Page 109 of Sinful Temptations

I puffed my cheeks out. “I hope so.”

“You will. I’ll make sure.” He placed his hand on my lower back and guided me toward the elevator.

Half an hour later, the zip-lining tour company picked us up from reception in a minibus and drove us deep into the forest. Within minutes of our arrival, I was being fitted for my safety harness in the briefing room along with Roman, Lydia, and seven other passengers from our group.

Our two tour guides were Victor, a young man with hyperactive energy and a touch of body odor that added to my distraction, and Carmen, a beautiful young German with the most muscular arms I’d ever seen on a woman.

Before I had time to dwell on what the fuck I was doing, I was climbing a giant ladder that’d been implanted into a tree that was over one hundred and fifty feet high and as wide as our bus was long.

I was tethered to a rail that ran parallel to the ladder, and at regular intervals, I was required to unclip my carabiner and re-hook it onto the next section. Should I fall, this tiny contraption was designed to save my life . . . apparently.

The higher I climbed, the more I had to force my gaze onto each metal rung and not onto the forest floor that now seemed like it was ten miles down.

Above me, Carmen was leading the way, followed by Lydia, then me. We were the only women in the group, and it was one of the few times where ‘ladies first’ did not appeal.

But the guides were insistent and when Lydia stepped up with her perfect grin and volunteered, I reluctantly slotted in behind her.

My only saving grace was that Roman was below me. If I fell, Roman’s head would go right up my ass.Ewww.That was a visual I could have done without.

I glanced up and got a bird’s-eye view of Lydia’s perfectly toned bottom.

If Roman glanced up, he’d get a bird’s-eye view of my bony ass which was everything Lydia’s was not. He’d totally lucked out.

I couldn’t move upward until Lydia had reached the next checkpoint, and she was taking her sweet time. Each step seemed to be in slow motion. Given that exercise and I were like anchovies and custard—they did not go together—I thought that I’d be the one slowing everyone down.

Nope. I’m a machine. Go me!

At one point, where she seemed to be taking forever to unhook her clip and reattach it again, I glanced out at a neighboring tree. It was equally as high as the one we were climbing.

A bird’s nest seemed to be miraculously clinging to the rough bark on one of the thick branches. For a long moment, I thought it was empty, but when a bird with rust-coloredfeathers swooped in and landed on the branch, a dozen tiny beaks popped up with their mouths wide open, chirping wildly, begging to be fed.

It was a glimpse at nature that I rarely got to witness. And it was such a delight that I forgot I was hanging about fifty feet above the ground.

Watching the babies being fed by the momma bird gave me a ridiculous feeling it was a sign. Maybe the universe was telling me that no matter what happens, life would go on.

Yeah, until you fall off your perch.

Casting that untimely thought aside, I glanced up. Lydia had moved on. I unclipped my hook and carried on climbing upward.

My knees and fingers were trembling by the time we reached our platform which was barely a third of the way up the giant tree.

Carmen unhooked me from one bar, attached me to the one that encompassed our little landing platform, and then instructed me to move back.

I glanced at Lydia. She was very pale, her lips almost blue.

Hanging onto the rail, I inched over to her. “Are you okay?”

Her ponytail bobbed onto her shoulder as she nodded. “Yes. Yes. I’m fine.”

She looked anything but fine. At least it wasn’t me looking like a startled chipmunk. Climbing the towering trees was supposed to be my living nightmare. But it wasn’t. In fact, my heart was thumping with the thrill of it.

Stepping out of my comfort zone was fast becoming my favorite thing.

Standing next to Lydia, we both watched the ladder—no doubt waiting for the same thing. Roman.

It was worth waiting for. He positively beamed as his eyes flashed from me to Lydia. But his smile dropped, and hisgaze remained on Lydia as Carmen unclipped him from one tether and secured him to the next.

He strode to Lydia, placing his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

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