Free Picture Perfect by Alessandra Thomas Page B

rider,” I corrected. “He threw me during a barrel run.”
    Matt winced. “I knew someone who fell down a twenty-foot crevasse, same result.
    Surgery? Rod and pins?”
    “On my tibia, yeah. Left side.”
    “Okay. You’re mostly going to be using your quads, anyway, so we shouldn’t run into
    any trouble. How’s your pain?”
    “It starts to ache after like half an hour of walking, but I’m mostly back to full mobility. The worst is endurance stuff, or high-impact stuff.”
    “Well, then, your boyfriend made a great choice. This is pretty low-impact, but it is a great way to keep you in shape.”
    “Keep me in shape? I haven’t worked out for months.”
    “Well, you look good. Seriously, I bet you still have a ton of muscle to help you out. Just lead with your right leg and you should be good. C’mon. Let’s see what you can do.”
    Matt hooked both of us up to a rope on one of the walls, anchored into place with a thick metal hook on each side, and showed me how to visualize where I wanted to go, then move my feet there first and grab second. Every time I watched my arms reach up and the muscles in them flex, they looked good. Beautiful, long and strong. I smiled to myself.
    I felt pretty good, having gotten halfway up one of the walls, when I heard a whoop from about twenty feet above me. Then the wall reverberated with Nate’s pounding feet as he rappelled down.
    My grin was so wide I could see my cheeks pushing up in front of my eyes.
    “Showoff!” I called down to ten feet below me, my stomach churning as I realized just how high off the ground I was. I bounced a little on my right leg, and my quad burned. It actually felt kind of awesome, seeing what my muscles could do after ten months of being laid up. Or of laying myself up, I realized, my cheeks burning in shame.
    “You think I’m just showing off, c’mon! Race me!”
    “Maybe we can start with you helping me get down from here,” I smiled.
    In about thirty seconds, Nate had climbed up right beside me, reached in front of me, and put his hands over the back of mine and guiding them to the straps on my harness. Right above my crotch. “Okay, so you’re just going to pull here and here, and it should let you slide down.”
    I was not going to look over at him, into those dark flashing eyes, when I was ten feet off the ground and could crash down to it if I wasn’t paying any attention. I blew out a breath.
    “Don’t be nervous,” he said, his voice lower, sweeter somehow. “Here, I’ll do it for you the first time.” His hands expertly pulled and flipped at the thick knot of rope at my waist, then quickly gripped the rope above it. “Now just let it slide through your fist. Don’t grab too tight, or you’ll get rope burn. Okay?”
    I nodded, trying not to let my eyes flutter shut after seeing the tendons in his forearms flick and the muscles there flex. Dear God.
    He eased himself down the rock wall quickly, and I followed behind, foot by slow foot.
    “Doin’ great, Cat! Are you okay?”
    “Yeah, doing fine. When I can concentrate.” I tried to keep my voice light, but the truth was, the possibility of a fall, and another injury, made my heart pound. It was only when I was five feet off the ground that I realized that Nate was staring up at me, watching my progress down the wall.
    Staring at my ass.
    Which was bulging over a frame made of thick nylon straps.
    A lump rose in my throat while I managed the last few feet. When I was about two feet off the ground, he grabbed my waist. I sucked in, almost a gasp, when his fingers pressed into the fat above the waist strap. But as I lowered myself the last few feet, he just spun me around with those arms into a bear hug, pulling me up off the ground so I was standing on my tiptoes.
    “Awesome!” he said, hugging me close and pressing his face into the hair pulled back on my head.
    At that moment, I felt three things I hadn’t felt in a very long time: light, sexy, and