Free Fall Read online

  “I thought maybe I had imagined it,” Logan said

  “Imagined…?” Lily’s jacket was unzipped to her breastbone, with only a thermal silk undershirt beneath.

  “This.” With a light touch he put his bare finger to the pulse racing at the base of her throat.

  All she could hear was the thump, thump, thumping of her heart beating too fast in her ears. Her clothes felt too tight—or maybe that was her own skin. A heavy anticipation filled the cold air and she tried to tell herself it was something she’d felt often. Had acted on often.

  But today, with this man, it felt startlingly, shockingly different.

  She took some comfort in the fact his own pulse, beating at his throat, was no steadier than hers. “This…what?” she asked.

  Something flashed in his eyes. “I’m not sure I can put it into words without being graphic.”

  Her body let out a shiver and, honest to God, her knees wobbled. “I see.”

  He leaned so close that visions of them ripping off each other’s clothes danced in her head and all she wanted was his mouth to touch hers. “So, what are we going to do about…this?”

  Dear Reader,

  The mountain and ski lodge in Free Fall is fictitious, but it’s a setting near and dear to my heart. I wrote this story during the summer, and every time I described the snow and the skiing, I yearned for winter and to be back out on the slopes! So I hope I made it come alive for you.

  This is my last Harlequin Temptation novel, and I'll miss the line so much! Look for me in the Harlequin Blaze line if you get a chance. In the meantime, hope you enjoy Free Fall, and happy reading.

  Jill Shalvis

  Books by Jill Shalvis

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

  845—AFTERSHOCK

  861—A PRINCE OF A GUY

  878—HER PERFECT STRANGER

  885—FOR THE LOVE OF NICK

  910—ROUGHING IT WITH RYAN*

  914—TANGLING WITH TY*

  918—MESSING WITH MAC*

  938—LUKE

  962—BACK IN THE BEDROOM

  995—SEDUCE ME

  HARLEQUIN BLAZE

  63—NAUGHTY BUT NICE

  132—BARED

  HARLEQUIN FLIPSIDE

  5—NATURAL BLOND INSTINCTS

  HARLEQUIN SINGLE TITLE

  THE STREET WHERE SHE LIVES

  JILL SHALVIS

  FREE FALL

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Denton, Ohio

  “SO WHICH ONE OF YOU SEXY hotshots is the best man?”

  Search-and-rescue expert Logan White looked up in surprise as his entire team pointed to him.

  The nurse asking the question flashed him a hundred-watt smile. “You? Well, then, sugar, it’s your lucky night.” And she ripped the light blue scrubs right off her body.

  Logan, a man who’d seen and done it all and who’d thought himself unshockable, nearly swallowed his tongue. Beneath the scrubs, the nurse wore a cherry-red thong with matching pasties strategically placed over her nipples.

  His best friend, Wyatt Stone—the reason for the bachelor party going on around them—grinned at him. “A little something from me to you, man. Thanks for being the greatest best man and best friend a guy could ask for.” He hoisted his beer in a toast as their friends, normally as serious and intense as their profession demanded, laughed and hooted and hollered like a group of frat boys on spring break.

  Just last night the lot of them had been rappelling down the side of a mountain in a vicious rainstorm, searching for a lost teen who’d gotten separated from her hiking group. Logan had flown the mission, and when the winds had kicked up, things had gotten so tense, so damned dangerous in the ravines above the river on a black, black night, that he’d been only half convinced he could help them all out to safety.

  Now they sat in the swank private suite of a downtown hotel, surrounded by posh, elegant furniture and a fully stocked bar with the large-screen TV playing the latest basketball game, acting like a pack of dogs, howling at the three nurses who’d come into the room looking for someone to “make feel better.” It was hard to reconcile, especially since he’d been working so hard he could barely remember what it was like to just breathe.

  Logan had expected the strippers—hell, he’d helped pay for them. But the women in hospital scrubs—a uniform he saw daily—had thrown him off. The now nearly naked bleached blonde smiled when her two accomplices, also stripping out of their uniforms, hit Play on their portable CD player. Loud, pulsing dance music filled the air.

  The woman standing in front of Logan began to move to the beat. She was twenty-one, maybe twenty-two, making him feel ancient at thirty-one, and he turned to Wyatt. “She should be dancing for you—Oof.”

  Teetering in her red five-inch stilettos, she plopped herself in his lap. With a shrieking laugh, she straddled his thighs, hers wide open as she wriggled and squirmed, writhing and arching to the thumping music, grinding her crotch to his, eventually getting the sought-for reaction from him, albeit a purely physical one.

  Her arms encircled his neck as she thrust her large, expensive-looking breasts in his face. “Ready for your present, best man?”

  “Uh—”

  She wriggled some more, and the corner of a small envelope peeked out from the front of her thong. “Just for you,” she purred, continuing to shimmy and shake. Her breasts threatened to give him a black eye. “Take the prize, hot stuff.”

  With a wince—hot stuff?—he pulled the envelope out of her thong and discovered she wasn’t a bleached blonde but the real thing. And then felt like a pervert.

  It was a relief to focus on tearing open the envelope. The card inside was a certificate for a seven-night stay at a Lake Tahoe resort. Logan just stared at it. Sure, he loved to ski, but he didn’t feel the need to go away. Why would he, when he did and saw things on a daily basis that most other people wouldn’t even dream of: climbing mountains, flying helicopters and rappelling out of them. Lake Tahoe couldn’t possibly dish up anything to compare.

  “Wyatt, this is too much. You and Leah should use this yourselves—”

  “Oh, no. We’re off to a warmer climate, thank you very much, where little to no clothing is required. This Tahoe trip is yours, buddy, for all you’ve done for me.”

  He was referring to how Logan had saved his life, and Leah’s, as well, only a few months back. But Logan didn’t want to be paid for that. That was what he did. It was who he was.

  The stripper in his lap was still working the beat, and he gently set her off him. “I don’t need a week off. I don’t have a week off.”

  “What are you talking about?” Wyatt laughed. “We work for ourselves. You want a week, you take a week.”

  Yes, they worked for themselves. Mostly. He and Wyatt co-owned the helicopter he’d flown last night. They supported their joint helicopter habit with paying jobs—Wyatt flew for the local TV and radio stations, and Logan flew a couple of local millionaires around at their whim during their business day. But they also worked volunteer for the SAR team, both men living for and loving the times they were called to fly search and rescue.

  “It’s not that simple,” he protested now. “I have jobs scheduled, and with you going on your honeymoon, I’ll need to be available to fly for SA