How he read the snow, how he could tell what kind of surface was beneath it, what to look for when gauging avalanche conditions.

  All things she was interested in. All much safer topics than her mom. If only she could distract herself from her attraction to him as easily.

  * * *

  It didn’t take an expert in body language to read April’s cues.

  Weston had seen the guardedness in her expression after her tense phone call, so he’d given her an out and she’d grabbed it like a lifeline. At first, he’d thought she was just trying to distract him from asking questions, but her curiosity about the Bitterroot Mountains and his rescue work revealed a dedicated climber’s knowledge. He found himself enjoying the long trudge down to his truck, a trip that took far longer than it should have given the depth of the snow. Besides, he knew she’d been exhausted the night before. He didn’t want her to deplete her energy completely.

  Plus, he was glad to forge a connection on another level after the awkward way she’d awoken in his arms that morning. He didn’t know who’d made the first move to initiate the contact, but he’d never forget the feel of her soft and warm in his arms. She didn’t know that he’d emerged from sleep before her, or that he’d found his hand tantalizingly affixed to her breast. Thank goodness she didn’t know. Breaking that contact had been what had awoken her. Those sensory memories had tormented him all day long.

  Now, as they paused for a water break and a shared protein bar, he found himself wanting to know more about her. About what caused those shadows in her eyes after the call from her mother. He understood something about painful family relationships. And while he wasn’t in the habit of revealing details of his personal life, he couldn’t help but think that a shared experience might help her, if only to remind this strong, capable woman that she wasn’t alone.

  After capping the water, they renewed their trek. The path widened and the incline decreased, making the walking easier. She stayed close to him, her cheeks flushed pink from the exercise, but she kept pace without a problem. He’d done this descent hundreds of times himself, so it was simple enough to focus on her. The conditions were solid here even with the foot of fresh powder. A winter wonderland glittered all around them, dazzling white from the intense sun.

  “I won’t ask you about your family,” he began, hoping to put her at ease. “But I can tell you that living far from mine has improved my relationship with them.” Which still w
asn’t saying much, considering they hardly spoke. But it was better than the hurtful exchanges they’d had all too often when he lived on the family’s ranch.

  “You’re fortunate you have that option,” she said tightly, breath huffing in the cold air.

  “I realize that. I’m often reminded how lucky I am to have a brother who has never made a misstep in his life at the helm of our family’s ranch.” Weston wasn’t exactly bitter. It was tough to hold a grudge against Miles when he’d never done a damned thing wrong. “But I found it frustrating to continually fall short of my parents’ expectations for me.”

  “You’re the black sheep?” She sounded surprised.

  “That’s putting it kindly.” On second thought, the tension in his shoulders just thinking about the Rivera family made him realize how much he didn’t care to unearth old pains, even for her benefit. “But it did help to put some physical distance between me and them. Do you have siblings?”

  “No. Just me.” She was quiet for so long he nearly replied, but then she continued. “And my mother isn’t someone I can leave alone for long. She has a hoarding disorder, in addition to some other issues that aren’t as obvious or well managed, and I worry about her safety when I’m not with her.”

  “That sounds stressful.” He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been that. “Is she getting treatment?”

  “Not as much as I would like.” April’s boots trudged a soft rhythm beside his, and he took in how she tucked her thumbs under the straps of her backpack as she redistributed the weight on her shoulders. “The condition was only recently reclassified as a distinct mental health issue, and I feel like her current doctor isn’t doing all she can to help with my mother’s specific problems.”

  “Is your father around to help?” Weston realized he was on more precarious terrain in the conversation than they were on the mountainside as the landscape evened out a bit more. He hadn’t meant to pry.

  “No. They divorced when I was in my teens, after the house started getting out of control with Mom’s purchases.” She gave an awkward shrug as they ducked into a thicket of trees. “I’m the only one Mom has.”