Not Cam.
But he was touching her now, literally holding her up. And looking into her eyes. “You didn’t say,” he murmured. “Were you injured in the bridge collapse?”
“Just a few burns and a broken wrist.” It was her standard reply. Short and to the point, and didn’t encourage more questions. “Could have been worse.”
“Doesn’t always help to know that, though.”
No. No, it didn’t, and a little surprised at his sharp insight, she looked into his face.
He offered a solemn smile. “Ready to learn how to do this?”
She caught the intent in the flicker of his eyes a second before he put his hands on her hips, turning her so that she faced away from him. Before she could process the feeling of being snuggled up to his chest, he’d slipped his arms around her middle, his long legs pressing to the backs of hers. She felt the warmth of his chest; then the muscles in his thighs flexed and they were moving.
Fast. “Oh God.”
“Oh God good, or bad?”
“Good.” But she hadn’t meant the skating. The landscape whipped past them at dizzying speeds, not what was spinning her head. No, that was his hands on her, hard and firm on her belly and ribs as he took her entire weight against him, reminding her how long it’d been since she’d been touched by a man.
Too damn long.
She leaned her head back against his shoulder and looked up into his face. He wasn’t wearing a ski cap tonight, and his light brown hair was disheveled as if maybe he’d used his fingers as a comb. He hadn’t shaved. His scar slashing his left eyebrow didn’t look all that old, and yet the leather band he wore around his wrist did. Her fingers played with it, and at the touch, he looked down.
“From your travels?”
“South America.” He continued to steer her around the lake, the muscles in his body flexing against hers, the heat of him keeping her warm.
As if she could get any warmer. “Does this hurt your leg?”
His expression registered surprised at her question.
“I’m sorry. I’ve seen you limp sometimes.” Plus, he never took the physically taxing trips. Stone or Nick did those. But no one mentioned it, or why.
“It’s my knee,” he said. “But as long as I don’t do jumps, it’ll be fine.”
She couldn’t hold herself up and he could do jumps. She wanted to ask about his injury, about that hollow look that sometimes came into his eyes, about why the others never talked about it, or how they deferred to him, protecting him so much. But she didn’t. She sensed he was tired of questions, tired of a lot of things, and she didn’t want to make him think about it when there was actually a smile on his face. “Then you need to be careful,” she said, then remembered that being careful had never worked for her. “But don’t forget to live. Live as big as you can with what you’ve got.”
His lips quirked, his hands tightening on her. “Is that what you’re doing?”
She wasn’t watching where they were going, but his face. His mouth. It was a really great mouth. Wide and firm but not too much so. She bet it’d be heaven on hers-
“Don’t,” he murmured.
Her gaze flew to his.
“Don’t go there unless you mean it, Goldilocks.”
“How do you know I don’t?”
He shook his head. “It’s a bad idea. We’re a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“I have this thing. This no regrets thing. And while I wouldn’t regret a night with you, I’m not sure you’d be able to say the same.”
Would she regret a night with him? Hell no. But would she regret having to walk away in a few weeks once the job was done and her heart had engaged? Because her heart would engage with him, she already knew it, and that might be a problem.
At her silence, his mouth quirked and he set his chin on her head. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Chapter 6
Dawn hadn’t quite broken when Cam and Stone pulled out their climbing gear and cataloged everything they’d need for a group trip later that day.
“Katie said that they added two to the group.” Stone was crouched by the ropes, going through them. “So there’ll be seven. Eight, if we bring her with us.”
Cam stopped separating belaying equipment. “We? And why would you bring her?”
“We, because stupid me, I assumed that when I told you I need help guiding, it meant that you would actually help. And we’d bring her because she wants to learn.”
“I never promised to do this.”
“No, you didn’t.” Sounding disgusted, Stone stood up. “Look, you know where the door is. Don’t let it hit you in the ass if that’s what you want.”
“Jesus, you’re touchy. I didn’t say I was leaving right now.”
“No, because you don’t say anything. You just leave us hanging.”
Cam stood up, too, brushing off his hands. “Why don’t you tell me what you want me to say. Let’s start with that, Stone.”
“Okay.” Stone tossed down the gear in his hands. “I want you to say that you’re not as stupid as you look, that it’s been a f**king year and you’re getting the f**k over yourself.”
Cam felt his gut clench and he took a step back rather than what he’d like to do, which was wrap his fingers around Stone’s neck. “And how am I supposed to get over the fact that it’s gone?”