Only with You (22 page)

She watched as the two teens in front of her began climbing up the tubes that marked the entrance to the death trap. A crowd of spectators cheered and someone wearing a striped ref outfit held a stop watch.

Why had she agreed to this?

She studied The Castle more closely, trying to gauge what it was like inside. There were a couple parts of the maze with see-through nets, and from what she could tell, The Castle was basically a combination of slides, ropes, ramps, and awkward-looking ladders. Most of the obstacle course was hidden from view, but every now and then she could see the two agile teenagers laughingly struggling to keep their feet as they pushed each other aside in a race to get to the next tube.

“Are you sure this is meant for adults?” Sophie asked a Castle employee.

“Oh, definitely,” said the pudgy worker, who looked like she couldn’t fit through the small spaces of The Castle if someone paid her. “Usually it’s the adults who end up hogging the whole thing after the kids have had their fun.”

“Yeah,
fun
,” Sophie muttered as she tucked her shirt into her shorts. Her cute yellow sweater set really wasn’t meant to be tucked into anything, but she’d take the fashion faux pas in order to keep this party family-friendly. Last thing she needed was to give all of Brayburn Luxuries a glimpse at her less-than-toned belly.

Where the hell is Gray?
she wondered as she looked around.
This was his damn idea and now he’s nowhere to be found. Maybe he chickened out.

Nope. There he was, laughing with Jeff as though the two were old long-lost friends. For a while there she’d thought that he might actually be jealous of Jeff, but obviously that had been her imagination. Or wishful thinking.

Because why would he be jealous if they were
just friends
?

It was better this way, she told herself for about the millionth time in the past month.

To be honest, he’d surprised her. She’d figured that his suggestion of being friends had merely been his polite way of saying
Get lost
, but to his credit, he did seem to be making an effort to actually be friendly. He’d invited her on a couple of morning coffee runs, rambled to her about sports (as though she would ever care), and even asked her advice on what to get Jack and Jenna for their birthday.

There was nothing romantic about it in the least. Nothing but buddy-buddy platonic chitchat. And that’s what irked her the most. It would have been cleaner if he’d merely decided to blow her off completely. That way she could just give him the finger, quit, and move on with her life.

But the man was actually
trying
. He was stretching his stilted, introverted ways and trying to reach out. Granted, it wasn’t in the way that she wished. And certainly not the way that her lady parts wished. But it was something.

The part of her that was a sucker for wounded creatures wouldn’t let her turn her back on him while he was clearly trying for self-improvement. However, the man didn’t look quite so wounded and needy at the moment as he laughed with Jeff and flirted with Rachel, the new receptionist.

She found herself scowling at him. How dare he volunteer them to bounce around like idiots inside of an inflatable death trap, and then look completely unfazed.

Catching his eye, she jerked her head at him, gesturing for him to get over here so they could get this over with. He raised an eyebrow at her, but began making his way toward her. The yells on the other side of The Castle indicated that the kids in front of them were making their way through the final obstacle.

“You ready for this, Dalton?” he asked.

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Sophie muttered.

“Scared of losing?” The man looked downright giddy.

She scoffed. “We both know this is ridiculous. We’re going to look like fools, but I suppose it will be good for your people to see you when you’re down.”

Gray’s eyes followed her movements as she reached behind herself and pulled her foot back toward her butt, unconsciously moving into a pre-run routine.

“Are you
stretching
?”

Blushing, she dropped her foot. “No. Maybe. Gotta stay agile, you know?”

He rolled his eyes as The Castle employee headed toward them.

“You guys ready?” she asked.

“No,” Sophie grumbled.

But Gray gave a nod and kicked off his shoes, practically grinning as they stepped up to the starting line. Who would have thought that an inflatable toy and a bit of competition were all it took to coax a full smile from the man?

Word had apparently gotten out that the CEO and his assistant had lost their minds, because the crowd of people had doubled, and the whoops of encouragement and laughter grew deafening.

“You’d think they were watching gladiators,” he said.

“I’d be the gladiator,” Sophie replied. “
You’d
be whatever weakling they throw in there, who gets mutilated.”

“That’s not very
friendly
, now is it?”

“On the contrary,” she said. “It’s quite friendly. See, if we were
more
than friends, I might let you win for your delicate pride and all, and because I wouldn’t want to deal with you sulking over dinner. But since we’re
just friends
…well, then I don’t have to see you over dinner, now, do I? Therefore…I’ll happily beat you.”

She didn’t even know what she was talking about. Where had this case of verbal diarrhea come from? Gray looked at her with a thoughtful expression on his face, but didn’t respond.

“Okay, guys, are you ready to RUMBLE?” hollered the way-too-enthusiastic Castle referee.

“On your mark…”

Shit.

“…Get set…”

Dammit.

“GO!”

A whoop of laugher escaped Sophie as she and Gray rushed forward, pushing each other out of the way in order to be the first one up the tube.

“Hey!” Gray said, as she jabbed her elbow into his side. “You fight dirty.”

“Pussy!” she mumbled back, all thoughts of keeping this affair family-friendly forgotten.

Thanks to her pointy elbows and sharp fingernails, she managed to get to the tube first, giggling as she squeezed her way through the tight opening. It was more yielding than it looked, but it still required an awful lot of wiggling.

“Nice view,” she heard Gray mutter from close behind her as he followed her through the narrow opening.

“Enjoy the angle while you can,” she said back. “It’s the last time you’ll get this close.”

She yelped as a palm smacked her behind, just as she made her way into the next chamber.

“You spanked me,” she sputtered as she found herself in a pit of plastic balls that went up past her waist.

“No, no,” he said, looking around for the passageway out of the chamber. “I was just helping your hips fit through that narrow opening.”

She let out a little growl as she struggled to push through the sea of plastic balls, wading toward some sort of shaky-looking ramp. “Hey, no fair!” she exclaimed. “You’re taller, so you can reach higher.”

“Just like it was way easier for you to wiggle through that last tube because you’re smaller. Well, except for your hips.”

“My hips are fine,” she said, self-consciously touching the offending body part.

“Yes, they are,” he said matter-of-factly as he hoisted himself up the ramp using the strategically placed handles. He’d already shimmied up the squishy slope by the time she’d pulled herself to the base of the ramp.

“See you at the end,” he hollered as he moved out of sight.

Snarling obscenities at him, she struggled to reach the lowest handle, wondering how children had managed this thing. Then again, kids were like monkeys. Twenty-eight-year-old women? Not so much.

Grateful that this particular part of the challenge was out of sight of spectators, she tried unsuccessfully to levy herself up to the next platform before she slid down again and again into the plastic balls.

She finally managed to get a decent grasp on two of the handles, and was debating where to make her next grab when she saw a hand extend in front of her face. Glancing up, she saw Gray’s laughing eyes stare down at her.

“Need some help?” he asked casually.

“No,” she said primly, conscious that her face was red and sweaty and that her arms were beginning to shake from the effort of supporting all of her weight.

“Come on, Soph,” he said, wiggling his fingers at her. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Sophie knew she had plenty of faults, but pride had never been one of them. When faced with the choice of dealing with a gloating man or languishing among plastic balls, she’d tolerate the testosterone overload. Grasping his arm, she allowed him to pull her up. When she lay gasping at the top of the platform, she paused a moment to catch her breath. “Do you think that’s that hard for everyone?” she asked him.

“No,” he said simply. “Guess you shoulda stretched your arms in addition to your quads, huh?”

She punched his shoulder. “You’re not supposed to help me, you know.”

“Yeah, well, it was either that or listen to you bitch in the office on Monday, so I was really doing the company a favor.”

“This is ridiculous,” she said as they began crawling on their hands and knees through a tunnel toward the next horrible challenge. Suddenly the roar of the crowd got louder and she realized that they were in the part of a tunnel that was visible to those watching. Fixing a smile on her face, she grinned and pretended to flex her muscles, while horribly self-conscious of how foolish she must look.

“Somebody get the tissues ready,” Gray called to his laughing employees. “Sophie’s going to need someone to comfort her when she loses!”

“Oh, so you’re making jokes now,” she muttered, as they cleared the tunnel and found themselves in a chamber surrounded by nets.

“I just wanted to give Jeff a man-to-man heads-up that he’ll have a chance to cheer you up when you emerge a sulky loser.”

“I’m not sulky. And I’m not going to lose. And why would Jeff care?”

“Oh, come on,” he said. “You’re going to tell me you two aren’t dating?”

“I don’t have to answer that,” she said stiffly. “But…no, I’m not dating Jeff.”

“Well, he’s interested,” Gray muttered as he began testing the nets for support.

Sophie had suspected as much herself, but wasn’t about to admit it to her boss. “I’m not so sure I like this chatty Gray. I think I liked you better in Vegas when you were all hostile. You weren’t so annoying.”

“I think you like me annoying,” he said with a wink before he began to climb up the side of the wall. “It ensures we have more in common.”

Rolling her eyes, Sophie followed him, finding this particular hurdle much easier than the previous. In fact, her lighter weight made it easier for her than it was for Gray, since there wasn’t as much pull on the net. Neither of them spoke as they concentrated on getting to the top.

“How long is this thing?” Gray muttered as he joined her at the top of the platform. “I thought it was like a minute-long adventure.”

“Are you kidding? It took the kids before us almost ten minutes, and they’re a hell of a lot more limber than we are.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Oh, come on. You’re hardly Tarzan.”

“Me, Tarzan. You, Jane.”

“This new side of you is giving me a headache,” she said, even as she found herself smiling.

Oh hell
, she thought as she looked down at the winding slide in front of her. “They want us to go down that? Onto what?”

“I’m guessing they’re not going to have us land on cement,” Gray said.

“Still, what if I land funnily on my hand? The stitches are out and it’s healed,” she said as she hesitantly settled into a sitting position, “but what if—HEY!”

Gray planted a palm against her back and gave her a shove. With a squeal she went sliding into darkness before landing indelicately on what seemed to be a very bouncy mattress-like trampoline.

“Look out,” Gray called from the top of the slide, and she rolled to the side so she didn’t get crushed.

“Shit,” he muttered as he landed with a grunt. “I think you might have been right. This was not my best idea,” he said as they lay on their backs, trying to catch their breath.

Sophie couldn’t help it. She started giggling. After all that they’d been through, who’d have thought it would come to this? Both of them panting, slightly sweaty, and completely defeated by a pile of plastic, nylon, and nets. Turning his head to look at her, he smiled back, and then he too was laughing.

“Nobody can see us here, right?” he asked.

“Nah, I think they designed this as a reprieve. It lets the oldies like us catch our breath without prying eyes.”

“Good,” he said firmly.

And then he rolled toward her, and before she knew what was happening, Sophie found herself pinned between the padded floor and a hard male body. His mouth took hers with such fierce possession she gasped from the shock of it.

Unlike the kiss in the office, which had been a slow and deliberate exploration, this kiss felt like a brand. The insistent pressure of his lips against hers and the slick rhythm of his tongue left her brain no room to wonder or consider or analyze. There was nothing to do but feel.

He used his arms to brace himself above her, but wanting to feel more of him, she slid her hands around his shoulders and tugged, urging him to put all of his weight on her.

Gray complied and they both groaned at the contact. She didn’t know how long they stayed there, her arms locked around his neck, and his hands framing her face as they learned each other’s taste, their heads tilting this way and that without their lips ever breaking contact.

She felt his him grow hard against her thigh, and she rubbed herself against him. He swore and nipped her neck with his teeth. Dimly, Sophie became aware of the laughter outside dying out, and worried questions from the outside began to pierce her passion-drugged consciousness.

“What happened to them in there?”

“Are they stuck?”

“Should we send someone in after them?”

Turning her head to the side slightly, she pushed her hands against Gray’s shoulders. “Gray,” she said, her voice sounding husky.