Breathless Peaks

by Adrianna Dane

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  BREATHLESS PEAKS

  by

  ADRIANNA DANE

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  http://www.amberquill.com

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  * * *

  Breathless Peaks

  An Amber Quill Press Book

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or have been used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  http://www.amberquill.com

  http://www.amberheat.com

  http://www.amber-allure.com

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  Copyright © 2007 by Dream Romantic Unlimited LLC

  ISBN 978-1-60272-121-0

  Cover Art © 2007 Trace Edward Zaber

  Layout and Formatting

  Provided by: Elemental Alchemy

  Published in the United States of America

  Also by Adrianna Dane

  Achilles' Charm

  The Argadian Heart Trilogy

  The Boy Next Door

  Carnal Carnivale

  Closing Time

  Come Into My Parlor

  The Diary Of Lillian Manchester, Book I: The Stranger

  Esmerelda's Secret

  The Exile: A Seductive Tale

  Fertility Rite

  Graphic Liaisons

  If You Dare...

  I Want

  Images Of Desire

  Immortal Treasure

  Jebediah's Promise

  Jewel Of Niveka

  Legend Of The Beesinger

  Mariposa Soul

  And...

  The Midas Bride

  Nights In White Satin

  No Choice

  Primal Magic: Scent

  Primal Magic: Swan's Lake

  Realm Of The Ice God

  Ruthless Acts

  Sequestered Passion

  Smooth Finish

  Sylvie's Gift

  Tempt Me Not

  Therapy

  Train Me

  A View To Possession

  Whisper

  Dedication

  To Jenn, who takes wonderful photographs,

  particularly when she's rock-climbing.

  Her visions are an inspiration.

  Chapter 1

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  They both called to her--both wanted her total attention. The feeling was like being drawn to two possessive lovers--neither one willing to let her go. Neither one giving an inch. No matter how far she ran or how deep she tried to hide, they wouldn't let her be. Not really. She'd always felt their presence.

  There were times when she thought she'd won, but those times were fleeting. Like a sharpened nail of silvery metal, she was drawn by a powerful magnetism she fought against daily. She was weary of the fight. She wanted to simply let go and go back. To bend to their will, to give them what they wanted. What she needed.

  If she went, would she lose her sense of self? Would they press her between them and suffocate the life from her?

  Every time she thought about them, her heart beat faster, raced like a ticking bomb, ready to explode. The heat of remembered contact coursed through her like an avalanche that she couldn't fight and she was swallowed whole, buried alive. Not any more. Not now.

  She loved them both. More than she should. Both left her breathless, always wanting more. Needing it, and nothing could change that.

  They offered the challenge that was missing from her life. They made her strive to reach her personal best without excuses. They both drew the ultimate experience from her, pushing her far beyond what she thought she could attain, until she reached that sublime summit and the cost, whatever it might be, was well worth it.

  They made her more than she was, pulled her outside of herself, molded and shaped her in ways she wouldn't have thought possible.

  Even now her body responded to the memory of them. They both sought to master her, make her theirs alone. And she had wanted it, more than anything, that summer long ago. She'd been taken by both of them and loved every moment.

  She'd left because she thought she'd lost who she was, who she was meant to be. She'd seen it happen to her mother. To be so overwhelmed by the possession and then to be tossed aside, secondary to everything else. A marionette who had been abandoned, lying useless and forgotten, as they turned on each other, dueling, battling for supremacy. And she'd watched as her mother was left behind time and time again. She'd vowed that wasn't going to happen to her. No matter how much she wanted to stay, her survival depended on her leaving. And so she had. But she'd left parts of herself behind--her heart and her soul.

  She'd never realized until just now exactly what she'd done when she'd run from them. She'd always tried to rationalize why she'd left, why she'd turned her back on them. And it had worked for a long time, but now the wall was crumbling and she was afraid of what that would mean to her self-preservation. Maybe it was the reminder of mortality that had done it.

  She didn't want to end up like her mother with a broken heart and always hoping that things would change. And then, when time had finally run out, living with the burning, endless pain of regret.

  "I can't go back." Even she could hear the desperation in her voice, and she was certain her mother could as well.

  "No one's forcing you to, Heidi. If you can't do it, then you can't." Lorene looked up at Heidi without expression. Her mother had always been very good at hiding her feelings. Especially when it was time for her father to leave to return to his mistress, to the peaks that pulled at him relentlessly. "This is the last thing he's asked of you, or will ever ask."

  Heidi dropped her head, her eyes burning. Hugh Rivers had been on a rescue mission when something had gone wrong and he had died on his beloved mountain. He and Heidi's mother had formally separated years ago, but when the news came that he'd been killed, it was the first time Heidi had seen her mother break down and cry.

  Her mother took a deep breath. "He's left you his half of the business, and it would be best if you went back, if for no other reason than to settle things. Kolt deserves that much from you, Heidi. You need to face him. Take your time before you decide. If you don't want the business, then you need to at least let him offer to buy you out."

  "Six months, right? That's the way Dad's will reads, isn't it, Mom?"

  Her mother nodded. "Yes. If you don't adhere to the terms, the business will automatically be left to--" Her voice trailed away.

  Heidi knew exactly who inherited if she didn't want any part of it. Last year her father had taken a young lover who was half his age. Maura had started working for him as a part-time guide during the busy summer season. And apparently during the winter spent the time warming his bed.

  She supposed she didn't have any right to question what he did. He and her mother had been separated for long enough not to think they would ever get back together. But she'd always hoped that one day...

  "I know who will get it, Mom. And he knew I wouldn't let that happen. It should have gone to you, not to...her." She felt the bitter bile rise in her throat.

  "She knows a lot more about the business than I ever could. He always hoped you'd go back, that you'd take an interest in it."

  Heidi jerked her head and fixed an unbelieving eye on her mother. "He seemed to be quite content with the way things were."

  "He missed you, Heidi. And Kolt missed you, too. When I'd call the of
fice and he answered on occasion, he always asked about you."

  The hairs stood on end on Heidi's neck. She shivered at the thought of Kolt. Pivoting away from her mother, she walked across the room in an effort to outdistance the memories.

  "I doubt he missed me. There are plenty of starry-eyed women who would just love some attention from a rugged guy like him." Her stomach roiled at the thought, of thinking of him in bed with anyone else. She shivered and tried to get control of herself.

  She curled her fingers, remembering the way he'd looked the last time she'd seem him. Naked, rock-hard muscles pressing her onto the bed, his cock filling her, hammering into her. Her cries of release as he rode her, pushing her to the summit of ten thousand feet, leaving her breathless, gasping with pleasure.

  Heidi yanked herself back to the present and turned around to look at her mother, her heart racing like she'd just skied a vertical slope down to the finish line. Her mother had an odd expression on her face as she stared back at Heidi.

  "You're not me, Heidi. I never understood the pull of that damned mountain. I loved your father, but I never understood that call. You're different. You do--it's in your blood, just like it was for him. But you fight it harder." Her gaze pierced Heidi. "Is it just the mountain's call you're fighting? Or is it something else? I think you need to go back and find out."

  The problem was, Heidi knew exactly what the problem was. Both of them called to her, pulling at her, every single day she'd been gone. If she went back she could end up just like her father, a sacrifice to the mountain. And to the man, a small voice inside her head echoed back.

  "I'll think about it, Mom."

  "You have time, Heidi, but not a lot. You have to make a decision by the end of the month."

  "I know," she whispered raggedly. "And I will."

  She knew the truth. The man and the mountain wanted her back. Once they'd claimed her, they'd never let her go. And she had a feeling her days of freedom from the compulsion where just about at an end.

  Chapter 2

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  Two weeks had passed and she still couldn't bring herself to make the decision to go to the mountain. Here, in San Francisco, she was a safe enough distance, all those dark passions remained dormant, just far enough away from Mt. Hood not to risk an explosion of feeling. And she knew, just like a hungry, black bear rising from a winter hibernation, awoken once again, those passions would not be caged quite so easily again. And they were dangerous.

  She'd risk everything, including her peace of mind if she returned to the mountain. And to the man. Her sanity included. She looked down at the letter clenched in her left hand and she crumpled it into a ball, the fine points of ragged paper digging into the flesh of her palm.

  Just seeing his black, scrawled handwriting had her heart racing. It had been ten years since she'd last seen him. Ten years since she'd last donned climbing gear and faced the mountain. She'd been nineteen, a whole other world apart from where she was now as she climbed the mountain ladder of management at the ad agency where she worked.

  It wasn't the same and she felt that realization more keenly now than she ever had before.

  She could almost see him in front of her, his dark gaze boring into her, challenging her in ways no man had ever done since then. She almost reached out for him--he felt that real.

  She looked down and smoothed out the single piece of lined paper with his scribbled words. She lifted it and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. His scent clung to it. His and the mountain, the wild freedom, the exhilaration that had run rampant through her that last summer. That was the year the explosive attraction had finally erupted between them.

  It was shortly after Heidi's parents had separated and Hugh had opened the business and taken on a partner. Heidi had met him before--he'd been a college student and interned with Hugh when he'd done a temporary teaching stint. They'd apparently gotten on well and had corresponded over the intervening years. He visited Heidi's parents on occasion over those years but had seemed to hardly notice her. Whereas she had been very aware of him.

  But it wasn't until that last summer that she had seen his attention to her change. It was a summer she would never forget. And the time that Kolt had taken her up the mountain to test her limits was etched deeply into her memory. There was no way she could have known there would be more to that test than she ever could have imagined.

  She pushed those thoughts away, forced them back. Yet her body was already in full response mode invoked by the memories. Her stomach churned and clenched.

  He wanted her to come back. His words in the letter were as masterful as he had ever been, challenging her fears, inflaming her dormant desire. He called her a coward, raged at her for letting her father's dreams be destroyed by a gold digger, just because she was scared of her own needs.

  He was right. She knew he was. But did she have the courage to face him and the mountain? Could she face down Maura, the woman who had been her father's lover? The woman who stood to gain what rightfully belonged to her mother?

  Heidi was the only one who stood between her mother's rights and an ex-lover's greed. Why had her father done this to her? It simply wasn't fair. He should have left it all to her mother. She didn't need this burden laid on her shoulders.

  But it was, and she was going to have to face all the old ghosts and decide what was truly important to her.

  Kolton Harris had been a thorn in her side from the beginning. From the first moment she'd come in contact with him. The mountain had been the same. The first time her father had taken her climbing it was as though she had finally found where she belonged. Everything since then had been just running away from her true nature.

  When her parents had separated, she'd felt obliged to go with her mother to San Francisco. Her father had the mountain, but her mother had given up everything for the man she loved, and now had no one. Heidi couldn't have left her alone.

  Her father had still come to visit on occasion, and she would see her mother light up when he did, as though she'd been in some type of suspended animation until his arrival. And when he was gone, it was as though a light had been doused.

  She'd asked her once, why she'd left, if she still loved him. Her mother had gotten that far away look in her eyes. "I wanted him to choose. I needed to be more important than that thrill for adventure, the wanderer inside him." She'd turned to look at Heidi and there was a rock-hard glitter in her eyes. "I wanted him to care enough to ask me to come back. But the mountain won, and it always will. And I can't bear to watch it."

  "But you let him come here." Heidi couldn't rationalize it in her mind. "Why don't you get a divorce and end it, if you don't love him."

  "But I do love your father, Heidi. I will until the day I die. I simply can't live with him--and the mountain. It's all he talks about. I need more than that. I need civilization. I need people around me. The silence of the mountain is devastating to me. It got to a point where I thought I would lose my mind, especially when he was gone for months at a time on one adventure or another. And I knew once he bought the business, it would just be worse. I was never enough for him. I couldn't take that any longer. But I never stopped loving him, and wanting things to be different."

  Heidi had tried to quash her own turmoil. She'd never understood her mother or how she and her father had ever managed to get married with such differing views. She'd tried to understand her mother's point of view, to fit into the world she needed to be a part of.

  But for Heidi, once her father had introduced her to the mountain, it had never been the same. She's always yearned to return. And that last summer with Kolt had only made it more difficult. She needed not just the mountain, but the man. Maybe she'd fought long enough. Maybe it was time to submit to the call of her nature--the wildness and freedom that only existed in one place. The only place she had truly ever wanted to be.

  Chapter 3

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  Heidi remembered one particular climb on the mountain. It was that afterno
on the mountain and the man had claimed her so completely.

  "Climb, Heidi. Get a grip. You know you can do it. Feel the mountain. Learn it. Accept it." She pressed herself against the face of ragged rock, closed her eyes and attempted to absorb the vibrations pressing against her body.

  "Submit to it. You're fighting it and she won't yield to you that way."

  "Like you," she whispered against the unyielding granite gouging her cheek.

  She felt Kolt drag himself up behind her. Felt his body heat press into her, his breath against her cold, exposed cheek, his firm hand, steadying her, traveling up over her buttock to anchor at her waist, holding her steady. Her breathing grew raspy. She was pressed between him and the mountain, neither one yielding, both wanting her submission.

  She felt Kolt's hands like brands upon her body. "You're fighting it, Heidi. You're too stiff, too unyielding. She won't bend for you, you have to decide whether you're willing to give her what she wants. Only then will she share her secrets with you."

  Her teeth chattered, but it wasn't from the cold air at this elevation. "What do you want, Kolt?"

  "From the mountain?"

  "No. From me."

  She felt him press closer, felt the rock face dig into her flesh. Felt his hard cock press between the cheeks of her ass. She hated to admit that the dual sensations were driving her to distraction. He had made her so needy for his touch that she couldn't concentrate. It was a good thing the harness was attached to a strong rope because she had a feeling the mountain had lost her attention. Her gloved grip tightened on the anchor she had just set in place.