Chapter Nineteen
“Put your hand there.” Colt pointed to one of the grips as he stood on the gym floor, managing the other end of Delaney’s rope in case she fell. “Thatta girl. You’ve got it.”
“You sure I’m doing this right?”
“Yep. You’re doing great.” Especially for a beginner. At this rate, he’d have her on one of the tamer mountains in no time.
“I suppose this is easier than real life.”
Colt got a kick out of that. “This is real life.”
“You know what I mean. An artificial rock wall, instead of the real thing.”
Colt shrugged as he watched her climb. “It’s no joke. When my dad put it in, he wasn’t messing around.” Gray had made sure to overlay the colored grips to create different routes with varying degrees of difficulty. Even the most accomplished rock climber could find a challenging pattern on the Garner wall. “That harness too tight?”
“If it’s not supposed to give me a wedgie, then it’s too tight.”
“Afraid there’s no helping the wedgie. Keep your hips tight to the wall and push with your legs instead of pulling with your arms. You use less energy that way.”
“Like this?”
“Yep.” He nodded. “Pay attention to your route.”
“Got it.”
He continued to guide her while holding the rope. “Remember, the goal isn’t to reach the top; it’s to enjoy yourself.”
She grimaced. “Reach the top? I’ll be happy if I don’t fall.”
“You won’t fall.”
In the week since their stay at the Ritz, they’d spent every night together. He’d even managed to carve out time after work to take her on a few dates in Tahoe and Reno. Their new arrangement should’ve felt smothering but it didn’t. It felt too good to be true, which it was. Because the clock was ticking. He knew it. She knew it. They just didn’t talk about it, preferring to simply enjoy the time they had together. At least with Delaney, her pending departure wasn’t out of left field, like it had been with Lisa.
The trick was preparing for the inevitable without losing his shit when it happened. Otherwise when Delaney went back to LA, he’d head straight to Yosemite’s El Capitan and get stupid, free-soloing the sheer granite mountain. But today they were here, climbing with ropes and doing the no-strings-attached relationship thing.
This morning, after an hour of primo sex, Delaney had announced that she wanted to learn to rock climb. Colt suspected her sudden yen for adventure had to do with the athletic clothes she now designed. They’d grabbed breakfast, then wandered over to Garner Adventure to see if the coast was clear. The place had been empty—a rarity for a Sunday. But Colt figured everyone was out, conducting tours.
“Can I come down now?” she called from the center of the wall.
“Anytime you want. This was your idea.”
“I know. But it’s more exhausting than it looks.” She started to make her descent.
“Watch your footing.” Sometimes coming down was harder than going up.
He spotted her as she slowly retraced her footholds, getting an excellent view of her ass in the process. Outstanding in the stretchy pants she had on. “You okay?”
“I’m good,” she said, out of breath.
When she got all the way down, he unhooked her rope and harness, lifted her in the air, and kissed her. “You’re a pro.”
She let out a girlish giggle that never failed to kill him. “You want to go up now?” Delaney eyed the wall.
“Nah. I liked watching you. Shower here or at home?” She’d worked up a sweat during their short lesson. He inched his hands up her bouldering shirt, feeling her slick belly and touching the underside of her breasts.
“Mmm.” Delaney glanced over his shoulder and searched the gym. “Are we still alone?”
“Yep. Just the two of us. No telling how long that’ll last, though.”
Her lips turned up in a sneaky grin. “Want to shower with me?”
“Uh . . . at home. No way in hell are we doing it here.” All he needed was for TJ or Win to walk in on them. Josh wouldn’t be terrible. He was the one person in their family who could keep his mouth shut.
“No?” She bent over, picked up her gym bag, and did one of those model struts to the locker room.
Ah, jeez. He raked his hand through his hair, then followed her. “You’re crazy, Delaney.”
“A little bit,” she said, locking the door behind them and immediately beginning to strip.
“This is a bad idea.”
“Should we stop?” She damned well knew the answer. Hell no, they weren’t stopping.
He helped her get her exercise bra off. Delaney’s breasts were pure poetry and he didn’t waste any time touching them, circling her nipples with his thumbs to make them pucker.
“That’s good,” she moaned, leaning her head against the door of the shower stall and shutting her eyes.
“What about these?” Her yoga pants. He hooked his fingers in the waist and pulled them down.
She walked out of them, leaving her in nothing but a thong. All curves and alabaster skin. God, she made him hot.
“Off with this.” She rucked up his T-shirt and helped him drag it over his head, then pushed him back for a long, lingering look. “You have the best chest, Colt.”
“Yeah?” He pulled her back into his arms and felt her full breasts press against him. “So do you.”
He clamped his mouth over hers and kissed her so thoroughly he felt her knees buckle. He nudged her back against the door for leverage so his hands could wander. “I’ve got you.”
She reached for the buttons on his jeans. “Off, so we can get clean.”
He somehow was able to get his pants and shorts off at the same time as maneuvering her into the snug shower stall. She tugged off her thong, threw it over the door, and turned on the water.
“This too hot?”
“Huh?” He pushed her against the tile wall and rocked into her, letting her know what she’d gotten herself into.
“Colt? Condom.”
“Uh . . . right.” Lifted from his sex fog, he hopped out of the shower.
“Where you going?”
“To find one.” He was almost certain there was a stash in the men’s locker room.
“You’re naked,” she called as he unlocked the door and checked the gym to see if they were still alone.
“Be right back.” He ran across the fitness center, zigzagging around the exercise equipment, praying that no one caught him. They—his brothers—would never let him live it down.
Inside the men’s showers, he tore the place apart looking for rubbers. Finally, he found two next to a package of old razors in one of the sink drawers and quickly checked the expiration date. Still good, thank God. He raced back to the women’s locker room and rushed into the shower stall to find Delaney in hysterics.
“What’s so freaking funny?”
“This”—she gestured at his nakedness—“running.”
Well, it wasn’t funny that he’d lost his hard on, which he planned to rectify. Immediately. “Be quiet and kiss me.” He didn’t wait, just covered her mouth and stuck his tongue inside.
“Did you relock the door?”
“Shush.” He spread her legs apart with his knee. “No more talking until I’m inside you.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed against him. He felt his erection spring back to life. Harder than before, and throbbing.
“You feel good,” he said as he trailed kisses down her neck and reached around to hold her ass in the palms of his hands, pressing her tighter.
“You too.” She reached down and stroked him and he felt himself jerk.
“Uh-uh. No more. Not yet.” He moved her hand away, grabbed one of the condoms off the shampoo ledge, ripped it open, and rolled it down his length. Then he lifted her and slid in, moving in and out in slow motion.
She moaned and tilted her head against the tile as the water sluiced over them.
“Okay?”
“Beyond okay.” She wrapped her legs around him and he increased the pace.
He pressed her deeper against the wall so he could pump harder. “This hurting your back?”
“Don’t stop” was her only answer.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Delaney.”
“You won’t.” She clung to him as he continued to drive into her. “I’m so close.”
She moved with him, closing her eyes. He let the rhythm of their pulsing bodies take him away, urging her higher and higher. Her lips dragged across his shoulders as her breath rose.
With the water washing over her body and her dark hair tangled in a wet mess, she looked so damned beautiful he nearly lost his mind. He watched her come apart in his arms and something jackhammered in his chest. Pride that he could fulfill her like this. A fierce possessiveness. Hell, he didn’t know what it was . . . whether he even liked it. It made him feel like he was losing control.
As she called out his name, he took his own release. His orgasm was long and powerful, coming in waves that made him shudder and grunt. They just stood there for a while, entangled in each other’s arms until finally he shut off the water. The cool air formed tiny bumps on her skin.
“You cold?”
“A little bit. But I like it like this.” In his arms.
He picked her up and carried her to some shelves where there were towels, put her down, and wrapped her in terrycloth. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you.” Her blue gaze held his. “That was intense.”
“Yeah. It always is with us. . . . I mean the sex.”
“Right,” she said. “The sex.”
He didn’t want to talk about it, so he kissed her instead. Long and deep, making his heart kick. She laced her hands around his neck and he let the kiss go on and on, partly because he didn’t want to let her go and partly because it was easier than exploring a truckload of feelings he didn’t want to have. And she tasted good. Like heaven.
“You hear that?” She lifted her head to a voice coming from one of the back offices.
“Shit!” It was either his dad or one of his brothers. “Hurry up and get dressed.”
“No one will come in here, right?”
Only his mom but she’d gone to Reno. “No, but we need to get out of here.”
She started to laugh again, covering her mouth so no one would hear her. He couldn’t help it and laughed too. They huddled together, to keep from collapsing in hysterics.
“Seriously, we need to get dressed,” he said.
It took them more than a few minutes to find their clothes and put them on. Colt put his ear to the door, hoping that whoever it was had left. No such luck. By his count at least two people were out there.
“I’ll go and distract them while you sneak out the side door,” he whispered.
“Don’t you think you’re being ridiculous? Why don’t you just tell them the truth?”
“That we were having sex in the women’s locker room?”
“No, of course not. That you were teaching me how to rock climb.”
One look at them and his brothers would know instantly what they’d been doing. He eyed the frosted window in the corner and wondered if Delaney could fit through it. That is, if he could manage to pry it open without making a lot of noise. Too tight for him, but she was much smaller.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said, watching him size her and the window up.
He shrugged. “Just an idea.”
She did an eye roll, then wiped the steamed-up mirror with the towel and finger combed her hair, deftly swooping it up and clipping it with one of those barrette things. When she started for the door he grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Going out and saying hi to whoever it is.”
“Let me go first. Wait about five minutes, then you come out.” It would look pretty bad otherwise.
“Whatever,” she said, plainly perturbed.
He made it halfway to the door and turned around. “Come here.”
When she didn’t move, he went to her and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Thanks for rocking my world.”
He walked to the door, opened it a crack, and peeked out. There was still time to salvage this as long as no one saw him coming from the women’s locker room. The gym remained empty and the voices appeared to be coming from the lobby. He quickly darted out and stealthily went in search of whoever was there. At the front desk, he found TJ and Win dicking around on the computer.
“Looking for porn sites?”
TJ jumped. “What the hell? Don’t sneak up like that.” He gave Colt a sharp perusal, noting his wet hair. “You worked out?”
“Climbed the wall ... with Delaney.”
Win peered around his back. “Where is she?”
“Women’s locker room. Showering, I assume.”
“I didn’t know Delaney climbed,” TJ said.
“She wanted to learn so I gave her a lesson.”
“I bet you did.” Win snickered and Colt had a very real urge to punch him in the face.
“How are the adventure clothes coming along?” At least TJ had a one-track mind. Business. It was always business with him.
“You can ask her when she comes out.”
“For two people who aren’t seeing each other, you seem to see a lot of each other,” Win said.
“We’re neighbors.”
“Hey.” Delaney came strolling into the reception area, carrying her gym bag, looking about as innocent as a three-time felon.
“Heard you did the wall,” TJ said.
And me, Colt thought to himself.
“Mm-hmm.” Delaney turned pink, probably because her mind had traveled the same route as his with the “did” comment. “Colt was kind enough to show me the ropes. I figured for the sake of the clothes, I should try some of this stuff.”
TJ had the decency not to make an off-color remark, which was huge for him. “It’s addictive. Pretty soon, you’ll be one of us, an adrenaline junky.”
“Highly doubtful, but it was a lot of fun.” She adjusted the bag on her shoulder and Colt took it from her and put it on top of the counter.
“Colt’s an excellent teacher,” Win added with sarcasm, and flashed him a smarmy-ass smile.
“He is.”
“Well, we better get going,” Colt said, and glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late and I’ve got stuff to do.”
He grabbed the gym bag, put his hand at the small of Delaney’s back, and guided her to the door.
“See ya,” his brothers called in unison. Colt didn’t have to look behind him to know that they were high-fiving each other. They were idiots but not stupid.