Free Fall

by Jill Shalvis

  Sans Lily.

  9

  LILY GLANCED AT HER WATCH—7:30 a.m.—and tried not to imagine what she could be doing right this minute if an hour ago she hadn’t looked into Logan’s eyes and panicked.

  God, it had felt good lying in bed with him wrapped around her like a pretzel, all sleek skin and hard sinew and easy sexiness. But she’d gotten up. Leaped up and out the door was more like it, mostly because she hadn’t wanted to. She was going to have enough trouble not getting too attached for the next three nights, she didn’t need to lounge around and relive the mind-blowing night.

  And it had been mind-blowing, she’d give him that. She’d always equated sex with the subtle quenching of a thirst. A nice little treat, a release of the need, the end. At least until the next time she got thirsty.

  Nothing about last night had been a nice little treat, an easy release of need. In fact, she felt more needy now than she had before, even though they’d hardly slept, unable to keep their hands—or mouths—off each other. Just thinking about it made her body hum.

  What she needed now was to clear her head, and there was only one way to do that. On the slopes. She’d spent a few moments at her desk. She’d checked on the cafeteria. Everything seemed to be running smoothly. The bar was dark, and so was the shop, which wouldn’t open for another hour. No one would be in their offices yet, and with no emergencies lurking, she went to her ski locker. She’d catch a ride up on a snowcat with her patrollers, who’d be out checking on the mountain and the conditions.

  Then she’d take a run, get some very cold air burning through her lungs, and she would not, would absolutely not, daydream or fantasize about one incredibly sexy Logan White.

  “Going to take in a few runs?”

  She jerked in surprise and found the incredibly sexy Logan White standing there in the flesh. His hair was wet, as if he’d rushed out of the shower, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he smelled like her mango-melon shampoo and matching soap. He wore his ski pants, but in concession to what looked to be a warmer, sunnier day than yesterday, wore a SAR T-shirt layered over a long sleeved T-shirt, no jacket.

  When she just stared at him, he smiled a bit grimly and stepped closer, lifting a finger to her chin, which alerted her to the fact her mouth had fallen open.

  Then he kissed her right on that mouth. “I thought about you in your shower. When I went back to my room for fresh clothes. When I breathe. How about some company?”

  She opened her eyes and cleared her throat. It’d been just a little kiss, insignificant when compared to what they’d already shared, and yet it jump-started her heart the way the steepest hill on the mountain would have. Or maybe it was the fact that he’d searched her out. “Okay.”

  He cocked his head. “You look surprised. You didn’t think I’d want to spend some time with you?”

  “You just spent some time with me.” Naked. In bed. Driving me out of my mind with your fingers, your tongue, your teeth— She had to lock her wobbly knees and ignore the heat building between her thighs. “I guess I thought you’d be done.”

  He just looked at her for a long moment. “Maybe I’m different, Lily.”

  “Are you?”

  “Does that scare you?”

  “I’ve told you. Nothing scares me.”

  “You’re such a liar.” He cupped his palm around the nape of her neck, nudged her into him so that he could kiss her again. His mouth was warm, familiar now, and this time when he lifted his head, her body was throbbing, her thoughts were spinning, her world, completely off its axis and…and he laughed.

  “You’re looking at me like maybe you’d rather go back to bed than ski,” he murmured, just a little too sure of himself.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, ace. I’d rather ski any day.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Hell, no. “Very.” She grabbed her skis this time and slammed her locker, walking out, not looking back to see if he followed.

  Her nipples were hard, damn him, and between her thighs, she was damp, proving her one big, fancy liar.

  THEY HITCHED A RIDE UP THE mountain with her grooming crew on a large snowcat, then made their way to the east-facing slopes, chasing the early sun down long, long trails that ran the gamut of terrain, some narrow with lots of trees, some wide and clear. For two hours Logan skied and watched Lily do the same, exhilaration flowing through his veins.

  When she finally stopped, shaking herself free of some loose snowy powder, she laughed. Her eyes were lit, her cheeks were rosy, and as she glanced over at him, her hair whipping out of her helmet, her smile stretching from ear to ear, his heart tipped on its side. “You look pretty satisfied.”

  “Being out here like this should be a requirement for relieving stress.”

  So should what they’d shared last night. His own stress relief was usually done in a gym with a punching bag, or on the streets with his running shoes.

  But skiing his brains out worked, too.

  “The wind’s kicked up,” she said and got on her walkie-talkie. She consulted with base, then clipped it back on her belt. “We’ll have to watch the upper lifts, might have to close them.”

  Either way, she’d have her hands full soon enough. Her day would get crazy, as he suspected it always did. But for now she stood there on top of her mountain, her world, stripping out of her fleece, tying it around her waist, leaving just the snug red turtleneck. Bending over, she ran her gloved hands down the top of her legs. “My thighs are burning.”

  He had burning parts, too, but not his thighs. Between them. “Come here.”

  Her eyes locked with his and she licked her lips, a telling little gesture he’d noticed she used when nervous. “Every time you say that, you end up kissing me stupid. I lost a lot of brain cells last night, and can’t really afford to lose any more—”

  He simply hooked an elbow around her neck and tugged her close, swallowing her words with his mouth.

  A soft murmur of acquiescence escaped her and she slid her fingers into his hair, holding him to her.

  As if he intended to let go. Nope, no way. “Tonight,” he whispered, nipping his way along her throat beneath her helmet strap. “I want to see you tonight.”

  She opened her eyes and searched his while all around them the wind whipped up, harder and faster. “Do you?”

  “Oh, yeah. And for every night I have left.” He ran his thumb over her full lower lip. “If you end up working late again, you know where my room is. Don’t be shy.”

  She dragged her teeth over that lower lip now, torturing it in a way he wanted to do himself. Her hair, hanging out from below her helmet, blew across her face. He stroked it away, then leaned in and kissed her again, deeper this time. She opened to him, and the heat and voracious need for her slammed right back, as if they’d not assuaged that need all night long. He had no idea how he could want her this way, again, still, but it was there shimmering between them, through them—

  Her walkie-talkie chirped, and Lily jumped back as if she’d been jolted by a live wire. She stared at him, eyes unreadable, mouth still wet as she lifted the radio and checked in.

  She looked like a woman good and shocked over what should have been a damn simple kiss. He knew the feeling, because nothing had been simple about any of this, not since the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.

  “I have to go,” she said, making him realize she’d put her radio back on her belt.

  “The lifts are going to close already.”

  “The upper ones, yes, after only letting a few people on. But that’s not it.”

  “You have a rescue.”

  “There’s a crew there already, but they can’t get a helicopter out in this wind so he has to be skied down. And…they sorta need me there.”

  “Want some help?”

  She looked at him for one heartbeat. Two. “Yes,” she finally said. “Sure.”

  They traversed the mountain in the increasingly fierce wind, heading over to the west side. Their mo
od was different now, somber instead of joyful. When the steep, craggy cliffs jutted out over the basin far below, appearing to fall off into thin air, she stopped. A risky-looking rescue was already well under way, with some patrollers gathered around, and he wondered why Lily had been called over.

  “Here.”

  Logan looked at the craziest-looking cliff he’d ever seen on a slope and let out a slow whistle. “There is a very fine line between hobby and mental illness.”

  Beside him, Lily choked out a laughing agreement. “Apparently he hit a rock and slid off to the side. One patroller has already rappelled down. The victim is wedged, and has what looks like two broken arms.” She shook her head and a spasm crossed her face. Worry.

  She was worried about whoever had been stupid enough to go over, but Logan was thinking the victim was lucky if that’s all he’d broken. “You have two out-of-bounds markers up. Why would someone go down there?”

  “There’s always the daredevils who see the markers as nothing more than a challenge, no matter what we do. The thing is, the locals know exactly how far to fling themselves out right there so they don’t get killed on the rocks. They’re supposed to land on the outcropping below them.”

  “It’s seriously insane.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “You’ve done it,” he guessed, watching her face.

  She lifted a shoulder. “When I was much more stupid than I am now. There’ve been a couple of boarder movies made from right here. You might have seen some of the footage.”

  “Where they fall an unbelievable distance and then either land on their feet or tumble down the mountain in a heap of equipment and limbs?”

  She smiled grimly. “I was lucky enough to land my attempt.”

  He marveled at her. Not just at the daredevil, come-what-may persona—which was utterly genuine, not forced or faked as it might have been—but at the fact that she had such intelligence, such heart to go with all that toughness. “What’s taking them so long to get him up?”

  “There’s an unexpected complication.” She sighed, clicked out of her skis and moved into the fray.

  In spite of the vicious wind, they’d brought out the ropes and had created a Z-rig, a zigzagging combination of rope and manpower. Because they stood on an expert run, where the lifts were now closed, there weren’t any spectators around, which Logan knew would make the job easier.

  This close to the edge, the dizzying height rushed up to meet him, a sensation increased by the bruising winds. He thought of anyone purposely skiing off here, of Lily doing it, and had to admit that she had more guts than he did.

  He watched her get into gear, feeling far more tense than whenever he geared up for a rescue. Then she was going over the edge, and he held his breath.

  “Why is she going down?” Logan asked Chris over a gust of wind that made him stagger back. The two front men on the Z-rig swore and scrambled to tighten their hold on Lily, and Logan nearly crunched his teeth to dust.

  “It was a request,” Chris said.

  “What do you mean, a request?”

  “The victim asked for her specifically.”

  Logan stared at him for a moment, then down at Lily. The wind kicked up again, gusting hard, blowing up a cloud of powder, and suddenly everything went white. Lily vanished. Hell, everything vanished for the longest moment of Logan’s life, as he was forced to wait for the snow to settle again. When it finally did, both Logan and Chris leaped to the edge.

  Lily was still there.

  Logan was well familiar with emergencies such as this: bad weather, worse conditions for the climb and an injured vic. Always, he calmly handled it, all of it.

  But he found he couldn’t handle this, not with Lily dangling fifty feet in the chasm and the wind beating at her as if she was nothing more than a rag doll.

  The brutal wind didn’t let up, and on the next harsh gust, the light snow once again went airborne, brushing free of the rocks, completely choking off their vision and creating another full-blown white-out situation.

  It was the eeriest thing. Logan could have put both hands right in front of his face and he wouldn’t have seen them, so he stood there and clenched them into fists, swearing helplessly while the seconds passed, long, heart-pounding seconds, because while they were blinded, no one could keep track of the victim.

  Or Lily.

  Logan was known for his patience, but every ounce of it had deserted him, replaced by a bone-gnawing desperation that he should have been used to after the hundreds of rescues in his past. But it never got easier, and that it was someone he knew in trouble—something too close to when, just a few months ago, he’d been forced to leave Wyatt and Leah on a houseboat in the middle of a twister—made it all the more chilling. He didn’t care to ever repeat this fear.

  What seemed like eons passed, but it was probably only thirty seconds before the gust finally died and the snow settled. Lily was still down there, on the rope, against the rock. Not moving.

  Logan and Chris pressed as close to the edge as they dared and shouted her name.

  She tilted her head up, brushed the snow from her goggles and lifted a hand.

  “She’s okay,” Chris said in clear relief.

  Insides quivering, Logan nearly sank to his knees. Everyone around them breathed the same relief, and with tension taut enough to be cut with a knife, they went back to the rescue efforts.

  Logan moved to the Z-rig, adding his hands to the fray without hesitation, wishing like hell he could be the one down on the rope. Twice more the winds kicked up, and twice more everything stopped. With Lily dangling off a rope over a cliff.

  On the last time, the wind whistled and raged around them for an agonizing three full minutes, and this time when they could see, Lily wasn’t so quick to wave.

  Logan held his breath, and next to him so did Chris. “Come on, come on,” Chris muttered, fingering his walkie-talkie, hesitating to use it. Logan knew why: Chris didn’t want Lily having to reach for it, occupying a hand she needed. “She’ll call if she needs something,” he said.

  But would she? Logan knew her now, or was beginning to. The woman was stubborn and unbelievably tough. He thought maybe she was tougher than some of the guys he’d worked with for years, and with that came a sense of personal indestructibility. He knew this firsthand because he’d felt it himself. Something about being on a rescue, with lives in the balance and the elements battering everything, changed a person’s perspective, made them feel immortal somehow. All that mattered in that moment was getting the victim to safety.

  Lily felt the same way now, he just knew it. Which made his fear for her escalate. It wasn’t often he felt helpless, but he felt the greasy weight of it now. He’d rarely been on this side of a rescue before, and he didn’t like it.

  He watched grimly as she finally landed on the rock far below and bent over the victim with the other patroller.

  Chris brought out his walkie-talkie. “How is he?”

  “Pissed,” came Lily’s voice. “And amused that you guys got me down here.”

  “He demanded it,” Chris said in exasperation. “Said he was going to wait there until either you came or spring arrived.”

  “Well now he can listen to me bitch at his stupidity. Send down the litter.”

  “Who are we talking about?” Logan demanded as the crew sent down a flat litter for Lily and the other patroller to get the victim into so that he could be hauled back up the cliff. Whoever the jerk was, Logan felt the urge to wrap his fingers around his neck and squeeze—

  “Pete Wheeler. You might have heard of him, he’s won gold in boarding the past two X Games. You know, the extreme adventure games.”

  “He’s local?”

  “Yeah. He’s also…” He shut his mouth.

  “What? An idiot?”

  “Lily’s on-again, off-again boyfriend.”

  Well, hell, he’d asked, hadn’t he? And anyway, it didn’t matter. He was only here for another few days. What had
he really thought, that they’d actually make some kind of go of this? Of course not, she’d told him right up front that this was just fun.

  She’d made him promise the same.

  Just fun. Yeah, this was a riot a minute.

  When Pete’s litter came over the top, Chris and two others grabbed him, preparing to ski him down to meet the ambulance waiting for him at the lodge. Lily came up next and dropped to the snow in exhaustion. Logan was right there. It was all he could do not to haul her close, but instead, he examined the nasty scratch along her chin and jaw. “You got slammed into the rocks.”

  “Saw stars,” she agreed grimly and backed from his hands to move to Pete. She looked down at him, and he looked right back at her, pale and wanly smiling.

  “Knew you’d come get me,” he said, making her laugh softly.

  “You’re such a fool.” She touched his cheek with a tenderness that shouldn’t have surprised Logan. Hell, she’d touched him like that, too.

  “A fool who wanted to keep up with you,” Pete said.

  “I haven’t skied off that cliff in years.”

  “Ah.” He closed his eyes. “Aunt Debbie’s been pulling my leg, regaling me with stories of your craziness.”

  “Old craziness,” Lily corrected, and sighed. “No one ever gets that. Enjoy your ride, Pete.”

  “You take me down.”

  “Oh, no.” She stroked the hair back from his forehead. “I got you off the mountain. Now take your medicine like a big boy.”

  “Yeah.” Pete let out a careful breath, grimacing at the pain. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt, Lil.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the wrist she held against her belly. “I’ll save you the bed next to mine at the hospital.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.” She nodded to Chris, who with a partner began to ski Pete down the hill.

  “You need some medical attention,” Logan said to her.

  “It’s just a scratch.”

  He gestured to her wrist.

  “Oh, this?” She opened and closed her fingers. “Not broken.”

  “Why didn’t you say something after you’d been hit? Any of us would have hauled you up and taken your place.”