by Paige Tyler
She laughed. “Don’t be silly. I work for myself, which means I can take time off whenever I want. So if you want to get together and hang out, I’m game.”
“It’s hard to say no when you put it that way,” he said with a laugh.
“Good. Because my schedule is wide open this afternoon.”
“Do you have something special in mind you’d like to do?” He didn’t care what they did as long as he got to spend time with her.
“Surprise me.”
A thousand ideas popped into his head, but he got the sensation Everly wasn’t interested in the typical date stuff. She seemed like the kind of woman who would appreciate doing something a little different. He knew just the thing.
“I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes then. And wear something casual. Shorts and a T-shirt are fine. And tennis shoes. No flip-flops.” He had an ulterior motive for suggesting shorts. Anything to give him a chance to get another glimpse of those perfect legs. But she didn’t need to know that. “Oh, and bring a change of clothes so we can go out to dinner later.”
“What exactly are you planning?”
“You said to surprise you. See you in twenty.”
Grinning, he thumbed the red button on his phone then hit the speed dial for Becker. He needed his friend to get some gear ready if he was going to pull off what he had planned.
Forty minutes later he pulled his Jeep into the gated SWAT compound and parked in his usual spot.
“What are we doing here?” Everly asked as he led her toward the admin building.
She’d hounded him the entire drive over, trying everything to get him to tell her what they were going to do. But he’d resisted. He wanted the pleasure of seeing her eyes light up when she found out what he was up to.
“You’ll see soon enough,” he said, giving her hand a tug. “Come on. There’re some people I want you to meet.”
He held open the door of the admin building, his gaze caressing her long legs as she walked in ahead of him. Everly might be an artist, but it was obvious from the tone in her legs that she exercised a lot.
The first floor of the admin building was essentially a big open space with enough desks and chairs for the entire Pack, except for Gage. He had a private office. It was your typical bullpen setup, but he and the other guys had jazzed it up with posters, a TV, and a slick paint job.
Becker and Alex were leaning back against one of the desks, while Jayna swiveled in an office chair. All three looked up at their approach.
“Everly, you already met Becker and Alex,” Cooper said. “And this is Jayna Winston. For reasons none of us understand, she’s Becker’s girlfriend.”
Jayna laughed and got up to give Everly a hug. “Eric told me all about what happened in the bank. I’m glad you’re okay. But let me warn you now, you probably shouldn’t believe half the stuff Cooper tells you. These guys all make up stuff.”
“Only to make it more interesting.” Becker grinned.
Jayna gave him a look. “Uh-huh.”
Everly smiled. “So I probably shouldn’t have believed Landry when he told me that you were one of the people who helped shoot up his Jeep?”
Cooper had about half a second to cringe before Jayna burst out laughing. “Actually, that one you can believe. His Jeep wouldn’t have those holes in it if it wasn’t for me.”
“That’s okay,” Cooper said. “It looks better with the holes in it anyway.”
Everly didn’t look convinced, but her lips curved up at the corners all the same.
Becker pushed away from the desk. “You guys ready?”
“Ready for what exactly?” Everly asked. “Cooper wouldn’t tell me.”
“I told you—it’s a surprise.” He took her hand and fell into step beside Becker and Jayna. “Everyone else still out providing security for the warrant and search teams?”
“Yeah,” Becker said as they walked past the volley-ball courts and steered away from the shoot lanes toward the cluster of training houses in the rear of the compound. “The FBI, ATF, and the DPD are checking out every possible source of military grade explosives in the state. I don’t know exactly what they’re looking for, but anyone with a connection to military weaponry seems to be on their radar. They have us stretched so thin that Gage has us going out in teams of two and three. Xander even had to cover a warrant search this morning completely on his own. You need to get your ass off paid leave and get back here.”
Cooper shook his head. “I’m trying, man. I’m trying.”
Beside him, Everly eyed the single-story training building in the very back corner of the compound as they approached. The place had no doors or windows, and almost everything inside was cheap and replaceable. This was one of their facade houses, nothing but the shell of a building that they could set up to do any kind of training they needed. One day it might be set up to look like a meth lab, the next it could be reconfigured as a residential hostage scenario.
But today, the only thing he needed the building for was its sturdy flat roof and outside walls. He led Everly inside and up the steps to the roof. Becker and Jayna hung back to give him time to spring his surprise on Everly.
When they came out on the roof, her eyes widened as she took in the harnesses, ropes, and gloves. She turned to him. “Are you going to teach me how to rappel?”
At least she hadn’t freaked out and run screaming down the stairs.
“You told me to surprise you.” He hesitated, trying to figure out what she was thinking and failing miserably. “Want to try it?”
She walked over to the edge of the roof and cautiously looked down. There was a low parapet along the edge of the roof, but he followed her anyway, just to make sure she didn’t fall. She took hold of his hand, then peeked over the edge, blanching a little. After a moment, she took a step back and looked at him.
“I’ll give it a try,” she said. “But I have to warn you. I don’t do well with heights.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. “It’s completely normal to feel a little queasy when you look down. But trust me, after a while you won’t even remember how high you are.”
She peeked over the edge again. “If you say so. What do we do first?”
“Let me get you into a harness and set up the ropes. Then I’ll teach you everything you need to know.”
He led her over to a collection of straps, buckles, and rings on the rooftop, then had her stand in the middle of one. Kneeling down, he slowly began to get everything situated. The position made it damn hard to concentrate. It was impossible to miss the delectable scent coming off her body, or the way her cute little belly button kept making an appearance whenever she stretched and her T-shirt slid up. The urge to lean forward and kiss her toned stomach was hard to resist.
The temptation got even worse when he started positioning the leg straps around the top of each thigh.
“Would you like to do this part?” he asked, hoping she didn’t notice how turned on he was getting. “These two pieces need to snug up tight around your thighs.”
“You’d better do it,” she said, and he swore he saw a little smile tease her lips. “I wouldn’t want to mess up and do something wrong. Safety first and all that.”
“Safety first,” he agreed.
He placed the straps around the top of each thigh, carefully moving the material of her shorts around so he wouldn’t get it bunched up under the straps. He tried to stay professional whenever his hands came into contact with the bare skin of her legs or the cloth-covered junction between her thighs, but there was only so much he could do. To say that he was inside her personal space at the moment was an understatement.
But Everly didn’t seem to mind. She simply stood there patiently while he got each strap perfectly positioned and pulled tight. In fact, it was entirely possible that she enjoyed the process. Her heart was definitely beating faster, and the scent of arousal pouring off her just about made him drunk. When he brought the main waist strap around from her back and cinched it
down in the front, it would have been so easy to pop open the button on her shorts. Just a little flick of his fingers, and he’d have an even better view of that sexy midriff.
He glanced at Everly to see her looking down at him with heavy, almost sleepy, eyes. Was she thinking the same thing he was?
Cooper firmly shoved those thoughts aside. Everly could get hurt out here if he didn’t focus on what the hell they were doing. He took a deep breath and stood, then checked her harness to make sure everything was cinched properly.
“Aren’t Jayna and Becker rappelling?” she asked as he handed her a pair of heavy leather gloves.
He shook his head as he went to work on his own harness. “They’ll come up after the first time you do it. They don’t want you to get distracted or feel rushed.”
Once they were both ready, Cooper spent some time showing her how the rappelling rope went through the carabiner, and how she could position the rope behind her to stop the rope from sliding through the ring, or hold her arm out to the side to let it slide through. Then he held one end of the rope and had her lean back while they were both still in the center of the rooftop, letting her learn to trust that the carabiner would keep her from sliding down the rope until she held her hand in the proper position. He knew Everly was nervous because he could hear her heart beating even faster than when she’d been aroused earlier. But she still paid attention to what he was saying, asking smart questions and responding properly when he gave her directions. Soon enough, she was so focused on the technical part of what they were doing that she relaxed.
He grinned. “You’re doing great. You ready to start?”
She smiled back and nodded. “Just stay close.”
“Always,” he told her.
Cooper attached the end of two ropes to the heavy metal rings mounted in the center of the roof then locked the ropes into their harnesses before slowly backing them toward the edge of the roof.
“Stand up straight and tall until you get to the edge of the roof,” he instructed. “Then let a little rope slide through the ring with each step.”
Beside him, Everly licked her lips and moved carefully to the edge of the roof until she was standing right on it. She glanced behind her at the ground fourteen feet below. “Okay, now what?”
“First, stop looking down. You can worry about the ground when you get there. Right now, I want you to keep your attention on me and what I’m saying.”
She obediently looked at him, and he was a little stunned at the blatant trust he saw in her eyes. “I can do that,” she said with a nod that made her ponytail bounce in the cutest way. “You’re kind of easy on the eyes.”
“Nice to know.” He chuckled. “Keep your arm in the stop position, then try to lean backward off the roof.”
She frowned, like she thought he was crazy, but then she did it. Her brow furrowed even more. “I can’t. The rope won’t let me.”
He smiled. “That’s exactly why I asked you to do it. I wanted to show you that you can’t fall if you put your right arm behind your back. Even if you slip going down the wall, just put your arm behind you, and you’ll stop. Make sense?”
“Yup. Arm out to slide down. Arm back to stop.”
“Okay. Now for the hardest part. To get the angle necessary for the rope to slide through the ring properly, you have to let out enough of it to stand out almost perpendicular from the wall. That can be scary the first time because you really have to commit, and it will feel like you’re hanging in space.”
Everly started to look at the ground, then snapped her eyes back to him. “Can you show me what you mean?”
“Sure thing. Just watch what I do.” He slowly let the rope slide through the ring a little bit at a time, keeping his legs locked until he was leaning straight out from the edge of the roof like a gargoyle. Then he looked at her. “Your turn. Just take your time, and remember that I’m right here to talk you through it.”
Everly kept her eyes on him and tipped back like she’d been rappelling for years. She didn’t bend her knees like a lot of first-timers did, instinctively trying to hug the wall so she wouldn’t hang out in space. She didn’t even look down that much.
“That was easy enough,” she said. But while she might look calm, her heart was still racing. “What’s next?”
He gave her an appraising look. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before? Because you’re a natural.”
She laughed and shook her head. “No! Are you crazy? I’m an artist, not a daredevil. If you weren’t right beside me, I wouldn’t be doing it now.”
Cooper liked the hidden implication in those words. Unable to resist, he leaned close and kissed her. Everly kissed him back. Damn, who knew that rappelling could be so sexy?
“Okay, we’re past the hard part,” he said as he pulled away to give her space to work. “Now we just hop down the wall, letting out a little rope each time. Ready?”
She nodded, then took a deep breath and pushed away from the wall with her feet. She swung out and down about two feet, touching lightly against the wall beside him.
“Perfect.” He grinned. “Let’s do it again.”
And just like that, Everly was rappelling down the wall. By the time her feet hit the ground, she was giggling like a kid. Clearly, she’d enjoyed herself.
“Can we do it again?” she asked excitedly.
“We can. But don’t get careless.” He unhooked her from the rope. “And don’t forget what I taught you.”
She nodded and turned to run back inside and up the steps to the roof. Cooper followed, finding Everly properly hooked in by the time he caught up. But she still patiently waited while he checked her gear, then strapped in himself. Jayna and Becker set up two more ropes, and within a few minutes, all four of them were bounding down the wall and covering a lot more distance with each hop.
But after the fourth time, Everly grew bored with the one-story building. “Can we do something higher?”
He jerked his head at the two-story facade next door. “How about that one?”
She considered that, then turned and pointed at the three-floor structure he and the rest of the Pack used for most of their rappelling and freestyle climbing work. “How about that one instead?”
He lifted a brow. “You sure? That one is a lot higher.”
“I’m sure.” She smiled. “If you promise to go down right beside me.”
Like he’d be anywhere else? “Becker and I’ll get the ropes untied from upstairs and meet you and Jayna on the other roof.”
She and Jayna were off like a shot for the climbing tower, laughing all the way there.
Becker chuckled as he started coiling up the ropes on the ground. “I think you’ve created a monster.”
Cooper let his gaze follow Everly until she disappeared inside the three-story building. “Yeah, I think maybe I have.”
When Becker didn’t say anything, Cooper turned to see his best friend smiling at him. “It didn’t take long for you to figure it out, huh?”
Cooper didn’t have to ask what Becker was talking about. “No, it didn’t. I think I knew it when I woke up this morning.” He grinned. “But don’t worry. Your record of pegging Jayna as The One for you in under thirty seconds is still safe.”
“Hurry up!” Jayna shouted from the roof of the climbing tower. “Why are you two just standing around down there?”
Cooper motioned toward the building with his head. “Come on. We’d better get up there before they decide to rappel using their shoelaces.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon rappelling down the climbing tower. And even though it was hot as hell out, Cooper couldn’t remember ever having more fun. The best part of the day was when he and Everly went down the tower together, her in the traditional style while he used the Australian technique, where he went down the building facing forward. That meant he and Everly got to look into each other’s eyes all the way down. Except for when they stopped halfway so they could kiss. Then he let his eyes close for
a while because he was in heaven. Damn, he could have done that all day.
Around five o’clock, Alex came out with some bottles of water and Gatorade. “I figured none of you would think about dehydration, so I decided I better do it for you.”
Cooper winced when he saw Everly down a whole bottle of water, then a Gatorade. He should have brought something along for them to drink. Werewolves got dehydrated like everyone else, but it took a lot longer than a few hours out in the Texas sun. Everly, on the other hand, had to be exhausted after all the trips up the stairs and down the walls. Besides, it was getting late. They needed to go back to his place and clean up before they went out to dinner.
They were heading over to his Jeep when Alex stuck his head out of the admin building. “Just in case I don’t see you before Sunday, make sure you’re at the church before noon.”
Cooper nodded. Crap, he’d almost forgotten about the wedding. Gage and Mac were getting married in two days. Maybe he’d better write it down on a piece of paper and stick it to his fridge. Between getting put on leave and meeting Everly, he hadn’t even thought about the upcoming nuptials.
He glanced at Everly as he started the engine. “I know it’s short notice, but my boss is getting married on Sunday, and I was thinking maybe you’d like to come to the wedding with me?”
She put the cap back on the nearly empty bottle of Gatorade. “You sure they won’t mind if I show up at this late date? I don’t want to mess up seating charts and meal counts—stuff like that.”
He chuckled. “Between all the people Gage and Mac know, there are probably going to be two hundred people at the reception. Trust me, you don’t have to worry about upsetting any seating charts or menu plans—there aren’t any. It’s one of those the-more-the-merrier things.”
Everly smiled. “Well, in that case, I’d love to come with you. Do you think we can bring Mia? She’d hate to miss out on a chance to meet all the single guys on the SWAT team.”
That was fine with him. Who knew? Maybe Mia would turn out to be The One for someone in his pack.
