Stories for When the Sun Goes Down (Sexy Anthology) Read online

  I pulled up several feet and noticed a chill wind had picked up from the East. It was clipping around a vertical face and catching us side-on like a barrage of icy bullets. But it was okay. Andy had me tightly secured to his waist up front, and Lee was close behind me. The reassuring jangle of hooks and clips filtered to my ears whenever the wind rested, and I felt safe and protected between my two professional climbers. My two personal mountain bodyguards.

  “How you doin’?” Lee called, his English accent familiar on my ears after a week in his company.

  “Fine,” I shouted over my shoulder, even though my hands were beginning to numb with the chill. “Let’s keep going.”

  “Watch this hand hole, Sapphire,” Andy warned from above, his big orange goggles flashing in the brilliant sunlight. “It’s a little awkward and quite a stretch for you.”

  I looked to where he was indicating my next grip, flexed and un-flexed my fingers to encourage the flow of blood and took a deep breath. I could do it. I knew I could. I stretched out my cold spine, elongated the joints in my shoulder and elbow, and managed to fix my fingers around the pin. But the metal had been put in at an angle, and I just couldn’t get the traction I needed to pull up. I shifted my frozen left foot to anchor myself better and thrust my weight further forward.

  The moment I did it, I knew it’d been a mistake.

  With a terrifying rush, my body began a downward plummet. My hands flailed against smooth rock, a blood curdling scream left my mouth, and my stomach lurched sickeningly. Then Lee’s massive arms were around me, and I was securely lodged between his solid body and Everest.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” he soothed in a voice so low and calm it echoed around my head like a mantra. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.” His helmet pressed against mine and his lips touched my earlobe.

  “Shit, man,” Andy shouted with a rare note of panic in his voice. “What the hell’s going on down there with you two?”

  I gasped and tried to beat down the powerful surge of adrenaline just released into my system.

  “You guys all right?” Andy asked, manically adjusting ropes and spinning so he could get a better look at us.

  “Yeah, she’s fine.” Lee kept his arms tightly around my waist, his body pressing me into the mountain face. “She just needs a minute to recover from the fright, that’s all.”

  His hot breath washed over my cheek and the rustle of his jacket sounded deafening to my hyper-acute senses. I closed my eyes and wondered what I was doing here, half way up a mountain, miles from Dean Mayer, and with a gorgeous mountaineer not just saving my life but also embracing me.

  “I can’t go any further,” I said shakily, vertigo suddenly haunting me along with the cold.

  “Sure you can. It was just a little slip, that’s all.”

  “No, I nearly fell all the way down.” Tears were threatening. I could see them forming on my lower lids. I was sure they’d freeze.

  “Hey, hey.” He shifted so he could look at my face and through our goggles captured my watery gaze with his. “I’m here, Andy’s here, it’s okay. We won’t let you fall. I promise.”

  “But…”

  “No buts.” His voice was determined. “You’ve come so far over the last week. We’ll soon be there, and you’ve done amazingly well for a…”

  “For a what?”

  “For a… a girl.”

  “That’s not what you were going to say.” I tutted as my tears were thankfully reabsorbed.

  “Yes, it was.” He tugged at his bottom lip with his teeth and a ghost of a smile played on his mouth.

  “No, you were going to say for an actress, weren’t you?”

  He released a cheeky grin that flashed his perfect white teeth. “Yeah, you got me. For an actress, you’re doing amazingly well.” He shrugged causing my whole body to shift within his hold.

  “Humph.” I tried to ignore the shivering in my core that was a result of both Lee’s close proximity and the arctic conditions. I looked up at Andy. “Are you going to sit there all day?” I shouted fiercely, a puff of breath circling my face. “We’ve got a mountain to climb.”

  He grinned broadly and flicked me the thumbs up sign.

  We carried on for another three hours. It was bitterly cold and incredibly slow progress. The rocks were sheer and the light fading. It wasn’t late in the day, but a deep duvet of inky clouds now coated the mountain. I tried to ignore their ominous accumulation, but caught Andy studying the horizon and then look down at Lee.

  Something unsaid passed between them.

  It wasn’t something frivolous.

  “We’re going to set up a temporary camp soon,” Andy called in a light voice as I hoisted my butt up another level.

  “I thought we were going to get to camp five today,” I replied, twining a rope as best I could with my cold hands.

  “No, we’ll never make it. A storm’s heading our way.”

  I swallowed a bolt of fear, unable to deny what was before me any longer. I’d heard other climbers’ accounts of storms at this altitude, and none of them sounded like a party. I’d hoped to get away without experiencing one, and we’d been lucky so far.

  Now it seemed our luck had run dry.

  “There’s good spot ten foot to the left,” Andy shouted down, his words catching on a sudden whip of wind that held several fat snowflakes.

  “So what are you waiting for?” Lee shouted back, shoving up with a sudden swiftness to his skillful movements.

  I carried on climbing, with Lee tucked in tight behind me, until we came to a small outcrop of about twelve-by-ten feet. The snow was falling heavier now, big, round flakes that stacked against every surface they hit.

  “We gotta get this tent up fast.” Andy indicated to a small dip in the rock wall. “You stand there, Sapphire. Hook yourself on, and we’ll get the kit organised.”

  I did as I was told, glad to stop moving for a minute and rest my icy limbs. I watched through the falling snow as the two men sorted out the sleeping arrangements. It wasn’t exactly the five star luxury I’d become accustomed to in my privileged lifestyle, but the small blue tent perched precariously near a sheer drop was to be home for the night. Perhaps longer.

  Andy made quick work of erecting the tent as Lee shoved pegs into nooks and crannies in the mountainside to keep it secure. It was a difficult task. The blasting wind flapped the material violently until Lee tugged each section taut with thin white ropes.

  Snow was being hurled in every direction by the gale. I felt a brutal shiver travel up my spine and then, as if a switch had been flicked, my muscles relaxed in exhaustion. I had no more to give. Shaking had used up the last of my energy. I looked down, snow was piling up around my static feet, and I could hardly see my boots through the drift. They were so numb, and combined with not being able to see them, my toes and ankles could have vanished and I wouldn’t have noticed.

  Lee was struggling with the pegs, visibility was dangerously reduced in the blizzard conditions, and it was hard to find secure cracks. Andy went to help him, and they put their combined strength into stretching one last peg into a deep crevice.

  “That should do it.” I heard Andy shout through the howling wind.

  “Yeah.” Lee nodded towards me. “Let’s get Sapphire inside before she freezes to death.”

  And then I was being unhooked and half carried, half dragged through the tiny tent door. If I’d thought the noise of the storm inside would be less intense, I was wrong. It was just as deafening if not louder. The canvas snapped all around as the pounding wind tried to blow us off our thin shelf down to a frozen mountain grave.

  I sank to my knees on the sleeping bags and tried to stop the chattering in my jaw. My teeth were rattling out of control. I was going to break a very expensive crown soon.

  Lee zipped the tent behind Andy, barricading us against the wind chill and locking us into the blue glow of the tent. He began dumping his climbing gear by the door. “You’ll soon warm up, Sapphire,”
he said, fiddling with a compass. “Now that you’re out the elements.”

  “Yeah, get that wet gear off and climb into your sleeping bag,” Andy said, easing off his goggles and shucking out of his jacket. “I’ll sort us out some food.”

  I pulled at my helmet and yanked my gloves off with my teeth. My fingers were white, my nail beds blue. I tried to blow on the chilled flesh but my clouding breath stuttered and missed its target. I gave up and attempted to unzip my jacket. My unfeeling fingers refused to work. They just wouldn’t do as I asked. I scrabbled twice and missed, unable to feel the small piece of metal I was searching for.

  Lee saw my uncoordinated struggle. “Here,” he said, reaching with a now gloveless hand and undoing the zip. He took hold of my left cuff and tugged the sleeve off my arm, then repeated the action with my left, freeing me from my damp jacket and revealing my black thermal top.

  “Jeez, have you seen her fingers?” Andy said, grabbing for my wrist. “They’re hypo.”

  Lee frowned, dropped his goggles around his neck, and then looked deep into my eyes. “Why didn’t you tell us you were so cold?” His voice sounded both worried and annoyed.

  “I… I didn’t want you to think I was pathetic,” I managed. “And besides, you two were coping alright. You’re… you’re not too cold.”

  “We’ve done it before, remember?” Lee said. “Plus, we’ve got a bit more bloody meat on our bones than you.”

  He swept his eyes over my petite frame, and despite my painfully frozen thoughts, I noticed he lingered on the swell of my breasts. “Well, I s…s…stopped feeling so cold while you were doing the… the tent.”

  “Shit, Sapphire, one of the symptoms of hypothermia is to stop feeling cold.” Lee reached out and popped open my waterproof trousers. “There’s only one thing for it. Get these off, now.”

  “Why?” I said with a weak attempt at being indignant.

  “Because, if we don’t get your core temperature up a few degrees, the only role you’ll be good for when you get back to Hollywood is playing a bloody corpse.”

  Lee worked on my boots, freed my feet, then grabbed the hem of my trousers and literally tipped me out of them.

  Andy fiddled noisily with the zips on the sleeping bags. “In,” he instructed, holding up the opening of the now one big sleeping bag. “Quick, before your hypothermia becomes irreversible.”

  I did as I was told and shoved my frozen legs into the silky insides of the bag. It felt smooth and soft against my thermal trousers, and I could hear the swish of the synthetic material as I moved, but it was still cold, my feet were still numb. I didn’t have enough heat in my body to warm the space.

  Next thing I knew, Lee was rooting in beside me in just his thermals, his big body hulking all the way down the sleeping bag and touching the entire length of mine.

  “What are you doing?” I asked on a shiver, unable to curl into a ball because of the way he was dominating the bag.

  “Saving your life,” he said. “Again.” He turned on his right side and in a scooping movement pulled me tight against his broad chest. My breasts mashed against his pecs, and I bent my arms up into the cradle he’d created for me. His legs entwined with mine to create maximum surface area connection.

  The heat pouring from his body was intoxicating, like a glass of water to someone dying of thirst or a cylinder of oxygen to a suffocating man. I whimpered pathetically and snuggled deeper into him. I closed my eyes and got a dose of his raw, male pheromones seeping though his thermal top. It didn’t smell like Dean’s expensive, sharp, citrus cologne. It was musky and natural, unfamiliar but delicious. It did strange things to my erratically circulating blood which began to pool pleasurably in my belly, creating a new type of heat that was inappropriate for the seriousness of the situation.

  “Budge over a bit,” Andy murmured from behind my shoulder.

  Lee shuffled me even closer, and I felt the long hard length of his penis pressing into my thigh.

  Before I had time to react to this observation, Andy was sliding in behind me. His chest wedged firmly against my back and his thermal-trousered legs tangled with mine and Lee’s.

  Lee moved his hand down to the juncture between my groin and hip to allow his brother’s body to connect uninterrupted with mine. I didn’t move his hand. I should’ve, but I didn’t. I liked it there. Sandwiched between two chunks of raw maleness made me feel tiny and feminine, looked after and cherished. Surrounded by high energy testosterone and granite muscle gave me a much needed sense of safety and contentment when death was knocking at my door.

  I fluttered my eyes closed and gratefully felt my extremities tingle back to life.

  Andy adjusted his position and squeezed in even closer behind me, spooning his hips around my buttocks. Judging by the rapid hardening of his dick as it settled in the crack of my butt, I guessed I wasn’t the only one enjoying my treatment for hypothermia.

  “Sorry,” he whispered into my ear, his warm breath tickling over my one scrap of exposed flesh.

  “For what?” I murmured into Lee’s chest, not moving my head from the pocket of precious warmth I’d created around my face.

  “For… you know…” I heard him swallow tightly. “I guess it’s not every day mere mortals like us get to snuggle up to one of the world’s most beautiful women. Some kind of reaction has to be expected.”

  “I don’t understand,” I mumbled, though I did understand. Totally. However, I wouldn’t describe Andy or Lee as mere mortals. Some of the feats I’d heard those two had accomplished topped every Hollywood stunt.

  “I think you do.” He tipped his pelvis harder into my butt. He was fully erect now.

  “Oh,” I said, a bubble of excitement popping in my chest.

  “Yeah, but don’t be alarmed, sexual arousal is scientifically proven to help with the re-warming process.” His voice was a low rumble and vibrated from his hot chest onto my back. “It’s in all the survival guide books.”

  Lee laughed at his brother’s words as the wind shook the tent with newfound strength. Flicking and flacking over our heads like an enraged demon, it wouldn’t let us forget it was there, waiting for us.

  I looked up, into Lee’s face, wondering how he could laugh at a time like this. How they could carry on their incessant banter? “Do you think we’ll get off this mountain alive?” I asked.

  “Sure hope so, babe,” he said, his smile dropping. “But I’ve never had a storm come in that fast before on the North Ridge.”

  “Oh.” I snuggled my face back into his chest not feeling reassured in the slightest. He could have jollied me along a little. After all, I was the novice here.

  “We’ll just have to stick it out until it passes.” He tipped my chin with the crook of his index finger so he could see my eyes again. “Don’t worry. They always pass… eventually.”

  “Yeah, it’s just whether or not we’ve got enough food to survive,” Andy said, his rubbing his hand up and down my outer thigh with a firm steady pressure. “You’re burning triple calories up here with the altitude and the cold.”

  “Do we have much food left?” An uncontrollable shiver caught me and wound its way from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. “You know, to keep us alive until it passes?”

  “Depends how long ‘til it dies out,” Lee said. “They can last for weeks.”

  Terror uncoiled within me, I looked past Lee’s face at the billowing fabric of the tent only a foot from my face, another two feet beyond that was a deathly drop through the elements. I began to shake even more than I had when I was cold. Every nerve and muscle in my body jumped around like a bouncing bean.

  “Hey, hey,” Lee said. “Stop worrying. It’s okay. We won’t let anything happen to you.” And then his lips were on mine. Pressing down firmly, dominantly, his tongue probed past my teeth and swept around the inside of my mouth.

  I squeaked and pushed at his chest. “What are you doing?” I said. “Lee…”

  “Taking your mind of it.”
His tongue swept across his bottom lip as though savouring my taste.

  “I’m married,” I said with a frown. “To Dean Mayer.”

  “Yeah, I know. Everyone on the planet knows. But he’s not here to distract you from the terror of being on Everest in a storm, is he?”

  “Or the discomfort of suffering from acute hypothermia,” Andy added as he snuggled his face into my nape. The soft bristles of his soul patch scratched at my skin. “Let us take your mind off it, Sapphire. I promise it’ll help.”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t.” Though the way Andy was making me melt by peppering little kisses towards my left ear was seriously reducing the conviction in my words.

  “But what if we all die up here,” Lee said, running his fingers through the messy hair at my temples and staring down at me. “And this is the last thing we could do for pleasure and we don’t take the opportunity?”

  How the hell did he know playing with my hair always did it for me? “No,” I whispered, though my body was disagreeing violently. I could feel my nipples hardening beneath the layers of clothes, jutting out eagerly for a harder connection with Lee’s chest. Andy nestled further into my back, his hard penis sending sparks of desire rushing through my veins and firing my nerves.

  “You’re even more beautiful in real life,” Lee said in a gravely voice and rubbing the pad of his thumb over my cheek. “I’ve admired you for years in films and magazines, but watching you climb in the mountains over the last week… well…” His gaze dropped to my mouth and his eyelids drooped. “I guess we’re lucky guys to see Sapphire Makepeace at her most glorious.”

  I knew he was only trying to appeal to my vanity, the vanity every actress has by the bucketful, but it was working. He was winning me over, not least because I knew at that moment in time I looked hideous. Deathly pale skin, long blonde hair tangled and un-brushed. Not a scrap of makeup or jewelry, not even my wedding ring. My only concession to being a woman was the small bottle of spiced Paris perfume I treasured like gold and sneakily applied several times a day.