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He gave her a knowing look, but said only, "She had one out of two things right. "
Marcus emerged from Lisette's basement workroom and tossed up the end of a generous coil of rope.
Josh tied it to the branch and then set his hands at Lauren's waist, his palms hot on her skin. The knot of her towel had tightened during her climb, so now the terry cloth rode low on her hips. His long fingers lay inside the circle of it, grazing her hip bones. She was sure he meant his touch to be a steadying thing, to help her take a firm grasp of the rope without having to worry about her balance. Unfortunately the effect of that warm, intimate touch had the exact opposite result.
Jonathan's face flashed through her head, along with the memory of him sitting on the top stair to their second floor, dressed for work. It had been shortly before their breakup. She knelt between his knees, desperate for just a simple hug, the desire to be held. He had put his lips against her ear. "You are so fucked up, Lauren. "
He had said it soothingly, reinforcing what she had come to believe about herself. Rather than feeling insulted, she had felt vindicated. Like having a doctor diagnose her illness, she felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude at having it acknowledged.
Lauren's skin crawled with the memory and her chin tightened. She knew how to climb down a damn rope. She was one of three women at the gym that could do it.
She seized the rope and swung herself carefully into a descent position, blocking out for a moment that she was giving the man below, gay or not, a great view of her ass, and the one above quite a display of tits. Well, happiness and joy to them both.
"Focus," her personal trainer at the gym had told her. "That's the key to getting to the top, and back down again. Never think that getting down is easier. That's when most accidents happen in climbing, because it's harder to control your descent. Psychologically your mind thinks it's made it. "
Her current surroundings and situation were nothing like the gym, so perhaps it was understandable that the reminder of that lecture came after she lost her grip on the rope.
Lauren had time for a short shriek before she was falling, flailing through the air and then landing against another warm body. Marcus was knocked off balance by the weight of her hurtling body hitting him.
They thudded to the ground in a twisted tangle of limbs and muttered curses and rolled several yards down the steep incline before he managed to catch onto a protruding root and bring them to a halt.
Lauren attempted to extricate her limbs from Marcus enough to turn and find out if he was all right. She found he was trying to do the same, but they managed it. Josh was coming down quickly, no hesitation, she noted sourly. She comforted herself w
ith appreciation for the ripple of tense power across the shoulders and down his back, the way the jeans rode lower with his arms above his head and stomach muscles contracted tight. That's the way they'd be if his arms were tied at the wrists to a suspension bar, pulled just high enough to keep him on the balls of his feet, so his buttock muscles would be firm and clenched.
Whoa, where had that thought come from? A silly grin twisted her lips. It was a tasty image, though. She shifted her focus to the one who had broken her fall. Marcus had pushed himself up on his elbows, and his lip was cut where her elbow had landed. "Are you all right?" she reached out to it, at the same time he offered a solicitous hand to that same offending elbow and said, "Are you okay?"
He managed a crooked grin. "We must be, if we're both more concerned about each other. "
"No," she said, smiling back. "You're male, and so you can't admit you're in terrible pain, and I'm female and so naturally would always ask about the well-being of others before my own. "
"Another woman with an overabundance of therapy," he observed, turning his hand into a position to offer a courteous handshake, despite her current lack of clothing. "I'm Marcus. "
"Lauren," she shook his hand and then cocked a brow at Josh. "And I think we met in the tree. "
"Which explains why you flung yourself out of it," Marcus noted dryly. "Perfectly understandable. "
Josh shot him a deprecating look, then turned his attention back to Lauren. She noted with some amusement his determination to keep his gaze fixed on her face. "Are you sure you're all right?"
"I think so. " Lauren found her knees a bit unsteady as she rolled to them. She put her hand to the forest floor to push herself up. A pair of male hands supported her at either elbow, and she gazed down at her half-naked torso, stained with dirt and leaves.
"Well, this has been an adventurous day," she murmured to no one in particular, though she thought she heard Marcus chuckle. She was going to adjust that towel, as soon as she could discreetly turn away from the two men.
She put her weight down on her right foot and gasped, grabbing at Josh's arm to keep her balance.
Sprain. Probably not a bad one, but just one more delightful thing to add to the day's charm.
Marcus squatted and ran his hand along the back of her calf, down to the injured member. "Already swelling," he confirmed.
She had been sucked into some parallel dimension, where every tawdry cliche from a cheap romance novel was going to be played out. If everything went true to form, one of the men, probably the one she found most irritating yet mysteriously irresistible, would swing her easily up into his arms.
"Okay, then," Josh nodded, hooked her arms around his neck, bent and scooped her up. "We'll take you back upstairs and get that wrapped. " He lifted a brow at her snort of laughter. "What?"
"Nothing," Lauren shook her head. "Nothing at all. "
Chapter 4
At least this parallel dimension had its perks. Being carried up a hill in a strong man's arms was decidedly pleasant, though unsettling, since her right bare breast was pressed into his unshirted chest, and she felt every shift of his fingers along her spine and thigh.
