“Let’s go or you’re going to miss your chance to play on the rocks. You can ravish me when we get home.”
We drove to one of his favorite places to boulder and he found a shady spot for me to sit next to the problem he was climbing, as I’d learned it was called in bouldering. On the way over, I’d been informed that bouldering was like rock climbing without the ropes and the mat we’d slept on was a crash pad to land on when you fell or jumped down. What he hadn’t explained was how devastatingly sexy it would be to watch him doing it.
“Do you want to give it a shot?” he shouted without looking at me. He was focused on swinging his arm forward to grab another groove in the rock as he propelled himself upward with his feet.
“Fuck no. But by all means continue. I’m enjoying the view,” I called back, pulling my sunglasses down to peer over the top at him.
“Why do I feel like I’m being objectified?” he muttered.
Dear Goddess was he being objectified. Why had no one told me about bouldering before now? It played to all of my kinks. He was demonstrating feats of strength, shirtless and sweaty, using his quick mind to see options that didn’t occur to me. And his body. The rippling muscles were magnificent as always, but there was more to it than that. He was happy here and that joy was infectious.
I was deeply honored he’d wanted to share this with me and as I kept watching, I found myself wanting to express that to him somehow.
I didn’t have any idea what I was doing, but I reached down to unfasten my wedge sandals. I set them on the ground and walked over to the crash pad barefoot on the warm desert rock.
“Okay, I lied,” I said. “I’ll try it.” I stood on the crash pad and waited for him to finish the part he was on, but he swung down and explained the things I couldn’t see.
“You’re going to work your way along this horizontal crack, getting a little higher as you go, but it doesn’t get that far off the ground. I’ll spot you, my lady.”
I felt like an idiot as I scrambled up to reach the start of the crack, but his delight was worth it. Goddess knew he’d been out of his comfort zone enough times with me in the last month.
“You sure you want to do this barefoot?” he asked, helping me to find a hold with my foot. “The rock is pretty rough. You might mess up that perfect pedicure.”
“I’ve got time to fix it before I see clients again.”
I wished I hadn’t brought it up. Clients meant the end of our contract and I wasn’t ready to think about that.
He had to help me get back up few times, and I didn’t move very fast, but I slowly made my way along the rock.
“You want to keep going up?” He pointed to the sharp upturn the crack took.
“I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead,” I said and jumped down onto the crash pad.
He took my hands and stroked his thumbs over each of my chalk-covered palms. “I’m impressed you gave it a try. Thank you for coming out here with me.”
“Thank you for sharing it with me.”
Over his shoulder, I could see a couple of guys standing taking pictures of us. “It seems the real world has caught up with us.” I nodded to the guys who weren’t even trying to be subtle.
He growled in frustration. “Then before we go let’s at least give them something worth taking pictures of.”
He kissed me deeply, grabbing my ass to pull me closer. I melted in his arms.
When he eventually pulled back, he said, “Let’s go face the music.”
37
Alex
Icould feel Elena was awake, but she hadn’t looked at me yet. What would today bring? Would she look at me with the adoration I’d seen in the desert? Or now that we were home would we be back to the aloof woman who wouldn’t hold my hand?
She rolled on top of me and met my eyes, expression serious at first, then a smile more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen spread across her face. The glow in her eyes from the day before was still there.
I kissed her so I would have something to do with my mouth besides blurting, “I love you, Elena.”
She broke the kiss laughing. “You’re going to have to feed me before we start that again. You don’t want the dominatrix to get hangry.”
While I worked on making us something for breakfast, she was transfixed by her phone.
