She sat back on her haunches and admired her work. She had to do something to break the sexual tension between them and this ought to do the trick.
Chewing on her bottom lip to stop herself from giggling, she stood and grabbed a blanket to put over him while he slept. She watched him for a minute, his slumbered breaths slow and deep. God, even with ink on his face he was drop-dead handsome.
When he’d talked dirty to her at the Crown & Anchor she’d been so aroused by his words, his husky voice, his attention right on her, that she’d almost said screw it and asked him to sleep with her. Make it just about sex. Nothing more. She’d keep a mental distance and give in to her body’s desire for him. No other guy had ever gotten her this uptight. This needy.
Maybe some innocent fooling around wouldn’t be so bad. She could keep her guard up, keep her emotions in check, and just have some physical fun.
But after Kagan had interrupted them, he’d concentrated on his food, the ball game, everything in the pub but her. And she’d remembered he was also her thesis subject and the very last thing she should be doing was mixing schoolwork with pleasure like that. So the blood rushing through her body and the tingles between her legs had slowed, then stopped. And they’d soon fallen back into the easy banter she’d come to enjoy more than she’d admit.
She leaned over and because he’d never know, brushed her fingers through his soft brown hair before she kissed his cheek and padded to her bedroom.
…
The smell of coffee roused her from a very restless sleep a few hours later. She lifted up, stretched, and followed the delicious scent.
A very yummy man stood in her kitchen. Troy had his back to her so she took a minute to let her eyes adjust to the morning light streaming through the small window above the sink and admire the way his black T-shirt clung to his wide shoulders. They were the kind of shoulders a girl would love scraping her nails over as she lay beneath him. The wrinkled cotton tee made her want to wrap her arms around him, slide her hands underneath the hem, and smooth her palms over his rib cage and up to his chest while she buried her face against the soft material at his back. His low-slung jeans were a bonus.
An unwelcome prickling sensation moved down her spine.
The toaster oven dinged. He pulled out two pieces of toast, put them on a plate with scrambled eggs, and turned around. Her doodles still covered his face.
“Oh, hey. You’re up. Perfect timing. I’ve got breakfast ready.” He put the plate of food on the table and sat. Across from him was another full plate. “The least I could do was make you breakfast this morning after passing out on your couch last night. Sorry about that.”
Finally his eyes settled on hers. “You okay?” he said.
She stifled a giggle. “Uh…” He hadn’t looked in the mirror this morning. “Yeah. I’m fine.” She got her feet to move and slid into a chair at the table. “You really didn’t need to do this.”
“Yeah I did. I was starving.” He winked and she swallowed another chuckle. Relaxed some too, grateful his nicety was wrapped in some self-serving motive, too.
“Thank you.”
“Sure.” He dug into his eggs. “I let Rover out, hope that was okay. I got the feeling he wanted some fresh air.”
“That’s fine,” she said, trying to act normal. As if cute guys made her breakfast all the time and this morning wasn’t anything special.
When really no one had ever made her fluffy scrambled eggs and bread perfectly toasted—not too brown, but not too untoasted either.
Since when did breakfast make her feel so affected? She needed to point out his new facial features.
“It’s getting cold,” he said, pointing his fork at her meal.
Eat first, share later, she decided when her stomach growled. She dug in. “Mmm. Not bad, Mr. Streiber.”
“I’m the official egg scrambler when I’m on duty at the station.” He narrowed his eyes. “And don’t you mean Mr. Tomcat?”
She choked down her eggs.
Her eyes widened as she tried to finish her swallow without spewing eggs across the table. When the eggs finally went down, she put her hand on her chest to rub the ache there. “You saw what I did and still made me breakfast?”
“I laughed my ass off.” He smiled, and for the first time she noticed the very faint dimple in his left cheek. “You keep surprising me, Erin Watters.”
“You’re not mad?” Why wasn’t he mad at her?
“Not at all. It’s damn funny.” He rested his elbows on the table. “And it makes me curious to know what else you might throw my way.”
Was that a challenge? She never backed down from a challenge. But if the stupid feelings warming her insides were any indication, Troy wasn’t the normal challenger. She drew in a breath. “Nothing else is coming your way.”
“Right after college a buddy of mine got married. He got completely wasted at his bachelor party and passed out. The other groomsman and I shaved one of his legs.”
“You didn’t.” She pulled her sweatshirt sleeves over her hands and reclined against the chair back.
“We did. His fiancée wasn’t too happy with us, given they were honeymooning in Hawaii.”
“That’s so mean.”
He arched one brow and shot her a mischievous look.
She dropped her gaze to his hands and watched as he buttered a piece of toast. Kind, trustworthy hands. She’d been on the receiving end of those hands several times now and liked it. A lot. “It’s not the same thing. You can wash your face and it will come right off.” I think. “What did he do?”
“He shaved the other leg and had an amazing vacation with his new wife. No harm, no foul.” He took a bite of toast. “What are these things supposed to be?” He pointed at the triangle on his left temple.
“Ears.”
“Huh. Okay.”
“Are you knocking my artistic skills?”
Shoving food into his mouth, he shook his head, but she noticed the smirk hiding behind his chewing. “You look exactly like a cat,” she said.
“How about I draw on you?”
Erin tucked her hair behind her ear. “Ha! I don’t think so. This?” She moved her finger in a circle in front of her face. “Stays exactly how it is.”
“Who said anything about drawing on your face?”
And the let’s-get-physical tug came roaring back. And were her cheeks turning a giveaway shade? Shit. She pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt and quickly got up to slide open the kitchen window.
She leaned against the counter and let the crisp outdoor air cool her body and her thoughts. Since when did everything about Troy appeal to her?
His warm body caged her in, his hands on the counter. She stiffened, but a second later when his mouth brushed the side of her ear, she softened against him. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m sorry,” he said, his tone gentle.
“You didn’t.” She twisted and ducked under his arms.
He turned. “Okay. Excuse me a minute?” He headed down the hallway and went into the bathroom.
She sat back at the table, reminding herself he was her test subject and getting too close could have repercussions. Her adviser had warned her that mixing school work with personal feelings might jeopardize her thesis. She needed to get that through her thick skull.
A fresh-faced Troy returned a couple of minutes later. Well, almost clean-faced. Smudges of black here and there remained. Oops.
“So today I thought we’d do some rock climbing,” she said.
“O-Okay.”
“Indoor rock climbing,” she clarified.
If a man could look both vulnerable and pleased, Troy did. Color flared in his cheeks, and his eyes, teasing a few minutes ago, took on a tender appearance. “I’d like that.” He took his spot back at the table.
“It should be easy. And fun.”
“Should be.”
“Here’s what I want you to do today.” She wrapped her hands around the edge of her chair.
“Forget the past. Start telling yourself to relax about what happened on that rescue months ago. Don’t let your thinking brain get overruled by your emotional brain.”
“Easier said than done.”
“I think you’re up to the challenge.” She let a small smile slip. She was pretty sure that like her, if he was goaded to do something, he didn’t back down.
“I need to tell you something else about that day.” He pressed his shoulders back and rubbed the side of his neck. “Before you counsel me anymore.”
“Okay.” She picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip, never letting her eyes leave his.
“I knew the victim… She was my girlfriend.”
Erin sucked in a breath. Of all the things he could have said, that was the last thing she’d expected. “Oh, Troy.” Without thought, she laced her fingers with his atop the table. Condolences ran through her mind, but his eyes held so much. So much trepidation and remorse, that the last thing she wanted was to come off sounding like she pitied him.
“I knew when we got the call that it was her,” he said, turning his hand over and rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. “I also had this horrible feeling we’d be too late.” His gaze fell to their hands. “I should never have rappelled down the mountain first. I knew when things were personal it was best to stay uninvolved. But all I could think about was asking her to marry me. I’d been planning to do it and if she was still alive I wanted those to be words she heard. I wanted her know what it felt like to be loved that much.”
“She knew,” Erin whispered, fighting the sting of tears in the backs of her eyes. She had no doubt— “What was her name?”
“Jamie.”
She had no doubt Jamie knew how lucky she was. “Her accident wasn’t your fault.”
He rubbed his free hand across his jaw. “I know.”
“But?”
“But I wish I could’ve saved her.” A large gulp slid down his throat, his shoulders slouched.
“That’s a normal and healthy response.”
“My job is to get to people in time and I failed. But she let me down, too, and it bothers me that I’m mad at her for it when she’s…gone.”
“What do you mean?”
He pulled his hand away, his gaze touching everything in the room but her. “She had no fear and thrived on taking risks. Nothing scared or worried her. And she was a bit of a loner.” He scraped his fingers through his hair. “But that morning I asked her not to go off on her own and she did it anyway.”
It killed Erin to see the pain etched around his eyes. “I’m sure she had a good reason.”
“Yeah. Boredom.”
A twisty-turny ache took up space in the pit of her stomach. “You kept up with her, though, on most days? Your days off.”
He nodded.
And she got it now. She was insanely attracted to Troy because of his good looks, but also because deep down he was a thrill seeker like she was. He’d climbed, jumped, and soared like she had. But he was burying that part of himself now. He didn’t want to be that person anymore.
His needs and wants had changed when Jamie died. And he deserved someone sweet and nurturing and safe. He deserved someone whose idea of crazy was jumping off a diving board, not a thirty-foot cliff. He deserved someone much different from her.
He scraped his chair back and stood. “I should head home. Shower.”
She walked with him to the front door. “Thanks for sharing all that with me. I know it wasn’t easy.”
“Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime.” She opened the door. “How about one o’clock at Vertical Rock? Know where it is?”
“I do.” He hurried down the walkway to his car, got in, and sped away. All under twenty seconds. She got it. Confessions made her want to run, too.
Since she had a few hours to kill before they met, she decided to grab her laptop and do some research by Googling Troy. She could wait for him to tell her more about the accident, but she’d rather spare him the pain of speaking about it further. This morning’s disclosure was enough. She sat cross-legged on the couch and stretched her neck from side to side while her computer booted up. Despite all the happy faces in the pictures she’d filled her condo with to keep her company, it suddenly felt empty.
The first thing she searched for was the accident. Several articles popped up. As she read through them, she discovered Troy had been a local hero before that day. And afterward? He’d vanished. Then it hit her. His brother-in-law had passed away a short time later and he’d moved back to Cascade.
Two losses in such a short time had to be devastating.
She went limp against the couch. Erin understood worrying about someone you loved. Luke had made a career of photographing the world’s top extreme athletes. He’d almost died on an assignment back in the spring. But her brother thrived on it. It wasn’t something he could turn off. Yes, he’d scaled back now that he was married to Sela, but loving Luke meant accepting the part of him that needed the adrenaline rush.
Troy had partnered with Jamie on a lot of her climbs. But that day he hadn’t. That day fate had other ideas.
Erin couldn’t imagine stopping all the things she loved to do either.
Her fingers back on the keyboard, she popped over to Cascade’s blog.
Oh my freaking God. She’d expected a Sunday funny or a neighborhood watch report from gray-haired Mrs. Finnegan. Not the headline, “Is Cascade’s Wild Child Corrupting the Boy Next Door?” She’d been highlighted on the blog plenty of times before—she’d maybe streaked down Main Street one time in support of PETA, and she might have made out with the mayor’s grandson in the Watters Public Library, to name a couple of her favorite mentions.
Oh, and the make-out session was a total selfless act. Poor Ben had had hardly any dates in his twenty-two years and asked Erin for some pointers, since his friends kept giving him crap for being inexperienced. Erin had decided showing rather than telling was the best way to help him out.
But this time there was a photo and her very own poll. Staring back at her was a picture of her and Troy at the Crown & Anchor last night. They were leaning toward each other, in some deep trance, and she knew someone had captured the moment when he’d been sharing his handcuff scenario. The moment when she’d wanted to jump his bones he had her so hot and bothered. The post talked about how cozy the two of them looked and then…then went on to say that Troy’s car had been parked out in front of her condo all night.
So far—and really it couldn’t be more than an hour or two ago that this had been published—the vote on the poll was even. She wanted to clobber whoever had posted the survey. She was not a corrupter. A troublemaker, maybe. But the last thing she wanted was to stir up trouble for Troy. His reputation was safe with her.
Right?
Her phone rang. She groaned. No doubt her mom or one of her sisters wanted the lowdown. She closed her laptop and dragged her feet to the bathroom. Her family could wait. A hot shower called to her. So did thoughts of Troy taking one with her.
Good thing he’d left.
Chapter Seven
Troy tossed his cell on the bed. He could see why Erin found it annoying. Four texts from Oliver. All talking about some poll on Cascade’s blog and how their bet hinged on him finding a guy for Erin, not taking the schmuck way out and being that guy just to win. He didn’t know what Oliver was talking about, but it must have something to do with last night at the Crown & Anchor. The sexting thing had led to some serious flirting and someone must have noticed. Noticed how he’d enjoyed every second of it. Too much.
His admissions this morning had cured him of most of his attraction, though. He liked being with Erin and she just might be the perfect girl. If she weren’t so reckless, fearless, independent, and intrepid. No one kept her down—just like no one had kept Jamie down. And it occurred to him he’d never be the perfect guy for someone like Erin because he was done taking risks. His heart had taken a beating and he never wanted to feel that w
ay again.
“You almost ready?” Bree called from his small living room while he pulled a shirt over his head. He’d phoned the house before he’d gotten in the shower and asked his sister if he could have Amelia for a couple of hours. He couldn’t explain why bringing his niece rock climbing sounded like a good idea, but he’d asked and Amelia had squealed in delight, so he couldn’t change his mind now.
“Yep,” he said, walking into the room. “And remind me again why you want to come?”
She waved an arm like that was ridiculous. “Moms like to be there for their kids’ first time at things, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh. So watching me possibly break out in a sweat has nothing to do it?” He’d told his sister and mom about his new therapy with Erin. When his mom asked if this was the same Erin he’d gotten together with a couple of weeks ago and he’d said yes, she’d playfully harangued him for not disclosing Erin’s gender.
Bree put a hand on his arm as he stepped past the couch. “You’re going to do great. And I want to help you, too, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. Come on, let’s go get the little squirt.”
“Wait a second.” Bree stood and squinted. “You’ve got a smudge on your nose or something.”
He rubbed the tip and smiled. “Or something,” he muttered and headed out the door.
Rain fell on the drive to Vertical Rock and Amelia bombarded him with questions about rock climbing. To his surprise, her interest diluted the anxiety that always plagued him when he even thought about climbing again.
Telling Erin about Jamie this morning had helped too. The feel of her hand in his, the understanding he saw in her eyes. She’d given him more comfort than she knew, and he’d hurried out of her place before he thanked her.
By throwing her over his shoulder and taking her to bed.
She’d looked irresistible first thing in the morning with her hair mussed, her cheeks pink, and her body languid. Dammit, weren’t these thoughts contradictory to the ones he’d had five minutes ago?
“Will you catch me if I fall?” Amelia asked, breaking into his musings.
His breath caught and he looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Of course I will. But you won’t fall. Remember, you’ll be wearing a harness and there’s a person there who will belay your climb. That means he or she will be holding on to the rope that keeps you from falling if you lose your footing on the wall.”
Wild About Her Wingman Page 10