Chapter 8 #3
“I’m sure you could if you put your mind to it.
” His mouth twitched, reluctant amusement cutting through his scowl.
“Yeah, exactly.” She huffed out a breath, chafing against her own nature even as she heard the stubborn edge in her own voice.
“Okay, Mother Hen, I’m sure you’re carrying rope.
Tie it around my waist and yours, anchor us together. Does that soothe your maternal worry?”
For a second he just stared at her, the twitch of his mouth turning into something softer. Not just amusement. Something warmer, like he hadn’t expected her to meet him halfway.
She hiked up onto the first rise, boots finding purchase on the rough stone.
“Master climber, huh?”
“Inside and outside.”
“You mean one of those boutique climbing joints.”
“Yes.”
“And outside?”
She glanced back over her shoulder. “Breakneck Ridge. Storm King. Anthony’s Nose. Bear Mountain. Palisades Interstate Park when I need a challenge.”
Behind her came a low whistle. “Christ. You weren’t kidding.” A pause. “I’ve climbed those.”Beast scrambled agilely up the stone as if the whole climb were nothing but a game.
Emily grinned, using momentum to haul herself higher.
“See? Easy. I’m not just a tagalong.” She had her own strengths.
Her muscles ached with effort, sweat running down her back, but the satisfaction of proving herself pushed her on, then the rope went tight and she stopped to look at him.
He touched her shoulder, pushing her down.
She followed his line of sight, and her blood ran cold.
Ten men, all armed, mean-eyed and scanning, prowled the jungle below.
Their hunters. She held her breath as they reached the rocks, frustration rolling off them when the tracks disappeared.
After a tense moment, they moved on, fading into the green.
Emily turned back and her muscles went liquid.
Brawler’s weapon was up, his whole body braced, lethal calm carved into every line.
That profile, that strong jaw, the smooth column of his neck disappearing beneath camo, her hands itched to touch him, to see if his skin felt as soft as his hair.
To see him stripped of all that heavy gear and nothing between them but heat.
She waited for him to relax, then turned, distracted by the man, not the SEAL, not the Neanderthal she’d named him, but the flesh-and-blood man ruling her nervous system. She placed her foot wrong and slipped.
The world lurched, gravity yanking her into open air until his hand clamped around her arm, iron-strong, pulling her against a chest as solid as the stone itself. Beast pressed close against her calf, steadying her other side, as if the dog and handler had become one wall around her.
Her first instinct was to wrench free, to insist she had it. Independence had been her armor for years, the only way to silence the guilt gnawing her insides. But the vise of his grip, the steadiness in it, struck deeper. He wasn’t trying to cage her. He was holding. Anchoring.
Her pulse roared in her ears as she let her weight settle against him, just for a beat. Her voice came quietly, surprising even herself. “Thank you. You really are there when I need you.”
The look on his face nearly undid her.
He beamed. Pure, unguarded, a flash of warmth so at odds with the lethal man braced against the stone. Like she’d just handed him the rarest gift in the world. “Even master climbers like you and me need a hand every so often.”
Something cracked in her chest. Ben had never smiled like that when she offered him a compliment. None of the men in her past ever had. Too busy, too distant, too disinterested. Here was this bruiser of a man, eyes softening, lit from the inside by nothing more than her saying she was grateful.
It rattled her more than the slip.
She felt the give before she heard it, stone sloughing off under his boots with the slow crumble of weathered rock, the cliff edge breaking like brittle bread.
One second Brawler had a stance, broad and solid, the next, the world dropped out from under him, and the breath that left her throat was not a scream so much as a torn prayer.
“Christian!”
His body vanished to the hips, gravel and vines and powdered earth sliding with him, the cliff face sheering away in a soft rush.
He dragged her with him, the rope around her waist binding them as one.
His hands slammed out, forearms curved over the lip, muscles flaring, jaw cut tight. He caught for a heartbeat.
In that desperate window of opportunity, Emily moved.
No hesitation. No calculation. Just motion learned on every scramble in the wilds of New York’s hiking paths.
She tossed her weight backward and fell to her knees, palm skidding, grabbing for the nearest thing that might hold.
A strangler fig root. Thick as her wrist, knotted through the dirt like an old artery.
“Hang on!”She thought fast. Need more leverage…
anchor. The leash! She grabbed it off her belt, looped the K9 leash once around the root, then again, a quick clumsy figure of eight that tightened when she yanked.
Not enough. She threw the free length around her hips, sat into it hard, heels digging, butt braced on stone, spine leaning away from the cliff so the leash crossed her pelvis and bit into her weight instead of her hands.
The heartbeat failed. “Em,” he ground out, the sound raw, boots scrabbling for anything. His fingers carved trenches. “Do not?—”
“Shut up and climb.”
He sagged another inch and the leash took her whole body like a blow, the rope taut.
If he fell, he would take her with him. Pain flared across her bones as if the jungle had smacked her, but the root held, and the friction around her hips turned his drop into a stubborn drag.
The leash burned. She bared her teeth and leaned harder, eyes stinging, every tiny muscle firing to keep the line tight.
The slope below him fell into green and shadow, a lace of ferns stirred by a wind that did not touch the top.
Somewhere down there, water spoke in a quiet rush.
It sounded like a place that swallowed what fell into it.
Beast barked once, sharp, as if he understood the stakes.
She turned to look at him and her mind burned with an idea.
The dog’s harness! “Come here, boy,” she said.
Beast was quivering, wanting to help. “Brace yourself,” she said.
Brawler was looking at her his mouth grim, his muscles thick and distended.
She removed one hand for precious seconds, grabbed one of the carabiners she had dangling from her pack.
Her fingers found the drag handle on his vest, the reinforced strap sewn into the backplate. She snapped a carabiner through it, locking herself to him. Now every move he made dragged through her hips, through the roots, through Beast’s harness, the three of them straining together against gravity.
“Pull,” she ordered, muttered through pain and strain, echoed at the same time by Brawler’s commanding voice. Beast took steps back, all sixty-five pounds of strong puppy.
Some of the pain lifted as she pressed her boots against the earth, toes seeking a lip of rock, an edge to counter the pull. He hung from her now, not by hands and hope, but by angles.
She wasn’t going to let go. If he went over, then they all went over.