Free Red Alert by Jessica Andersen

photographs had left him with the impression of an elegant woman in her midthirties, self-possessed and confident, tall and solidly built in clothing that never quite showcased the promise he sensed in the body beneath. Since meeting her in person, he’d seen her in work clothes and her lab coat, and even though they’d found themselves at odds over the NPT acquisition, he hadn’t been able to shake the sense that she had a better body than she let on.
    Now, seeing her ready to do battle with a foam wall, all he could think was damn, he’d been right.
    And then some.
    She wore tight gym shorts that ended just aboveher knees, surprising him with the long length of smooth calf below. He’d known she was tall, but hadn’t realized that most of it was leg. Perfect, whole, unmarred leg.
    At the thought, he felt a stir of lust coupled with a scrape of resentment.
    Her bare feet were encased in thin climbing shoes that flexed as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She wore a faded nylon utility belt around her hips, and a hot pink sports bra with a cropped T-shirt overtop. The shirt looked as though she’d gone after it with scissors and cut away the neck, arms and bottom half. It showed as much as it covered, to the point that he wondered why she’d bothered.
    Modesty, or something else?
    She jerked her head to an opening beyond the colorful walls. “I’ll be in the next room. You can stay here if you want. I promise not to sneak out and sabotage my own research.” The last was said with a bite of sarcasm.
    Partly because he felt like an idiot leaning on the wall by himself, partly because a masochistic section of his brain wanted to watch, Erik grabbed his cane and stepped forward with the same damned awkward lurch he always needed to get moving. “I’m right behind you. I can hold up a wall in there just as easily as I can here.”
    Her lips tightened, but she turned away. “Come on, then.”
    Her quick, long-legged strides quickly outpacedhis gimp, which was slowed by the muscle strains of the past few days. Maybe she was trying to lose him. Maybe she was trying to make the point she’d already made too well. Either way, the message was clear.
    You don’t belong here. I don’t want you here.
    They both knew damn well that was why she’d come. She didn’t want to climb. She wanted to teach him a lesson.
    Knowing it, he gritted his teeth and followed her through a sloping archway into the next room, which not only had climbing surfaces on the walls, but also contained a huge geometric figure in the center of the wide space. The rust-colored megalith looked like a UFO, or maybe an abstract artist’s impression of a UFO. Made of the same material as the walls, the thing bulged on one side and rose to a high spire on the other. As in the other room, the surface was broken by craggy fissures and brightly colored handholds. Similarly, the edifice was dotted here and there by climbers.
    Only these climbers were unsupported by ropes.
    Erik shot a look at her belt, only then realizing it supported only a bag of chalk and—incongruously—a toothbrush. “You free-sclimb?”
    She shot him an indecipherable look. “It’s called bouldering. And, yeah. You got a problem with that?” The jut of her chin dared him to say yes, to argue that free-climbing—bouldering, whatever she called it—was a senseless, stupid risk.
    But because he didn’t have the right, and becausehis objections came from another, more complicated source, he shook his head. “No objection. I’ll watch from down here. Just don’t fall and go splat.”
    She sniffed. “What? And make your life easier? I don’t think so.” She turned away, but then paused and glanced back. “Look, would you do me a favor?”
    His instincts quivered to life. “What sort of favor?”
    She shifted her weight on the balls of her feet, making him elementally aware of the slide of the long, lean muscles in her legs and the unexpectedly defined muscles