Hot as Sin (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #2)(38)
Author: Bella Andre

A short while later, she said, “I am, too,” and when she moved out of his embrace, letting her go was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

Dianna was relieved that they had found this place of mutual understanding. They’d been too young, too naive to have acted out of malice. They’d been confused kids, plain and simple.

There was no way of knowing where she and Sam would go from here, or if they would ever be willing to risk their hearts to each other again, but something told her that whatever choice they ended up making, it would be the right one.

For both of them.

“Thank you for being so honest with me,” she said.

His answering smile took her breath away. “You’re welcome.” He nodded toward the rock. “How about you and me scale that wall?”

She forced a nod, hoping she looked braver than she felt.

“Let’s get this on you,” Sam said, picking up her gear again, and she made herself step into the leg holes of the harness that she assumed was supposed to hold her in the air. Sam’s hands came around her waist, snapping the waist belt shut.

“You’re going to be fine,” he said softly.

If there was any possible way she could avoid climbing up a wall into thin air, she would stop the madness right here, right now. But with a rock wall standing between her and finding April, she had no choice but to climb it.

He leaned in even closer, his mouth brushing against her earlobe. “I’m going to be right behind you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The memory of another time he’d said those words to her—right after they made love for the first time—smashed into her. She lost her balance and had to reach out for the rock to steady herself and refocus.

“If you start to fall, here’s what you do.”

She watched him twist the ropes around his arms and waist as if her life depended on it. It did.

“You’re going to lead the climb. I’ll bring up the rear.”

For the umpteenth time, she tried to project a confidence she definitely didn’t feel. That first year she hosted West Coast Update, she’d done the very same thing. No one had known that her knees were knocking together beneath her dress. And Sam didn’t need to know that she was practically having a coronary just gazing up at the rock face.

Yet again, he was an excellent, extremely patient teacher, as he directed her on how to screw the metal bolts into the rock face, then how to clip her carabiners into them.

The first few feet weren’t so bad, and she was able to tell herself that if she fell, she’d possibly break something, but she’d walk away pretty much unscathed. Still, with each new hand- and foothold, her breathing grew increasingly labored. Sam told her where to put her hands and feet and she did exactly what he said.

Until she made the mistake of looking down.

Her stomach roiled and she froze in place. Minutes felt like hours as she clung to the rock. All of the weight was on the tips of her toes, and her muscles started spasming.

“Dianna? Talk to me.”

“I can’t get my legs to stop shaking,” she admitted through dry lips.

Sam moved closer to her on the rock and unclipped her backpack so that he could transfer it to his own shoulders.

“Lean into me for a second.”

She didn’t hesitate to take him up on the offer.

“Everyone gets sewing machine leg on their first climb.”

The fact that he was talking to her as if they were sitting in a coffee shop rather than clinging to cold rock a hundred feet in the air helped snap her out of her panic. She needed to follow his lead, keep the conversation going, pretend she was shooting a live show.

“There’s a name for what my legs are doing?”

“You bet. It’s perfectly normal.”

He didn’t offer to help her down off the rock and she appreciated how well he knew her. Even though she was scared spitless, she couldn’t turn away from helping April.

“I want you to trust me, Dianna. Tell me why you’re afraid of heights.”

She was so surprised by what he was asking that for a moment, she forgot she was hanging on to the edge of a cliff with her fingertips.

“I just am.”

He laughed softly, the mellow sound running through her veins like a sedative. “Nice try. Now what’s the real reason?”

God, she didn’t know. She’d just always stayed away from ladders and rooftops. But before she could say this to Sam, a picture flashed through her mind and she gasped.

“What is it?” he asked, holding her steady with his body.

Her breath came fast again. “I think I saw a man fall when I was a little girl.”

“Who was it?”

She closed her eyes, tried to place his face. “I don’t know.”

But something told her he was important, especially when she thought about the way her mother had behaved later, crying and raging at Dianna.

“I think it was one of my mother’s boyfriends.”

In a soothing tone, Sam said, “The man fell, Dianna. Not you. It wasn’t your fault. You were just a little girl who saw too much.”

Amazingly, her heartbeat began to slow. Was he right? Could she have developed a phobia because of what she’d seen happen to someone else?

“Do you want to talk about it some more?”

Her heart swelled, knowing that he was no longer angry at her, that at the very least they could get through this as friends helping each other.

“No, I think I’m okay now.”

“Good. Then let’s try doing this a different way. We’re going to climb up together.”

God love him, he made it sound so easy.

“How?”

“Like this, with you cradled against my body. I’m going to strap your harness through mine. Every move you make, I’ll make with you.”

Again, instead of making her feel like an idiot for diving into deeper water than she could possibly swim in, he was putting his own life on the line. Then again, hadn’t he jumped into this rescue mission without a thought for himself from the very beginning?

“I can’t let you do that, Sam. I could kill us both.”

The low rumble of his laughter blew across her earlobe again. “Don’t worry, babe, I won’t let you do that.”

Of all the insane places to be hot for a guy, this one took the cake, stuck on the side of a rock, wrapped up in ropes. It struck her, then, that he’d done the impossible. He’d eased her fear enough for crazy desire to come rushing back in.