He was right. I had barely climbed a few feet during the morning training session, and it was already completely exhilarating. “How long has it been since you climbed?”
“Close to about two years, maybe.”
“What made you take a break?”
Something in Reed’s face changed. He’d gone from carefree and open to tense and shut down from one simple question. “It was time,” he said.
Since he had nowhere to run today, I pushed. “That’s vague. How about a more specific answer?”
He shoved a giant piece of his sandwich into his mouth. Definitely buying time to answer. I kept my eyes trained on him, letting him know I’d wait for his response. Plus, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down when he swallowed was really damn sexy to watch.
“There’s been a lot of change in my life over the last year, so I guess climbing has sort of taken a back seat.”
“You mean because of Allison?”
“Among other things, yes.”
“What other things?”
“Charlotte . . .” Reed hit me with that warning tone.
“Don’t ‘Charlotte’ me. We’re supposed to be friends, remember? This is what friends do. They talk. They share.”
“A guy and a girl don’t sit around and talk about their lives and tell each other secrets unless they’re a couple.”
I straightened my spine. “So pretend I’m a guy friend.”
Reed’s eyes dropped to my cleavage, then returned to mine. “That’s not possible.”
I sighed loudly. “You know what happens when people open up to each other?”
Reed didn’t answer, so I continued via a demonstration. I cupped my hands together tight as if I was holding a ball inside them. “This is someone who is closed off. No one can get in. But nothing can get out, either.” I opened my hands and held them cupped side by side as if I were waiting for someone to place something in them. “See. This is open . . . you might have to let someone in that you weren’t expecting, but . . . it also allows the people that you had stuck inside—to leave.”
Reed stared at me for a long time, then abruptly got up. “I’m gonna take a walk. I’ll be back before the afternoon session begins at one.”Reed returned just as we all gathered together again as a group. Which I assumed was the point. I couldn’t prod him in front of a dozen other people. Well, I could . . . but he was reasonably sure I wouldn’t.
He stood right behind me as the instructor spoke about the first climb we were going to do. My skin prickled, and it had nothing to do with the temperature outside. The man had a major effect on me. And I was certain that I wasn’t alone. I knew there were times when his body reacted to me, too. The only difference was, I didn’t want to fight it. I’d been burned by someone I cared about just like he’d been; yet I still wanted to explore what was going on between us.
I felt his warm breath tickle the back of my neck, and something dawned on me. I’d been going about things with Reed the wrong way. I’d been trying to get closer to him by making him talk to me, open up to me. But he was buttoned up so tight that he shut me down at every attempt. Maybe the way to get to him wasn’t through talking after all. Even a diamond has a vulnerable spot where the precious stone could be split open. Reed’s soft spot wasn’t in verbal communication—it was in his physical attraction to me. I wasn’t above working with the limited tools I had.
I took a step back so that my ass brushed against his front and turned my head to whisper—a seemingly innocent gesture. “I’m sorry I was so nosy before.”
Reed cleared his throat and whispered back. “It’s fine.”
I didn’t take a step away after our short exchange. And Reed definitely didn’t back up. Something told me that when I worked on penetrating this man’s soft spot, soft would be the last thing I’d find.“Oh my God! I did it!” After pulling myself up and over the top of the wall we had to climb, I stood and jumped up and down.
Reed was right behind me and flashed a genuine smile. “You did good.”
Even though the wall was probably only thirty feet to get to the plateau we stopped at, I felt like I’d climbed a full mountain. I raised both my hands into the air and screamed. “I’m a gecko!”
Reed laughed. “A what?”
“A gecko. You know.” I darted my tongue in and out fast a few times. “The lizardy thing from the Geico commercials—a gecko. They scale walls, right?”
Reed shook his head. “Well, you looked more like Spider-Woman than a gecko, but I can understand the feeling. It’s been a while for me, too. I forgot how alive it makes you feel.”