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Hannah lay on the sofa bed, breathing in the smell of Rob on the sheets and trying to ignore the throbbing ache between her legs. Yes, it was a bad idea, and she would almost certainly regret it in the long run. But right now she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more.
Club Colina TITS on Tour
Gaynor: Hey Han, how was the first day of your road trip?
Hannah: It was fun! Drove along the coast, won a dog in a tennis match, now in Granada
Jess: You won a DOG? Like a toy dog at the fairground?
Hannah: No, an actual dog. It’s a long story.
Trish: Wait, so you and Rob now own a dog? Oh my GOD.
Gaynor:
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hannah had done a decent amount of hiking over the years, mostly alone in the Lake District or on the South Downs while Graham poked around local churches and museums. He claimed to have various weak ligaments and tendons due to ancient rugby injuries, and he always avoided places that might involve pollen. She’d tried several times to persuade him to go to the Alps in the summer, but he didn’t like flying much either. Although interestingly he’d managed it on a number of occasions for stag weekends or city breaks with his mother. With hindsight, the issue was possibly less about travelling, and more about travelling with Hannah.
But Graham wasn’t here, and Rob was very much up for a day’s hiking. They packed water and snacks and food for Scrumpy, then drove half an hour to the town of Monachil where the trail began. It wasn’t a difficult hike but it was fun, taking a winding path through a jungly canyon along a river, passing over wobbly hanging bridges and stopping to cool their feet in the river.
‘Where’s Scrumpy?’ asked Hannah, handing Rob a bottle of water from the bag. They’d experimented with letting him off the lead for a few minutes at a time, keeping a close eye on him in case he strayed too far. But he seemed keen to stay close to his new source of food and love, so they let him run free apart from the sections where the path followed the steep canyon wall.
‘He’s chilling his paws over there,’ said Rob, pointing to a large rock in the middle of the babbling river. Hannah leaned forward to watch Scrumpy running back and forth into a large, deep waterhole, his tongue hanging out in a huge doggy grin. She felt a punch of guilt that they were taking him to a shelter tomorrow and wondered if he would understand that this was just a holiday and not real life.
‘I feel bad about taking him to a shelter tomorrow,’ said Rob.
Hannah smiled. ‘I was just thinking the same thing. You and he make a good team.’
‘I’ve been thinking about whether I could ship him home,’ he said. ‘But I don’t officially have a job or anywhere to live, so that’s problematic.’
‘I don’t think it’s a very simple or cheap process either,’ said Hannah, watching Scrumpy scramble out of the pool, shake himself frantically, then immediately jump back in. ‘My friend Sam looked into it after he fell in love with this stray dog in Cyprus. There are loads of vet loopholes to jump through, and I think it takes a while.’
‘Months, possibly,’ said Rob. ‘I looked it up.’
Hannah looked him in the eye. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You saved him from a horrible life with Javier, and we’ll make sure he ends up somewhere better.’
Rob nodded and gave her a weak smile. ‘Just so you know, I’m having a really nice day.’
‘Me too,’ said Hannah. ‘And this trip is all about living in the moment, remember? So let’s get in Scrumpy’s water hole.’
Rob laughed, his eyes twinkling. ‘I don’t have my swim shorts.’
She thought momentarily of Nick and Aaron on the boat, and what Rob might look like naked. ‘Then you can swim in your underwear, like me.’
He gave her a challenging look, then dropped his backpack and stripped to his black boxer briefs, picking his way through the rocks as Scrumpy jumped around his heels with excitement. Hannah followed suit, glad that she was wearing a robust sports bra and black knickers that were new and covered a decent amount of her backside.
‘Are you ready?’ she asked, joining him at the edge of the water. She held out her hand and Rob took it, like the two of them holding hands was the most natural thing in the world. He smiled shyly, and for a second it was hard to imagine that this man chewed through women like Scrumpy with last night’s chorizo.
‘After three,’ said Hannah, but Rob didn’t wait – he held tight to Hannah’s hand and jumped, pulling her into the freezing water. Scrumpy hurled himself in after them, swimming in excited circles as they both whooped and gasped for breath.
‘Fuck, that feels amazing,’ said Rob, swimming to the edge where he could stand on a ledge in water up to his shoulders.
‘It really does,’ said Hannah, relishing the feeling of the dust and sweat from the hike being washed away. She swam around for a minute, letting herself adjust to the icy water, then climbed up the slope to sit on a flat, sunny rock.
She could feel Rob’s eyes taking in her body and tried not to feel self-conscious about it. She knew she had what was considered a ‘good’ body – strong and athletic and but still retaining some womanly curves, whatever they were. She’d spent her whole life covering it up, making herself invisible in clothes that were too big or didn’t flatter her. She’d never consciously put herself on show this way before, at least not in front of any man who wasn’t Graham. Sitting on a sunny rock in wet underwear, Rob breaking his neck to look without it being obvious, made her feel strangely powerful, somehow, like she’d shed her cocoon and could enjoy being a butterfly for a while.
‘You look great,’ said Rob, as if he was reading her mind. ‘Very in the moment, with the rocks and the trees and everything. You should let me take a photo.’
