I'd taken Nadia's motherly advice, or command depending on how I looked crosswise at it, and headed out with Kabe in tow. Behind, below and around us the world spread out.
Folding rolls of pine covered mountain and bare swept plains of rock marched off beyond where my eyes could even follow.
God's country.
One of my secret spots, know a few, the kind I never tell other climbers about 'cept for a few I got to climb with. They ain't all that dangerous or high up on the Yosemite Scale, but they usually have decent enough pitches to get my heart rate up and put me through a workout. Mostly they're pretty and out where no one else is gonna mess with you. On a known wall, you might have to wait while someone finishes the last leg, rappels down or share their protection going up. I don't like climbing in rush hour traffic.
This place I called Flattop. Not the most poetic of names—
no Angel's Backbone or Candy Mountain—but it fit. All the way up I got to listen to Kabe bad-mouth the face. "It's shit rock." He grumbled. "The holds are manky." He'd moan. "I could do this pitch in my sleep."
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"Wait for it." I kept telling him. "Gotta be patient." I knew he wanted a challenge and here I was forcing him through kindergarten for rock junkies. Sometimes you just gotta wade through the manure to find the pony.
The up the wall, set a cam or two, watch Kabe's hang above me and listen to him bellyache dance went on for a bit.
This was supposed to be my party, my getting back to my center little hoe-down. I did not get put in jail and then I get a call from my boss that I'm back in uniform. 'Course, I'd been throwing up like crazy since before my court hearing from just nothing but nerves. Since then, I'd be fine for several hours and then the shakes'd hit. At least I didn't lose my lunch. Last night Kabe just held me till I calmed down some. But I was fine up here.
So, I guess even Kabe's moaning couldn't put me in too bad a mood. At least that gave me plenty of time to watch his butt and think about how I was going to have to smack some of the whine straight out of it; drawn out foreplay at a hundred feet up.
Kabe hauled himself over the lip first, stood to reason as I let him have lead. "Holy fucking shit," drifted down to me and I had to smile even with the cursing 'cause I knew what he'd just caught sight of. Not too long after, I hauled myself above the rim. And there it was, what I'd meant to show him, a playground for Kabe. It sounded damn wrong to my own ears, but what else could I call it.
"Holy Motherfucking shit." Kabe breathed again. He rested on his haunches and stared across a flat plateau 'bout twenty feet across ... not quite big enough to be called a mesa but a 257
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heck of a lot more than a party ledge. I knew what caught his eye. That's why I brought him up here. It didn't go far up, but where the rise took off again looked like some giant had upended a tub of building blocks and then melted them all into a lumpy, crevassed jumble. Boulderers' heaven. You could be not more than five feet off the dirt and pulling stunts that people paid good money to watch in Vegas shows.
I walked over to Kabe and slapped his back. "There you go." Then I started the process of unknotting the belay. I loosed my prussic and hung it off one clip so I could get to the rest of the rope.
Kabe looked up at me, shading his eyes with his hand.
"Bouldering?" He said it all snide. His face, though, didn't show nothing of the same spite. "You brought me all the way up here to boulder?" The attitude he gave off was that of a kid who just got the toy they really wanted, but maybe thought they should be too old to be excited about.
"You said you wanted a workout, there it is." Shrugging as I started untangling him from the pro I'd set in the ridge ages ago. My one concession to practicality, two permanently anchored bolts and a chain; too much flat surface to hunt bolting spots each time I came up. "It ain't fancy. It ain't high." Kinda swept my arm absently off in the direction of the rock pile. "But you monkey around on that enough you'll be ready to tackle Spiderfingers over in Kolob Canyon in no time flat."
Oh yeah, he grinned like a kid on Christmas morning.
"Okay." He stood and started pulling, tidying ropes. "You doing it with me?"
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"Sure." Why not, I needed the practice of getting in and out of tight little spots. People who fell, who by rights I had to bring out, tended to go down in inaccessible slot canyons and crevasses. "I'll do a bit with you."
I played for a while, letting Kabe know I could. There were places where it was all I could do to shove my hands in slotwise. My toes were above my head and I got nothing but two fingers of each hand in a crack and reaching back behind my own butt. And that was me and my chunky form of too big for this kind of climbing. I knew the drill, that my legs counted far more than my biceps for keeping me on a wall, but I wasn't no half-starved teenage gal to wrap myself
'round some of those moves. After a bit of the pretzel routine, I just moved off and watched him.
I don't like spiders, just my thing, but there ain't no other way to describe how he moved across some of those spans. I swear there weren't no finger or toe holds to be had and he's taking the bottom side of an overhang and making it look easy. Kabe, who was all lithe and limber, played around like gravity didn't apply to him. One hand on the side of a boulder, the other latched into the bottom face and he's curling and uncurling between rocks like a length of ribbon wound through a belay.
All through it there's that pained snarl on his face. I call it a climber's grin, 'cause it says I've got my soul invested here, I'm sweating half my weight in water out and I got blister-flaps coming off my hands ... and I'd still rather be here than anywhere else I can think of.
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I chugged down some water and licked my lips. There's foreplay and then there's waiting too long for what you want.
Screwing down the cap before I shoved the bottle back in my belt, I called out. "Hey!" It took a couple repeats to get Kabe's attention. When I did, he's squatting like a kid playing at being a frog, knees bent, hands touching the ground between his feet ... 'cept Kabe's upside down, latched into a rock about twenty feet up. "Get over here!"
He uncurled, locked into whatever space his fingers could find, moving his feet to get a different purchase. "Why?" That took balls. Most times climbers wanted to keep three points on a wall. Gave you balance and stamina.
I just shook my head. Kabe wasn't most climbers. "Just get your butt over 'side me."
He scuttled down that wall and let himself swing out from the face and drop down the last five feet. Jumping from boulder to boulder, he headed toward me. "What?"
Crossing my arms over my chest, I glowered at him. "I ain't heard it yet." Hard to keep the grin from taking over though. Lean brown and toned body covered in sweat ...
boy'd dropped his shirt about half an hour back.
"Heard what?" He ran his hand through his hair and grinned. Took his sweet time ambling over. I could tell by the way he moved he was watching me watching him. And liked it.
When he got close, I reached out and hooked a finger into his harness, that big thick belt around his middle, and reeled him in. "Thank you." Lord he smelled good, all that exertion busting across his skin and daring me to taste it.
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"Right," he snorted, pushing me away like it wasn't nothing, my bringing him here. "Whatever, dude." I got a roll of his eyes on top of it all. "You go ahead and think you're gonna get one. I ain't fucking impressed."
I spun him, 'cause he was off balance, leaning back, and I had a good twist point with my fingers in his harness. Took me all of a second and I turned him over a rock and swatted him hard with my other hand. "I told you about using that word!" I laughed it out. Even through those fanc
y shorts of his, I felt the burn. I'd meant to just tease him a bit, but hearing the sound as my palm smacked down and Kabe's yelp woke up that same feeling, the one I'd gotten in my cabin that night. I'd thought then it was maybe anger or fear or both. There weren't none of that going on here.
I just liked it ... liked it more than I'd imagined.
He twisted and tried to scramble away. Didn't even think, just latched my hand hard into his harness and drug him back into my reach. Kabe weren't getting away from me.
There was that muscled back, all sweaty and streaked with dust, and it fueled my fancy something awful. Those expensive, tight climbing shorts clung to his butt like a second skin. Kabe glared over his shoulder, sweat damp hair clinging to his face and fight blowing up the green and gold in his eyes. It burned through me in a flash, dropped all my blood south. His legs strained as he pushed against the rock to get away from me. That's where all the body's power lay, but even Kabe couldn't move past my mule streak. 'Specially not when I wanted something.
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Yanking my prussic off my rack, I dropped the cord down until the knot sat tight in my hand—that knot'd hurt too much if it caught him. Then I hauled off and whacked him with the open loop. The blow caught him half on his belt and half on his back, kinda high up. A red half circle bloomed on his skin.
Nothing ever looked quite so pretty to my eyes. I leaned into his body then, pressing him right between me and the rock,
"Whatever don't cut it, boy."
"Fuck you!" He spit out. Couldn't take it too serious with that wicked grin on his face. Plus, Kabe never used that word against me. He knew I didn't like the cussing. Boy did it on purpose, egging me on. I don't know how to explain the difference, but I knew. He fought against me, but he didn't fight me. The point of all the writhing and squirming wasn't to get away. Naw, he just didn't want to make it easy on me.
I kept my grip tight, brought that piece of rope up and laid it back down across his back. The sound of rope striking flesh thundered in my pulse. A red half moon appeared right between his shoulder blades and Kabe gasped. I ain't never been gripped by anything like it. Just took over, my blood replaced by this need that I didn't quite understand. Reached out with that hand, rope tight in my fingers, and used my thumb to trace it. Kabe's shudder ran straight up my arm and down into my balls. It hit me so intense I didn't even think. I hauled off and belted him again down around his butt and his thighs. Maybe ten times I struck him, each and every one of them amped my senses to breaking. Kabe bucked, twisted and moaned like he was getting balled, pleading my name in a way that begged for the whooping not to end ... ever.
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Shaking, all overcome, I pulled back. Staggered off a might, leaned against an outcrop of rock and stared at what I'd wrought on Kabe's skin. A golden flush swept his cheeks and neck. Those half moons where the rope bit into him went deep cherry and over marked each other. The picture of him—lying trembling on the boulder, sweating, with his fingers dug hard into the rock and his butt thrust up in the air—seared into my mind. My fantasies could live off that for a lifetime. I swallowed a couple of times before I managed to croak out, "Kabe?"
"Fuck, Joe," He hissed, his eyes coming open maybe half way, "please." Kabe hauled himself up on his hands and knees, licked his lips and breathed out, "Now."
I laughed a little, him like that. "Come get it." Honest, I should have gone to him. Helped him. Somehow I knew that Kabe'd like it better this way. Me ordering him around touched him ... touched me in a way I weren't right ready to acknowledge. Least right then I didn't have to think, just do.
"Get your butt over to me."
Instead of getting up like I expected, Kabe crawled. Maybe he couldn't stand 'cause he was shaking so hard, but I liked to think that he moved that way for me; somewhere between a skittish colt and a mountain lion stalking. It was as pretty as the canyons behind him. He got to my feet, leaned in and licked my ankle. Shudders shot up me so hard my gear jangled. I had so much wood in my pants that it pulled the legs of my shorts up into my harness.
Kabe looked up at me. Lord, that boy's eyes were wicked.
I swallowed and hissed out, "Yeah, you can keep that going."
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He grinned and then ran his tongue along my shin. The wet trail cooled on my skin and mixed with the heat of Kabe's breath. I didn't think anything could feel so intense. Both of us shook while he licked every inch of my skin, working his way up my body. When he made it to my mouth and kissed me, I groaned hard. Both of us felt like rocks pressed into each other.
I kissed him for a long, long while. My hands wrapped on either side of his face pinned him and wouldn't let him pull away. I didn't want Kabe to ever pull away from me. Let the mountains fall and the stars burn out, I'd never let him go.
Our tongues tangled all in each other's mouths. What I couldn't just yet say to him in words—how much he meant to me, how my heart felt like bursting every time he smiled—I tried to put through in that kiss. And I felt it right back. He needed me. Kabe wanted me. Maybe he even loved me a little. About that point I could have exploded with it all.
Course, both of us needed something fierce right then.
One of Kabe's arms stretched out behind my neck, latching him in to the rock good. The other he got looped behind my head, allowing me to kiss and lick that tight chest that tasted all of dried sweat and dust. Then he walked his legs up the boulder on either side of me. Lord, Kabe was made of rubber he was so flexible. Kabe rubbed his prick just under my sternum. Didn't hold on to him none, instead I unhooked my harness while he hung around me. Anybody who could hold himself on sheer wall with his fingers and toes could manage this. A little shifting, a little twisting and my gear dropped around my ankles. Shorts didn't follow it long after.
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"What are you doing, Joe?" He managed to pant it out between kisses.
The two little bits I'd rescued from my pocket crinkled in my hand. "I thought you said anytime." I reached around him, tucked a little packet of lube that definitely smelled nothing like coconut into the waistband of Kabe's harness
"Here?" That laugh was near perfect.
"Yep." I licked his neck as I tore into the wrapper of the less metallic bit of protection I needed. "Game?"
"Fuck, yeah." Kabe breathed it out as he humped my belly.
I managed to tug his shorts off his butt and around his thighs. "Save that thought." Got them all hung up in his Mana harness. If I pushed him up enough the shorts bared his hole and tangled his balls all up in rip stop nylon. Kabe laughed, figuring what I was going for. He hooked his ankles on my shoulder. I think I ain't seen nothing prettier in a long time.
A little shifting and I retrieved the lube from where it'd got stuck under his harness. Pinched him a little I bet, but Kabe humped harder and kissed deeper when I did. Then I slicked myself, had to do it that way, and angled as best I could. I pushed up and in, all slow. Kabe relaxed and kinda slid down.
Both of us moaned long and hard. Had to spread my legs out wide to hold us up.
Kabe's ankles and hands both wrapped around the back of my neck. My fingers, coated in chalk, dug into his butt cheeks. Then I got my back braced on the rock and I thrust up in him like mad. His hole opened up and took me in.
Although that angle ... I ain't never been inside someone so tight.
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My shirt rucked up between us and his balls rolled under his shorts against my belly. His prick, hard enough to burst, was wedged between his body and mine and trapped in nylon. He writhed against me ... felt his arms shake with the strain of getting pounded, holding himself on my shoulders and being on the verge. I moved one arm up to cradle his back so he would
n't fall.
His little sharp gasps of, "Joe!" boiled through my blood.
My nerves had been flayed to breaking. After all of it, my body couldn't hold back. I rocked us hard and fast, just pounded his ass. Fire lit me up, swept clean through my soul and out my prick. I hauled him hard against me as I rode it out. Waves of heat and cold stripping me bare for him. When I kinda could get back focus, I moved to kiss him. Kabe laughed and I knew why. His shorts were all slick. Heck, I ain't never plowed anyone and made them cum from just that. 'Course, could be the rubbing himself off in his shorts had something to do with it.
He unwrapped himself, wobbly as a newborn calf, and slid.
I still held him, wouldn't ever let him fall whether it was two or two-hundred feet. Not that I was in much better shape. We kinda staggered over to the whipping rock—I'd remember that name from here 'till forever—where he collapsed down on his belly. Kabe fumbled a bit and found his water. Seemed all he could do just to chug it down.
"You okay?" I tugged my shirt down and worked the condom off my prick.
He turned his face. A lazy smile broke as he chuckled,
"Better than." I guess we was all good then.
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I crawled back a bit just to watch him there and get my shorts. Couldn't stop looking as I pulled them on. His legs all spread out, bare brown and cut with sinew. Black straps on his thighs, blue fabric bunched up against it, then nekkid tan ass and another thick back strap 'round his middle. My handprints, white from the chalk, covered his legs and back and butt. Here and there I could see the red welts from the rope where I'd marked his skin. I ain't never seen nothing quite like it.
Something deeper worked in me too. I wanted to take care of him, keep him safe. It rushed over me, drowned me down in feelings I just weren't used to. Like my mama said, you find the right person and you know it ... in your gut, your head and your heart. That boy had done worked himself so fast in there. I couldn't have outrun it if I wanted to.
I sure didn't want to.
Kabe's exhausted voice cut into my thoughts. "Hey, Joe."
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