Blackwolf's Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page A

people descending a mountain. His improvised rope wasn’t long enough or strong enough or—
    Thunder rumbled from somewhere behind the mountain. She looked up. Dark clouds were moving in. The sky looked ominous. Nerves made her sweep the tip of her tongue over her lips….
    And she tasted him.
    Anger. Power. Determination. And the darker tastes of man and desire.
    “Ready?”
    She blinked. The man was wrapping one end of the joined belts around his wrist. It was a big wrist but it matched the rest of him. His height. His shoulders. His powerful arms, ridged abdomen, long legs…
    “Keep looking at me like that,” he said in a low voice, “you’re asking for trouble.”
    A flush rose in Sienna’s face. “What’s your name?”
    He looked at her as if she were crazy. Maybe she was, but before she stepped into space, real or imagined, it seemed she should at least know who he was.
    “Does it matter?”
    She turned, shot a glance at the yawning distance between them and the canyon floor. Then she looked at him.
    “Yes,” she said stubbornly. “It does.”
    Just when she thought he wasn’t going to answer, he shrugged those big shoulders.
    “It’s Jesse.”
    Sienna stared at him. “Jesse?”
    “Jesse Blackwolf.”
    “But—but—”
    “You wanted my name. You’ve got it. Now, let’s get moving before that storm hits.”
    “But…” she said again, and he grabbed her wrist.
    “No more talking. You got that?”
    She got it, all right. Besides, what could she say? How could she possibly tell him that he could not, absolutely could not be who he said he was, that Jesse Blackwolf, if he’d turned up, was in his sixties? So she kept quiet as he wrapped a section of the belt around her wrist, secured it, then gave it a tug that seemed to meet with his satisfaction.
    “Do everything I do,” he said. “Concentrate on—” He grabbed her by the shoulders, hoisted her to her toes. “Listen to me, if you want to survive. The rules are simple.”
    “Rules?” she said, with a nervous laugh.
    “Rules. Five of them. Do not look down. Do not look up. Keep your eyes on your hands and feet and on me. Pay attention to what I say. Obey what I say, without question. Understand?”
    She didn’t have enough saliva in her mouth to answer. Instead, she nodded her head, but the truth was, the only thing she actually understood was that she’d never been so scared in her life.
    He turned his back to her and took a step forward.
    “Wait!”
    He looked over his shoulder, face taut with impatience.
    “What now?”
    “How—I mean, what, exactly, am I supposed to do?”
    “I just told you.”
    “No. I mean—I mean, I’ve seen people climb rocks. Should I search for handholds? Dig my toes into the crevices? Stay in one place until I’ve found the next—”
    “Are you deaf, woman? You do what I do. Nothing else. And stop trying to analyze everything. This is a mountain. The ground is forty feet down. There’s a score of places in between where we can break our necks.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”
    Trust him? A man who couldn’t possibly exist, standing with her on a mountain she couldn’t possibly have climbed? A man who snapped orders like a general but looked like a savage and thought that the way to handle a woman who asked questions and proved she had a brain was to kiss her into submission?
    “You have no other choice.”
    It was as if he’d heard what she was thinking.
    And he was right. What could she do but step off into space behind him? Maybe she was dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or whatever you did when you were unconscious. Maybe, indeed, but she was stuck up here, anyway, with no way down except this.
    A whimper inched its way into her throat. She tried to stop it. Too late. Jesse Blackwolf, the man who called himself Jesse Blackwolf, had obviously heard it.
    “Scared?”
    What was the logic in lying? Still, she wasn’t going to sound pathetic about it.
    “Damned