Falling for Mr. Wrong: A Bencher Family Book (Entangled Indulgence)

by Inara Scott

  “When you’re around, I wish I were.”

  “You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever inspired a man that way before.”

  He could hear a rueful laugh in her voice, and realized at that moment how little he still knew about her. “So now you know all about my family—what about yours? I don’t even know—do you have any siblings? Are your parents here in Colorado?”

  “My dad’s here. He’s all I’ve got, really. I never knew my grandparents. My mom had a falling-out with her parents when she decided she wanted to be a climber, and my dad’s folks are in Arizona. We never see them.”

  “Your mom was a climber? I had no idea.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice lost some of the warmth it had held, and he immediately regretted the question. “That’s how she met my dad. They did Everest together the year before I was born.”

  “And after you were born?”

  “They kept climbing.” She turned away and took a deliberate drink. “We moved to Colorado when I was thirteen. She died a few months later.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, the words feeling hopelessly inadequate.

  Kelsey shrugged. “It was a long time ago. Anyway, Boulder’s really perfect for climbers because you get accustomed to the altitude. And there’s perfect biking and training runs. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” She held out her empty glass. “Any chance I can get a refill?”

  She was obviously closing the door to further conversation so he didn’t push. Instead, he took her glass from her hand and set it on the counter, and then pulled her to standing. Quietly, he stared into her eyes. For the first time, he realized they weren’t just uniformly brown, but were flecked with amber.

  Her eyelashes were tipped with gold.

  “You are unlike anyone I’ve ever known,” he said.

  “Ditto,” she replied.

  “Thank goodness we know this isn’t going anywhere. Because we’re clearly from different worlds.”

  “Clearly.”

  He sighed, felt the knot holding him back unravel, and leaned forward to kiss her.

  Chapter Ten

  In Kelsey’s experience, kissing had always been a fairly ho-hum part of the sexual routine. At best, it served as a precursor for the more pleasurable things that came later. At worst, it involved some awkward head movements and a little more saliva than was entirely comfortable.

  Apparently, Ross Bencher didn’t look at it that way. He didn’t just kiss—he made love with his mouth. He leaned her back against the counter and focused all his attention on her lips, caressing them to plump sensitivity before seeking further entry. When she did part for him, he created a slow web of seduction, all by delicately licking, stroking, and sucking the tender flesh of her mouth. By the time his lips began to trail a heated path down her neck, she was lost.

  Utterly and completely lost.

  She recognized only dimly when he took hold of her waist and lifted her up onto the counter. Her legs wrapped around his hips, pulling him tightly against her. He slid his hands under her shirt and skimmed his fingers up and down her spine, sending tingles of sensation driving through her body. She relaxed her head backward, arching her back. He seemed to understand her silent request and moved his mouth lower, capturing the hollow at the base of her neck. One of his hands slid around and brushed over her breasts.

  The sensation shuddered through her and she had to stifle a moan.

  “Ross, are you sure…” Her voice was a low, throaty whisper, almost unrecognizable to her own ear. Her hands flitted over his back, felt the rigid strength of his muscles. He was taut, restrained.

  “Just let me kiss you,” he said. “I need to kiss you.”

  Mutely, she nodded and leaned back on her elbows. When he nipped at her ribs, muscles from her stomach to toes twitched with pleasure. With a firm hand, he pushed up her shirt and then glided his hands over her sensitive nipples, weaving circles around them until she began to pant, desperately wanting more but unable to move, captive to the spell he had woven on her body.

  He unbuttoned her shorts and eased them off her hips. She stifled a cry when his lips moved below her navel to the top of her mound.

  She meant to say something like, “We should stop,” but the sound that came out of her was more like, “ngahh…” or some similar combination of vowels and consonants that really just meant please keep going.

  Her legs seemed to part of their own volition, and then she melted into his mouth. The firm pressure of his tongue teased her clitoris with a steadily increasing rhythm. When he sucked on the nub at the same time his fingers found a path to her core, she jerked with a sudden, fierce orgasm.

  As soon as her body stopped shaking, Kelsey pushed her limp muscles to sitting. Ross was gazing at her, his eyes glazed with desire. Then they heard a door in the hallway upstairs, and the sound of footsteps.

  She jerked up the panties that still hung around her heels and dove for her shorts. Even as she pulled them up another door shut down the hall.

  “One of the kids going to the bathroom,” Ross said, his voice strained.

  She froze, heart racing. Without speaking, Ross pulled her against him. She could feel his breath on her hair as his heart thudded in his chest.

  “Shit, I’m sorry I—”

  He slid his hand down the back of her head, interrupting her apology with a kiss that left her breathless all over again. “We need a room with a door. And a lock.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe I should go.” She felt somehow guilty, as if she’d coaxed him into doing something he shouldn’t.

  “Not a chance,” Ross said. He tugged her hand gently, leading her toward the office. “But Luke’s a pretty light sleeper. We’ll have to stay down here.”

  She stifled a giggle at the absurdity of the moment. His determination. Her fear. Sneaking around like a couple of teenagers trying not to wake the parents.

  He pulled her inside the office and closed the door behind him, turning the lock and rattling the handle to make sure it was secure. The windows faced the backyard and the mountains beyond. Soft light spilled into the room from a distant moon.

  Kelsey shifted from one foot to the other, suddenly shy. Ross had changed into a T-shirt and shorts when he came home, and now he pulled the shirt over his head, exposing the chiseled muscles of his chest and a mat of dark hair.

  She looked around the room, wondering where she should go. He answered her unspoken question with a low voice. “Take off your shirt.”

  Startled, her gaze leaped back to his face. Electricity surged between them. She complied, dropping the offending garment on the floor next to her feet.

  “Now the panties.”

  Mesmerized, she slid the silky material over her hips. She was still wet and warm from their kitchen encounter, and the heat in his gaze left her tingling all over again.

  “Turn around.” His voice was suddenly hoarse.

  Astonished into complying, she spun on the ball of her foot to face the door to the room. He took her hands and placed them high on the door, above her head, weaving a line of kisses down her back and caressing the soft skin of her waist. She could no longer see or touch him but she could feel the heat of his body just inches away. Instinctively, she arched her back, and was rewarded by the feeling of the hard length of him against her buttocks. Her eyes slid shut and she lost herself in the sensation.

  He reached around to cup her breasts, his thumbs caressing her nipples. She exhaled in pleasure, arching further and deeper. He moved his hands lower, to her hips, and pulled her tightly against him.

  “Do you know how much I’ve wanted to do this?” he murmured into her ear.

  She shook her head, mute with rising desire. She wanted his fingers, his hands, his hips. Her body shivered in anticipation of more.

  More.

  “Every time I see you I remember that night.” One hand wrapped around, touched the soft skin of her stomach. Dipped lower. Her legs trembled with the effort of staying upright. She could no longer
distinguish her skin from his, her body from his. Sensations were bombarding her, from the pounding heat between her legs to the white-hot surge of her nipples as he rolled and tweaked the delicate flesh.

  “I can’t get you out of my mind,” he whispered into her neck. His mouth found the lobe of her ear, the hollow behind it, the long length of her neck. She was moving against him now, widening her stance so she could feel him more squarely at her core. “I think of your skin, your breasts, your moans.”

  Words built up inside her but the singing of her flesh drowned everything else out, leaving her gasping.

  Fingers reached lower, sought entry. When she was gasping at his arousal of the sensitive nub between her legs, he paused. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

  She leaned her forehead against the door, body trembling. He returned a moment later and she felt him guide hard flesh between her legs. She arched, sought the right angle for his entry. He moved lower, teased her with his fingers, and then slipped inside in a single thrust that lifted her off her feet and took her breath away. She was so wet, so hot and ready, that she only wanted him deeper. Her hands slammed against the door.

  “Yes,” she groaned. “More.”

  He held her by her hips and moved, a tiny thrust that only brought him more fully inside her. She met him with her hips, thrusting her breasts farther toward the door, biting her lip to keep from crying out.

  He moved faster then, building to a fast, hard crescendo. When his flesh jerked inside her she exploded alongside him. They collapsed together, bodies joined, breath joined, bodies melded together in release.

  …

  “How long before you leave town?” he asked.

  “Three weeks.”

  She spoke through her shirt as she pulled it over her head. When the fabric fell away from her eyes she discovered him watching her, his gaze traveling from her face to her chest, down past the curve of her waist to her hips. His expression was inscrutable. Kelsey lowered her eyes, feeling awkward and unsure. She wished she were lighthearted and clever enough to make a joke, like, “Thanks, boss!” or “Hope I didn’t wake the kids!” But she didn’t feel like joking. She felt like falling asleep in his arms.

  “You’re coming back Monday?”

  “If that’s okay with you.” She glanced around the room for her shorts, remembered they were in the kitchen, and headed for the door.

  “I won’t really have any time to talk on Monday.” He followed a few steps behind her. Was he apologetic? Dismissive? She couldn’t tell and didn’t want to turn around to look. “I found some office space in Denver that I’ll be setting up next week. I have two conference calls in the afternoon, and I got the kids enrolled in swimming lessons, so we’ll have to leave right after I get home. Can I call you later in the week? After Hope gets settled?”

  Her heart settled into her feet. That was it, then. She supposed she should have been happy that he had bothered to say it, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to pretend. People who said, “Can I call you later?” never called. They just didn’t. If he really wanted to see her again he would have set a time. Demanded a date. Done anything other than leave himself open to never seeing her again.

  She shrugged, telling herself that it didn’t matter and she was unconcerned. He was the one with kids, and a job, and issues. Not her.

  “Of course,” she said, offhand. “Call me anytime.”

  …

  Ross opened the front door and gestured for her to walk through. He let his hand linger on the small of her back, wanting some physical connection to prolong the moment. She had melted into him just as he’d remembered, her taste the same musky sweetness. His body felt as if he’d taken some kind of tranquilizer, his muscles slow and still pulsing with warmth. Yet deep in his brain, he was already starting to panic.

  No, scratch that. He had started to panic the moment he realized he had made love to his kids’ babysitter standing up in his ex-wife’s office.

  When had sex become so complicated?

  “You don’t really need to walk me out to my car,” she said. “It’s only two houses down. I’ll be okay.”

  “I want to.”

  They walked up the sidewalk to her car. The cooler air coming off the mountains laced through the heat still radiating off the sidewalks and buildings. The parched desert air and abrupt cooling of the evening was still new to him, but he was coming to love the crisp edges of Colorado—the brightness of the sun, the pure, dry heat of the day, and the chill of the evening breeze. It was almost possible to start thinking of this place as home.

  He took a deep breath and tried to figure out what was supposed to happen next.

  “I’m sure the kids will enjoy having Hope take over,” Kelsey said. “I’ve had her cooking before. She’s pretty amazing.”

  Ross nodded automatically. “That’s great,” he said, and then shook his head. “Except, no, I’m not sure that matters in the slightest. Matt would take a handstand lesson over gourmet cooking any day of the week. Why did you agree to do this, anyway? Why did you agree to babysit? I know this isn’t your thing.”

  “That’s easy,” she said. “Marie asked me.”

  “And you’d do anything Marie asked?” he said, trying to smile.

  “Pretty much,” she agreed. “She was my college roommate and my first real friend. She took me under her wing, introduced me to people, took me to parties. She didn’t have to help me, but she did.” She laughed softly. “She used to say we were twins separated at birth.”

  “Fraternal twins?” Ross smiled.

  “Right.”

  They reached her car. Kelsey’s keys jangled as she pulled them from her bag. He wondered why she needed Marie’s help. What her childhood had been like. A million questions itched to be asked but they would imply some kind of relationship between them, and that was exactly what he had vowed to avoid.

  “Guess I made it safely,” she said.

  The glow of a streetlamp cast a soft halo around her head. He almost couldn’t look at her. “I wish you could stay,” he said, unable to prevent the words from spilling out of him.

  She stared down at her hands. “It’s best that I go.”

  His fingers itched to trace the line of her jaw, slide down the smooth column of her neck. It occurred to him, as it had so often since she’d confronted him in his office the day before, that there was something terribly, horribly wrong about Kelsey climbing Annapurna. Something that didn’t fit. Something that wasn’t her.

  “I need to kiss you one more time,” he said.

  She closed her eyes briefly. He watched her golden lashes dip, caress her lower lids, and then raise again. “Yes.”

  Her lips tasted of sweet honey; she smelled like summer and sunshine. Their bodies and mouths meshed. They were standing next to an old Subaru, in full view of neighbors and passersby. They were all wrong for each other. All wrong.

  And yet, for that moment, it was right.

  Chapter Eleven

  The smell of the climbing gym assaulted her as she walked through the door. It was a combination of sweat and feet, with an overlay of patchouli and cloves. It might have been disgusting, if it wasn’t so comfortably familiar.

  “Hey Kels, long time no see.” The skinny, tattooed twentysomething behind the counter waved as Kelsey entered the climbing gym with Hope, Matt, Julia, and Luke close at her heels. It was Monday morning, and they’d arrived at the Slippery Rock just a few minutes after it opened. Kelsey preferred coming to the gym in the morning. They played the music a little softer, the mats were a little cleaner, and there was no waiting for the most popular climbs.

  Matt’s eyes widened appreciatively. “See,” he whispered to Luke. “I told you.”

  “She’s not famous,” Luke hissed back.

  Kelsey rolled her eyes at the familiar harping between the boys. She stuck out her tongue at the man who had spoken to her. “I was here yesterday afternoon, Tank.”

  “I know. It’s been”—he cons
ulted his watch—“almost twenty hours. You’re getting lazy.”

  She snorted as she handed him three pieces of paper. “Some waivers for you to file.”

  Tank’s earring-filled eyebrows drew together. “For who?” He pretended not to notice the kids who were now crowding the glass-topped counter, which held an array of climbing gear, including chalk bags, harnesses, and slender, black-soled shoes.

  Kelsey leaned over to give him a friendly whack on the shoulder. “Tank, pay attention. Our climbers today are Matt, Julia, and Luke. They’re going to tear up the walls.”

  Tank gave the kids a mock salute. “Nice to meet you guys.” He glanced over the waivers, and then back at Kelsey. “You adopt some kids while I wasn’t looking?”

  Julia grabbed the edge of the counter and stood on her tiptoes. “No, silly, she’s our babysitter. At least for today. Tomorrow Hope is coming but Kelsey said she’s still going to visit us because we are the best kids ever. Our dad’s at work. Is your name really Tank?”

  He smiled. “I don’t know if you’re the best kids ever, but you are pretty lucky, because Kelsey’s the best climber I’ve ever seen, and she doesn’t usually bring kids here. So you must be special. And no, my name’s really Ernie. But don’t tell anyone, okay? I think Tank sounds better.”

  Matt elbowed Luke. “See? Famous,” he mouthed the last silently.

  Luke scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Whatever.”

  Tank caught the tension between the two. He leaned forward on the glass countertop. “Did you know Kelsey’s climbed all of the fourteeners in Colorado?” he whispered, with a conspiratorial sidelong look.

  Luke frowned. “What’s a fourteener?”

  Tank put a hand over his heart. “You don’t know what a fourteener is? Where are you from?”

  “We’re from New York,” Luke said sullenly. “As if you couldn’t tell.”

  “We moved here because our mom got a new job,” Julia explained.

  “I see.” Tank rubbed his chin. “Well, then you should know that a fourteener is a mountain that’s over fourteen thousand feet. There are only eighty-eight in America, and fifty-three of them are in Colorado. And your old babysitter has climbed all of them.”