The weak winter sun shone directly over her shoulder, casting a pale thin shadow that reminded her of a scarecrow’s next to Chance’s heftier, wider one. He had no trouble outpacing her, but every couple paces, he’d turn to make sure she kept up.
She bit back every complaint that lifted to the tip of her tongue, determined to match him for endurance and camaraderie if not skill. This was the first day of the rest of her new normal, and by the end of it, she would prove she was a woman of worth. She would!
Thinking of the way he’d made love to her kept her warm even though an icy winter breeze sifted over the powdery flakes, cutting into her jacket and biting at her nose. He’d offered a balaclava to protect her face, but he had none on hand that didn’t need serious alteration to fit her properly. Man, the Sinclair boys’ heads were big. She’d settled for a knitted beanie that still hung into her eyes when it unrolled, but it would do. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right? Man, I hope so.
Suede kept her focus on the back of her man, loving the view of his wide shoulders and taut ass, looking forward to more lovemaking. Never had she known sex could be so—fulfilling. So tender. So. Damned. Hot.
Just knowing it was him entering her body, that the hulking male over her had saved her, breathed life into her, and doctored her… Wow. The mere thought turned her into a quivering puddle of female hormones that went up in flames at the first touch of that glorious, rigid cock. And that orgasm he’d given her? Phenomenal. And a first.
She’d always faked it with York, and Mitch had been an entirely different story. No woman in her right mind found fulfillment during rape. But Chance? Her core clenched recalling the way her body had simply detonated under his expert tutelage. Intimacy had never thrilled her the way it did now.
She licked her lips thinking about that all-male instrument of pure pleasure he’d used on her. He was impressive, larger and thicker than any man she’d seen before. The way he’d entered her cautiously at first, as if he didn’t want to hurt her, resonated to her core, even now. He’d been exquisitely gentle. They had to do it again soon. Tonight.
Oomph!
Apparently Chance had stopped, but she’d been daydreaming and tripped. Down she went, spreading her hands wide to catch herself.
He flew to her side in a heartbeat, tugging her to her feet as she puffed snow out of her nose and wiped it off her face. His hand swiped over her forehead even as she shook her head to dislodge the clumps in her hair. “I must look like Frosty the Snowman,” she told him, stifling a giggle. Then she added, “Ho, ho, ho,” just because she had to be the biggest klutz in Montana.
His breath hung over her head like a cloud of fog. “You okay?”
Suede nodded, smiling at her mistake. “Yes, but let’s spend a day playing in this white stuff soon. I had no idea winter could be so much fun.”
That merited the sweetest ‘are-you-daft?’ look. “I take it you didn’t get much snow in Oregon?”
She shrugged her shoulders as icy drips worked their way under her collar and down her back. Brrr. “Uh-uh. I went to Alaska with my mom once, but there wasn’t time to just go for a walk and make snow angels. We were on a schedule. Time is money, don’t you know?” Besides, Mitch was there. Mom and he had things to do. Thank heaven none of them included me.
Before she could brace herself, Chance lifted both gloved hands and bumped Suede’s shoulders. Down she went. Backward. Into a drift that cradled her like a baby.
“Hey!” she squealed as she fell, tickled he’d do such a crazy thing when they probably didn’t have time to play.
He stood over her with the sun at his back and his hands on his hips. “Make your snow angel, baby. I’ll stand guard, so spread your wings and fly.”
Awwww. Tears welled up and Suede honestly needed a hug and a kiss. Chance did have romantic bones in his body, well, at least in his pants. Squeezing her eyes tight, she spread her mittened hands to the side and made the best snow angel she knew how, or as Chance put it, a snow angel baby.
He stood there looking to the right and then the left, a frosty blue sky for a backdrop, and her heart took wings again. “What are you watching?”
His head tilted down at her, but she couldn’t see through the dark black goggles perched on his nose. “Just some tracks.”
That brought Suede to her knees and back to her feet in record time. Bumping into Chance’s side, she latched onto his forearm. “Is he here?”
Chance tapped a finger under her chin to get her to look up at him. “Wolf tracks, not human.”
Like that made her feel better? “Are you sure? I don’t see anything moving,” she advised with her extreme lack of knowledge of wild animal behavior. But if animals were out there, York could be, too.
“They travel at night,” he said, “but winter’s tough on wild animals and they’re all hungry. Who knows what we’ll find. Just stick close. I’m armed, remember?”
She nodded. She was armed too, she just didn’t plan to shoot anything with the nine millimeter holstered on her hip. That was Chance’s job. She was there for moral support only. Maybe today wasn’t the best day for fun in the snow after all.
“Thanks for pushing me down,” she teased, dusting her backside off. “I never would’ve done that if you hadn’t helped.” Suede let her smile speak the feelings of her heart. Trusting Chance became easier every day. “How much farther?”
She couldn’t tell for sure, but the way his cheek tweaked, she was pretty certain Chance had just winked at her behind those reflective goggles. He chin nodded at the granite wall on her right. “Mother’s Day Falls is straight ahead. The pool you fell in is just below that edge,” he said as he pointed upward to a craggy set of five rocks in the granite face. They almost looked like a giant’s toes sticking out of the wall like they were. All they needed to do was wiggle.
“I figure you struck that ledge on your way down. It possibly slowed your descent enough that you didn’t fall as hard as you could have. Do you want to see where you landed?”
“Okay.” Suede gulped, her lips dry from the cold, but her throat had gone drier. The mountain loomed tall overhead, and this exact spot was where York had meant her to die. Nothing humbled a person as quickly as coming face-to-face with the site of their death. She took hold of Chance’s gloved hand, needing to stay close to him for this awful side trip.
He stopped and wrapped one arm around her shoulders, pointing a finger to the flat fluffy drifts of glittering snow several yards ahead. “See that stick pointing up? That one right there?”
She nodded. It might have been a little tree, but it was dead now. Like she should’ve been.
“That’s where Gallo found you. I think I actually heard the ice crack when you touched down, but he’s the one who dragged you to the surface.”
Glancing up, she crossed her arms over her chest, shivering even as she bumped her butt into Chance’s thigh. This side of the mountain was tall and frozen. So damned high. “Why... why didn’t I die?” I should have.
“Not sure,” he replied, enfolding her against his chest with his arm around her neck and his chin on her shoulder. “I think it’s because you’re an angel from heaven. You were sent to me, Suede. You’re a miracle.”
No, I’m not. Suede couldn’t make her gaze move from that dead branch. It looked like a witch’s finger, the end of it sharp like a long, dead fingernail, pointing skyward. Condemning. All at once, her past mistakes were too much to bear. Suede twisted around and buried her face in his jacket, breathing hard and drawing in the warmth and smell of the man who’d run to her rescue and saved her life when he didn’t have to.
“Why were you out here that night?” She had to know.
He wrapped her up tight, smothering her against him. “I told you already. I couldn’t find Gallo. He’d taken off and when I went looking for him, I found you. I couldn’t just leave you here, could I?”
All Suede could think was: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Gallo might hav
e found her, but without Chance’s lifesaving skills, she would’ve been nothing more than a cadaver Gallo dragged home. A piece of garbage York hadn’t wanted to deal with.
“I want to go home,” tumbled off her lips.
Chance stood there in the pale winter sun and rocked her. “Do you mean California or Ore—?”
“No, here. Your cabin,” she cut him off before he said anything crazier. California was nothing but a deathtrap waiting to slice her to ribbons. She didn’t belong in Oregon either.
“Good answer,” he murmured into the top of her beanie. “Come on, snow angel. We’ve got us a mountain to climb.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“When a man loves a woman…” With every touch and every sigh, the lyrics sung by Percy Sledge spun round and round in Chance’s head, taunting him to tell her. To say the word that mattered. It was past time.
He’d caught the hint of a shadow flicker through her pretty blues when he hadn’t returned her sentiments. It wasn’t that he didn’t care deeply about her, because he did, but what would a woman like Suede want with a banged up guy like him? What would she get out of the deal? Lonely nights while he was off in some dark corner of the world fighting more bad guys? Never ending worry that he wouldn’t come home again? Heartache? A flag-draped coffin and a white marble headstone in Arlington? It didn’t seem fair and he wasn’t that selfish.
Suede deserved more. Man, she was adorable. She made it hard to stay focused on the dangerous job at hand, and damn it. He had to get his mind back to zero or this op would fail before it got off the ground.
He’d purposely set the beacons to safeguard the cabin while he was away, and to reinforce, at least to himself, how risky this trip topside would be. Suede was no trained operator. She’d never climbed before, and he was pretty certain that if all went as planned, rappelling down the south face of Old Man Mountain would be extremely difficult for the woman who’d been shoved off of it just days earlier.
Yet one look at her, one frosty hint of her minty breath, and he was lost in space. Hitching her into her climbing gear hadn’t helped. A certain protectiveness had filled him with every tug at her harness, especially the strap between her legs. It had to be the caveman in him, but there was something about tying a woman up that teased the erotic beast within. Not that he’d ever been into all that BDSM crap, but the instinct to dominate her was there, nonetheless. So was an intense need to control everything around her, so she didn’t get hurt today or ever again. Yeah. Had to be the caveman in him.
Chance bumped her chin with his thumb to make her look up at him. Wearing the same style of tinted goggles he wore, he couldn’t see her tropical blues, but her brows were arched, and he knew she was worried. This would be a difficult mission for a novice, but there weren’t a lot of choices. It was York or Suede, and Chance chose Suede every time.
“It’s not a tough climb,” he told her. “Keep your head up and your eyes on the ropes in front of you. I’ve set enough anchors along the way, and there are plenty of footholds, you’ll be okay. It’s south facing granite, so the sun’s melted what snow the wind didn’t blow away. If you get in trouble, stop and breathe, but do not look down.”
Suede had a habit of jerking her head to the left when she was stressed, like a nervous tick. She was plenty nervous now. She nodded, jerked her head, but pressed her lips into a tight line.
Chance intended to help her relax in his extra-large bathtub once they got home. A good deep massage ought to loosen her up. A little bubble bath filled with the fragrant delights that Sullivan had included in the drone delivery wouldn’t hurt, either. That man certainly knew a lot about women.
See what I mean? Lost. In. Space!
Averting his gaze before he succumbed to the urge to kiss her into submission, Chance cocked his head to squeeze the tension out of his neck, and they were off. She’d already swapped her mittens for the rugged, leather climbing gloves. When Suede took the first step up Old Man Mountain, he followed a bit to her right, coaching and encouraging. “Good girl. That’s right. You’re doing fine.”
With every step up, her timidity changed into confidence. The rappelling gear would be heavier coming down, mainly because he toted most of it in his backpack going up, but a person could fall on the way up just as easily as on the way down. Like firearms training, Suede was a quick study. Not once did she slip, always a plus when you’re teaching a greenhorn. Better yet, she wasn’t afraid to try, and that was most of the battle right there. Attitude.
He smiled as his first impression of her came to fruition. Her right foot slipped and for a split second, she dangled over thin air, her only hold on the rock ledge overhead. The crazy woman turned to him and grinned. “Look at me! This is fun. I’m doing it, huh?”
His face cracked with joy. Suede was no victim. She’d meant what she’d said about turning over a new leaf, and she was doing it. Look at her go. His heart swelled with pride and a little lust, too.
“Don’t be a smart ass,” he told her as he stifled the urge to reach out and pat said ass. Still grinning, she secured her footing, stuck that cute backside out, and up she went. Right behind her, Chance smiled. Near the top lip of the cliff, right where it hung over the edge offering nothing but airspace and a long drop down, he shifted to her side and put a hand on her wrist to slow her.
Suede turned to face him. “Am I doing it wrong?”
“No, babe, you’re fantastic at this, but we need to traverse to your left about twenty feet. See those anchors over there? I studded this entire face with plenty for just this purpose. Take it slow and easy, one step at a time. Make sure your footing’s solid before you lift your other boot. Hold onto the grips. They’re just above eye level. They’ll keep you on track.”
She maneuvered to her left like a pro, kicking the snow that had packed into her cleats when she couldn’t get a solid grip on the anchor still buried in ice. Mountain climbing in winter was tough, but this granite face absorbed heat like a mother. It’d be the first bare face come spring and all that solar energy proved beneficial now. Chance followed her lead until she stopped where he’d told her to stop.
She turned expectantly to him, and he wanted to kiss that cocky pout off her face. She knew she’d done good, the brat.
“If York survived this last week, he could be waiting for us,” he warned.
Her head ducked into her shoulders as she looked up. “Right here? Now?”
Chance nodded. “It’s truth or dare time. One of us has to look over the edge to get a bead on him. Are you game?”
Suede angled her shoulders to the side, giving Chance the go-ahead, as if he’d let her take the risk? Silly girl.
He nodded in agreement, then gripped the handhold directly over his head. This edge of the cliff put him closer to the empty cabin than to York’s rig, but the biggest vulnerability to this plan was the sun shining behind him. It was broad daylight and Chance hadn’t worn snow camouflage. He and Suede were dressed in identical light gray snowsuits, right down to their matching beanies. When in doubt, always go Navy gray.
Taking a deep breath, he paused, then bobbed up for a quick look-see. A look that fast wouldn’t give York, if he happened to be facing the exact direction, enough time to focus on what he thought he’d seen. He’d most likely dismiss it as a shadow from some bird overhead. Maybe a rabbit. And in this sun, even as weak as it was, he’d still be snow blind—if he were even outside.
Chance took a second look with more deliberation until he was a full head above the edge. “Looks quiet. I’ll go first, then I’ll give you a hand up.”
She nodded like a good troop should. “Be careful,” she murmured, and didn’t that warm him up on the inside like someone had just lit a fire inside his rib cage.
Focus!
Chance palmed the icy ledge and rolled topside. He kept his head on a swivel and both eyes on high alert, scanning for any sign of York and quartering the snowy landscape for animals or other trouble. Those two dead bodies outsi
de York’s front door had to have attracted some wildlife, but Chance detected nothing from his prone position. Drifts now blocked the cabin on all four sides. The fancy rig that York had airlifted for his convenience was in the same shape. Snowed in.
Without shifting his focus from the rig, Chance swung his right hand over the edge for Suede to grab onto. She engaged, and he hung on tight. If anything went wrong now, he could easily swing her topside with him.
She came up breathless, hunkering low on her belly into the snow beside him. “Is he here? Did you see him yet?”
The tremble in her voice about did Chance in. He smoothed a hand over her back and left it between her shoulder blades to settle her nerves. “Not yet, but I’m not seeing any tracks either. He’s got to still be inside that rig, but look. The door’s snowed shut.”
Her head bobbed. “I see it and you’re right. He hates the cold. I doubt he’d be outside, but it’d be nice if he was. Frozen. Like a Popsicle.”
Chance smiled at her choice of deaths for the man who’d viciously tried to kill her. But a Popsicle fate was too good for a bastard like York. If Chance had his way, he’d strip York’s hairy ass and dangle him over the edge of this mountain to bait the bald eagles that lived in these parts. What better end to an ignoble man’s life than to be gutted and have his eyeballs ripped out of their sockets by the noblest of birds in the sky?
Chance tugged his sat phone up from his jacket pocket, tense as hell. He’d expected a confrontation from the dangerous man who planned to take down a city as large as Portland, not some simpering coward in a can.
“What now?” Sullivan bit out.
Chance grinned. You’ve got to love working with a guy who has zero tolerance for small talk. “I’m topside with Suede. Looks like York never left Montana. I’m going in unless you want to send a chopper, take control of his rig, and have him your way.”
Angel: An SOBs Novel Page 21