Page 24 of Reckless
On the perfectly curvy hips-to-ass ratio Zoe had just revealed? They were a fucking weapons-grade distraction.
“…Right, Donovan?” Kyle’s voice jerked him back to reality with all the subtlety of an ice bath in August, and how the hell had the guy gotten Zoe into her harness so fast?
“What? Yes! Absolutely,” Alex blurted at the same time his brain screamedFocus, you dick-thinking dummy!
Kyle buried his smile in the crook of his shoulder, but not before Alex caught it in all its ear-to-ear, asshole-friend glory. “So, anyway, like I was saying, before I came out here I was sorting through those new climbing shoes we got from our distributor to use as demos and I’m pretty sure I saw an eight in the box. Since Alex agrees they’ll probably give you a better feel for the footholds than your cross-trainers, we can go ahead and get you a pair for your climb if you want.”
Zoe turned, propping her chin on her shoulder to look at him. “If you’re sure it’s okay for me to borrow them.”
Alex made a mental note to let Kyle off the hook for the next two birthday parties in exchange for diverting Zoe’s attention from his momentary lapse of decency. “Sure. I’ll go grab a pair while you guys finish up here,” he managed. Thankfully, by the time he’d completed the ninety-second trip to the equipment room, his cock had followed the stand-down issued by his conscience.
Mostly.
“Size eight. Here you go.” Alex waited until Zoe’s attention was fully engaged in swapping out her footwear before subtly adjusting the last of his hard-on into a more socially acceptable position beneath his loose-fitting climbing pants. Christ, he was a moron for even momentarily forgetting that Zoe was about as hands-off as a woman could get.
Not that he didn’t want his hands on her. He might be reckless, but he sure as shit wasn’t blind.
Alex stepped into his harness and tightened the straps into place, squelching the heat running through him like a live wire current once and for all. Zoe was Cap’s daughter, and anyway, he had a bet to win and a firehouse to get back to, both in short order.
“Okay,” he said, the clack of metal on metal sounding off in his palm as he unlocked the carabiner holding Zoe’s line from its anchor spot in the wall. Passing it off to Kyle, he let his buddy attach the line to the front of her harness while turning to mimic the process with the self-belay line and his own gear. “As we climb, Kyle will adjust the tension in your belay line by either pulling on it or letting out slack. He’ll have a good visual on you the whole time, but just in case the line feels too tight or too loose, all you have to do is twirl your finger like this.” He paused to rotate his index finger in a handful of circles. “And he’ll adjust it for you. This is a beginner wall, so the hand and footholds are pretty big and easy to use. We shouldn’t have too much trouble to start out.”
She took in the wall with a methodical sweep of her eyes, calculating every step of the way. “Okay, but there are hundreds of them. How do I know which ones to use?”
Oh, man, she was going to hate this part. But hell if it wasn’t half the reason he’d fallen in love with rock climbing to begin with. Not to mention the entire reason he’d wanted to get her on the wall. “No risk, no reward. You’re going to have to try them all out to see which ones work best for your frame and your strength.”
Zoe muttered a curse under her breath. “Fabulous.” Still, the tinyVof concentration marking the space between her brows told Alex she hadn’t changed her mind about giving this an honest go. Gripping one of the holds at eye level, she edged the ball of one foot to a low-standing foothold, tightening her muscles to pull herself all the way off the climbing room floor.
“Once you start moving, you’ll get the hang of what works for you pretty quickly. Just take it one step at a time. Literally.” Alex moved a couple of paces up the wall with an easy hand-over-hand, tipping his head at her in a wordlessc’mere,and Zoe’s forehead creased deeper still beneath the slender brim of her helmet.
“Like this?” she asked, readjusting her death grip on the hold in front of her before awkwardly tilting her hips back to search for a place to put her foot.
Okay, yeah, so this was going to be a bigger challenge than Alex had bargained for. But between her fear of heights and her extreme determination to concentrate her face off, Zoe was going to fry her motherboard in about ten seconds unless he scheduled a straight to the point intervention, stat.
“Not exactly,” he said, ignoring herI told you soglare as he backpedaled to the spot next to her. “First of all, breathe. I promise it won’t hurt.”
Her glare doubled in intensity, but she sucked in enough of an inhale that he didn’t push his luck.
Not too much, anyway. “Okay, we’ll call that a work in progress. Next, the wall isn’t going to bite you. If you drop your weight backward to look for footholds, you’re burning unnecessary energy and risking a fall.”
“How am I supposed to move upward then?”
“By bringing your body right up on the wall and leaving it there. Like this.” He reached around the back of her rib cage, ushering her torso and hips flush to the wall without warning or force.
Zoe went bowstring taut beneath his arm, turning her chin toward him so they were face to face against the profile of the wall. Her parted lips and eyes-wide-open stare put a spotlight on her vulnerability, and even though he had to fight for it, Alex met the tension in both her stare and her body with nothing but calm.
“It’s all about balance. You’ve got to keep your center of gravity nice and tight”—he paused, adding just the slightest pressure against the arc of her rib cage to punctuate the words—“right here while you relax everything else. Then you can move your arms and legs laterally rather than out and back, away from the wall, and you’ll stay grounded. Now give it a try.”
For a breath, Zoe went completely still, and Alex’s gut doubled down to match. But then her body loosened by slow degrees, the rigid line of her torso growing more pliable beneath his grasp as she inhaled, testing her weight on the footholds to nudge her way upward. “That does feel a little more comfortable.”
“You need both push and pull to be flexible enough to move. Good, see? You’re not going to fall, I promise.” He nodded, shifting his arm from a tight hold to the barest press of support on her lower back as she climbed up once, then twice, keeping her motions careful but compact. “There you go.”
“Oh.” The word curved her lips in its wake, sending a dark thrill all the way through Alex’s blood. “Okay, yeah.”
Zoe paused to flex the fingers on her free hand a few times, and he took advantage of the moment to show her a couple different types of holds. “Most of the handholds on this wall will accommodate a variety of grips, but I’m not going to lie. You’re probably going to feel this tomorrow in some unexpected places. Climbing’s a little tough on your fingers and hands.”
A quick burst of laughter popped past her lips. “I’m a chef, Alex. Believe me, as far as being tough on my hands, this is nothing.” She furrowed her brow, scanning the selection of multicolored options in front of her before reaching for the next handhold. Stalwart concentration reset her forehead into a deep crease, drawing her shoulders higher around the column of her neck, and she completed each maneuver as if checking chores off a bottomless to-do list.
Oh, no you don’t.“So, how come you left that restaurant in DC to run a soup kitchen in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Fairview?”
