“How fast do you think you can climb it?”
He chuckled. “Sorry, I can’t indulge your competitive side. I have to pull the ice screws on my way up so we don’t leave junk behind.”
“Ah, you’re so smart and environmentally friendly, Camper Guru.” She batted her lashes at him. He growled at her use of the nickname, and she knew if they were alone, he’d probably try to swat her backside. “What? Intelligence is one of your finest features, Guru. That, and your ass.”
He smirked, turning to pull up the back of his jacket. As thick as his pants were, they still managed to cup his ass like a lover. “It is nice, isn’t it?”
“Very.” If she kept staring, she was going to start drooling worse than Bridget’s kid.
“Gabe, can you look at this? Pretty please?” The teenage girl turned on her coy flirtatiousness, and her young male admirer shuffled off. Gabe put on a good-natured smile and went to see what she needed.
From the side pocket on her coat, Anne felt her phone buzz. It took her a minute to yank her glove off so she could retrieve the thing and tap the screen to view the text. It was Julie. How come we haven’t heard any more about this Gabe guy?? Meg said he rocked out with his cock out, but you’ve mentioned nothing in your emails. You’re killing us here.
Reception had been spotty at best on this cruise. Not surprising considering there wasn’t a real city for hundreds of miles. It figured that she’d get a perfect signal now, when she least wanted to answer questions. She tapped in a quick reply. I’m about to climb up a mountainside and a frozen waterfall. Turning off the phone. Love you!
A mere split second later, Julie replied, Wait! Is Gabe there too?
Anne could turn off the phone and pretend she didn’t get the message until later, but that wouldn’t stop the harassment. It would just delay it. She sighed and answered. Yes, why?
Julie came back with, I want a pic of the waterfall and Gabe! Prove he’s the man candy you told Meg about.
Snorting, Anne rolled her eyes and whipped out another text. No, I am not letting you long-distance ogle.
Her friend delivered a parting shot. Oh, please. You’d NEVER let us get away with this kind of info withholding.
True, Anne would have insisted on all the particulars. What if her friends were tangling up with dickheads? Maybe it was because she was the oldest child, but she couldn’t turn off her protective instincts. If she cared about someone, she was all up in their life and business. She couldn’t help it. But she also recognized that not telling her friends anything was making them worry about her. If nothing was wrong, why was she being so secretive? That was the question she’d be asking in their place.
Honestly, she didn’t know why she was being secretive. Maybe because she hadn’t had anything this good is so long, she was scared if she shared it, it might disappear. Every day had brought Gabe and her a little closer. They had so many interests in common, they made each other laugh, and he could keep up with her sarcasm and not be offended when she zinged him, unlike several other men she’d dated.
But they weren’t dating, were they? It was just an affair.
Maybe that was the real reason for the secretiveness—she was getting in over her head emotionally, and she was scared her friends might figure it out and caution her. She knew she needed to guard her heart better, but…damn it, she wanted to feel this good and not worry or need to be strong or responsible or have the whole world resting on her shoulders. Even if it was just for a little while. She wanted to be totally free, and that was how she felt with Gabe. Uninhibited. Happy.
Gabe came over, having extracted himself from the girl’s clutches. “What’s going on?”
She shrugged. “A harassing text message from one of my best friends.”
“Julie, Karen or Megan?” he asked.
Wow, he’d really been listening when she made off-hand comments about her friends. She hadn’t gone into much detail about them. She wasn’t sure how she felt about his attentiveness. Good, but bad because it felt good. Now that wasn’t fucked up, was it? “Um. It’s Meg, not Megan.”
“Got it.” He lifted his eyebrows. “So Meg texted?”
“No, it was Julie.”
“Okay.” He grinned. “What’s she harassing you about?”
To lie or not to lie? “Uh…you.”
“Me?” His brows rose higher.
“I’ve mentioned you to them. Very briefly.” Her lips twisted in a grin-grimace. “I said you were hot man candy. They want pictorial evidence.”
“Really?” His eyes began to twinkle with evil delight.
“Plus a photo of the waterfall. I think that second request is all they’re getting though.” She flipped over to the camera feature on her cell and aimed it at the frozen water that seemed to be trapped mid-flow down the mountainside.
Gabe stepped into her shot. “Why don’t you give them a two-for-one?”
She blinked. “You don’t mind?”
“This wouldn’t be my first man candy shot,” he said drily.
Jealousy flashed through her, forking like vicious lightning in her chest. Lots of other women had done this, shagged Gabe on a cruise, and taken pictures home to prove they’d really managed to lay someone that hot. Which was fine, naturally. She had no problem with that. He wasn’t the first man she’d ever slept with, and he wouldn’t be the last. The reverse was also true. There was no reason to be upset when he mentioned she was just one in a long line of conquests.
He stared at her, then broke into a roguish smile. “Of course, most of the women taking the sexy guide photos are old ladies and soccer moms, but who am I to deny them? At least you didn’t make up some lame excuse for why you need a picture of me for your album.”
“Brutal honesty, that’s me.”
“One of my favorite parts about you.” He glanced around quickly. No one was near them. He whispered, “That, and your ass.”
A chuckle bubbled out of her. Man, he was fun. She liked that he was rarely uptight about anything. Neither was she, except when it came to her mother. And, apparently, when thinking about Gabe boinking other women. She slammed the door on that thought as quickly as possible. Nope. Not going there. Not, not, not.
She blew out a breath, took a couple of steps back to get a wider view on the photo, and snapped several angles. She tapped the screen to look at the images. Beautiful. Nothing could really capture the splendor of the surroundings—or of Gabe’s sexiness—but the pictures were gorgeous anyway.
His arm came around her waist, a familiar weight after a more than a week of sexing it up. Unusual though, because he never got too touchy-feely while he was working. “How about a close up of us? Want me to take it? I have a longer arm.”
“Sure.” She handed over her phone.
“Ready?” He held it overhead, resting his cheek against her ear. “Say man candy.”
She couldn’t help a laugh, and sang out, “Man candy!”
Bridget’s kid turned from where he was taking selfies with everything from rocks and moss to ice columns trailing from the waterfall. “What are you guys doing?”
“I’m enjoying my vacation, kid.” She winked and slipped away from Gabe. “Time to climb. Ready?”
“Heck, yeah.” He grinned with shameless glee. “This is the first time I’ve escaped my brothers since I got here.”
“Younger siblings.” She shook her head sadly. “Of course, Gabe here is the younger brother.”
A sage look molded the teen’s features. “That explains so much.”
Gabe’s dimples flashed, but he managed to keep a straight face. He brushed the front of his coat off, exuding all kinds of wounded dignity. “I’m going to help people who actually appreciate me. You two are beyond help.”
Anne tapped a few buttons and sent the pictures of Gabe to all three of her friends. They’d share and discuss no
matter what, so she might as well get it over with. She wasn’t sure she wanted their critique of the photos. Gabe was man candy, but that wasn’t all he was. He was smart, funny, and…nice. But if she said things like that to her friends, they’d assume there was more than an affair going on. That was something she would have no idea how to answer. There couldn’t be more than hot sex, no matter how much she liked him, but tell that to her tangling, jangling emotions.
She switched off her phone and stuffed it into her jacket. No more thinking about that. She had ice climbing to do.
Gabe ran through all the procedures for how to use the tools and gear for the climb, emphasizing safety features, letting everyone practice going up a few feet while he corrected their technique. Everyone here had to have some experience, though several had never tried ice before. Anne had taken an ice climbing skills course several years before and had done mixed mountain and ice climbing in the Sierra Nevadas. This was her third waterfall, and even then she wasn’t the most skilled with ice. There was a young, über-blond couple from Denmark who’d scaled all kinds of heights, frozen and otherwise. They gravitated to her and started chatting while others practiced. Nice kids, excellent with English, thankfully, because Anne’s foreign language abilities were zilch.
With Gabe set to go last, everyone gave her sidelong glances until she volunteered to go first. Even the Danes gazed at her expectantly. Okay, then. This was what she got for exuding confidence and authoritativeness. She strapped on the bindings of her crampons, which added metal spikes to her boots, and stepped up to the frozen falls. Then she hooked her harness into the rope the first guide had left behind, and slipped the loops at the end of each ice tool—a small device resembling a pickaxe—around her wrists. Then she reached up and drove the tip of one tool into the ice. Lifting a foot, she stuck in the end of a metal spike. A quick boost and she was balancing on the frigid waterfall.
She fell into a smooth rhythm—right hand swinging her ice tool, left foot spiking into the frozen water, heaving her weight up, then left hand, then right foot. Her muscles ached from the strain of pulling herself upward, her breath puffed in little clouds, and it was times like this when she felt completely at peace. Her mind and body were in tune, focused on a single goal. All the bullshit in the world melted away. There was no family drama to deal with, no sibling squabbles to break up, no work politics, no outside pressure of any kind. It was just her and nature and nothing else.
The winds whipped at the bits of her hair that stuck out from under her helmet. She got about two-thirds of the way up the waterfall, swiveled at the waist, and took a good look around. The Danes were just beneath her and gaining fast, but she ignored that for a moment to just absorb it all. On the right, deep green forest and craggy rock formations spread below her; on the left, the dark blue water of Alaska’s Inner Passages. Small, pale icebergs floated in the water.
It was magnificent.
Utter bliss infused her, and a huge smile curved her lips. Adrenaline and joy buzzed in her veins. The feeling was indescribable. Honestly, this was better than some of the sex she’d had. Not sex with Gabe, of course. That was in a category unto itself.
She smothered a giggle. Wilderness and great sex. What more could a girl ask for?
This was, without a doubt, the best vacation of all time.
Dinner with his parents was a riot. After the ship had left his group on shore, it had continued on to the far side of the plateau they’d hiked, where another group had taken an easier intertidal shore walk. His parents had opted for the low-key walk. Apparently, his mother had decided to sit and rest on a boulder, only to find out it was just a particularly dirty little glacier. So she’d had to finish the trip looking like she’d had an explosive case of diarrhea. Being his mother—hey, he’d inherited his brazenness from somewhere—she’d brought the offending pants with her to show Anne and him. The way she told the story, with such offended dignity, just made it even funnier. By the end Anne had tears rolling down her face, and Gabe’s ribs ached and he could barely breathe.
“I managed not to laugh. Not even once.” His father’s voice rang with unqualified superiority. “I doubt you’d have pulled that off, son.”
Gabe gasped, “Not even a chance.”
“Oh my God.” Anne squeaked between giggles. “Oh my God. Havana omelet. I’ve never heard it called that before. So disgusting!”
“My oldest boy, David, brought that home from junior high one day. Apparently, this kid had had eggs with too much hot sauce for breakfast. By the time he got to school…the situation became explosive. I doubt the boys invented that term, but I’m pretty sure the kid in question was called Omelet until he graduated high school.” Peggy draped her filthy pants over an empty chair. “What can I say? Teen boys are disgusting.”
“I know. I have them in my PE classes every day.” Anne made a gagging noise. “They’re practically feral. The thing I have to deal with most often is when they refuse to shower or wear deodorant. It’s truly rank.”
“Yep.” Peggy stabbed a figure at Gabe. “This one and his brother both. I was so glad when they got their first girlfriends. They started to groom better.”
Anne turned to him, sniffing the air. “Deodorant does a body good.”
“There’s been a couple of decades between me and my feral stage. You know I shower.” It was a slightly risqué comment, since she’d seen him shower, but his parents didn’t know that for sure.
A tiny smile curled Anne’s lips, and the impish little glimmer in her gaze was just for him. He winked at her.
Of course, he caught the smug look his mother shot his father. Vince waggled his eyebrows in return. “Want to make sure I shower, Peggy? Or should I go feral on you?”
“Race you to the cabin.” His mom hopped up, slung her pants over her arm, and grabbed a bowl of the strawberries and whipped cream that was served for dessert.
Gabe closed his eyes and stuck his fingers in his ears, imitating his teenaged self. “Lalalala, can’t hear you. This isn’t happening. Nope, nope, nope.”
His mother’s perfume surrounded him and then she smooched his forehead. It was muffled, but he heard her say, “Good night, dear. If genetics are good to you, you’ll still be able to get it up like your dad when you’re his age.”
What issued from his throat was remarkably like the noise of a wounded, dying animal. He pulled his fingers away and cautiously opened his eyes. “Are they gone yet?”
Anne nodded, a mix of sympathy and unholy glee filling her expression. “Where’s your trauma level? On a scale of one to ten.”
“Eleven and a half,” he replied drily.
“Fair enough.” She waved a hand toward the buffet. “I think they have champagne to go with the strawberries. Booze helps sometimes when parents inflict this kind of torment on their children.”
She sounded like she spoke from experience, but he’d found she was rather reluctant to discuss her family dynamic, and he didn’t feel like playing her guru tonight. He had better things in mind. “No bubbly for me. I’d rather you distract me in other ways.”
Her gaze met his, no coyness, no hesitation. She said baldly, “Come back to my room.”
“Yes.” He stood, tossing his napkin aside. She slung her purse over her shoulder and grabbed her bowl of strawberries and whipped cream.
At his incredulous glance, she shrugged. “What? We can’t have them showing us up, can we?”
He shuddered. “I’m refusing to think about it.”
“Me too, but I have no problem borrowing a good idea.” She flashed him the kind of come-hither glance that he’d follow anywhere. “Let’s go.”
She exited the dining room with a purposeful stride that would tell no one she was headed for some naughty, full-frontal shagging. Though at this point, it was basically an open secret they were lovers. The boat wasn’t that big and gossip traveled fast. Keeping anythi
ng discreet was a problem, and several passengers had seen him leaving her room early in the mornings. Anne didn’t seem to mind that people knew, and he certainly didn’t care what anyone thought of his sex life. They were both single, healthy, consenting adults. There were no rules against their affair. End of discussion.
After handing him the bowl of dessert, she fished inside her purse for her cardkey. A quick swipe and they were through the door. He deposited the strawberries on the nightstand, then went into the bathroom to raid their stash of condoms. When he came back, she’d already stripped down to her underwear.
She pursed her lips. “No sense waiting. Let’s get to the good part.”
“I like you so much.” He grinned and she wrinkled her nose, her standard expression when she was pleased but didn’t want to make a big deal of it.
“Likewise, Warren. Take off your clothes.”
“You first.” He let his gaze trail over her appreciatively. Her skin was paler than moonlight, contrasting with her fiery hair. She unhooked her bra and snapped it toward him like a slingshot. He caught the blue scrap of cotton and let it dangle from a fingertip. Like her panties, it was sensible rather than pretty. They didn’t match, which he actually liked. He’d been with women who spent way too much time worrying about that kind of shit. Anne dressed for comfort, not to impress anyone.
Her fingers caught the edge of her underwear and she pushed them down her long, slender legs. Dear God, she was lovely. It hit him every time he looked at her. Their eyes met, and it felt like a live wire sparked between them, sizzling with carnal awareness. She did it for him the way no other woman ever had before.
He already knew her pert breasts would fit perfectly in his palms. Her nipples were soft pink and puckered, ready for him to suck. The thatch of red hair between her thighs was dark with moisture, and his cock swelled with undeniable need.
“Damn,” he sighed.
She knew the effect she had on him, and a siren’s smile formed on her lips. “Your turn.”
Alaskan Adventure (Destination: Desire) Page 8
