Page 13

PIPER

I stared at him in shock, my jaw hanging open at his sudden change in gentlemanly behavior.

He just took off, leaving me in a single shoe—a shoe that I had to protect with my life.

Jeanie would have my head for the loss of one shoe, but I would keep the remaining shoe safe and in pristine condition so I could tell her I did my best.

Slipping it off, I cradled it in my arm as I rushed after Patrick, wincing at the way the twigs snapped under my feet. “Hey! Wait up!”

He glanced over his shoulder, shaking his head at me.

My nostrils flared in anger at how beautiful he was.

I was tired of good-looking men with strong jaws and dark hair that waved slightly in the heat.

And those blue eyes…was he using them to draw in every woman within a hundred miles?

It was bad enough that I had to deal with staring at those massive muscles rippling all over his body, but to stare at his eyes all fucking day was going to do me in.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Chasing you down,” I snapped, hobbling when I stepped on a particularly sharp branch. “Could you slow down?”

He sighed, stopping in place. “We have to keep moving so we can catch up to Nick and Chase.”

“Well, that’s fine and dandy, but whatever happened to you carrying me all over the mountain?”

“Did you need me to?”

“No, but that’s not what I’m saying. You made the point of saying you could do it and then you dropped me on my ass!”

Turning away from me, he rubbed the back of his neck and took off again. What was with this guy? Things were going so well for us back at the airport. We really had something going, and then it all went up in flames for no reason.

“Hey! In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to chase you in a skirt!”

I stumbled after him, yelping and nearly in tears when I stubbed my toe on a rock. The man wouldn’t even slow down. It was ridiculous.

“Believe me, I noticed you were in a skirt.”

I hurried up the side of the mountain, slipping and sliding the whole way. It must have rained recently because the ground was still moist and patches of mud coated the ground where grass didn’t grow.

“Then why are you being such an ass—ah!” I screamed as I slipped in mud.

My legs went out from under me and I landed hard on my hip, but the misery didn’t stop there as I started sliding and rolling down the hill, holding the shoe above my head the whole time.

I came to a stop with a thump as I smacked into a tree.

Groaning, I rolled to my back and let my head thunk on the ground as I stared up at the blue sky.

“This day sucks,” I muttered.

Patrick came strolling down the hill without a care in the world, his hands shoved in his pockets as he eyed me curiously. “That was not very graceful.”

Narrowing my eyes at him, I shoved myself to a sitting position, wincing when I felt mud in places it shouldn’t be.

There was hardly an inch of me that wasn’t covered in grotty dirt and grass with twigs mixed in.

I took a calming breath, determined not to lose my shit.

I was on a mountain. I was fine. And most importantly, I still had the information I needed from James’s office.

Patrick strolled over and held out his hand for me. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Now you want to help?”

He smirked at me, wiggling his fingers. “You looked so damn cute on your own.”

“I’m sure I did.”

Out of sheer defiance, I got to my feet all on my own and even avoided slipping again. But this time, the steep climb up the mountain looked even worse than before. Of course, that was probably because I could see the slide I’d made out of my body against the ground.

“Come on. I’ll hold your hand on the way up.”

“How gentlemanly of you,” I grumbled, slipping my hand in his.

His eyebrow quirked at me. “Are you really holding onto that shoe the whole way?”

“It’s a special shoe.”

“Right, but there’s only one. Is that really going to help you?”

“They’re not mine,” I admitted. “My friend lent me her favorite shoes and now I’ve lost one. I’m not sure what I’m going to tell her if I ever see her again.”

Scoffing, he shook his head at me. “The problems of women…”

This time, walking up the mountainside was much harder, mostly because my feet kept squishing in the mud, nearly sending me on my ass again. “What? You don’t understand loyalty to a friend?”

“To a friend? Yes. To a shoe? Absolutely not. We’re on the side of the mountain. There is absolutely nothing that shoe can do for you other than hinder you.”

His words had truth to them, but honestly, I was more concerned with the way his arm muscles flexed as he dragged me up the mountain than the words coming out of his mouth.

It was nearly impossible to think about anything other than what his arms would look like if he was holding me up against the wall and taking me hard.

I was so lost in thought that I stumbled against his back when he came to a sudden stop. Breathing hard—completely because of the hike—I looked around his shoulder, wondering what the hell made him stop like that.

“What—” I didn’t see anything, but he was tense as he looked around the wide-open space.

“They’re not here,” he muttered. “I thought they landed here. I must have been off.”

“Well, we were falling from the sky,” I reasoned.

“And you were distracting me with all those secrets,” he murmured.

I opened my mouth to ask what he was talking about when it all came rushing back to me. “Oh God!” I pressed my hands to my face in mortification, narrowly avoiding poking my eye out with the heel. “I didn’t?—”

“You did,” he chuckled. “I particularly liked the one about how your fiancé couldn’t get you off while fingering you.”

My head snapped up to meet his gaze. I didn’t imagine the smolder in his voice. His eyes matched with the same intensity. Those blue eyes scanned my face before dropping lower, brushing over my heaving breasts before scanning my legs.

Not once in my life had anyone made me feel so utterly naked with only a single look.

And as Patrick’s gaze lingered for just a moment on my breasts, I wondered why I’d never felt like this with James.

That had to be a warning signal that something was seriously wrong with our relationship.

Yet, I hadn’t noticed a thing at the time.

I ducked my head as I remembered how he had her laid out on the table and was fucking her hard. Sex hadn’t been bad between us, but it definitely hadn’t been filled with that much passion.

“Fuck, I’m such an idiot.”

“About what?” he asked, walking forward into the clearing.

“My fiancé. My life.” I sighed and trudged along after him, wishing there was a shower under a tree where I could wash away all the muck.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m sure your secrets aren’t the worst.”

“No? Please tell me you have something that tops mine. I’d love to know I’m not alone.”

He shot me a silly grin, something I was getting used to seeing from him in the short time I’d known him. Maybe he was a jokester by nature. Nothing seemed to really faze him. Well, aside from flying the plane. He’d thrown up when he’d done that.

“Okay. Let’s see, I used to wear skinny jeans.”

That was the best he had? “Okay, while disturbing that any man would wear skinny jeans, that hardly reaches the pinnacle of my embarrassment.”

“You’re right. Your poop story was hilarious,” he teased.

I was never going to live that down. “Hey, I was terrified and we had just jumped out of a plane. What did you think would happen?”

I nearly tripped again, but he caught me by the elbow, tucking me against him for a moment.

I immediately slid my hand around his waist for balance, regretting it the moment I felt the rigid muscles beneath his shirt.

Everything seemed to close in on me. Breathing was hard, swallowing was impossible, and tearing my eyes from his beautiful face seemed like a monumental task that would only end in misery.

Why did he have to be so freaking handsome?

“You’re doing it again,” he whispered.

“What’s that?”

“Staring at me. It’s not the first time, sweetheart.”

“For you, either,” I reminded him, though I still couldn’t tear my eyes away.

“I only stare when there’s something worth looking at.”

A muted gasp slipped past my lips when his fingers brushed a speck of mud from my face.

The heat from his touch was nearly my undoing, leaving me shaky and completely unable to move, let alone think, in his presence.

Why did he have to say such sweet things?

When this adventure was over, I’d go my way and he’d go his.

We’d never see each other again, and I’d be reminded that men generally sucked.

I needed to do something—to tear my eyes from his and pretend he’d never looked at me that way.

It was all due to circumstance anyway. We had jumped out of a plane and…

and life had nearly ceased to exist. That was all this was.

There was no real attraction between us.

We had been in a high-stress situation and reacted. It was perfectly normal.

I forced myself back a step and cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Surely, you have a secret better than skinny jeans.” I turned and trudged forward, leaving him behind so I didn’t ogle him for longer than necessary. Usually, men were totally unaware of my eyes on them.

“I have plenty of secrets. I’m just not sure I want to part with any of them.”

“Then just one. Give me one good one to make me feel better about the crap I laid at your feet.”

I grimaced at my choice of words, but thankfully, he didn’t laugh at me.

“Alright. Deep, dark secrets. Let’s see,” he said thoughtfully as we continued to trudge through the mountains. “Alright. Here’s one that I will never live down if anyone finds out about it. I mean, technically, my team just found out, but I’m trusting you not to say a word to anyone.”

This had to be good. “Scouts Honor.”

“And you can’t laugh at me.”