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“I think you’ll look best in a fitted dress. Preferably one with a corset. Nice and restrictive, so you’ll behave.”
Not on your life, pal.
He’s being intentionally obnoxious, fantasizing about me in a dress he knows I’ll hate, and as soon as my wobbly legs get me there, I’m going to pop his big, fat head off his body. “Blue would look nice, but I’ll settle for black if you insist.”
He blocks my path when I reach the last step. Those thick arms and strong hands spread across the two posts holding the bridge.
A switch has flipped, lowering the rigid guard he arrived with, and I don’t know if I should be glad for the change, or afraid of what may awaken from it.
Leaning in too close for comfort, he rumbles, “Then again, red always was your color.”
My neck flushes at his teasing, feeling his words fan across my cheeks. But it’s all a ruse. A ploy to throw me off so he can beat me and brag about his win for the unforeseeable future.
Determined not to let him have the upper hand, I jerk my chin up. “You know what they say about being too cocky…”
“What’s that?”
Delicate wisps of desire tickle my insides when he gives me that look. The one that’s dangerously close to convincing me he’s not joking.
I duck beneath his arm, scrambling to steady my feet, and holler over my shoulder, “It’s a one-way ticket to having your ass handed to you!”
I take off for the next line, with Logan not far behind.
“I do hope you’ll be doing the handling,” he calls back.
That laugh of his could almost make me forget what I’m doing here to begin with, especially when I’m laughing right along with him.
“Not me. Karma,” I say, scurrying to clip myself in.
“Ah. Well, I don’t concern myself with intangible ideas like Karma.” Logan’s fumbling with the hook, cussing like mad when he pinches his finger, but his struggle gives me the advantage I need to take off ahead of him.
I relish the whirring of the cable as I glide across it, tipping my head back and watching the world zip by in a dizzying blur of green, white, and blue. Enormous black-and-red birds soar through the canopies, and unable to stop it, a squeal of pure delight bursts from the base of my lungs.
When I spin to face Logan, his jaw is set, eyes fully on me and so focused on trying to catch up that he doesn’t notice the movement in the low-hanging branch on his left.
I try to shout as a brown ball of fur launches through the air, but he’s pelted in the chest before I can warn him in time.
Logan panics, swatting at the squirrel that clings to his back, and I watch with horrified amusement as it crawls under the neckline of his shirt.
The lump scurries around his chest while his arms and legs flail, but my laughter’s cut short when I’m jolted to a stop at the end of the line.
“Get it off me. Get it off me,” he chants, swinging to a head-jerking stop beside me.
When his feet touch the landing, I disconnect my carabiner as fast as I can, but the second I reach for his, a furry head with beady black eyes pops out of his shirt sleeve.
Logan’s barely breathing when I slowly lower my hand to my fanny pack.
“Don’t. Move.” I carefully retrieve a piece of candy before setting it on the wood railing staked into the rocky ledge below. “Nice tree rat. Here you go.”
We lock eyes with the squirrel for a single, tension-filled moment.
“Oh my god,” I shriek when, in a quick burst, the furry little beast springs out of Logan’s shirt, snags the morsel, and escapes into a nearby tree.
While he frees himself from the line, I stagger backward and double over with my hands on my knees. My snorting echoes through the valley, but I can’t stop. Not even when a tear runs down my cheek.
Logan takes his time stalking toward me, his tone a blend of mockery and intrigue. “Entertained, are you?”
When I glimpse the tiny scratches on his neck and cheek, I hug my sides, unable to catch my breath. “A fucking… squirrel… attacked you.”
