New and…Improved? & Andrew in Excess Read online

  Luckily they were hanging from ropes, so kissing would have been not only impossible, but incredibly stupid.

  Coming down, Becca bounced away from the wall, still laughing and smiling, and still looking so damn wonderful and appealing it should be illegal.

  “Watch what you’re doing,” he told her. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “I’m watching.” She grinned with pleasure from ear to ear as she slowly and correctly lowered herself to the ground. “See? Perfect.”

  Yep, just about, he decided, still watching her. Which explained how he slipped and fell the last eight feet to the ground with agonizing pain twisting up from his ankle.

  “HOW’S YOUR ANKLE?”

  Kent shrugged, and the movement shifted the cold pack. They were in the emergency room, waiting for his X-rays to come back from the lab.

  Becca leaned across the hospital bed to adjust the cold pack, but Kent’s hand caught hers. “It’s fine,” he said through his teeth.

  “Uh-huh.” Becca looked at him with exasperation. “Why do guys do that, hide everything? You’re pale and shaking and looking like you might throw up. Why can’t you say it hurts like crazy? What would it kill you to admit a true feeling?”

  His brow lifted. “I can admit my feelings.”

  “Oh, really.” She crossed her arms. “Then tell me what this is all about, could you? Because I don’t have a clue.”

  Wariness filled his pained expression. “A clue about what?”

  “About us.”

  “Us?”

  “I admit, at first I didn’t think about there even being an ‘us’,” she said. “I just wanted something new and exciting, which I planned on doing by myself. But then you kept interfering. And then there’s that attraction problem,” she added lightly.

  “Attraction?”

  She narrowed her gaze. “Are you sounding like a parrot on purpose?”

  He grimaced. “Sorry.”

  “So…are you going to come clean?”

  “Uh, yeah…”

  The doctor came in, interrupting the moment. “No break,” he said cheerfully. “You’ll need to stay off it, though, while it recovers.”

  Becca listened politely to his instructions, but the minute he was gone, she gave Kent a pointed stare. “Where were we? Oh yeah, you were going to tell me what’s really going on. And don’t even think about using the worry excuse. I’m not the one who got hurt here.”

  Kent sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell you the truth.”

  “Good.”

  But then a nurse came in with forms. While Becca waited, nervousness filled her. The truth. Suddenly it hit her-she couldn’t handle the truth! She didn’t want him to say something he didn’t mean, or was it just that she didn’t want to confront the fact it was entirely likely he was attracted to an illusion?

  A few minutes later, she helped Kent to the car. They walked in silence, their bodies close. And hot.

  “I’m sorry you hurt yourself trying to keep me safe,” she said, her mind racing, her body throbbing, yearning. “I think you should sit out the next adventure.”

  “That won’t be possible.”

  She stopped. “Why?”

  “Because I intend to be your next adventure.”

  “Oh. Oh my,” she whispered, and Kent’s dark, heated gaze held hers. She could hardly breathe for the pure joy and terror of it all.

  7

  T HE EVENING WAS CLEAR , crisp and beautiful, as only a night in the high altitude Sierras could be. And pain throbbed like crazy through Kent’s system, centering in his ankle, making him delirious.

  That had to be it; he couldn’t think of any other reason why he’d said what he’d just said.

  “You didn’t mean it,” Becca said lightly enough, but not so casually that he couldn’t hear her uncertainty. “You couldn’t have meant it. You don’t do relationships with women, other than for…”

  “For…what?”

  “You know. S. E. X.,” she whispered, looking everywhere but at him, which must have been difficult since she was supporting at least half his weight and he was draped all over her.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I work for S.S.L. don’t I? Everyone there knows everything there is to know about everything, just ask any one of them.”

  “And it’s common knowledge, apparently,” he said wryly, “that all I do with women is have sex.”

  They’d reached the car now, and when he leaned on it for support, she backed away from him and turned toward the lake, which was only about fifty yards off. The moon had risen, tracing a silvery pattern across the black water.

  “Becca?”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “Lovely night.”

  “Hello?”

  She finally turned toward him, shooting him a smile void of her usual wattage. “Hello.”

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  “Well you did mention red panties the other day.” She licked her lips. “And I know you love that show where the lifeguards bounce around in their little red bathing suits.”

  “It’s an American institution. Doesn’t mean that I’m getting-”

  “It’s really none of my business anyway. Even if everyone says you could have a date with a different woman every day of the week. That you’ve…you know, gotten lucky more times in the past month than they have in their lifetime. That-”

  “Becca.” He had to laugh. “Can we establish here, for the record, that we’re talking about gossip, not fact?”

  The pale light shimmered through her lovely hair, but it also cast her face in shadows, hiding her emotions from him. “By my calculations,” she said, “if you truly have gone out as much as everyone says, you’ve…”

  “Had sex?” he asked tightly.

  “Yes. That. Over a hundred times this year alone.”

  He stared at her, torn between the need to laugh again and be insulted. “You can’t possibly believe that.”

  “As for me, I haven’t…well, it’s been so long I’ve forgotten how, and even if I could remember, I don’t think there’s much that was all that great about it. Don’t get me wrong,” she said quickly as he stood there, rooted in shock, “I’ve read plenty of romances, I know how it’s supposed to go, I’m just saying I’ve never seen fireworks, never felt as if I was falling off a cliff, or sailing through the air in passion. I’ve never exploded with ecstasy.”

  Kent opened his mouth, but nothing much came out. He couldn’t decide which was taking up the most brain space-ankle pain, frustration that she actually believed he was promiscuous, or arousal over the thought of showing her exactly what it felt like to explode with ecstasy.

  “And truthfully, even in the adventurous spirit, I feel a little intimidated by the differences in our experiences.”

  “Becca.” His voice was thick, husky. He couldn’t help it. “First of all, I have a fraction of the ‘experience’ you seem to think I do, and second-”

  “Oh Kent…really?”

  “Really.” Her eyes were wide and on his. Her body, so nicely showed off in those snug punk shorts and a T-shirt, had his fingers itching to touch, to skim over all that creamy skin and explore to his heart’s content.

  Heart’s content.

  When had that happened? When in the world had she sneaked beneath his defenses? The moment she’d fallen right out of the sky and into the water at his feet, he realized.

  “What?”

  She was blinking at him and he groaned. “Did I say that out loud?”

  “What happened the moment I fell out of the sky?”

  “Fresh air,” he decided. “I need fresh air.”

  “We’re standing in it. Doesn’t get much fresher.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Okay.” She helped him into the car. “But I’ll have to drive.”

  “No.”

  She pointed to his bandaged ankle.

  Damn. She wanted to drive his baby, his pride and joy. “I can handle