Best Man with Benefits

Her nervous symptoms advanced from sweaty palms to stomach cramps when they peeled off the main path and onto a smaller path toward the Wall. Then she saw it. Stretching straight up into the sky—high into the sky—stood one of those man-made rock walls. The kind people had to don special harnesses and helmets to attempt. He marched them right over to the ticket booth.

She dug her heels in when he told the guy at the booth, “Two adults.”

“Oh, no. No. No. I’ll watch.”

The ticket guy glanced at Logan questioningly, but he merely shook his head, held up two fingers and handed the attendant his credit card. To her he said, “You have a wild side, remember? You don’t scare easily. You were the one who got the snake out of the shed. You were the first one to jump into the river from the oak tree.”

“When I was a kid! It’s been years since I climbed an oak tree, or anything else, and the tree was not a thousand feet high.”

Logan took his credit card, the receipt, and the tickets from the attendant, and then turned to her. The little groove beside his mouth appeared, and she felt her resolve weakening. “You’re nine hundred and eighty-five feet off in your estimate.” He read from the sign at the base of the wall, “The Beaver Creek Climbing Wall provides fifteen feet of safe and exciting climbing challenges.”

She watched a boy who looked about ten, and clearly had the genes of a spider monkey, scramble up the wall. “It’s a broken leg waiting to happen.”

“You’re safely roped to a state-of-the-art belay system, and I’ll be right beside you the entire time.” He leaned close, his face serious, and softly promised, “I won’t let you fall.”

The words drifted over her skin, and all those hypersensitive nerve endings he’d awaked yesterday came tingling to attention. All she could do was stare helplessly into his fascinating gray-green eyes, but she must have made some conflicted sound, because he moved his lips to her ear and in a low voice added, “Trust me. Just like you did last night.”

In her mind, New Sophie urged, For God’s sake, trust him!

“I— ” Her dry throat choked on the words.

The corner of his mouth kicked up into a grin and she heard the words as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud. I. Dare. You.

Screw it, what was the worst that could happen? She’d slip, the belay line would fail, and she’d fall fifteen feet to land on her butt on the cushion of mats stacked at the base of the wall. She’d probably only spend a couple of months in traction.

“Okay,” she heard herself say over the deafening sound of her blood pounding in her ears. Minutes later she found herself facing the wall, snapped into a harness and clipped to the belay line. She touched a nubby blue molded plastic handhold sticking out of the wall directly in front of her. “How do I…um…mount this thing?” Crap, that didn’t sound right.

“Grab on to the highest handholds you can comfortably reach.” He demonstrated, grabbing two handholds that were ideally placed for him and might as well have been on the moon for her. “Then, using your right foot, get a toehold on an outcrop about knee high, figure out where your left foot is going to go—aim for a crag a few inches higher than the one supporting your right foot—and then…” He lifted himself onto the wall. Gracefully. Effortlessly. And all the spit in her mouth dried as she watched his calves go taut and his back muscles flex and bunch under his shirt.

He hopped back down and raised an eyebrow. “Ready?”

To climb you like a rock wall? Yes. To climb this thing? No. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Great.” He guided her to the most appropriate handholds, and while she grabbed on to them like lifelines, he crouched behind her and instructed her where to put her right foot.

“Perfect. Now, when you lift yourself up, put your left foot right here.” He tapped a purple block-shaped outcropping, and then stood so his chest brushed against her back.

Something about Logan positioning her so she was stretched out on the wall, standing on her tiptoes with one leg raised and bent, sent her dirty mind into overdrive. She flashed to an image of them doing this naked, except the only thing about to be mounted was her, and Logan was poised behind her, ready to do the honors. Heat rushed to the unprotected place between her legs and she sincerely hoped her workout leggings were dark and absorbent enough to conceal her body’s reaction to him.

“On three,” he said, and placed his hands at her waist. She closed her eyes and tried to banish the depraved sex fantasy before her bones dissolved and she had nothing left to support her.

“One, two”—she tensed and prepared to channel Catwoman—“three.” Strong hands at her waist supported her as she pulled herself up onto the wall.

“Good job. Now find your next handholds. Let your dominant side lead, go hand-hand-foot-foot, just like before, and pull yourself up the wall.”

She did as he advised and climbed another foot. Then another. She ascended over halfway up the wall, without coaching, before her arms started to feel like overstretched Slinkys. Breathing hard, she stopped to rest while a group of preteens practically climbed right over her in their race to get to the top of the wall first.

So much for those three sets of ten-pound curls every morning. The red rover crowd just kicked your butt.

“How are you doing?”

Logan’s voice broke into her musing and she nearly lost her footing as she whipped her head around to find him casually hanging on the wall right beside her.

“Fine,” she huffed, ridiculously annoyed to note he wasn’t sweaty and his breath wasn’t the least bit labored.

“If your arms get tired, you can let go of the wall. Your harness will support you.” He demonstrated, bracing his feet, wrapping one hand around the belay line, just above the clip, and easily leaning back into the harness.

Her arms wept for a reprieve. She let go of the wall, but neglected to hold the belay line. Immediately, she tipped to the side, which threatened her footholds. A squeak escaped her throat and for a panicked second she pictured herself dangling like a spider in a windstorm, swinging helplessly, unable to get back to the wall. Then Logan calmly reached out, caught her line, and steadied her. She grabbed a handful of his shirt, accidentally digging her fingers into his side.

“You can, you know,” he said softly.

The sun shone down on them. The calls and coaching among other climbers faded into an indistinct soundtrack.

“Can what?”

He waited to respond until she looked up and met his patient gaze. “Hold on to me.”

There went her heart again, racing away like a hyperactive terrier slipped free of its leash.

“I—”

“Why’d you leave this morning?” There was no acrimony in his voice, just curiosity and a note of something that sounded a lot like disappointment.

She stared at the rock wall and blinked. “I don’t know. I was lying there in the dark realizing I didn’t have the first clue what I would say to you when you woke up. I don’t have any clever, sexy morning-after banter, and I’d probably just make things awkward, so…I left.”

“You’re clever and sexy without saying a word.”

She snorted before she could stop herself. “No, I’m not. I’m so not.” Yeah, that right there? Not clever or sexy.

“Am I going to have to prove this to you? After yesterday, I think we both know I can.”

Heat seared her cheeks as she remembered watching her reflection in the mirror yesterday while he’d turned her body into an instrument of pleasure. Unfortunately, one amazing afternoon didn’t negate a lifetime of insecurities. And they were her insecurities, dang it. She might have to live with them but she sure as heck didn’t have to take them out and pass them around for his inspection.

She opened her mouth to tell him so, but frustration had something much more raw and painful spilling out. “Have you ever, even once in your whole, charmed, perfect life, wished to be invisible, because if you weren’t invisible, you were a walking joke—a target for ot

her peoples’ insensitivity or flat-out meanness?” To her mortification, her voice rose precariously and her eyes started to burn. “You’ve had it so…effing…easy. Do you know what it’s like to stand there like an idiot while your ninth-grade gym teacher—your male gym teacher—says in front of the whole class that you ought to get a sports bra so you can, and I quote, ‘keep your chest under control’? Oh, and by the way, you’re already wearing two sports bras at your mother’s insistence. Do you know what it’s like to have Jeremy Needleman and his band of fools hum that godforsaken “Baby Got Back” song every time your algebra teacher calls you to the blackboard to solve an equation, and then to eventually realize her solution is to not call on you anymore? Of course you don’t, Mr. Popular. Believe me, it doesn’t make you feel clever or sexy. It makes you feel like a freak. It makes you wish you could disappear.”

“I’m glad you didn’t disappear,” he said quietly, and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Did you tell Colt? I can’t believe he didn’t teach a few people the meaning of the term ‘harassment.’”

She puffed out a breath and consciously relaxed her stiff shoulders. “Colt and I are eight years apart,” she reminded him. Thankfully, her voice sounded reasonably normal. “He was long gone by the time I went to high school, and I doubt the army would have given him a pass to come home and deal with sleazy Jeremy Needleman for me.”