“Where are you in grad school?” he blurted, pulling his attention back to the harness and reaching for the waist strap, threading it through the buckle on the first side with as much business-like efficiency as possible.
Her hand fell away. “Columbia. This time.”
“This time?”
A little sheepish, Sarah shrugged. “Taylor and I share an inability to settle on a career. Her response has been to move from job to job, trying out this or that. Mine has been to collect degrees.”
“An expensive thing to collect.” Even state colleges were hella expensive these days, and he knew well enough the cost of Ivy League education. He was still paying his off.
“If you’re a good enough student, you can get scholarships or assistantships to pay for it. I like learning things, so as long as I could stay in school without going into debt, I picked that. It seemed less scary than the real world. My sister says I’m a terrible bookworm.”
She didn’t fit his mental image of a bookworm. Then again, he hadn’t been the typical MBA student either.
Beckett grabbed the other side of the waist strap and threaded it through the buckle, drawing it snug. “There shouldn’t be room to fit more than a couple of fingers in.” He demonstrated and immediately regretted it as his fingers pressed against the flat of her belly. Just a thin layer of cotton separated him from skin. Sarah hissed a breath. He started to apologize, but instead, his eyes tracked to her mouth. Her lips were pink and glossy. He wondered if she’d taste like the pale ale she’d been drinking at dinner.
“You’re supposed to…to double back the straps,” she said.
For a moment, his mind blanked because his hand was still on her and he could feel her warmth against the backs of his fingers. What were they talking about?
“And tuck them in the sleeve.” Her throat worked as she swallowed.
The harness. He was fitting her for the harness.
Beckett cleared his throat. “Right. Good.”
Dropping his gaze, he finished adjusting the rest of the straps, which just put him in close proximity with those excellent legs of hers. His fingers itched to touch and stroke, to find out if her skin was as soft as it looked. Jesus, if he was this rattled by being close to adjust her harness, how was he going to teach her the rest of it? Straightening, he gave her harness a few tugs, checking the fit. It would just take one pull to haul her into him…
“This is a terrible idea.”
Beckett didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until she said, “Probably. But we’ve established I don’t run from terrible ideas.”
His eyes came back to hers, deep and dark and steady. Neither of them was talking about the climbing. The air between them snapped taut, shuddering like a rope under too much strain.
“Are we going to talk about this?’ he rasped.
“Do you want to talk?” There went her eyebrow, that little sign of the sass he liked so much.
“No.” If they talked about it, one or both of them would probably come to their senses and this moment would disappear. Foolish as it was, he didn’t want that.
Sarah laid a hand on his chest. “Neither do I.”
To hell with it.
Beckett gave in, curling his hands around her harness and tugging her into him, until they softly collided, body-to-body. Her arms slid around his waist as she tipped her face up. Her mouth was soft, yielding beneath his on a sigh that fired his blood. Needing to touch her, he lifted a hand to cup her nape, stroking the silky skin there before angling her head so he could take the kiss a little deeper. On a sexy little moan, she rose up, opening for him. They hovered there at that delicious edge of thickening arousal, and then she dove.
She flooded his senses, the taste of her, the scent of her, wrapping around him, pulling him under, on a fast, reckless slide that burned through whatever sense remained. Blind and deaf to anything but her, Beckett shifted, backing her up until they bumped against the table. Mouth still fused with hers, he lifted her onto it. And Jesus, her legs were as soft and toned as he imagined. She wrapped them around him, locking them at his back.
He skimmed his hands beneath her shirt, spanning the heated skin of her back. Hers followed suit, tunneling beneath his t-shirt to skate up his chest. Well, who was he to deny a lady? He yanked it off and found her lips again, glorying in the delighted purr she made as she explored his pecs and shoulders. When those fingers dug into his shoulders, he growled, and nudged up her tank top to find her pert breasts. She arched into his hands, against his hips and he went half-mad, greedily swallowing down her whimpers of pleasure.
Before he could think—because thought had long since stopped—his hands went for the button of her shorts. And found straps instead.
Confused, Beckett hesitated, tearing his mouth away to see what the hell the impedime
nt was. The harness. The damned climbing harness he’d just put on her himself.
“Call the locksmith,” Sarah gasped.
Her eyes were huge, dark, and devastatingly aroused.