by Rachel Lacey
“I never thought of that.” Trent sounded thoughtful. “People tell me I look Korean, but I’ve always wondered.”
By the time they had finished checking over the ropes course and noted all the repairs that needed to be made, Ryan felt really bonded with Trent for the first time.
* * *
Emma finished up at Off-the-Grid a little past four thirty. The guys were all out on the property doing who-knew-what, and her seasonal employees had already gone home so she went inside to wash up. She scrubbed up in the bathroom then went into the kitchen for a glass of water. Yeah, she was dawdling, hoping she might get to see Ryan again before she left.
Because…well, now that they’d started kissing, she couldn’t seem to get enough. But she had no idea where he was, and she couldn’t think of another reason to hang around so she headed for her car, trying not to feel disappointed.
“Hey,” Ryan called to her from across the yard, waving as he stepped out of the woods.
She felt herself grinning like a fool and didn’t even care. “Hey yourself.”
“You heading out?” he asked as he walked toward her.
“Landscaping’s all finished,” she said.
He glanced over at the daisies and begonias she’d spent the afternoon planting. “Looks great. You have time to go for a ride?”
“Yes.” She stepped in close, not quite touching him since they were in the parking lot where anyone could see, but close enough that her whole body sizzled with awareness. “What did you have in mind?”
A hot glint came into his brown eyes. “A whole lot more than I have time for. Unfortunately, I have to be back here in an hour or so for another appointment.”
Her heart thumped against her ribs. “We could have a lot of fun in an hour.”
With a wicked smile, he motioned for her to follow him to his bike. He unclipped both helmets and handed her the spare.
“You don’t usually carry both, do you?” she asked as she settled it on her head.
He gave her another heated look. “Never let it be said that I don’t plan ahead.”
He’d been thinking about her when he left for work this morning. Her insides turned into a mushy mess as she melted for him all over again. Oh, this man…She watched while he got the bike started then she slid into place behind him. She wrapped her arms around him and hung on as he pulled out onto the road.
Today the Harley seemed to rumble beneath them with increased urgency, or maybe that was just the hum of anticipation burning in her blood because she and Ryan had officially agreed to become “friends with benefits” this morning, and she was going crazy thinking about all the possibilities.
He turned down a road that led out of town, winding up into the mountains. A few minutes later, he pulled off at a spot labeled as a SCENIC OVERLOOK. This particular pull-off was hidden from view of the road, and if she wasn’t mistaken…
“Isn’t this the place all the local teenagers come to make out?” she asked once he’d turned off the engine.
He turned his head, and the look on his face sent sparks pinging around inside her. “You ever been here?”
She shook her head. “But I bet you have.”
“Actually, no.” He extended a hand to help her off the bike. “Always wanted to bring a girl here, though, back in high school.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“No car.”
Right. Of course he hadn’t had a car, being in foster care. “I didn’t have one either. Bought the world’s most ancient Toyota Celica after graduation, the kind with the headlights that flipped up and down when you turned them on and off.”
“Mine was a Ford Escort, also ancient. Bought it when I was twenty and drove it straight out of town.”
“I remember,” she said softly. It had been only a few weeks after Derek’s funeral. Ryan’s departure had nearly crushed her, right after losing her brother.
Ryan brushed his lips against hers. “Never kissed a girl I had so much history with.”
“Kind of weird, right?”
“Sometimes, yeah.” His eyes crinkled with a smile. “But mostly…not nearly as weird as I thought it would be.”
They walked to the barrier overlooking the mountains beyond, rolling hills that vanished into the misty clouds overhead. This place might be full of teenagers getting naughty in parked cars after dark, but right now, they had the place to themselves.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, her hand in his.
“It is, but that’s not the view I came here to enjoy.” He turned to face her and tugged her in close.
“I like the way you think,” she whispered against his lips, and then she kissed him.
Their kiss was hungry and intense and raw. She clasped her hands behind his neck as his tongue thrust against hers, hot and thrilling. Her body was on fire, pulsing with need, completely consumed with this man who was gripping her ass, holding on to her like he couldn’t get her close enough, like even a millimeter of space between their bodies was too much.
“Ryan,” she moaned as he bent his head to nibble at a sensitive spot on her neck.
“You make me so hot,” he rasped. His hands slid up under her shirt, deliciously rough against her bare skin.
“More,” she whispered.
He let out a harsh laugh. “That’s why I bought you here. Knew I couldn’t control myself if I got you alone anywhere near a bedroom.”
“No fair,” she grumbled.
“When I get you naked for the first time, it won’t be when I have to be back at work in less than an hour.” Then he kissed her again, and she couldn’t think of anything but the way his lips felt on hers, the hot thrill of his hands as they palmed her breasts, and his hard length straining against her belly.
They kissed until she was dizzy for air, drunk with lust, totally blinded with need. When he finally lifted his head, his pupils were so wide his eyes looked black. His chest heaved against hers.
She blew out a breath and smiled. “Then I think we need to make plans when neither of us has to work.”
Chapter Ten
Emma had her third rock climbing lesson on Thursday. Two days since she and Ryan had gotten naughty in the back hall of The Music Factory. One day since they’d agreed to become friends with benefits. Zero seconds since she last thought about what that was going to be like and when it would happen.
Ryan stood below her, belay rope in hand, as she struggled up the rock face. She’d gotten some of the basic terminology down now—she knew about smears and edging techniques that let her put her feet on impossibly small ledges and indents in the rock that somehow her climbing shoes held on to. She’d gotten better at keeping her weight in her toes and using her arms for balance.
And today, she was aiming for the top.
“That’s right. Move your left foot over…yeah,” Ryan encouraged her from the ground.
“Dammit.” She’d reached the area near the top that stymied her every time. Wide and flat and impossibly smooth, she simply couldn’t see a way to get past it.
“You’re thinking about it too hard. Just feel the rock for your next move.”
“That makes absolutely no sense, you know.” If she sounded a little bit miffed, that’s because she was. Learning to rock climb was one of the first goals she’d set for herself when she’d decided to shake things up, and so far she sucked at it.
“Reach with your right hand,” Ryan said.
She did, and her fingers slid into a little crease she hadn’t noticed. Aha! She shifted right, following the new direction he’d led her in and…
Off the rock she went, swinging out as the harness broke her fall. She groaned as he lowered her to the ground.
“Don’t get frustrated,” he said. “You’re doing great for your third lesson. Learning out here on the rock is a lot harder than learning on an indoor wall.”
She huffed out a sigh and grabbed the rock again. An hour—and four falls—later, she was ready to give up. This was the �
�bunny slope” of Off-the-Grid’s rock climbs, and she couldn’t even master it.
“Guess my time’s up for today,” she said, resting her hands on her knees as she glared up at the rock that had bested her.
“I don’t have any other appointments this afternoon. You want to give it one more try?”
“I don’t know…” She glanced up at the rock again. Her muscles shook with fatigue, and her temper was simmering straight toward red.
“Take a few deep breaths, and this time, I want you to focus on working with the rock instead of against it.”
“Why do you sound like such a hippie all of a sudden?” she asked as she gripped the rock, hauling herself up. By now, she knew the first few moves by heart.
Ryan laughed long and hard behind her. “First time I’ve ever been called a hippie. But seriously, the rock is not your enemy. Stop fighting with it.”
“Whatever you say, Hippie.” But she was smiling as she worked her way up to her trouble spot, looking for the secret handhold Ryan had guided her toward earlier. The place where she’d now fallen five times in a row.
She swung her foot and toed into an edge far enough out to the side that she knew she must be giving Ryan an eyeful from below. She’d give him hell for staring at her ass, but she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move for fear of falling.
The top was just past her fingertips.
Sucking in a slow, shaky breath, she shifted her weight onto her right foot. It held. Muscles trembling from the strain, she swiveled her hips to bring her left foot in, seeking purchase on a nearly invisible smear on the rock beneath her knee.
“Atta girl,” Ryan said from below, his voice seeming to filter in from a million miles away.
Cautiously, she straightened her legs, testing out her precarious new footholds. And…she was eye level with the top. Squelching the urge to celebrate prematurely, she slung her elbows over, grabbed on to the anchor securing her line, and scrambled over the edge in about as ungraceful a move as humanly possible. Her feet scuffled against the rock face until her left toe snagged on something, giving her the boost she needed.
Oomph. She landed in a heap on top of the rock. “Oh my God. I did it.” She pushed up into a sitting position, her chest heaving, muscles shaking like Jell-O. “I really did it!”
“Don’t move a muscle,” Ryan said, his voice taut.
She froze, thinking for a moment she was in danger. But he unclipped his harness from the belay line, gripped the rock, and started climbing toward her with a speed and ease that made her feel like a total novice all over again.
It took him about two minutes to climb the rock face that had taken her at least fifteen, and he wasn’t even wearing a harness. He hauled himself up beside her, pulled her into his lap, and covered her mouth with his.
Oh. She let out a gasp of surprise as heat spread like wildfire inside her.
“I’m so fucking proud of you.” His voice was low and gruff, thick with lust and pride, and it tickled all her sensitive nerve endings, turning her to jelly in his arms.
“Thanks.” She leaned forward to kiss him back, her victory all but forgotten in the heat of his kiss, the scorching stroke of his tongue against hers, the delicious feel of his hands skimming down her sides to grip her butt, drawing her closer against him.
She shifted so that her knees dropped down on either side of his thighs, straddling him. He was hard, so hard, and the bulge in his jeans pressed into her right where she burned for him. She rocked her hips against his. The friction of his jeans through the thin cotton of her yoga pants was enough to make her lose her mind.
Ryan pressed her more firmly against his erection. “Watching you climb that rock is the biggest fucking turn-on.”
Really? She must have looked ridiculous, flailing around as she scrambled for the top. “It would be really bad if you took me right here.” She emphasized the word as fantasies of them having wild sex up here on top of the world exploded through her brain.
He groaned. “Bad in all the wrong ways. Bad in the ‘bruises and scrapes where the sun don’t shine’ and potentially fall to your death in the throes of passion kind of way.”
Well, when he put it that way…
He shifted her to a more ladylike position in his lap, then kissed her again. “But I couldn’t go another moment without kissing you.”
Something about the way he said it sent a warm tingle up her spine. He sounded possessive. Of her.
“Did you get a good look at the view?” he asked.
“I like the view.” She smiled, staring straight into his eyes. She’d spent the better part of her life fantasizing about him looking at her the way he was right now, and yet the reality was still better than she’d imagined.
He dipped his head and kissed her again. “I mean the view around us. It’s always better when you’ve scaled the rock to get here.”
She turned her head, seeing the forest around her for the first time from her new vantage point, and yeah, it was pretty awesome. She slid out of his lap and crawled to the edge. Lying on her stomach, she looked down at where she’d started. “Wow. It looks even higher from up here.”
“Not bad, huh?” He came to lay beside her. “I climb up here when I need to clear my head.”
“I can see how this would do it.” She lay there for several minutes, just staring out at the vista in front of her. “Thanks for pushing me to try again.”
“Any time.”
She listened to the birds chattering in the trees, then rolled to her back to watch the sunlight filtering through the canopy of leaves overhead. “I could stay here all day.”
“Fine by me,” Ryan said. “Hey, how’s the memorial coming?”
And just like that, her peaceful mood was ruined. “I met with the Town Planning Committee this morning, actually. They rejected my design.”
“What? Why?”
“They thought it was too trendy.” Emma stared up at the trees overhead, avoiding Ryan’s concerned gaze. Lucas and Mary had warned her this might happen, but it still hadn’t prepared her for the enormous sting of the Planning Committee’s rejection.
“I’m sorry, Em. That’s lousy.” He lay beside her, taking her hand in his. “But it’s just a bump in the road. You’ll come up with something else, something even better.”
“I sure hope so.” She turned her head to look at him. “What’s next, Ryan?”
His brown eyes were alive with the dappled light of the forest around them. “I assume you don’t mean right here, right now.”
“No, apart from the fact that we’re lying here on this rock we just climbed…what comes next with all the kissing and stuff?”
“Not quite sure myself.” His lips curved in a wicked smile. “But if you have any wild fantasies in mind, I thought our trip to Charlotte this weekend might be a good time to fulfill them.”
She gulped audibly, her throat gone dry as sandpaper. “Oh.” Yes. Their trip to Charlotte to get her tattoo.
“So let me hear it, baby. What naughty fantasy do you want to indulge first?” His voice was delightfully rough, his eyes having taken on a slightly wicked gleam.
“Um.” Gah. He’d rendered her speechless. “Surprise me.”
“Oh, baby, that is a definite ‘can do.’”
* * *
Ryan rolled the Harley into Emma’s driveway just past noon on Saturday. He’d told her to pack a backpack with a change of clothes and something nice to wear later. Hopefully she knew how to travel light because taking the bike was going to set the mood for their whole trip.
She came out her front door wearing pale pink jeans that fit her like a second skin, knee-high black leather boots, and a fitted black jacket, her hair hanging in golden waves down her back, and fuck, he was hard as steel just looking at her. She carried a backpack slung over one arm, sunglasses in hand, her blue eyes bright with excitement.
He stood and pulled her into his arms. “You look…you’re fucking stunning, Emma.”
“Re
ally?” She looked up at him with an amused smile. “I’m just wearing jeans.”
“A woman dressed to ride is my weakness.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, leaning in to kiss him.
He pressed a finger to her lips. “Better not. Can’t ride with a hard-on, and you are turning me on big time right now.”
She glanced down at the front of his jeans, a soft smile curving her lips. “I talked to your brother this morning. We were thinking about getting the group together over at Ethan and Gabby’s place sometime soon for a game night. She’s got a video game console, and I’ve got loads of board games.”
“Okay,” he said, confused by the shift in topic.
“Did it work?” she asked, gesturing toward his crotch.
Ah. Now he got it, and yes, her diversion had worked. “Like a charm. You ready?”
She nodded, shrugging the backpack over her shoulders. He handed her his spare helmet and mounted the bike. It roared to life beneath him, and Emma climbed on behind him, sliding into place like a pro. Her hands wrapped around his waist, locking into position.
He pulled out onto the road, invigorated by the slap of mountain air. He took his time winding down from the mountains, sticking to the twisting back roads that got his adrenaline pumping for as long as possible. A couple of hours later, as they neared Charlotte, he merged onto the highway for the remainder of the trip.
Emma’s arms tightened around him.
Yeah, this felt a lot different from the mountain roads they’d left behind. The highway was flat, fast, and clogged with other vehicles. He settled in with the flow of traffic, watching as the Charlotte skyline unfurled before them. It had been almost a year since he’d left the city. It had held a certain appeal once. Now he found himself missing the winding roads and fresh air in Haven. Course, he’d brought one of the best parts of the mountains here with him this weekend.
They exited the highway on South Boulevard, headed for House of Ink, which he’d once managed. Emma had been e-mailing back and forth with its co-owner and Ryan’s good buddy, Stephen Betts, to finalize the design for her tattoo.