Vivian Arend - High Passion

Devon shook his head. “You’re good.”

They tied in again, stopping for yet another of the endless checks to ensure their knots and carabiners were locked. Then Devon surprised the hell out of her by catching hold of her and kissing her briefly, the brows of their helmets clicking together.

“Stay safe.” His words came out rough and off kilter.

Alisha grinned even as the shock of his kiss warmed her. “Bet I can get to the third falls in two jumps.”

He rolled his eyes. “Enough with the bets. I don’t like the looks of the second spray.”

She nodded. “Think something’s caught?’

Devon’s nose wrinkled.

That was the horrid part of the job. When it wasn’t a rescue, but a recovery. She pushed sorrow aside and tightened her ropes in preparation. “On belay.”

“Belay on.”

When she found he’d been right and the second falls were blocked with the broken bow of a canoe, her stomach turned. “Devon, trouble.”

She was roped up, so moving into the current a few paces was safe, but the water crashing from above was too powerful to allow her to get a firm anchor on the wood. Her fingers could just wrap around the gunwale, but no matter how hard she rocked, nothing moved. “I can’t budge it. We’ll have to get Erin overhead so Anders can lower a hook.”

“I’m coming down.”

By the time Devon was ready to join her she’d looked around more and gathered a batch of gear that had washed onto the small rocky edge of the pool.

She finished belaying him and he turned, facing the soggy pile of personal items with sadness in his expression. “It’s not looking good, is it?”

She shook her head.

Tripp’s voice carried on the speakers. “I’m at the base of the falls, and we’ve got a DOA. There’s a half of a broken canoe, and a body in the sweepers on the poolside at the base. They must have gone right the hell over that edge.”

It didn’t look good at their end, either. “Any sign of the second canoe?” Alisha asked.

This time it was Anders who answered. “We’ve got them. There’s a canoe on the shoreline and people waving. Only, sweet mother of God, there’s nowhere to land this baby. We’re coming to get you. Alisha, you’ll have to do a drop to pick these guys up on the cable.”

A short time later they’d returned. Erin placed the chopper over the mangled watercraft and Anders lowered a massive hook. They tipped the canoe and a second body popped free from its trapped position. Devon caught it before it could disappear over the edge of the pool. The red dry bag that had also come loose bobbed a couple of times before vanishing into the foaming water beneath them.

Alisha fought her dismay and soldiered on as they wrapped the body for transport, hooking the harness in place and allowing Anders to winch everything into the chopper.

They returned to the main level of the falls and waited for the cable to descend for their journey up into the bay area.

Devon pulled her aside for a moment, cupping her cheek in his hand. His fingers were cold on her skin and she pressed her fingers over his briefly.

He dipped his chin. “You were amazing. As usual.”

She blinked at the pure passion in his words. “Thank you.”

He tilted his head toward the water. “No problems at any time, right?”

“Nothing to be afraid of—nothing more than usual rescue nerves.”

“I didn’t see you hesitate even once.” He nodded. “I still think we need to get together when we get home to have a deep, thorough discussion of what happens next.”

“Are you asking me for a date, Mr. Leblanc?” Alisha raised a brow. “Because it seems that the issue we thought we had might not be an issue.”

Devon grinned. “We need to confirm you’re not afraid of showers when they contain sexually excited men with an urgent need to ravish you.”

It was wrong in so many ways, and yet equally right. Death’s mark would accompany them as they returned to civilization. Their rush of desire was an indicator of life—of all that they strived to do. Save those they could save, and find peace for those left behind. Alisha didn’t feel as if it were blasphemous or wrong for her and Devon to share the fire in their veins.

To remember and celebrate that they were alive.

They set down on the tarmac outside HQ hours later than he’d have liked, but Devon couldn’t complain. After they’d dropped the rescued victims, and the unfortunate ones who didn’t make it, at the hospital in Radium, they’d crawled into the refueled chopper and headed for home. The extra time had given him the chance to replay the events of the day and come to a happy conclusion.

Alisha had done her customary flawless job. Her freak-out during the previous rescue had obviously been a onetime event, and his long-term concerns faded. Relief was quickly buried by a vigorous compulsion to grab her and kiss her senseless. The furtive glances between them had been growing harder to hide. As if once they’d let their attraction out, they were impatient to experience the fire all over again.

He sure the hell was.

Unpacking the chopper gave them plenty of opportunities to find themselves in close contact. Hips bumping at moments, rubbing past each other in the narrow passage from the storage area into the main transport bunker. Everyone worked quickly, moving to unload gear. Tripp shouted after Anders, then raced down the path toward HQ. Devon grinned as he reversed direction and stalked to the back of the chopper to corner her outside the cargo hold, momentarily alone.

Alisha turned from the bag she’d zipped and gasped slightly, her smile widening as she took in his arms caging her on either side. “Well, it looks as if I’m not taking this equipment anywhere for the next minute or so.”

She caught his face in her hands, kissing him deep and hard, pressing her body against his and rubbing shamelessly. He cupped her ass, lifting her the slight distance it took to line them up properly, his lips never leaving hers.

Excitement welled inside, anticipation at what would come next. It had been only a couple of days, and he was willing to say he’d missed her.

Wanted her like crazy.

One of the chopper doors creaked a warning, and they pulled apart, still grinning like fools.

“You coming home with me?” Devon asked quietly.

“You have a bigger shower than I do,” Alisha pointed out.

The images her comment raised only widened his smile as he snatched up handfuls of gear and headed into the storage rooms.

Alisha was at his back before he could finish coiling the ropes and storing them properly. She snaked her arms around him. “You want me to grab some food on the way to your place?”

Warm body pressed to him, her hands playing over his waist—there were a whole lot of things he wanted that popped to mind, and food wasn’t even on the list.

“You’d better, or I have a feeling we’ll forget to eat. If by some chance you beat me home, there’s a key under the mat.” She dragged her hand back, stroking his groin, and he caught her wrist, trapping her fingers over his growing erection. “Now that’s not playing nice.”

“I’m as turned on as you right now. Does that make me a freak?”

He twisted to face her. “It makes you lucky you don’t have to hide a damn hard-on during debrief.”

Alisha smiled sweetly. “Poor baby. So hard done by.”

“Hard, yes. God, so fucking hard.” He glanced around to be sure they were alone before sneaking one more kiss. Alisha pushed him away and escaped the room laughing.

Out in the main gathering space Lana grinned as she joined them in the common area. “Sounds as if the entire rescue was amazing.”

“Thanks for your help at the desk. Everyone did a great job today.” Anders pointed at Erin. “But there’s the top dog. You did some incredible flying. We’d never have finished so quickly without you.”

Erin took a bow, then passed out bottles of sports drink.

“Hear, hear.” Devon raised his in the air. He settled on the couch, debating if making room for Alisha would be too obvious or a straight-out bad idea. He’d managed to get himself under control, but only so far as there was nothing obviously showing anymore.

He didn’t have to make the final decision as Lana dropped beside him.

Alisha crawled onto the other couch next to Xavier, complete innocence on her face as she leaned in and grabbed a granola bar off the table.

Anders took them through debrief quick enough, but every time Devon glanced up and saw Alisha across from him, his imagination made it tough to stay on target. He was ready to be gone. Out of the company of the team and alone with her. Peeling off her clothing and joining her in the shower to scrub them both from top to bottom. He had just the thing to do it with. He could picture the enormous puffy scrub thing his sister had sent him as a gag gift that would look incredible against Alisha’s naked body. The peach-coloured ball of fuzz contrasting against her smooth skin as he stroked it along the inside of her thighs. Over the curve of her waist and up the side of her breasts . . .

Devon shook himself to attention, leaning away from Lana, who’d pressed closer than necessary to examine the map on the table and hadn’t adjusted back when she was done. Across from them, Alisha’s brow tweaked upward as she glanced pointedly at the woman by his side.

Frustration fought with the urge to be charitable. Maybe Lana didn’t realize she was nearly hanging over him? He rose to his feet under the guise of pointing out something to Anders, and then instead of sitting back down, he remained standing behind the couch.

Alisha’s lips curled upward as she stared at Anders, but Devon knew what had triggered that smirking expression.

The debrief concluded, and everyone milled about for a couple of minutes before Alisha escaped, a final meaningful glance his way. Devon shot to his locker to get his keys and town coat, leaving the heavy rescue gear hanging to dry.

“You want to get something to eat?” A set of hands curled around him, reminiscent of only a short time earlier, only now all he felt was dismay. He turned quickly and backed as far away from Lana as he could.

“Thanks for the invite, but I’ve got other plans.” Devon scrambled for a change of topic. “So, first time helping and all. Well done.”

“Thanks. Maybe sometime I’ll get to go out with you guys on a call. You know, if Marcus is in the office.” Lana stroked Devon’s arm. “You must be tired. I could give you a massage if you’d like.”

Holy shit, where was this coming from?

“Um, no thank you. I’ve got other plans for tonight already.” He glanced into the hallway, not sure if he wanted to be rescued or would prefer not to have anyone see this awkward situation.

Lana blinked, still too far into his private space. “Oh. Okay. Well, I thought we were going to do something once you were done today.”

Where had she gotten that idea? “No, we hadn’t talked about it.”

His instinctive response about not getting involved with people he worked with froze on his tongue, because there was no way he would outright lie. Only he didn’t think he’d done anything to encourage Lana, either.

She finally backed up a step, looking him up and down slowly. “Sorry, I must have misunderstood.”

Devon scrambled. “I mean, you’re attractive and all, but I’m not . . .”

Great. All his so-called legendary ways with the women were shown up here and now to be utter bunk. He had no idea how to turn her down without putting his foot in his mouth.

Tripp wandered around the corner and Lana backed away more.

“We’ll talk again later, Devon. Some other time will work better to get together. No problem.” She waved at the two of them, then vanished.

Her sunshiny response was nearly as confusing as the come-on had been.

Tripp pulled his coat from his locker, a twisted smile rising far too quickly.

“Shut up. It’s not what it looked like,” Devon snapped.

The dark-haired man shrugged, pulling his coat shut and tossing his keys from one hand to the other. “It looked as if a certain young lady is trolling through the Lifeline guys in the hopes one of them will put in a good word for her with the boss. That’s all I saw. She blew it with Xavier the other night when he had to pour her into her apartment. She’s moved on to you because everyone knows you don’t think with anything but your dick.”

Devon laughed. Tripp’s comment was so dry it was ridiculous. “Why the hell would she do that?”