Chapter 6

Summer knew that if her friends caught her working, she’d be the recipient of a lengthy lecture. All about getting away from work. Taking a break from stress. For some reason, they didn’t understand that putting in a solid hour of work would reduce her stress, not add to it.

That was why she’d decided to station herself in the sitting area on the second floor. Not as obvious as the living room for sneaking in some email time. And it was along the hallway by the stairs. If anyone came inside, she’d hear them and hightail it into her room without being detected.

After slipping shorts and a tank top over her suit, she grabbed her laptop. Tiptoed—which was ridiculous, with everyone still out on the beach—out of her room, past the laundry room, and rounded the corner soundlessly over the thick area rugs woven in a pattern of beach grass.

And almost dropped her laptop when she stopped about a breath away from Riley. She squealed. He was standing at the wet bar, pouring water into a glass. Or at least, it had been going into a glass until he spotted her. Now it was going all over the floor and his feet. Big feet. Tan, sprinkled with dark hair. Super-duper sexy feet.

“Damn it.” Riley set the glass and bottle into the sink and pulled out a towel. “Why are you sneaking around?”

“I’m sorry.” She grabbed the towel from him. Wiped the wood floor and dabbed at his feet. Which just made him swipe the towel back from her. Summer retreated to sink onto the deep, sage-colored armchair. “I didn’t think you’d be up here. I’m sneaking around because I don’t want to get caught. Obviously.”

“Caught doing what? This isn’t a house party in the Hamptons. There’s no jewelry to steal. We’ve got some classic video games in the basement, but the most you’d get for them on eBay is a couple hundred bucks.”

Riley’s tone was…surprisingly good-humored. There was even a twinkle in those eyes that looked like a sun-dappled forest, all green and gold and brown. Summer could tell he was teasing. Which was pretty much a first. In the past, Riley’s scathing comments to her had been just as mean-spirited and humorless as, well, as hers had been to him. Despite his regression in the kitchen when he’d questioned her ability to help with their foundation, this felt like progress.

“What I’m doing is far worse than burglary.” She crooked her finger at him until he joined her on the matching chair. Leaning over, she whispered, “I’m working.”

Riley burst out laughing. With her, not at her for once. It was…nice. “Didn’t you get the lecture about how this house is a work-free zone?”

“I did. Hence my illicit creeping around. What are you doing up here?”

Picking up an iPad from the side table, he flashed it at her. “Working. Secretly, to keep from getting another smackdown from my well-meaning friends.”

“Ooh. Here I thought you were a straitlaced, type A bore, and it turns out you’re a bad boy. Flouting rules. Being all covert.”

“You’d be surprised just how bad I can be. Under the right circumstances.”

His statement—which came off a lot like a promise of naughty, dirty things that made her bare toes curl into the rug—hung between them like a bubble. There was no teasing tone this time. Just a surety. A husky certainty. And that crazy intensity to his stare that weakened Summer’s knees as though he’d cupped her breast.

Wow.

Summer was tempted to take him up on it. To take his hands, drag him down the hall into her room with the white four-poster bed, and see exactly what he could do. Except…they’d sort of actively disliked each other for months now. While she didn’t have anything against a hot hate-sex hookup, that wouldn’t work in this case. Those were strictly drive-bys. Like it or not, Riley was firmly in her life.

So she tamped down all that warm desire. Tapped his iPad. “Is there an emergency? Do you have to go back to D.C.?”

“I didn’t get handed a new investigation—I logged out today as a full vacation day, so technically I can’t get an assignment to a Go Team. But being at the beach doesn’t mean all the work waiting back at the office magically disappears.”

“Funny. That’s exactly what I’d say. But aren’t you in charge of an entire team? They don’t just surf the Web and take long lunches while you’re gone, do they?”

“Hardly. My team is great. I’ve got full faith they are working their collective asses off right this second. Let’s just say, well, I was raised that the only acceptable work ethic is nonstop.”

Riley didn’t sound happy about it. He did sound like there was a story there. And Summer was suddenly intensely curious to get him to reveal something deeply personal. Something that would help her to understand him, connect with him. “Did your parents push you?”

His sexy green eyes rolled back in his head. “Only every day.”

“See, I don’t get that. You’ve got maybe thirteen good years to goof around and enjoy life without responsibilities. Then another seventy to be serious and stressed out. Why rush the process?” Sure, it was risky throwing down about the way he was raised. But Summer had opinions, and she rarely kept them to herself. If this new peace was going to work between them, he’d have to accept her as is.

“Oh, they had a reason.” Riley shifted. Then propped his foot on his knee and held it there. In other words, he looked decidedly uncomfortable. Which just piqued her interest even more.

“Really?” She curled her feet beneath her and propped her forearms on the wide padded arm. “What?”

That earned her the ubiquitous Riley Ness frown. “Are you just making polite small talk? Because you don’t have to bother. We can sit here in silence and work. It’s no big deal.”

“Riley.” Summer reached over to brush her fingers against the soft dark hairs dusting his arm. “I want to know.” And then she left her hand there, for the simple reason that his skin felt good against hers.

Interestingly, Riley didn’t pull away. He did suck in a deep breath, scrunch up his eyes, and then let out the sigh to end all sighs.

“My grandfather was the assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. Sort of the power-behind-the-throne type of position. It was a really big deal.”

“I’m impressed.”

“And my dad had a swift rise to his current position as president at the most influential think tank in D.C. There was never any doubt or discussion—my career trajectory was expected to be equally meteoric.”

“They must be very proud of you.”

“Not so much.”

“Um, I haven’t seen an org chart for the NTSB, but from what Chloe told me, you’re pretty high up.”

“In the highway division, yes. In the entire NTSB, no. And my family was far from thrilled when I joined that particular agency. They had bigger plans for me. So now I guess I work hard for a bunch of reasons. To prove to them I can excel at my chosen job. To do the best work possible, because lives are at stake and I care about making a difference. Most of all, because pushing myself is all I know how to do.”

That last sentence just about broke her heart. She hated the dullness in his eyes, the downturn to his mouth. Summer worked hard. But she knew when to play hard, too. Clearly, Riley needed a little practice at incorporating that wholly necessary aspect of life. Putting a smile back on his face suddenly became of paramount importance to her.

Acting on impulse—which was what she did best—Summer stacked the iPad and laptop on the side table. Then she hopped up and extended her hand. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

Riley didn’t budge. “Don’t be stupid. We’re stealing the time so we can to get in some work before the hordes discover us.”

“That was the original plan. But spontaneity is kind of my thing. I’m bringing you along with me.”

He rubbed his jaw. “Spontaneity is about as far from my thing as you can get.”

“Which is why you should give it a try. Let’s go parasailing.”

His eyes bugged out. “Why?”

“Because I’ve never done it before. It’ll be fun.” Realizing that argument wouldn’t be nearly enough to get his very fine ass off the chair, she added, “Because it’ll be a good test of our truce.” Hands on her knees, Summer bent down to get eye to eye with him. And if it flashed him some cleavage? Well, what was the point of having boobs if you didn’t use them to your advantage? “We’ve got to figure out how to spend time with each other without breaking into a skirmish. Doing something different, away from everyone else, will force us to practice at being polite to each other. Cause and effect. I hear you’re big on that.”

“Okay.” Riley pushed to his feet.

Summer had thought she’d have to argue with him for at least another five minutes. “Really?”

“Sure. I’ve never done it. It’s clear that you want to, and I’m sure you’re too scared to go alone. I can be a gentleman and hold your hand while you scream.”

Ahh. There he went, teasing her again. No heat behind the words, but a lot of heat—interesting heat—darkening those eyes to the deep green of a magnolia leaf. And the lazy smile that kicked up the corner of his mouth…well, it was just plain delightful.

“You know what that sounds like to me? A man deflecting as hard as he can to cover up his own knotted belly.”

He slid his phone into the pocket of his navy trunks. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

“Don’t worry.” Summer took his hand as they started down the wide staircase. “I won’t let go.” Although she honestly didn’t know if that would be for her sake or his. Or just because it’d be so darned fun.

Summer threw back her head. It was hard to tell where the horizon started or stopped. Blue sky above and all around and the bright, sun-kissed ocean below. So many shades of blue that they couldn’t be counted. She let out a laugh of pure joy. “This is amazing.”

“You don’t have to yell.”

The low voice in her ear startled Summer so much that she jerked in her harness. Which sent both her and Riley into a wave of motion beneath the giant, multicolored parasail. “Sorry. You’re right. It’s so quiet up here.”

He pointed down more than four hundred feet at the boat at the other end of their tow rope. “You can’t even hear the boat engine. Just the squawk of…Christ, that’s a gull. Right below us. There’s something weird about having a bird fly underneath my feet.”

“Weird good? Or weird get me the hell down from here?”

“Good. Peaceful.” Riley looked at their entwined hands. “Check it out—no white knuckles for either of us.”

“I’ll admit I’m tempted to hang on to the straps with both hands.” Their harnesses hung from an overhead bar connected to the parasail. “But I like holding your hand too much to let go.”

There. She said it.

Because Summer Sheridan never shied away from saying what she felt.

“I like it, too.”

They floated in silence for a bit. A good silence. No tension. Just the fun of a shared adventure. Two weeks ago? Summer would’ve bet a thousand dollars on those words never coming out of her mouth about the tight-ass with the fine ass, Riley Ness.

“So this is your MO? You think of something you want to do and you just go for it?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Because…because…things could go wrong.” Riley tapped the carabiner holding their tether straps to the parasail. “The equipment could be old. The straps could snap. The day could be too windy and we could slam into a high-rise in the marina. The pilot could bring us in too fast and snap our ankles.”

There was the Riley she’d known and wanted to kick in the nuts. Except this time, as he went through his litany of dire possibilities that her reckless-in-his-eyes choice could create, the lecturing tone was gone, replaced by genuine concern.

Or maybe that had always been there, too. And she’d been too knee-jerk pissy to notice. “You forgot to mention that there could be sharks circling below waiting to snack on us after we plummet out of the sky.”

“I had to take a breath.”

Okay. They’d have this out right now. Because aside from pointing out the eight ways pencil lead could lead to serious injury, Riley seemed like a normal guy, not a walking panic attack. “Do you honestly believe, deep down in your gut, that even one of those nightmarish scenarios will happen to us?”

“Hell no. I’d have to be crazy or suicidal to be up here if I did.”

“Then what’s with constantly being the voice of doom?”

“I don’t believe they’ll happen. But they could. And if I think about all the possibilities, I can plan ways to mitigate the danger.”

“How?” Summer probably didn’t hide the exasperation in her question. Because Riley had never done this before; he was no expert parasailer. What did he really think he could do?

“It’d be simple enough to find out the maximum wind speed before they ground these things, and check it against the weather app on my phone. Not to mention checking the app for a possible storm. On the ocean, it only takes the blink of an eye for clouds to roll in—and then we’d be in danger. So a five-minute Google search would’ve told us if it was safe to go out now, or dicey and we should’ve put it off until tomorrow. Not skip it—just postpone it for better, safer conditions.”

“Oh.” Since Summer didn’t play games or skirt around being wrong, she had to admit the truth. That actually made sense. Still a tad over the top for her, but understandable. “I did like that you checked the straps and the clamps before we got into the harnesses. It buffed down the sharp corners of my nerves about doing this.”

“A little knowledge, a little fact-checking, a little prevention goes a long way.”

She gave Riley major points for not rubbing in her admission. “But doesn’t it keep you from doing things?”

“I’ve climbed glaciers. I’m scuba-certified. I don’t hide under the covers.”

So he wasn’t an eighty-year-old grandma at heart. Good to know. This chat was helping her to revise her view of Riley from ornery and overly cautious to smart, sexy, willing to have fun…and overly cautious.

“I’m also certified in advanced first aid. Speak three languages. Can start a fire without matches and know what native plants are safe to eat on every continent.”

“Three languages?”

“English, French, and Spanish. Enough to make myself understood in a good swath of the world. I’m thinking about learning Chinese, what with Logan’s last mission being in Asia.”

Summer knew how to say Voulez-vous coucher avec moi. It had gotten her a very satisfactory hour with a French attaché. As well as an entire night of fun with the captain of the Canadian bobsled team. That, however, was the extent of her bilingualism. “Isn’t Chinese the most difficult language to learn?”

With a grin that flashed white teeth and sparkled in his eyes, Riley said, “That’s why I’m only thinking about it.”

“Overachiever.” But pretty darn adorable as well.

“Yep. But I don’t ever want to be in a tough situation and feel regret. To know that there was something I could’ve done to either prevent the danger or get out of it.”

“If it makes you feel better, I happen to know there aren’t any sharks down below.” Summer pointed her red-tipped toes and cautiously poked at the air. “This area of the Delaware and Maryland coastline is famous for all its dolphins. Where one goes, the other does not.”

“Then I guess we can kick back and enjoy the ride.”

Summer looked down at the strip of beach, culminating in an island where wild ponies roamed. Of course, they were impossible to see from this high up. But it was cool knowing she was so high that there were things that couldn’t be spotted.

“It feels like I’m flying. No, floating, actually. Floating through the sky like I’m one of those big, puffy white clouds. Just like when I died.”

Yikes.

She had not meant for that to slip out.

Not just slip out of her mouth, but out of the deep recesses of her brain where Summer locked away everything about the shooting and her time on the operating table, clinically dead behind mental vault doors made of titanium.

Meanwhile, Riley had gone stiff as a board beside her. “You died? You mean, because of the shooting that you don’t mention?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“So…the dying sucked, but the out-of-body floating was nice.” In a blink of an eye, he’d regained his usual roll-with-the-punches persona, one that undoubtedly made him a great team leader on highway accident investigations. Cool as the waves frothing below, he said, “Do you want to go into more detail?”

Yes. Yes, she did. Summer closed her eyes, leaned back a little, and savored the sensation of floating with the late afternoon sun warming her skin. There’d never be a more peaceful time to share such a harsh and painful story. One that Riley might understand and connect to her on, given his own near-death accident in the Alps that Chloe said none of the guys ever discussed. It was tempting.

Summer opened her mouth.

And then closed it again.

What would be the point? Of opening up all those emotions and memories? She and Riley had reached détente. Sure, he’d curled her toes a couple of times. But that didn’t mean Summer had any reason to go someplace deep with him.

Not to mention that she had no guarantee of how he’d react. Their peace was fragile. While she had no doubt Riley wouldn’t mean to hurt her, that razor-sharp edge of his tongue might accidentally fall back into old habits and slice at her. Which was a nonstarter. Summer was not willing, not ever, to accept even a single moment more of pain related to the shooting. Emotional or physical.

Eyes still shut, canted backward a little, she said, “No. Because talking about it won’t fix the past or do anything to promise a future. I can only be now.” Summer tightened her grip on his hand to the point of the white knuckles they’d joked about. “Be now with me, Riley.”

He made a noise. It was under his breath, so that even in the quiet air Summer couldn’t tell if it was a curse or a growl. All she had to go on was tone. And Riley’s tone was pure, concentrated frustration.

Her eyes flew open. Had she read the situation wrong? Was he not interested in her

anymore? Oh, she’d survive, no problem. It was just that she’d have preferred being rejected when there weren’t still twenty minutes left of floating thigh to thigh in a very intimate encounter.

Riley let go of her hand. “I don’t have a choice, Summer. Not when I’m with you. You suck the air from my lungs. The blood from my heart. All common sense from my brain.” Their harnesses chafed and jangled as he grabbed on to the green strap just above her shoulder. With both hands, like it was a handhold in a subway car. “There is only now when we’re together.”

Dipping his head, Riley brushed his lips over hers. Left, right, back and forth. Soft as the puffy white clouds straight ahead. It feathered whispers of arousal down her entire body. Because they were floating through the air, his lips on hers were the lone tactile sensation she had. Which made it the single most erotic experience of her life.

It wasn’t just being in the now, it was being right here and now. Near-vertigo kicked in. Not in a throwing-up way. Just in a the earth is actually OMG spinning beneath me way. Except that the feeling of spinning had nothing to do with being hundreds of feet in the air, and everything to do with the man touching a scant two inches of her body.

Summer grabbed on to the blue strap rising from Riley’s harness to twist herself closer. It passed through her mind that he was probably worried about them stressing the equipment at less optimal points. Something, no doubt, that should worry her, too, seventeen stories in the air. But all she cared about right now was having more of him.

So she grabbed on with her other hand, too. It didn’t bring any more of their bodies in contact, sadly. Because she desperately wanted to rub her legs against his long, lean, hair-roughened ones. Still, the new position, while still awkward and a massive strain on her neck and back, did give her leverage to throw herself into a kiss.

She poured in heat, passion, and a considerable amount of tongue. Riley gave it all back in spades, meeting her thrust for thrust, lick for lick. In the extreme quiet of their altitude, the sounds of their lips meeting and sucking were louder than normal. It just amplified the hotness and the differentness of the moment.

A moment that blasted all other thoughts out of her mind. The worry about biting off more than she could handle with the website expansion, apprehension over bringing on more staff, fear that she’d have less time to give the speeches that made her surviving the shooting meaningful…There was only this moment. With Riley.

They were swaying more now, which made her head spin faster. Riley’s lips were the vortex of every swirl and dip of lust that blazed through her. And yet, it wasn’t just heat. This kiss was unlike the others they’d shared. Maybe it was the location. Maybe it was the fact that they were in midair, with no ground or wall to push against. Or maybe it was that they’d dropped their prickly armor and finally gotten to know and like each other. This kiss had a foundation of tenderness. Softer, sweeter, it wasn’t fueled strictly by desire. Summer felt…well, she couldn’t put her finger on it, because any thought beyond Holy crap this is fantastic was a bridge too far. But she noticed the difference.

And she liked it.

Which scared her enough to pull away. “This probably isn’t safe,” she murmured. A slow twirl of her index finger indicated the rainbow-colored parasail above them.

Riley stroked a finger along her lower lip. “Agreed. I don’t think this is safe at all.” Then he let go of her harness and they twisted back to a side-by-side position for the rest of the ride.

They still held hands for the rest of the ride, too. Try as she might, Summer couldn’t tell if he’d reached for hers or vice versa. But she didn’t want to let go. And Summer had no idea what to make of that.