by Inara Scott
“Don’t,” she said, catching his hand in hers, shaking her head fiercely. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” he asked.
“Don’t make this something it isn’t.” She leaned forward. “I didn’t bring you here to talk about my parents.”
“Maybe I want to hear about them. Maybe I want to understand you a little. Is that so wrong?”
“Look, I’ve been climbing with my dad since I was a kid. There’s no mystery in it. And yes, my mom died on Annapurna. She turned back from the summit because a storm was moving in and she was worried about me being at base camp alone. My dad was determined to summit, so she let him go. She was being cautious. But cautious doesn’t always protect you up there. Feel free to psychoanalyze that however you want.”
“Whose idea is it?” he asked. “Yours or your dad’s?”
“To do what?”
“To go back there.”
She shifted her position, looking anywhere but into his eyes. “I wouldn’t go if I didn’t want to. Every climber dreams of being up there, above the clouds.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her closer.
“How about you stop asking questions I don’t want to answer?” She shifted her position, bringing her legs to either side of his hips so she straddled him on the couch. As it always seemed to be with them, the heat was instant. The need overwhelming.
She tipped her pelvis, bringing her core in contact with his. He groaned, grabbed her buttocks, and pushed her down, hard, against him. His muscles were rigid and taut, his arms like steel bands around the curve of her hips. His fingers dug in and the force of his wanting left her giddy.
In the space of a heartbeat, they were insensible with need, blind to anything other than the pulse and throb of their bodies. His arms restricted her movements but brought them even closer and she shifted a few inches, the angle just right to imagine him already inside her.
She hadn’t realized she had closed her eyes until she opened them and found him staring at her, his eyes burrowing a hole right past the shield she’d hastily tried to erect around her soul.
She couldn’t speak.
“What is this thing?” he asked. “What are we doing?”
She leaned forward to cover his mouth with hers, the question too terrible to answer. Because this was nothing, and they both knew it.
They fell into each other, bodies surging, lips meshing. His hand came under her bottom and lifted her up higher before easing her off the couch and onto the soft wool rug that covered the floor. They rolled around until she was on top. She eased up just enough to jerk off her T-shirt, then bra, releasing her breasts into his hands with a shudder and a moan. The air around them was a warm caress. His skin tasted salty and sweet under her tongue. She pulled up his shirt, eased it over his shoulders, and threw it to the ground. Then she leaned forward and licked a path from the hard muscles of his abdomen down to the edge of his waistband.
He jerked against her. “Wait,” he groaned. “Just give me a second.”
She didn’t want to wait. She wanted to be filled and satiated. She leaned forward and dragged her nipples along his chest, the texture of his hair and skin a sweet torture. He growled and grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck, not hard enough to hurt but enough to assert control. With a deft motion, he flipped their bodies so he was on top, and pinned her to the ground with his knees. Surveying her like a prize, he dragged a hand over her breasts and pinched one already-oversensitized nipple. She jerked and arched into him.
“Take off your shorts,” he said. “I want to see you.”
Numb with need, she complied, and a moment later she was naked before him. He stood up, removed the rest of his clothes, and pulled something from his wallet before tossing it aside. After sliding the condom over himself, he knelt between her knees and pushed them open. The light spilled onto her naked torso, dipped lower to the flesh between her legs now exposed and naked before him.
Her eyes closed and she sucked in a breath when his mouth traced a line from her navel lower…lower…to the spot where she was already wet and hot but his tongue set on fire. She squirmed and bucked under his ministrations. Her voice caught in her throat, a desperate plea for release trapped between breaths. She was moving, arching, pressing against him. When her mind began to spin and the world grew cloudy, he covered her with his body. His lips were musky with the scent of her, but she drank it in greedily, opening wide underneath him so he could fill her with a single thrust.
It hardly seemed possible that they were two people. His hands rested on either side of her shoulders, his torso a few inches away as he thrust into her with a steady, increasing rhythm. The wool under her back was rough, scratching the sensitive skin, yet somehow the harshness made the perfect merging of their bodies that much sweeter. A spiral of sensation flashed behind her eyes. He groaned and dropped lower, his hips grinding into hers. She bent her knees, raised her hips to allow him to enter even more deeply than before. For a dizzying moment, she thought she might split in half.
And then the world broke apart. He cried out with release. And she was whole.
Chapter Fourteen
“People do this, you know.” Kelsey knew she was pointing out the obvious, but it seemed important to say.
“Have sex?” Ross’s voice rumbled beneath her ear. They remained on the rug, warm bodies nestled together, her head on his chest.
She nodded. “Multiple times, even. With people they have no intention of marrying.”
“And you think we can do that? Be like those people?”
“I don’t see why not.”
He chuckled, and the sound of it made her laugh. Their laughter was the sound of surrender.
“So we just, um, have sex?” he said. “And that’s okay?”
“I’m pretty sure,” Kelsey offered. “Not, like, one hundred percent sure. But pretty sure.”
“I’ll take it,” he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Now, any chance you could point me to the bathroom?”
She giggled and rolled off him, pointing toward the hall behind them. “The house is only six hundred square feet. I bet you can find it. We will consider this your first lesson in navigation.”
He tugged on her hair and then stood, flashing his naked bottom on the way to the bathroom. She stretched languorously, feeling an oozing warmth slide from her toes to the top of her head. She refused to second-guess the moment. Her body felt too good for remorse.
Just as her eyes had fallen shut under the weight of her comfort, she heard the sound of the front door opening. Kelsey dove for her shirt.
“Shit!” she hissed under her breath. “Shit, shit, shit!” She jumped to her feet, frantically searching the floor for her shorts. “Is that you, Dad?” she called.
Ross would hear her and realize he needed to stay in the bathroom, she thought, half in prayer, half in fervent belief. With shaking fingers, she located her pants, partway tucked under the couch, and dragged them on. No time for the bra, so she pulled her hair forward in a weak attempt to cover her breasts.
By the time she had clothed herself, her father was already inside the front hall. He held a cardboard box in his arms and wore a gray baseball cap with the Artisan logo on the front pressed low on his forehead. He jumped when he saw her. “I thought you were going to be out all day,” he said. “What are you doing home?”
“You know me, Nervous Nellie.” She forced a laugh. “They were forecasting thunderstorms, so I decided to cut it short. I figure I’ll go to the gym later.”
He frowned. “It didn’t look bad out there to me.”
She shrugged, positioning herself in the entranceway so he didn’t wander into the house. “I know. It had stopped by the time I got to the car. Better safe than sorry, I figured.”
“If you say so. Anyway, our new jackets arrived.” He held up the box. “I thought you’d want me to drop yours off so you could try it on tonight.”
<
br /> “Oh. Great. Thanks.”
Don’t look behind you. Don’t look guilty.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, squinting suspiciously. His gaze traveled the length of her, and she felt her shoulders hunch under his regard. “You called Artisan, didn’t you?”
“Not yet,” she said. “Just got home.”
Without invitation, he brushed past her and strode into the living room. She followed a few steps behind. Of course he wouldn’t wait for an invitation to come in. He’d never needed one before.
It took Kelsey less than a heartbeat to see Ross’s T-shirt on the carpet and his shorts crumpled in the corner. She winced, but it was too late to do anything. Her father’s steady gaze moved from the clothing to Kelsey’s face, and then back to the clothing.
“What’s this?” he asked evenly.
From the bathroom, there came a rattle, then the steady hiss of her shower.
“Kels?” Ross’s voice called. “Why don’t you join me in here?”
Her father grimaced. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Kelsey squared her shoulders. Her eyes slid away, not meeting her father’s distinctly unamused stare.
“We’re leaving in two and a half weeks.” He threw the box on the ground. “You act like this is some kind of joke. Like this is a game we’re playing.”
“I don’t think that. You know I don’t.”
“Who is he?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s nothing.”
Stay in the shower, Ross. Please stay in the shower.
“First you’re babysitting and now this?” His expression darkened. “You know better than to get involved with someone, especially right now.”
“Of course I know that.”
His face softened. “I’m saying this for your own good. You have to be unencumbered out there—clearheaded. You and I both know emotional attachments lead to bad decisions.”
“Babysitting for a few days and having a guy over doesn’t seem so terrible,” she said, fighting for calm.
“Maybe to other people. But we’re different. They can afford to make mistakes. We can’t.”
“I think you should go.” All of the pleasure of the day was gone. The muscles that had once been loose and easy tightened in taut bands around her neck and shoulders. “I’ll call you later, okay?” She started to walk toward the front door, hoping he’d follow without making a bigger scene. Hoping to salvage something of the moment.
His mouth tightened. “Fine. Do what you want.”
He stalked out of the house, temper reasserting itself as he slammed the door behind him
Kelsey sank down onto the couch, her legs shaking. Do what she wanted? That was a good joke.
“Kelsey?”
She jumped. Ross stood at the end of the hall, a towel draped around his waist. He looked dark and potent, a question lingering in his eyes.
“Hey.” She tried for a smile, jumped up, and grabbed the box that now lay in the middle of the room. “Bad time for UPS.”
He did not smile in return. She wondered how much he had heard.
“You should go ahead and shower,” she said, turning away from him to add the box to the stack beside the wall. “I really need to get back to work. I’ve got a million e-mails to return.”
“Kelsey—”
She cut him off with a raised hand. “Don’t,” she said, suddenly tired. “Please don’t.”
For a moment, the room was silent. Then the floor in the hallway creaked, and the door to the bathroom closed. She did not turn around.
Chapter Fifteen
Ross stepped over the mess of sleeping bags, water bottles, and headlamps, and zipped the tent flap closed behind him. He pulled his new fleece jacket over his head as he straightened. Thank goodness Kelsey had told them it would be cold at night, or they would have been woefully underdressed. The high temperatures in Denver had been in the nineties for days; now, it couldn’t be more than sixty.
“Are they asleep already?” Kelsey straightened abruptly. She had been reclining against a log in their makeshift kitchen area a few feet away from the tent. He wondered if she would have remained there, had she known the kids would be out so quickly.
“Dead to the world.” He smiled, rubbing his head. “I guess all that hiking finally caught up with them.”
It was Saturday, and they’d been on the trail since Friday afternoon. The first night, they’d pitched their tents a bare mile from the small gravel lot where they’d parked, in a clearing off to one side of the trail. The site was quiet and private, far enough off the highway to feel like it was smack in the middle of nowhere, but close enough that even the kids couldn’t bring themselves to complain about the walk in.
Despite the quiet, or perhaps because of it, the kids had had a terrible time getting to sleep that first night. After the thrill of the hike, the experience of cooking on a camp stove, and the fun of setting up sleeping bags and pads in their brand-new tent, they’d been wound up so tightly it had been well after ten before they’d been able to get to sleep. Kelsey had brought along her own single-person tent, and by the time Ross poked his head out of the large family one, she had disappeared inside it, cutting off any possibility of a private tête-à-tête.
He couldn’t say he was surprised. After the encounter with her father, she’d closed her walls so tightly she might have been a medieval castle—complete with moat. All the pleasure of the moment, all the giddy, delicious energy of their naked bodies, had disappeared when he heard her father’s angry words. Thinking Kelsey was confronting a burglar, he’d stopped on the way into the shower, ready to rush out, buck naked, in her defense. But his hand had caught on the door when he heard the conversation that followed.
Kelsey’s father, full of disapproval and anger.
Kelsey, sounding guilty, repentant. Shuttering her eyes afterward, making it clear that she had no intention of explaining what had just happened.
“It’s always hard to sleep the first night on the trail. The brain has to adjust to the quiet and the dark.” She tipped her head back to look up at the stars. Ross found himself copying her gesture, and he caught his breath at the beauty of it. A deep, pitch-black sky hung low over their heads, framed by shadowy pine trees. A dusting of stars brushed across the stretching darkness like the glitter Julia loved to sprinkle on her pictures. The only noise was the soft rustle of a nearby stream, and the breath of the breeze through the trees.
Had he ever been far enough from a city to escape the distant glow of its lights? Had he ever experienced this…absence…of sound? No, that wasn’t quite right. This place was by no means silent. But in his experience every moment had an underlying current of noise; distant sirens, honking horns, cars rushing past. Here, the world started with quiet and then added back the dim echo of water. Trees. Wind.
He sank down on the ground beside her. “I suppose. Julia was asleep before I finished reading her book, and Matt wasn’t long after that. Luke managed to read for a few minutes, but even he was exhausted. The hike was just right—long enough to tire them out, but not so long that they didn’t have time to relax and play in the afternoon.”
Kelsey picked up a silver-handled mug that she’d filled with tea just before he went into the tent with the kids. She took a sip before she spoke. “I remember hiking when I was a kid,” she said. “It’s fun for a few hours, but then you just want to take off your backpack and explore. I figured three miles was plenty of ground to travel. And besides, I knew the kids would love the waterfall.”
She had been to all these places many times before, Ross realized. No wonder this all seemed so comfortable to her. “How long have you been coming here?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “As long as I can remember. My mother loved this place.”
Surprised she had shared even that much, Ross didn’t press her when she trailed off into silence. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “I had no idea it would feel like this. I can
’t thank you enough for bringing us here. I know it’s hard for you to take the time out.”
“I was planning on coming out this weekend anyway. I got in my run this afternoon. It’s not a bother.”
That afternoon, after they’d pitched the tent and had a snack, she had laced up a pair of trail shoes and taken off, returning several hours later with her shirt soaked against her skin, cheeks flushed and red. Then she’d led them all to the stream and the waterfall, and they’d laughed and doused themselves in the chilly water.
Beside him now the long honey-colored curtain of her hair gleamed faintly in the darkness, her face obscured by the night. He was half expecting her to get up then, make some apology or excuse and hide herself away from him. Instead she stayed, drinking her tea and looking up at the sky.
“I never feel as comfortable in the city as I do out here,” she said finally. “It’s like there’s space out here for my thoughts. When I’m in the city, I’m always worried about something I did or didn’t do. Out here, I feel like I’m always doing the right thing.”
Ross settled his back against the log. He didn’t really know what it would mean to feel that comfortable in the outdoors—his back was still adjusting to the first night on the ground—but he understood a little of what she meant about relaxing. This was the first night since he’d arrived in Denver that he wasn’t going to bed mentally ticking off items on his to-do list.
“I’m sorry you had to overhear that thing with my dad,” she said after a pause. “He can be a little bossy, especially when it comes to my seeing someone.”
“I guess that’s one way to put it.” Ross didn’t look at her, but he moved a few inches closer, so their thighs and hips touched. He wasn’t sure what had inspired this confession, but he suspected it was something to do with the stars and the quiet.
“He never really bounced back after my mother died,” she added, almost apologetically. “He has the best intentions, he really does. He thinks he’s doing it for my own good.”
