~ Cece

 

It was weird to wake up some place that wasn’t my own bed. That said, the sight of the sun rising over the mansion grounds was something to behold, and I delighted in watching it every morning.

After the spectacle was done, however, I was always forced to face the music - and the confusion of being under Rhett’s influence for the first time in half an age.

Though I’d managed to avoid the man himself well enough, there was evidence of him everywhere. He left his dishes in the kitchen, his workout clothes slung over the back of the couch and empty glasses by the pool. Though the temperature for the past few days had been scorching, I didn’t dare head for the pool myself. That would mean Rhett seeing me in a swimsuit. Even more intimidating, however, was dealing with him in his swimming garb. I’d seen him a few times, strutting around the edge of the water in a suit so miniscule it might as well have been a speedo. The tiny bit of cloth merely emphasized his massive, well-sculpted body - and the proportional package between his thighs.

The mere thought was enough to make me warm between the legs - and also to remind me that any sensation I might feel there would never come to anything substantial.

Sighing, I closed my eyes. Though the sun was up, it was still early. I could go back to sleep if I wanted. I didn’t have a stringent schedule here like I did at the office. But sleeping, I knew, was a lost cause, especially considering the territory my thoughts were straying into. Being around Rhett made me recall the other men I’d been with - and just how little stock I put in sex.

In theory, it was a lovely idea. To say I hadn’t pictured myself wrapped in Rhett’s embrace several times over the past few days would be a blatant lie. I imagined his hands and mouth on my skin, igniting the same fire he did when he brushed past me, only a thousand times hotter. What kind of lover would he be? Slow and sensual, or hard and rough? Somehow, both ideas titillated me - tempted my hands southward in an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure building between my thighs.  

But that was where I always stopped. Always.

When it came to sex, the only genuine feeling I ever encountered was frustration, and I was pretty certain that not even a man like Rhett could change that. The problem lies with me- in my biology and emotional hang-ups. At least, that’s what several articles and medical journals told me.

With that in mind, I’d long stopped telling myself that it would just take the right guy to change my mind about sex. Instead, I merely accepted it as an unfortunate byproduct of a relationship. If I was attracted to someone, I had to have sex with them. Had to endure them pushing and grunting - the slow slide and build of pressure within me and the ultimate, infuriating frustration when it was never relieved.

By the time I finished berating my lack of bedroom prowess, the sun was high in the sky - or would have been, if it wasn’t covered by the thick layer of clouds moving in from the south. Squinting at their dark underbellies, I frowned.

It wasn’t exactly the best day to go rock-climbing.

To start with, I hardly believed I’d agreed with such a ludicrous idea. I was hardly the athletic type. If anything, it was the way Rhett asked me. When I snuck down for dinner late the previous night, he’d still been downstairs. I’d managed to keep from staring at his chest in the thin t-shirt he wore long enough to realize that he was suggesting a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains. He owned a chunk of property there that he allowed to be used as a wildlife refuge, and spoke highly of his experiences climbing there.

In the moment, he’d told me about his adventures, he looked just like he had twelve years before. When he was literally so excited about something he almost stumbled over his words getting them out. It had been adorable then, and I hated to say that it had very much the same effect on me now. Atop that, he insisted that I could only get an accurate portrayal of him if I saw him in his element - what he was really like on a day to day basis. So, of course, like an idiot, I agreed.

Had I ever been rock climbing? No. I could hardly climb a few flights of stairs. But according to Rhett, it was easy, and he’d be holding my hand the entire way.

There was nothing he could do about this weather though, and I half expected a text from him canceling the outing. By the time noon rolled around, however, I received no such indication, even though the sky only grew darker. I dressed as he’d recommended - in old jeans and a loose tee, before grabbing my bag and gear and heading towards the foyer. Rhett was already there, and he beamed when he saw me.

Though I’d just spoken to him the previous night, the sight of him in clinging, faded Levi’s and a shirt that clung to his chiseled abdomen had my thighs pressing against one another. That was what he wore to climb in? Heaven help me.

“You ready for this?” His excitement was so infectious I couldn’t help the way the corners of my mouth quirked upward.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“The plane’s fueling up at the airport. Should take us less than two hours, then it’s twenty minutes to the mountains. Hope you brought some reading material.”

I wondered, wryly, if we’d be joined by the same hostess that served me on the way down - the blindingly beautiful blonde. Something told me Rhett didn’t just keep her around for her excellent customer service skills.

When we boarded the plane, however, the steward was a man old enough to be my father. He and Rhett seemed to know one another pretty well, so I held my tongue. After all, it wasn’t any of my business who he chose to spend his time with.

As long as it wasn’t the blonde.

I expected the ride to be rough, considering the sour weather that was moving in, but once we got above the clouds it was smooth sailing. I took the opportunity to sneak a few peeks at Rhett as he read the paper and had his coffee. The man’s thighs looked decadent in those jeans, and I remembered just how chiseled they were from the few times I’d seen him at the pool.

I barely touched my own coffee. Apparently, the only thing I needed to keep me awake was the eye candy across from me.

When we touched down at the small airport in the mountains, the sky looked even darker than it had in Savannah. Somehow, I was beginning to think suspending myself from rocks hundreds of feet in the air in this weather couldn’t be a good idea. Rhett, however, assured me that the clouds were supposed to burn off before late afternoon. A quick peek at both his phone and mine confirmed that was, indeed, what the forecast predicted.

When we arrived at the edge of the forest it was a mile-long hike before we reached the base of the mountain range. Luckily for me, Rhett was enough of a gentleman to tote our climbing gear. The man seemed to have effortless reserves of energy and I wondered if it came from the coffee or the experience itself. He certainly looked happy to be outdoors - threatening skies or not.

“So how is it working for The Burner?” His question caught me off guard and I stumbled over a root on a trail I was sure that he could see better than I could. Luckily, another trunk nearby saved me from landing on my ass.

“It’s...fine.” I resisted the impulse to tell the truth - how much I hated working for a magazine known as a gossip rag and how my boss didn’t seem to have a shred of respect for the women that bought our magazine like wildfire. “Puts food on the table.” My mom would have been proud of me for that one.

“You sound ridiculously enthusiastic.” Despite the uneven terrain, Rhett didn’t slow his pace for the conversation. It was apparent that he was familiar with this path -which, at the very least, made me feel better about being in the middle of the woods, if not about the adventure we were headed towards.

“It’s a job.” I shrugged, ducking under a low-lying branch as I tried not to stare at the man’s perfect behind. How the hell did he move through the foliage like that? “Not exactly what I was hoping for but not everything is sunflowers and daisies, right?” I was being defensive and I damn well sounded like it -anything to keep from getting too chummy with him. It was enough that just being near him was making my mouth dry and my head light. I refused to let my guard down any further for even one second.

“You’ve grown up, Cece.” He tossed the words over his shoulder, holding a branch out of the way for me to pass through the dense network of greenery before us. “I remember when you were young and idealistic - full of dreams.”

So did I. There was a part of me that was still clinging to those dreams - but he’d never know that. “And I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed.” Rhett continued casually, and I sucked in a breath in anticipation. I knew what was coming next. “Anyone special in your life? Boyfriend? Husband?”

“You might have asked me that before you tried to hit on me,” I replied dryly, hopping over a brittle downed log.

“I figured any guy worth his salt wouldn’t have let you come down here alone...which means you’re still single. Am I right?”

I merely glowered at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of an affirmative answer. Unfortunately, that didn’t dissuade Rhett, and he merely changed the subject. “How’s Jeb doing?”

The question made me sigh in an odd mixture of aggravation and fondness. Though Jeb and I had our differences growing up - especially after our parents left to go abroad - we’d managed to bury that over the last few years and even developed a kind of camaraderie. Of course, this only made me more pissed off when the brother I knew to be intelligent went from dead end job to dead end job, refusing to put in the work required to actually find a career. “He’s fine. Not asking me for money, so that’s a plus.”

Jeb would be more than a little interested to know I was spending time with Rhett after all these years - which was exactly why I had no plans of telling him. “He know you’re down here?”

Dear Christ, even after twelve years, Rhett had an uncanny talent to guess what I was thinking.

“No.” I kept my answer short and sweet, pausing when I realized Rhett was holding out his hand to help me up over a series of boulders in our path. I hesitated before taking it reluctantly. My heart leapt when he all but hauled me upward with no assistance on my part. The man was strong as an ox - all those muscles definitely weren’t for show.

Not that I didn’t like seeing them… “You know, you could ask me some questions.” I realized, in that moment, that I’d been staring at the solid wall of the man’s chest. I crested the boulders a good minute and a half prior, and now had no excuse to be stationary. My face flaming, I tugged my hand from his grip, wishing he’d wipe that smug smile from his face.

“I’ll be asking you more than enough questions in the interviews.”

Rhett chuckled, starting forward again. “You’re not in the least bit curious what I’ve been up to?”

“Why would I be curious?” I inquired wryly. “I can learn anything I’d want to know about you by turning on the television or flipping through one of the hundreds of tabloid covers you’ve made.”

Rhett surprised me by stopping in his tracks. When he turned to face me, a frown marred his gorgeous features, his expression almost hurt. It was enough to make me feel a twinge of guilt. “You know, you shouldn’t believe everything you read in those rags. Being a proper reporter, I thought you, of all people, would know that.”

Immediately, I bristled. I had no idea what the hell he was implying - if he was making fun of me or if he was being serious. Either way, I didn’t like feeling out of my element, and here, in the middle of the mountains with a man I wanted desperately but didn’t know was about as far out of my element as it was possible to get. “I never write fake news,” I retorted, irritated, “Gossip columns, sure, but nothing blatantly idiotic or untrue. I haven’t sunk that low yet, so you can take that particular point of view and shove it, Mister Wilder.” With that, I stomped past him, heedless of the fact that I had no idea where I was going.

I expected Rhett to let my stubbornness carry me forward until it was apparent that I was lost as hell - or even to make a scathing comment about how pig-headed I was being. Instead, he merely laughed, catching up with me in a few easy strides. “God, I’ve missed your fire, Cece.”

His words were enough to stop me in my tracks so I could gape at him incredulously. He’d missed my fire? I was being standoffish enough to send most guys running for the hills and that was all he had to say? I had never imagined someone the reporters painted as a thin-skinned womanizer would have half the patience he did.

It made me wonder if, perhaps, I might have misjudged him just a little bit.

Thankfully, Rhett let the next five minutes of hiking pass in companionable silence. I was someone who couldn’t attest to being much of a nature girl, despite growing up in the south. I’d moved to Atlanta as soon as I’d been able and enjoyed the amenities the city provided for me. That said, I couldn’t deny that the scenery was beautiful. Even though the sun wasn’t out, the birds were singing and there wasn’t another soul around for miles. The forest was green and lush and the air was pregnant with the smell of rain.

“You need to catch your breath?”

By the time we were preparing to climb, I certainly did. While I was certainly used to running miles at a time, I wasn’t used to rough hikes through the wilderness. Our hike had been just as much horizontal movement as vertical, and I had a stitch in my side that wouldn’t quit. “Drink some water. Just a little bit at a time.” I was so grateful for the reprieve that I didn’t tug my hand away when Rhett’s covered it, guiding the bottle to my mouth slowly.

How could he still smell so good after half an hour of stalking through the forest? It literally defied reason.

After a few minutes, my heart rate gradually calmed. Even after Rhett released my hand it retained the warmth that he’d lent me and I had to force myself to concentrate as he showed me how to work the harnesses and rigging system. I’d be damned if I fell to my death because of raging hormones.

Even though he explained the process to me painstakingly, I was no less nervous when he strapped me in than I’d been that morning. Rhett assured me that we weren’t going to climb very high - only about a hundred feet or so - and my stomach twisted in anxiety.

Only a hundred feet. That sounded pretty substantial for a first timer. “Don’t be nervous.” My attention jerked upward as Rhett tugged on the harness I wore, making sure it was secure. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll be right here.”

I might have brushed the moment off as another blatant attempt at seduction, but the eyes that met mine were completely sincere -reassuring, warm, and more than a little bit excited. Though a part of me was terrified, Rhett’s enthusiasm was engaging enough that I forced myself to swallow my doubts and just do the damn thing.

In the end, I enjoyed myself a hell of a lot more than I expected.

Rhett was patient with me, showing me the most convenient handholds and always ensuring that my restraints were well tethered to the hooks that suspended us in the air. The first time I looked down, I nearly had a heart-attack - but there was also a strange, euphoric rush that flooded my nerve endings as I realized I was swinging from a rock face a good fifty feet up. I looked above me to see Rhett clinging to a ledge about five feet over me, and couldn’t help but admire the flex and contract of his muscles as he secured the next support hook with ease.

If this was what he did on a regular basis, no wonder he was in such good shape. Climbing took a ridiculous amount of upper body strength, and I was already panting, even though I noticed Rhett was making sure that I was on a path upward that wasn’t half as strenuous as his own.

The view from halfway up the rock face was absolutely breathtaking, and it was while I was admiring said view that the part of the cliff my hook was wedged into crumbled, sending me plummeting a good five feet downward until I was yanked taut from where I was attached to Rhett.

I screamed. I couldn’t help it - for a split second, I had been sure that I would fall to my death, forgetting about the failsafes put into place specifically for such occasions. But then, the moment passed. I was dangling in midair slightly below Rhett as he stared at me, his eyes wide with concern. “Are you ok?”

“Fine!” I replied automatically, a strange, insane mixture of adrenaline, excitement and terror rushing through my veins. “I can keep going!”

“We’re almost at the top,” he assured me, his smile reassuring. “Ten more feet!”

They were ten very long feet, but somehow, impossibly, we finally reached the top of the rock face. When I was hoisted up onto the solid slab, I immediately stretched out onto my back, my eyes sliding closed as I caught my breath. My heart was still racing.

“Hey, you alright?” Rhett sat down next to me, his legs dangling carelessly off the edge. The man, was, indeed, one hell of a daredevil; and, in that moment, gleaming with sweat, muscles pumped from exertion, he was absolutely sinful.

“Well,” I breathed, looking up at him. “I’m alive, so that’s something.”

We stared at one another for a few poignant seconds before bursting into laughter. I’m sure I looked ridiculous, which triggered Rhett, but I didn’t know why I was laughing. I couldn’t help it. Sure, it was scary doing something this dangerous, but it was also unlike anything I’d experienced in the short, safe length I’d been alive. Something I could see being addicting. “It was...amazing. I mean, there were a few seconds where I thought I was legitimately going to die, but that rush... I can see why you like it.”

Rhett’s gaze suddenly gleamed with an approval I’d never seen before. It was like he was looking at me - really looking at me - for the first time since I’d arrived at the manor a few days prior. It was the way I had always imagined my man looking at me...even if I’d never managed to stumble across him.

Rhett was close, I realized. Closer than he’d been seconds before. Though I’d caught the man staring at my mouth numerous times in the past week, this was the first time I’d blatantly stared at his. The last time I’d kissed Rhett, I was young, impetuous and had no idea just how powerful hormones could be.

I wondered what it would be like to kiss him now.

As soon as the thought entered my mind, it took over. I found myself raising my mouth, all but inviting the gesture. Rhett’s face was a mere hair's breadth from mine when a cold, wet droplet ran down my thigh, startling me out of my trance.

My water bottle was leaking. It must have snagged on a rock.

“I…” Turning my head, I swallowed thickly. Christ, that was close. Entirely too close. “I’d better drink most of this.”

Before I could lift the bottle to my mouth, however, Rhett stopped me with his hand on mine. “Cece, be honest with me.” His blue eyes were intent on mine, seeing straight through my facade of disinterest and down to the very core of me. “Have you thought about us since I left? What might have happened if I stayed?”

A lie was on the tip of my tongue. Really, a lie was the only safe answer. No sane woman would admit that she wondered about what might have been on a monthly basis – that she had to force herself to ignore every ad and TV program that popped up with his face on it. I had decided, a long time ago, that dwelling on the past was idiotic. The best thing was to move forward – onward and upward. That meant putting aside childish love affairs – no matter how serious they’d seemed at the time.

 

But the words wouldn’t come. With Rhett so close – close enough to press my mouth to his see if he tasted the same way he had a decade ago – I found I couldn’t lie. Not to myself, and not to him.

 

If nature hadn’t intervened, I probably would have made a goddamned fool of myself; but, thankfully, before I could answer Rhett a fat, cold, heavy droplet of rain tumbled from the heavens to splash on my nose, making me jump.

The good luck that had been on our side all morning seemed to be up. Before I could even point out the fact that it was starting to rain, a crack of thunder sounded so loudly that I scrambled to my feet in shock. 

“Shit.” Rhett joined me in short order as the heavens opened up, dousing us in a surprisingly cold deluge. 

“So much for the weather report!” I had to shout to be heard above the sudden din of the storm. Though it had been overcast for hours, this mess had literally popped up in the space of a few seconds. That’s what we got for testing mother nature.  “How are we going to get back down the mountain in this?”

“Don’t have to!” Rhett called back, lifting his head upward as a brilliant flash of lightning lit the sky. “There’s a cabin on the property, about ten minutes away. We can wait out the storm there!”

Despite the unbelievable weather pummeling us, I found myself hesitating. An isolated cabin, on a mountain with Rhett, alone? It sounded a bit too much like a ploy to get into my pants for my comfort. At the end of the day, though, there was no way he could have foreseen the weather turning so sour, and if I had to choose between holing up with a generous billionaire or freezing my ass off, I was inclined to take the former.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to rappel down the cliff we had just climbed. Rhett showed me another way down along the rock face - though it was slippery and treacherous in the downpour. To his merit, the man didn’t grope me once as he helped me down - and there were some hairy bits where he all but grabbed the back of my shirt to keep me from toppling over the edge.

Still, he was surprisingly well-behaved; a boon, considering it only took about five minutes for me to start shivering. Even though it was summer, the elevation up here was wicked, and it might have been raining in mid-autumn. By the time we reached the forest floor it was a muddy mess, and I promptly slipped and fell in the muck.

In other circumstances, I might have laughed at my own clumsiness, but it was far too cold. When Rhett hauled me back to my feet, his gaze was concerned. “You ok?” Despite the fact that I’d been skiing and snowboarding more than a handful of times, I couldn’t remember ever being as cold as I was.

“I’m fine.” My teeth chattered over the words, and he merely frowned.

“Come on. Let’s get moving.”

Georgia was known for it’s fierce, momentary storms, so a part of me hoped the rain would pass in the next few minutes and we could simply head back to the mansion. Unfortunately, during our short hike to the cabin, the forest only grew darker and wetter. By the time the small, wooden structure came into view, my fingertips were numb.

Rhett fumbled with a keychain for a moment before unlocking the door and pushing me inside first. The moment he closed the door, the storm outside was muted. A few moments passed in the cold dark before he turned on a small lamp near the door, casting light over the room.

It wasn’t half as rustic as I might have imagined. There was a small kitchen that looked to have been cleaned relatively recently, a couch draped with a dust cloth, and a large fireplace opposite the single, queen sized bed.

Another particularly loud crash of thunder made me jump as Rhett shook his head, almost dog like, spraying me with minute droplets of water. “Hey!”

“Sorry.” His sheepish smile was just barely visible in the low light. “I’ll see about getting us warm.” With that, he stripped his t-shirt off over his head, letting drop to the floor with a wet smack. My cheeks immediately flamed as I turned away quickly - but not quickly enough to avoid seeing the chiseled lines of his chest, shoulders and abdomen.

I didn’t know if I was going to need anything to keep me warm. Rhett’s mere presence was doing plenty. I could only pray the storm let up relatively quickly. Staying here with him could only wreak havoc on my libido.