by Jill Shalvis
“Oh,” she whispered.
Their bodies brushed together again and every bit as affected by their nearness as she, he drew in a harsh breath.
Encouraged, she lifted a hand to stroke his jaw, because she’d been dying to do that all day.
Only he caught her fingers in his and stopped her. “Don’t.”
The word seemed torn from him. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
He stared at her. “This is a really bad idea, but for the life of me, I can’t remember why.”
“Good.”
“Remind me.”
“No way.” Then because he was holding her hand, and her other was wrapped around his neck, she tugged until she could slide her cheek along his. “Kiss me, Chance, come on, just one kiss.”
Another rough laugh rumbled in his chest, and he slid his fingers into her hair, lifting her face, looking into her gaze for a long moment before lowering his mouth to just the corner of hers. He dabbled there, then nibbled his way to the other corner, making a deep sound of pleasure at the taste of her. “Tell me no.”
“Yes.”
“Ally.”
Her insides melted at the sound of her name on his lips, then dissolved completely when he tilted her head to match up their mouths.
It should have been just one simple little kiss. Only there was nothing simple or little about it. Her senses revved, her legs weakened. Her heart soared, and she murmured his name, wanting more, so much more.
He complied, drawing one hand down her spine to her bottom, squeezing, pressing her even closer. His other cupped the bare skin of her neck, his thumb stroking her jaw as his mouth teased and coaxed hers.
When he pulled back, she gripped his shirt in her fists and held on because the connection had become far more important than breathing.
“You said one kiss,” he reminded her, his eyes dark, his voice raspy and rough.
“I lied.”
A low moan escaped him, then he kissed her again, long and slow, wet and deep, taking his sweet time. This time when the kiss ended, they were both panting, and he rested his forehead against her brow. “You’re not what I planned on.”
“What did you plan on?”
“Not feeling as though you’ve blown into my life like a fist to the gut, that’s for damn sure.” His mouth was still wet from hers, and he looked hot and bothered.
That made two of them.
Only his brow was furrowed with intensity, his eyes filled with mysteries and secrets he had no intentions of sharing with her. And looking deep into his gaze, she knew the truth. She was going to be leaving here all too soon, and she’d done what she’d sworn not to do.
She’d gotten her poor heart involved.
TWO DAYS LATER Chance found himself filling in on mountain bike patrol. It was hard, hot work, and though he’d never had a problem with that, by the end of the afternoon, after warning oblivious first-timers of the danger of leaving the trail, after chasing not so oblivious bikers who should have known better against the same thing, he longed to rip down the steep terrain, tearing up the dirt, wind flying in his face.
Longed to break all his own rules.
How he’d ended up with so many rules to begin with was beyond him. When he’d left home at age seventeen, his parents had welcomed his restlessness with pride, sending him off with smiles as he’d backpacked across the globe, getting into one scrape after another and loving every moment of it.
Until Tina.
After her death, he’d somehow landed in Wyoming, with twenty bucks and a tired spirit. The remoteness, the sheer vastness, the very wildness of the land called to him as nowhere else ever had.
Luckily for him, Lucy had taken one look, and had hired him on the spot. He’d been given a tremendous amount of freedom, coupled with all the thrill and adventure he could make for himself.
And he’d made plenty. He needed some now.
The minute the mountain closed to paying customers, the second he ripped off the vest that qualified him as an authority figure, he put his bike over his shoulder onto his back and climbed the mountain so he could go down his way—mind-blowingly fast. No responsibility. No Brian dogging him. No Ally blinking her big eyes at him.
Nothing but his own company.
Halfway up, the radio on his hip crackled. Damn, he should have turned it off.
“Hey, boss,” came Jo’s voice. “Lucy on line two. She wants to tell you not to break a leg.”
Chance smiled and kept going, his muscles straining, his breath coming in even pants, breaking a sweat for the first time all day.
“She also wants to know if you’ve been kissing Ally.”
He stopped short, nearly tripped over his own two feet.
“Don’t worry,” Jo said, laughing at his silence over the airwaves. “I told her City Girl wasn’t exactly your type.”
Which was absolutely true. He didn’t want her, certainly didn’t need her, no matter what she seemed to think. Just the idea she considered him needy at all really got to him.
She was the needy one, dammit.
He hiked on, refusing to waste precious biking time thinking about it, or her. Or the kiss he could still feel on his mouth even now.
But one hundred yards later, he stopped at the unmistakable signs that he was being followed. Soon enough, Brian appeared, wearing a defiant look and carrying a bike that had seen better days.
Chance swore. “What are you doing?”
Brian’s chin went up a notch. “Same thing as you.”
“You’re checking out the terrain, making sure all the guests are down the mountain?”
Brian snorted. “That’s not what you’re doing. You’re climbing up so you can rip down, fast as you want.”
Chance stared at him, then sighed. “Okay, fine. You caught me. Now go away.”
“I want to come with you. I want to learn all I need to know about this place.”
“Well, that sounds suspiciously responsible.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“And yet you’re a juvenile delinquent. Go figure.”
Brian’s face reddened. “I didn’t start the fire.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I didn’t!”
Chance no longer knew what he thought on that score. Brian seemed genuinely indignant about the charge. On the one hand, if Brian had started the fire, he was being suitably punished. But if he hadn’t, as he continuously claimed, then Chance had been pretty rough on him.
“Can I go with you, or what?”
Chance shoved his fingers through his hair, wondering why he couldn’t just say no. He was going soft, no doubt. “Yeah. Fine. Whatever.”
He hadn’t realized the tension that had held Brian rigid, but the boy relaxed now, enough to let out one cocky grin. “Yes!” He ran up the trail toward him, half carrying his bike, half dragging it.
Chance watched, torn between the need to groan with frustration and the need to smile at the enthusiasm he recognized all too well.
Still, he’d rather be alone. He was a simple man with simple needs. He wanted to live his life the way he wanted, when he wanted—without restraint. Work wasn’t considered a restraint, he loved his work. But Brian on the other hand, the kid was a definite restraint.
As was Ally, with a capital R.
And as if he’d played with fate at just the thought, he summited the mountain with Brian dogging his heels and came to an abrupt stop.
There at the top, pretty as a picture, smiling with hope and excitement, stood Ally, a mountain bike leaning against her hip.
“What in the hell are you doing here?”
“Inappropriate language,” she tsked, picking up the helmet dangling from her handlebars and putting in on her head.
Backwards.
Swearing, then biting his tongue at the grin Brian gave him, he strode forward and pulled it off. His fingers slid through her silky hair as he turned the helmet around. The scent teased him and he scowled. “How did you get up that trail
and why are you here, here where I am?”
“I walked up the trail,” she said. “Same as you, soon as I heard you tell Jo on the radio what you were going to do.” She smiled sweetly and something inside his chest did a slow roll. “I waited for you. As for why, it’s because here is where you are.”
How did he respond to that? With one look into her wide, guileless eyes, his usual sarcasm failed him. “You don’t know how to ride. You hit things. You fall.”
“I’ve been practicing. Every afternoon in the parking lot.”
“The parking lot is flat.”
“I’m doing this. We’re doing this.” She turned to Brian. “Now I want you to be extra careful, do you hear me?”
Brian was still grinning. “I hear you. Can I lead?”
“If that’s okay with Chance,” she said demurely.
Oh, now she was being meek. “Go ahead,” he said tersely, wondering if he purposely lost both of them up here, if they’d make it down on their own.
He wouldn’t bet on it.
So together the three of them came down the newly redone trails, the wind in their faces, trees whizzing by, the earth crunching beneath their wheels, and though everything inside Chance screamed to race down the trail at eye-popping speed, he restrained himself. Barely.
It helped that Ally’s T-shirt was white and snug. It helped that the wind left her chilled, which meant her nipples were clearly defined. It helped that she had the best butt he’d seen in a good long time—
“Let’s go off trail,” Brian yelled.
It was exactly what Chance wanted, needed, to do, and he warred with himself, but in the end, he shook his head.
“Why not?” Ally asked.
Yeah, why not?
“It’s against the rules,” he said, wincing at his militant tone. He took the lead and stayed on trail. While pedaling, watching his world go by, he took a good hard look at himself and didn’t like what he saw one bit.
How had he become the pansy and Ally the wild thing? He couldn’t help but think about how she’d felt in his arms, lush and warm, eager and pliant, whimpering into his mouth for more. Passionate. Uninhibited. Ready. At that thought, his foot slipped, and the next thing he knew, he was face down in a heap, eating dirt.
“Wow.” Brian leaped off his bike and ran toward him. “That was an awesome fall. You okay?” The kid looked over his shoulder, then leaned close. “Were you trying to show off?” he whispered. “You know, for Ally?”
“Oh, Chance!” From behind them came Ally, still riding, her legs pumping for all they were worth, her hair flying, her mouth opened in a little “Oh!” of concern. She came closer and braked—too late.
She was going to crash, hard, and all Chance could do was watch in horror as she skidded past him, screaming like a banshee.
A small bush broke her fall.
Surging to his feet, Chance rushed toward her, sinking to his knees at her side as visions of her dying choked him so that he couldn’t even breathe. “Ally,” he managed, only to have her get up on her own, laughing at herself as she dusted herself off. “I’m fine,” she said, an innocent hand to her breast. “How about you?”
He sank to his butt, the adrenaline catching up with him. Then, because he was too weak for even that, he lay back on the ground, studying the sky, waiting for his heart rate to return to normal, which it probably wouldn’t do until Ally left Wyoming.
“Chance? Are you okay?” She leaned close and peered curiously into his face. “How are you?”
How was he? Crazed.
Brian was trying to hold back his amusement at having watched his idol fly over the handlebars like an amateur, but he failed as a laugh escaped him.
Chance glared at him. “Oh yeah, this is just hysterical.”
“You’re not supposed to think about a chick when you’re doing something dangerous.”
“Gee, thanks for the tip.” He looked at Ally, who was applying lip balm to the mouth he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about for days.
“Can we go off trail now?” she asked, a branch in her hair, dirt on her cheek.
“No.”
“But you do it all the time.”
“I have terrain to check out.”
Brian gave out that snort again.
Ally just looked at Chance, her huge eyes filled with disappointment, though why it mattered what she thought, he had no clue. By her own admission she didn’t want to care about him, she had enough on her plate.
So did he.
Still, he made them all stay on trail, despite Brian’s grumbling. He stayed on trail and watched Ally’s nicely rounded bottom as it bounced in her seat. He’d never ridden with an erection before, and learned the hard way it was a definite detriment to his well being.
7
DETERMINED TO FIT IN, Ally exercised every night. She worked hard every day as well, doing all the paperwork in the office, helping on the mountain, replanting. And with Lucy’s request in mind, she made sure to fit in lots of fun as well. Every lunch hour she spent learning something new.
This week it was kayaking.
It took a lot of convincing, but she got Tim to take the same lunch hour, which he spent showing her the basics.
One morning they got up early and hit the river for an hour before work. Afterwards, exhilarated, still wearing the neoprene river jacket Jo had lent her, and a pair of small men’s swimming trunks, she stood on the path between the lodge and her cabin. She was wet, and she needed a hot shower, but it was a glorious morning. There were heavy woods on either side of her, so that if she looked up into the amazing sky she could almost believe she was all alone on earth.
Birds sang. Trees rustled. Branches crunched beneath her feet. All sounds that only weeks ago had made her so nervous. Now she thought them lovely. Essential. She hadn’t heard them often enough in her city.
She had to laugh at that, because San Francisco had never been her city, but a place where she’d parked herself and let life pass her by.
She couldn’t fathom doing that now. Over the past three weeks she’d felt more vibrant, more alive than she’d ever felt, even in her precious library. Yes, she missed take-out food. She missed a good shopping mall. But breathing in the fresh, clean air, Ally suddenly couldn’t imagine the crowded freeways, the pollution.
A female giggle pierced the air and the woods went completely silent.
“Anyone there?” Ally called down the empty path, imagining a clandestine meeting between destined-but-tragic lovers. Maybe they had sneaked away into the forest, overcome by passion. Maybe they were fated to steal moments in time, trapped by circumstance, by a family feud, by social differences…
The only tragedy here was her imagination, though she couldn’t deny the little sigh and the wish that she had a lover to meet. A lover like…oh darn it, she might as well admit it. Like Chance. Just the thought of him, all dark and brooding, heated and aroused, made her weak.
As if it could ever happen. Laughing at herself, she started walking again, but didn’t get two feet before she heard another giggle, followed by a distinctly male “hush.”
“Okay, I definitely heard that,” she said to the trees.
More unnatural silence, though she could have sworn that “hush” had sounded like…Brian? But it was a weekday, which meant he’d be getting ready for school.
Or he’d better be.
Not that she was worrying about him. No, that would mean she wasn’t following her new pattern for life—Ally first. But there was something about him, so tough yet so vulnerable, that if she had been the old Ally—and that was a big if—then she would have ached to help him.
As if he’d ever let anyone do that for him.
Hopefully he’d find his own way, and that it would be a safer, more grounded path than the person he so clearly idolized—T. J. Chance. Because while she was enjoying living the wild life during her time here, she knew it couldn’t last, just as she knew it wasn’t the lifestyle for a fourteen-year-old. N
ot with his fondness for adventure, his dislike for authority, and a definite penchant for danger. Even his girls weren’t picked with care. Jo had told her Brian was “hanging” with one whose father was an owner of a competing resort, a man who’d undoubtedly look at Brian’s baggy clothes and sullen expression and hate him on sight.
A twig snapped.
“Darn it!” She stopped again. “Who’s there?”
More silence greeted her. No reason to feel this frustration. So there were two people having a grand old time in the woods, when she had a deep longing to have a grand old time in the woods herself. So what? It didn’t mean she had to become irritable simply because the only man she wanted didn’t want to want her back. She began walking again, faster, frustrated. “Damn him anyway.”
“Talking to yourself again?”
She nearly fell over. That very man she’d been thinking about stood on the steps of the lodge as she came out of the woods. His big body blocked the sunlight, but she refused to let him know he intimidated her, even when she backed herself against the wooden fencing guarding the resort’s equipment.
Chance merely stepped close and penned her in. She looked up past his broad chest, his tanned throat, past his full, sensuous mouth and into his dark, hooded gaze. She didn’t know if it was the early hour or the intoxicating scent of him, but her brain sent mixed signals.
Wrap your arms around him.
Run like hell.
He’d clearly just come off the mountain, maybe from a ride. His black biking shorts and matching damp shirt clung to every inch of him, and every inch was pretty amazing. No fancy gym body for this man, no his came custom-made from his lifestyle. Still, it was his eyes that drew her now, those fathomless eyes.
Both she and Chance had pointedly ignored what had happened between them. They’d both danced around the fact that if they so much as touched each other, they would most likely implode.
And yet he was nearly touching her now. Slowly, he took his gaze on a leisurely stroll down her still wet body, taking in her messed up hair, the borrowed jacket, the shorts…her bare legs.
And despite the fact that she was dressed quite modestly, the way he looked at her left her feeling…naked. “Good morning,” Ally said, meaning to sound upbeat and confident, as if he didn’t affect her at all, but her soft, whispery voice betrayed her.