Free Josh by R.C. Ryan

his shoulder he called, “Good night, Sierra. Sleep well.”
    He closed the door with a quiet click.
    She stood perfectly still, wondering at the fact that the mere touch of his fingertip to her lips had sent the most amazing shock waves through her system.
    Even after his footsteps receded along the hallway, she remained where she was, telling herself to breathe in and out, until her heart rate returned to normal.
    When she felt in control, she sank down on the edge of the bed, wondering what had just happened. A fall from a high, sheer peak of the Tetons would have been less shocking than what she had just experienced at the hands of Josh Conway.
    And he hadn’t even kissed her.
    It had all happened in less than a second.
    She couldn’t help wondering what he could do to her in an hour.
    Outside Sierra’s door Josh picked up his gear and made his way to his room. Once inside he stashed his backpack in the closet and kicked off his boots while unbuttoning his shirt, which he balled into a heap and tossed on the bed. Barefoot and naked to the waist, he stalked to the window and leaned a hip against the sill to stare at the Tetons, silhouetted against the rosy sky. Though he was staring at the mountains, they weren’t what had his attention. His mind was on the woman in the room down the hall.
    There was no denying the attraction. From the first moment he’d seen her, dressed in body-hugging leggings and a turtleneck, that mane of honey hair spilling around the face of an angel, he’d been hooked.
    He couldn’t say exactly why he was so reluctant to kiss her.
    It wasn’t for lack of wanting to. But he’d forced himself to resist.
    That first time, outside her car, he’d been caught unaware by the hot flare of lust that had slammed into him. The feelings had caught him completely by surprise. He’d been hungry to touch and taste and feel that lithe, willowy body pressed against his.
    It wasn’t just her looks that had snagged his interest. Sierra might be beautiful, but she was also smart and funny and ambitious. All the things he admired in a woman. But she was different from any other woman he’d known. Maybe it was her very different background. Hewas intrigued by the idea that she’d been on her own in boarding schools since her earliest years.
    He thought about their first meeting, when he’d found her in that tent, not hurt or afraid as he’d expected, but angry as a spitting cat and armed with nothing more than a piece of plastic. What a display of bravado.
    She was very guarded about her life. Except for Paris, and a childhood of boarding schools, he knew next to nothing about her. She appeared to be a woman completely on her own as she made her way through the maze of life’s challenges. And yet, life hadn’t made her bitter or brittle or angry as might have been expected. Instead, she was a breath of fresh air. Like one of those beautiful circus high-wire creatures who danced high above the audience without a safety net.
    The moment he’d met her, he found himself intrigued. There was just something in his nature that made him eager to protect her.
    He’d told her that he’d brought her here to spend a night in comfort before moving on. And it was true, as far as it went. But now that he’d had a chance to spend some time with her and to observe her interaction with his family, he wanted to know more about her. He wanted to know the woman behind the expressive eyes and gorgeous face.
    He marveled at the ease with which she met total strangers and found out as much as she could about them without any effort whatever. He’d been touched by that little laugh when she’d called his grandfather Big Jim. As though it were a private joke that only the two of them shared. The expression on her face as she’d watched and listened to his family at the dinner table, and later in thegreat room, had been priceless. As though she were privy to some secret Stone Age society that she had just come upon in