Reckless (10 page)

“Okay.” She ran her fingers over the line running up to the pulley in the ceiling, her delicate brow tucking in nice and tight as she asked, “So if Kyle is in charge of my belay line, who's going to do yours?”

“I am.” Alex lowered his backpack from his shoulder to the floor, unzipping the bag to unearth his tried-and-true harness. “Most people, especially beginners, need someone to manage their belay line from the ground. It's a little more comfortable that way. But we've got a self-belay device here, too, and since I'm an experienced climber, I'm going to use that.”

He pointed to the separate line running down from the covered circular housing bolted into the top of the wall, and Zoe shook her head. “I didn't realize rock climbing had so many safety regulations.”

Ahhh, screwing with her might not be the coolest thing going, but then again, no one had ever accused Alex of being buddy-buddy with the straight and narrow. Plus, maybe a little teasing would loosen her up another notch. “What, you thought I was going to just put you in front of the wall and tell you to hold on tight?”

She chirped out a laugh, and affirmative on getting her to kick some of that tension to the curb. “Well you
are
pretty reckless.”

Leave it to Zoe to lead with something he really couldn't argue. Still . . . “It's like skydiving, Zoe. I might want the rush, but I don't want to end up in traction, either. You ready to get geared up?” He gestured to the harness in Kyle's hand nice and easy, and her nod followed in exactly the same manner.

“Okay, sure.” She unzipped her hoodie, slipping the slouchy fleece from her shoulders to fold it into a neat square, and in that moment, Alex realized he'd made a huge tactical error.

Not only was Zoe wearing a formfitting tank top that revealed just enough creamy skin to be both disarming and hot as hell, but she'd paired it with black yoga pants. On their own, yoga pants were dangerous enough to a guy's concentration.

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 screamed
Focus, 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 a moron, 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 under her breath. “Fabulous.” Still, the tiny
V
of 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 wordless
c'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 her
I told you so
glare 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 the projects?”

Surprise colored Zoe's eyes in a burnished brown flicker, but hell if he hadn't grabbed at her attention just enough to get her to breathe.

“I, uh. Well, it's kind of a long story.” She took a second to set her fingers into a pinch hold, the back of her tank top smoothing out over her spine as she relaxed into the move and tugged herself up another step.

While Alex didn't want her to lose focus on what was in front of her, overfocusing, especially when the path to success was to stay loose, was equally problematic. If one thing could not just chill Zoe out, but keep her that way, it was talking about Hope House's kitchen. And as much as he wanted her to find her happy place so he could win this bet, a deeper, darker part of him also wanted to rediscover that reckless-abandon smile she'd let slip the other day in the kitchen.

And Alex wasn't going to stop until he got both.

Chapter Nine

Zoe had been so busy concentrating on how to keep herself balanced and upright that she didn't see Alex's smile until it caught her right in the solar plexus. Although she'd been starting to get the hang of at least some of the climbing movements, being this close to the off-limits firefighter was a completely different ball of wax. Between the utter confidence in Alex's bright blue eyes and the warmth of his lean, hard muscles wrapped tight over her rib cage as he'd guided her against the climbing wall, Zoe was about ready to spontaneously combust.

She didn't even want to get started on the weird pang she'd felt from her chest to her caution meter as he'd sworn to keep her safe.

“A long story, huh?” Alex let go of the climbing wall with one hand, gesturing grandly to the space between them before easily replacing his grip. “As it turns out, I'm a captive audience with nothing but time. So come on, Gorgeous. Wow me.”

The laughter that barged past Zoe's lips took her by complete surprise, and judging from Alex's expression, she wasn't the only one. But her reasons for leaving Kismet weren't exactly a secret. Even if they were largely unpopular among both her former colleagues and her family. “Okay, fine. I guess the easiest way to explain it is that working in a professional kitchen just wasn't what I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, I remember my first year in the house.” Alex slid the toes of his black climbing shoes to a new foothold, pressing his way up the wall with the ease of someone who had done it no less than a billion times. “Jobs with breakneck hours on top of breakneck workloads are a bitch to get used to. I'm guessing that being a chef isn't exactly a nine to five.”

She tried—unsuccessfully—to keep her snort in check as she did her best to copy his upward movements. “Definitely not. But I was actually fine with the schedule and the workload. It was the bottom line that ended up driving me crazy.”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“I spent three years clawing my way through culinary school because I love food. The smells, tastes, the textures, the way simple ingredients can come together to create something so vital.” Zoe paused to let the pure goodness of the thoughts in her head push a smile over her mouth. “God, I even loved the scut work, and believe me when I say, in a professional kitchen, there's plenty.”

Alex's laugh was all low, warm rumble. “Like coring lettuce?”

“Please. Talk to me once you've chopped onions for vegetable stock. For like a month straight.”

“I don't mean to be a jackass, but that pretty much sounds like hell on earth.” He shuddered, although the glint in his eyes made both the gesture and his words more mischievous than malicious. Zoe didn't even think twice as she shrugged and took another tentative step up the climbing wall.

“For someone who's not a chef, I'm sure it does. But it's just like keeping your equipment in check at the firehouse. You want your irons ready to go when you need them, right?”

“Uh, yeah.” Alex tugged his sun-kissed brows into a nonverbal
is that even a question?
and Zoe responded with an equally silent
exactly.

“So you take good care of your ax and your Halligan bar and you put everything where it belongs even though the inventory you do at the top of every shift is a pain in the ass. When you love your job, even the boring stuff isn't, well, quite so boring.”

“I guess that makes sense. But if you didn't mind the grunt work, the long hours, and the weird schedule, what made you want to leave? Wasn't the place pretty upscale?”

She pushed her toes over a new foothold, but struggled to lock in her balance. “Very. I worked in the kitchen at Kismet for two years. Busted my butt to get an apprenticeship under the head chef, actually.” Whoa, the peg under her foot was a lot narrower than she'd thought. Damn it. “But despite all that hard work and the thousands of dishes I made in that kitchen, do you know how many people I fed who really needed it?”

“Here. Try using your instep rather than your toes. Like this.” Alex shifted his hips back to give her a clear line of sight on his feet as he demonstrated the new maneuver before returning to her question with attention that hadn't even skipped a pulse. “How many?”

“None.” Zoe angled the inside curve of her arch across the slim ridge of the foothold, and wow, that sure did the trick on her wobbly balance. “Don't get me wrong. As much as I love being in the kitchen, I understand that restaurants are businesses. They have to make money. But working at Kismet felt so commercial, like the thing I loved most about being a chef was getting lost in the translation of doing as many covers as possible during any given shift. Like despite all my hard work and all the heart I was putting into the food, none of it really mattered.”

She hesitated, filling the silence with a reach for the large handhold an arm's length above her. This was right about the point in the conversation where she usually lost everyone. Hell, if she'd had this conversation with
herself
three years ago, she'd have thought she'd lost her crackers.

But Alex just waited, his expression completely unvarnished, from the strong set of his jaw to the tropical-ocean blue of his stare, and it prompted the rest of the story right past Zoe's lips.

“At first I thought I was just restless working the line. While I don't mind doing straight labor and prep, potential chefs aren't exactly taught a lack of initiative in culinary school. Working in a kitchen is extremely competitive.”

“Cutting your teeth as a rookie can suck pretty bad,” he agreed with a laugh. “For us, at least, a decent chunk of the first year is training and dress rehearsal so you can get used to the work and learn how to manage your adrenaline. It's tough to do the watch-and-learn when you've been eating ambition for breakfast all the way through school, though.”

Forget culinary school. Zoe had been lining up goals and knocking them down like bowling pins ever since
middle
school. Her parents had never expected anything less, and she'd never delivered anything but the best, for them and herself. “Exactly. I was sure that if I earned my way off the line and studied under one of the best chefs in DC, I'd make more of a difference as a sous chef and my unease would let up.”

“But?” Apparently, patience wasn't one of Alex's virtues. Not that she'd expected it to be.

“But a year later, all I'd done was the same dance with different steps. I know it sounds sappy and idealistic, but I don't just love food for me. I want to nurture people, and I became a chef so I could make an impact with my cooking. I tried to gut it out at Kismet, I really did, but—”

“You became a chef so you could feed people, and you didn't want to go halfway.”

Holy crap. Not only had Alex filled in the blanks of her sentence with freakish accuracy, but his easy nod suggested that he hadn't just taken a lucky stab at what he thought she might say.

For a split second, he looked like he actually
got
it.

Zoe pulled in a fortifying breath, but it got stuck in the vicinity of her windpipe. “You know, most people think I'm crazy when I tell them I left one of
Washingtonian
's Top 100 Restaurants so I could come back to my hometown to start a soup kitchen in the projects on half a shoestring.”

“First of all, I think we've already established that I'm not really the most accurate barometer for deciding what's crazy. Secondly . . . what do you think?”

“Huh?” Great. Now she was confused
and
ineloquent. But even in the face of her verbal bumbling, Alex remained completely even keeled.

“It's not a trick question, Zoe.” His eyes glinted in the over-bright fluorescent lights, and sweet baby Jesus, since when did the king of recklessness have an innocent look? “I just want to know what you think about leaving the restaurant circuit to run the kitchen at Hope House.”

Something broke free in her chest, letting the words bubble out one over the other like a stockpot left to simmer for too long. “I think that when I went to culinary school, I just wanted the truth of the food, to make a difference by feeding people. The reality of working in a restaurant, with all that focus on the bottom line rather than the big picture never felt like it quite fit me. But working at Hope House does. Even if it isn't upscale or glamorous . . . it's still mine. It's what I love.”

Alex froze into place, not moving against the dark sheen of the climbing wall. “Wanting to do what you love doesn't sound crazy to me. It sounds like you're not waiting around to live your life. It sounds honest.”

Zoe blurted out her answer before she could lock it down inside her mouth. “You want to know the really crazy part? No one's ever asked me what I thought before. I mean, I've told my former boss and my parents what I felt plenty of times.” Not that they'd ever really heard her. “But they were all so lasered in on what I was leaving and what they thought I was throwing away that they missed the part that mattered the most. None of them actually asked me why I wanted to run a soup kitchen.”

“Leaving the primrose path is actually a little risky,” he said, wrapping his fingers around his belay line and navigating his body around hers just enough to lock her left leg into place with his right. “Want to know what else is risky?”

Zoe blinked, remotely aware of Alex's arm snaking back around her waist. “What?”

“Look down.”

For a second, his words didn't register. But then she dropped her gaze from his face to the floor, and a wave of freezing cold fear went skidding through her gut.

They were more than halfway up the wall. Three stories. Thirty feet.

And she hadn't been scared.

No, scratch that. She'd been so at ease, she hadn't even
noticed.

“Oh my God.” Zoe's muscles seized without her permission, her grip going from easy does it to a thermonuclear crush in about two seconds flat. As if he'd anticipated her reaction, Alex firmed his grip on her rib cage, enough to hold her steady but not so much as to alter her position or throw her off balance. He dropped his chin to the spot just above her ear, his slow, easy exhale tickling the back of her neck as his voice threaded past the soundtrack of oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit being pumped out by her heart.

“Zoe, take a breath. All the way in.”

Miraculously, she did. “We're really high off the ground.”

“We're a good ways up,” Alex agreed, and his honesty hooked her attention just enough to get her to stop clutching. Okay, mostly. “But you're perfectly fine, just like you were a minute ago. In fact, you're actually doing great.”

She chanced a peek over her shoulder. Kyle stood in the exact spot where they'd left him, with her belay line wrapped carefully around both of his hands, and she slid one palm over the smooth nylon of the harness keeping her in check. Her peek became a longer look, and a strange sensation infused her chest before moving outward to her limbs.

“I feel great. Also, a little terrified,” Zoe qualified, because hello, they were still dangling above the ground at the equivalent height of a three-story apartment building. “But it's maybe not as horrible as I thought it would be.”

“Well, then. I guess that leaves me with just one thing to say.”

Although Zoe had regained her balance on the hand and footholds in front of her, Alex didn't scale back on his proximity. The warmth of his murmur coasted over her neck, settling in at her belly as she braced for the gloating that would surely follow.

Only it didn't.

“Up or down?”

“What?” She blinked, certain she'd misunderstood, but Alex just released her with a wide-open grin.

“Do you want to keep climbing up, or should we head back down to the ground?”

Although the cocky gleam in his eyes told her he'd merely tabled his victory dance, right now, in this moment, with her muscles humming from use and her bloodstream soaked with a double dose of bulletproof endorphins, Zoe didn't care.

“A little farther wouldn't hurt. After all, I promised you an honest go, and you're right. I'm a woman of my word.”