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“It’s pretty nice from here.”
“Are you talking about my ass?” she teased, then realized immediately that she’d relaxed and said something weird. She barely knew this guy and now they had her ass hanging between them for the rest of the hike, both literally and figuratively.
She stopped abruptly and stammered, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why?” he asked, his voice closer. “The view of your ass is fucking spectacular.”
She groaned and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Maybe it is, but I shouldn’t have said it.”
When he chuckled, she realized he was standing next to her now. She peeked between her fingers and grimaced. “Every time I let my guard down, I say the wrong things, Gabe. Every time.”
“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. We can have an hour-long conversation about your ass right now. It wouldn’t bother me in the least.”
“You’re just being nice,” she countered.
“I’m not sure you understand the male mind. Maybe you really are a terrible advice columnist.”
She laughed. He always managed to make her laugh. “You have a good point. Let’s just keep going, and hopefully, I won’t have the breath to say anything else.”
She didn’t have to wait long. They hit a portion of the trail that was steep enough for switchbacks and she was soon panting for oxygen. There wasn’t much of it at this altitude.
She was able to push through to the top, but she stopped to breathe once she hit more level ground. “You wouldn’t believe,” she rasped, “how hard this was...when I got here from New York.”
Gabe held up a hand and took a few deep breaths. “I just got here two weeks ago. I’m still—” he took another deep breath “—acclimating.”
“Oh, thank God.” She dropped onto a boulder with a flat top and dug her water bottle from her pack. “We’d better take a break, then.”
He joined her on the rock. At first she was distracted by the way his chest moved with each breath. It was strange to see him breathing hard and a little sweaty. Intimate and unexpected.
His knee brushed hers, and she tried to take in every detail of his muscled thigh in the quickest of glances. She liked the way it looked next to hers. He was tan and hairy next to her smooth leg. If they were already sleeping together, she’d put her hand on his knee and slide it up. She’d let her fingers edge under his shorts and tease him with a touch on the inside of his thigh. God. Would he get hard for her? Would he drag her hand higher and make her feel what she’d done to him?
She didn’t know. She didn’t know if sex could really be as good as she’d heard. Every time she’d messed around with a guy, she’d ended up disappointed. She’d been...removed. Unmoved. Completely clearheaded and disoriented by how much the guy seemed to be into it when she felt as though she were acting out a scene from tenth-grade health class.
Hell, she’d been more aroused by Gabe’s kiss than she had been by anything the last guy she’d dated had done, and that included the time he’d gone down on her. That had mostly consisted of her staring at the ceiling for two minutes before telling him she was fine. He’d popped up so quickly, it had been clear he’d been waiting to be excused.
But with Gabe...just looking at his thigh turned her on. She wasn’t even sure she cared that he might be throwing her a bone. She’d take that bone. She’d take it good.
Veronica glanced at her phone. “We’d better go. We’ve only got about thirty minutes before we should head down. Are you ready?”
“I think I can handle it.”
The trail widened as it looped through a high meadow, and Gabe could walk next to her now. The tufts of dried grass left after winter were pierced by green shoots, and a few tiny yellow flowers dusted the field. Almost all of the aspen were brightening up with green, though a few still shivered with fuzzy seeds.
“So you’ve never been up here for a climb?” she asked.
“No, there’s only one decent rock-climbing area close to town. The rock in this area is too brittle. Not ideal to have chunks falling out when you’re trying to anchor. All the decent climbing spots are a good hour out, and that doesn’t include the time you might need to hike in.”
“So it takes a full day?”
“Well, it depends how early you want to get up. During the summer, it pays to head out before dawn. The main rock faces are swarming with tourists.”
Veronica remembered hearing that complaint when she was growing up here. How difficult it was to get space for climbing or skiing or camping once the season started, but she’d never paid much attention.
At the top of the meadow, the trail cut into the aspen. Veronica heard the rushing of fast water ahead and smiled. “The creek is still high,” she said. “We’re lucky. This time last year it was a trickle.”
She hurried to get to the creek. It always looked like a postcard to her, the way the water danced and foamed over the jagged stones, dropping down in dozens of little waterfalls as it made its way down the mountain. The last of the sunlight glinted off still pools, and the shadows of shaking aspen leaves chased dark spots over the light.
“I love it here,” she said.
