Frozen Alaska (The Juneau Packs Book 2) Page 3

  I had started to get smart. I had an office near the ships and had the groups come in there, and in the pretense of getting them harnessed and fitted correctly, I assessed them. It was easy enough to see that Betty Bigbottom was better suited to a rock face than Johnny Gymrat because she actually could use a rope and coordinate her hands. Yes, she’d be sweating and winded at the end, but I never had to worry about her getting twisted, and not listening to me.

  Johnny Gymrat had wound up with a broken wrist.

  Today though, a Thursday with no ships in, I had agreed to a private hike. The woman had agreed to all of my terms and conditions.

  And was on time.

  A head full of bouncing brown-black curls crested the hill and headed for me. Tall and long-legged, Madeline LaPlage was curvy in all the right places. She was no waif, which was fine with me. She was wearing sensible clothes: a jacket shell, a light sweater, a shirt, thick leggings, and hiking boots. She had a pack on her back, and when she stopped to look up at the trees and sky, I could see she was wearing a water bag slung low on her back.

  She was not inexperienced in hiking.

  And she looked good enough to eat whole.

  Damn it.

  As she got closer, I could see the gorgeous green eyes that reminded me of the trees around us, and she had an utterly infectious smile.

  She also smelled like pack.

  That was weird, and my wolf didn’t like it a bit.

  “Jason McGarrigal? Misty Fjords Mountain Adventures?”

  Oh, goddamn. She had a lyrical voice, too? It was no shock my dick went instantly hard.

  “Yes, that’s me, Ms. LaPlage.” I extended my hand.

  “Delia. Please.” She took the hand.

  ZAP.

  The connection erased any doubt this woman was my mate. Even her skin against mine was a perfect fit. I was not going to live through this.

  Even she felt the connection, though she didn’t know what it was. She rubbed her hand absently. “I certainly hope that I didn’t interrupt any of your business today.”

  “Not at all. Cruise ships aren’t coming in super frequently yet. And even then, it’s only Tuesday through Thursday.”

  “Today is Thursday…”

  “Early season. We’ll get full boats starting next week.”

  She nodded. “So I lucked out.”

  “Maybe we both did.” Why the hell did I say that? Now I’d made the whole thing awkward.

  The smile on her lips said that maybe I hadn’t.

  Oh, dear God.

  Clearing my throat, I pointed behind me. “So, we’re going to start here. I didn’t ask if you prefer the verticals at the beginning or the end.”

  “Beginning, please! While I have all my enthusiasm.”

  “Woman after my own heart.” Awkward, Jason. Christ on a cracker. “I like to take my time in the afternoon, enjoy the winding down.”

  “Good! Let’s get going. You said this was a ten hour hike?”

  “Just under,” I answered. “With some of the best views of the bay and of the glacier. I don’t do this one often with the groups.”

  “Too long? Or too wimpy?”

  Chuckling, we started our hike down the level path. “Too wimpy. There’s a five hour version, but they always get caught in the ropes and the ascents.”

  She laughed, and just like everyone had ever warned me, the sound shot right to my cock. I ignore my overly enthusiastic partner in crime and just headed us for the ascents.

  Couldn’t have her, didn’t want to think about it.

  The ascents weren’t real verticals. They were merely steep, rocky hiking paths that the local guides had decided would be safer with ropes and belays if needed. Most of the ropes were permanent, and most of us spent the first nice weekend in April clearing and replacing the ropes. We all pitched in and replaced all fifty on the way up.

  Even though they were nylon, we’d had one accident a few years back with the moss that had covered them, and we weren’t about to repeat that.

  That accident had started the downward spiral of my parents’ financial and legal issues. And as far as I knew, that grumpy old asshole was still out there, and pissed that he didn’t get nearly as much money as he thought he should from them—despite bankrupting them.

  Delia was nimble with the ropes and the rocks. She was not afraid to climb, or ask for help, or consider how to approach something that wasn’t simple and straight forward. She was good enough that I felt more that I was just showing her the pathway than actually guiding her. She stopped at appropriate times and drank her water conservatively as we went up.

  We were through forty of the fifty ropes in less than two hours, where I usually allowed five hours to climb.

  It had been a long time since I had someone who was competent with the climb.

  “Do you mountaineer?” I called up to her as she hauled herself up a sloping rock.

  “Not as a habit,” she answered, topping off the rope. “But I have done some.”

  “Straight climbing?”

  “Yes, I did a few in the High Atlas.”

  I stopped dead and looked up at her. “High Atlas? In Morocco?”

  “L’Allumeur de Reve Berber.”

  If I hadn’t had a hard-on already, I would have popped one instantly. This woman knew how to climb a real rock face. Maybe she wasn’t one hundred percent into it, but no one went to the High Atlas to climb unless they knew what they were doing.

  “Anywhere else interesting?”

  “I prefer coastal hikes, but I have done Lion’s Head.”

  “South Africa.” I put both hands on the rope and hauled myself up. I needed to be closer to her.

  She nodded.

  “What else do you like to do?”

  Grinning she offered me a hand to top off the rope. “I do lots of things. I’ve been hiking in the Alps, I’ve been on photo safari in Africa. I lived in New Zealand for a year between high school and college. I know how to surf and ski, and I love the water.”

  “You’ve been to Africa more than once?”

  “More than a dozen times. Morocco, Egypt, Mali, Kenya, South Africa…” She grinned. “Last winter, my parents took me and my brother on a cruise to Antarctica. I sat with penguins.”

  “Damn…”

  “But I also love touristy things, too. London, Paris, Rome, Athens. Beijing, Dubai, Mumbai, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, Honolulu.”

  It was perfectly clear why this woman was my mate. She was fascinating and adventurous.

  “And you’ve never been to Alaska before now?”

  “Weird, huh? My parents just never entertained the idea of coming up here. I don’t know why. I still want to see the Yukon, Fairbanks, and Nome.”

  “I can do that,” I said.

  “You can?”

  Shit. My damn mouth was just having a field day. “Yeah, I can get to all three with ease. I have friends who are guides up there.”

  The idea of handing her off to another male got my wolf all worked up, and I had to shove him down and shut him up.

  “That would be amazing. I want to see McKinley. I don’t know if I’m even set enough to make a partial climb, but I’ll hike all the way around that fucker.”

  Chuckling, I shook my head. “You know that’s like a four-day hike.”

  “Not afraid, are you? Bears, wolves…”

  “I am never afraid of wolves or bears.” They were literally some of my best friends.

  “Why don’t you come up and show me?”

  I almost said yes—then I remembered real life. “I can’t. Tourist season is through the end of September. I have a lot of stuff with the ships.”

  “Don’t you have anyone to help?” She fluttered her eyes at me.

  She was flirting with me.

  Screwed. So screwed.

  “I…don’t. I’m a one man show. My sister helps with the books, but she’s not…”

  “Outdoorsy?”

  “Physically capable.”


  She peeled back, ashamed. “I’m sorry. I’m being too forward.”

  Well, that was the end of me, of not engaging this whole damn mess. My feet carried me forward, and stood up against her, toes touching. I was not tall. Not like some of the others in the pack, like the Alpha and his sons. But what I lacked in height, I had always made up for in mobility. Sure, I wasn’t a big wolf, but I was fast, and I was quick-footed.

  And right now, my height was perfect because I could stare straight into Delia’s forest green eyes and see every part of her soul.

  “I’m not sorry. Neither is she. And you’re not being too forward. I’ll show you what too forward is.”

  She sucked in a shocked breath as I leaned forward and took her lips in a severe kiss. Only a second passed before I slipped my arms around her, pulling her even closer.

  Her arms snaked around me and pulled me in closer to her, too.

  Dead, and screwed.

  Her lips were so soft, so welcoming. They tasted like spring water and strawberry granola bars, all hinted with the taste of the real her. She teased my tongue, and I sparred happily with her, pliant then powerful.

  I found my hand at the nape of her neck, holding her at an angle that was perfect for our kiss. She had her hand on my ass and squeezed.

  We broke the kiss at the same time, panting. Our eyes were locked, but in the next moment and huge grin spread across her face, and she stepped back out of my arms.

  “Race you to the top?”

  “What do I get if I win?”

  “Me.”

  God, I was no better than Jess at this point. Two hours and all I wanted to do was jump this guy’s bones. He was sweet, honest, built, and damned good looking.

  I did not think that he would pick up on my flirting, but he did and returned it. It was fun, and then he kissed me. I was lost to it.

  No matter who got to the top first, I was going to have sex with this guy—with Jason.

  Why I was so drawn to him, I didn’t know. I didn’t know that I cared either. He didn’t know who I was. I was just a woman who hired him for the day to go hiking.

  And hike he did. He started scaling the ascents without the benefit of a rope. He was loping down the trails with the ease of someone who did it all the time, and who knew the trails like the back of his hand.

  I ran to catch up and laughed hard when his foot landed squarely in the mud, sucking his shoe off his foot.

  Trotting by, I waved and found the next rope up. Hand over hand, I walked myself up the rock face, and hopped off the granite and on to the dirt trail again.

  Four more ropes to go.

  Jason shot by me, but I was taking the slow and steady wins approach. Just because he knew the trails didn’t mean he was paying attention to the conditions.

  Also, he was showing off.

  I had no problem watching that delicious tight ass in pants running ahead of me. I’d had my hand on that minutes before and it was just as firm as I’d imagined.

  Hauling up the next rope, I could see his ass ahead of me again. Once again, slow and steady and enjoyed the view on that one.

  I grabbed a rope that he had run by and laughed to myself. Hauling myself up, I was confident and comfortable with the exertion. My friends didn’t get my need to do things like this. They joined me here and there, but there was a freedom in the outdoors for me.

  They hadn’t been brought up the way I had. Even if we all escaped that life when I was fourteen.

  Outside, wide open spaces, were the ultimate victory for me and my brother. We loved high places, wide vistas, open oceans, untouched forest. Our parents had picked up on it pretty quick once we were out of the Baltimore ghetto, and huge, long vacations started the next summer to places we hadn’t even heard of in school yet. Machu Picchu, Patagonia, Serengeti, the Gobi, Grand Canyon…if they could think of a place that was big and open, we went.

  I loved my friends, and they were happy to come along, and happy to stay behind. They loved my quirky adventures.

  Hauling myself off the top of the last rope, I was completely floored to see Jason leaning against a tree nearby, look at his nails.

  “’Bout time.”

  “How the hell did you do that?” I hadn’t seen him at all after he missed the one rope.

  “I know this mountain.” He winked.

  “So, you cheated?”

  Lifting a shoulder, he gave me a lazy smile and walked over to stand in front of me. “Can you blame a guy when such a wonderful prize is on the line?”

  Eee. My brain screeched, and I had a hard time bringing it back online. His delicious male scent was accompanied by the rich pines and salt air that was everywhere around us.

  “I was promised a spectacular view,” I managed to breathe finally.

  “I thought you’d had enough when you were ogling my ass.”

  Caught. “Mm. I could always use more of that view.”

  He took my hand and headed us over to a small clearing in the trees. There was a tableau rock there, and he jumped up, sending a hand back down to help me up. Yanking me up, I laughed as I landed on my feet. I turned—

  And gasped.

  The beginning of the Inside Passage was laid out before me, darting between the Misty Fjords and the islands of green that made them up. The sky was a shocking blue, and the sun a pale yellow but bold disc in the sky, shining off the water. Dark as midnight, the water seemed to glimmer and shimmer, soaking up the bright, early summer heat. Heat, in Alaska, being relative.

  “You lucked out with an amazing day, Delia. We have cloud cover here three hundred days of the year. Ketchikan is one of the rainiest places on Earth, close to one hundred fifty inches of rain every year. That the mist isn’t over the fjords is amazing. They seem to be misty even when the sky is clear.”

  It was the LaPlage Luck. I didn’t tell him that, but if something wasn’t expected, and it was good, it would happen around me. I didn’t know if it was a real thing, or amazing coincidence, but I was also careful who I associated with because of it.

  I didn’t want it to be real and accidently give a sniper-for-hire a good day.

  Still, it seemed to be real. White rhinos on safari, rare birds in paradise, right whales off the coast. And now a clear day in Alaska. I didn’t question it or share it. I just rolled along.

  In that moment, I realized that Jason had never let go of my hand. He still had his finger twined with mine. I glanced over at him and he wasn’t looking out at Favorite Bay.

  He was studying me.

  I grinned. “Something you like?”

  “Something that rivals the beauty of this view.”

  Sweet Jesus, I did not expect that.

  My eyes traced the contours of his face as he slowly got closer to me. I expected him to grab me, but instead—

  Jason jumped off the rock and walked to the front of the tableau. I watched him, intrigued. He whipped the pack off his back and dug around, and victoriously pulled out a quilt.

  A quilt?

  Spreading it on the ground, pressing down the wildflowers that had overrun the field, he anchored one corner with the pack, and another with his water bag. He moved back to the edge of the tableau and offered me his hand to help me down. I took it, though I didn’t really need it.

  He slipped the pack from my shoulders and used it to weight another corner of the blanket, and my water bag had the last corner. Offering another hand, he motioned me to the center of the blanket and had me sit.

  I did, but I looked up at him. “You do this for all your single female clients?”

  He knelt down next to me, moving in close. “Only when they promise they’re the prize in a race to the top.”

  The words chased a shiver down my back and could feel my sex clench as the shiver landed there. I lowered my eyelids and looked at him. “I think you cheated.”

  “What was the prize if you won?”

  “You.”

  “Freely given.”

  Damn. This man was
delicious, devious, and had been sporting a hard-on for me most of the morning. He’d tried to hide it, and I respected that, but there really wasn’t a way to hide something that large.

  I was fortunate that I didn’t have sexual hang ups like my friends. It wasn’t their fault, or their upbringing, but it was from trauma, or prejudice. I wanted them all to be happy, but I didn’t know what it was going to take to do that.

  Well. Not true. I knew what it took for Jess at this point: a hot electrician. Mental high five for her.

  Me—I was fortunate. I was good with sex. I liked it, a lot. I wasn’t really into the anonymous sex thing, and I liked a good conversation before hopping in the sack.

  But right now, with Jason’s lustful look and hot breath over my skin, I was willing to bend my own rules. Something drew me too him. Something made me want to just strip him naked.

  “You feel it too, don’t you?” His voice was soft as he trailed his fingers slowly up my arm. “There’s something here…”

  I was about to make a smart-ass joke but stopped myself. He was right. There was something pulling us toward each other. Something right…

  It was only a heartbeat later that we were locked in a feverish kiss, his tongue surging into my mouth and claiming me for his own.

  Holy shit, I was hot. Sweating in all the layers I had warn. Without untangling our kiss, I stripped—jacket, sweater, and after only a moment’s thought, shirt as well.

  Jason grunted, and his hands found my breasts immediately. He kneaded and teased and raised my nipples to hard points in seconds.

  “Lose the shirt,” I managed to squeak out between brutal kisses.

  “Done.”

  4

  I couldn’t get my shirt off fast enough.

  My skin was on fire. I was honestly worried that my clothes were going to burn right off me. Delia wasn’t much better—she had her shirt off before I could even ask.

  I knew I wouldn’t survive the day.

  But oh, what a glorious way to die.