“Oh my God, try the cauliflower,” I say as I trade her for the short ribs.
“Leave me the last one of those ribs,” she says in response.
I peer in the box. “There are still lots.”
“Mm-hmm. There may not be after you try them.”
She’s not wrong. I inhale three, licking my fingers in groaning delight after I reluctantly nudge the last one back in her direction.
When I’m stuffed, I stand up and walk slowly around the living room, not wanting to let my legs cramp up too much. It’s still early, although we need to get to bed in a couple of hours because tomorrow is an earlier start and a faster climb.
“How did today go?” I ask when the silence gets to be too much.
When I glance over at her, she shrugs. “Good. I’m happy.”
“No change to tomorrow’s plan?”
She shakes her head. “Nope.”
“Because I was thinking…” I trail off and start pacing again. Don’t overstep. “Today was quite do-able. So I can probably match your speed tomorrow. You know, if you wanted me to stay closer to you, rather than getting ahead.”
She gives me what can only be described as a ‘that’s cute’ smile. “I was going easy on you today.”
“That wasn’t necessary,” I protest. “I was going easy on you.”
She nods. “I know. That was nice of you. But tomorrow I’m going to want to sprint between shots. That’s not going to be possible for you with the packs. Trust me, I’ve done this exact climb dozens of times before. It’s not about your ability, I promise.”
I look out the window as I mutter my acceptance, but the disappointment disappears as I realize what I’m looking at. “Hey. You have a hot tub out there.”
“Yes?” She says it like there’s a trick to my statement.
“Can we use it? I’d love a soak.”
“Uh…Sure. I guess.” She reaches for her phone. “Let me double check that the caretaker has been testing the Ph levels. I never use it.”
I want to laugh, because who doesn’t use a hot tub they have at their personal disposal? She reminds me of Marcus so much in this moment. Strong and reserved and annoying self-contained, resistant to any human comfort.
But I don’t want to laugh at her. Only with her. So instead, I wait for her to confirm that yes, we can use it, she just needs to test the water and turn it on.
She dashes outside, and when she comes back in and smiles at me, I feel my face soften. I feel suddenly looser, happier, because of a whole bunch of reasons I don’t want to dig into. “I’m glad I brought a bathing suit.”
Her mouth drops open, then she nods as she takes a deep breath. “And maybe we need wine. I’ll get that while you, uh, get changed.”
Five minutes later, I find her in the kitchen, wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, searching for wine glasses. “I don’t think I have any up here,” she mutters. “Fuck it. Mason jars will do.” She grabs two and hands them to me before uncorking a bottle of what looks like very expensive white wine. “I should have opened this with dinner,” she says.
“We were too hungry to think straight.”
“I guess so.” She takes one of the filled mason jars from me and takes a slow, appreciative sip before gesturing for me to follow her out through the side door. The deck wraps around, but we’re still outside in the cool evening air in our bare feet. I hustle to the hot tub, where the rising steam rising promises to soothe all our aching muscles.
I drop my towel on the bench, set down my jar of wine, and climb into the water. I turn around just in time to see Astrid shrug out of her oversized bathrobe.
She’s wearing a sporty swim suit, black with blue dots down the side. Racing dots, I think as I follow them down the lean curve of her waist to where the suit is cut high on her hips. The muscles in her thigh flex as lifts her leg, and I jerk my head up to the sky to avoid staring at her.
“Ah ah ah ah,” she says, sinking into the water next to me. “Oooooh. That’s glorious. Ahhh.”
My eyes go wide as I listen to her superlative noises. I wonder what sort of noises she might make during sex, and my face pinks up.
“This is sooooo much better than an early bedtime,” she says quietly before sighing.
I manage to hold off my nosy question for at least a minute. Maybe even two. But I finally give in. “Why do you have a hot tub if you weren’t going to use it?”
She doesn’t take quite as long to answer, but there’s still a pause. “It’s a long story.”
I flick the water with my fingers. “If anyone else said that, I’d take it as an invitation to ask about the long story. Or maybe a warning that they were about to unload a secret.”
She grunts. “I don’t usually unload secrets.”
“But if I were to ask about the long story?”
“An ex-girlfriend liked the idea of a hot tub.”
“And the reality of it?”
“She only came up here once before we broke up. It never got used.”
I frown. Was that the same person Astrid thought might follow her to Vancouver to live in the big house?
“Different ex,” she says, reading my mind. “The one who I thought I might marry…that was a long time ago.”
“Ah.”
“How about you? Is there anyone waiting for you in Colorado?”
I think of Kaden and his big, warm hug goodbye at the airport. “No. I had a boyfriend. Have a friend, really. But we broke up before I came out here. I’m not going back there any time soon, and we weren’t cut out for the long-distance thing.”
She exhales, and I think about how that sounded to her. A boyfriend. I didn’t mean that like some sort of code. You told me you’re gay, and I told you I had a boyfriend. Clear? But it’s not clear. At all. I think about the curve of her hip, the lean stretch of her thigh, and those blue racing dots.
I think about the first girl I ever kissed, in grade seven. Those secret, sweet rubs against each other before I discovered how good a cock felt inside me.
My heart starts to race as we sit side by side, staring up at the stars.
“It’s a lovely hot tub,” I finally say. “I’m glad your ex convinced you to get it.”
“I should use it more often.” She laughs a little. “Maybe the caretaker uses it when I’m not here. The water is always perfect.”
I giggle with her. “Maybe the caretaker brings his?—her?—boyfriend or girlfriend up here for a secret soak.”
“And now we’re getting out,” she says, standing up.
Without thinking, I reach out to stop her. “I’m just kidding,” I say as my fingers circle her wrist.
My breath catches in my throat as she twists, looking down at me, at where I’m holding on to her.
“Sorry,” I whisper, dropping my hand, my fingers burning hotter than my cheeks. I stand, too, water sloshing around us. The cool night air bites at my skin, and I want to grab on to her again and drag her back under the warm, bubbling water. “Don’t get out.”
“I should…” She looks at me with a curious look on her face, and her head tilts to the side, just a little. She’s taller than me, but not like Kaden is. We’re almost the same size, she’s just longer. Longer torso, longer neck. She’s elegance to my compact functionality. The rest of us lines up pretty closely. Breasts to breasts, hips to hips.
Heat blooms there, low in my pelvis, as I think about her body.
I wonder if I get close enough, if I’ll catch any hint of her scent over the chlorine of the hot tub. Will she smell like the sheets on the guest bed in Vancouver? Sun-warmed lemons, rosemary and thyme?
“We don’t need to get out,” she finally says, brushing past me to sit again on the bench we were sharing before.
There are seats all around the tub.
Why did she settle in next to me?
And why am I doing exactly the same thing now? You know why. You like the press of her thigh against yours.
“Today was a good day,” she s
ays, her voice low and private. “And tonight is an even better night.”
I close my eyes and lean my head back so I’m not tempted to look at her face again. Like we’re just making conversation, except I’ve known this woman for forty-eight hours and so far, that’s not something she does.
I may not know much about her, but I know that.
I also know she’s a lesbian, and hot, and I’m picturing her naked right now.
You can’t screw your boss.
Well, no, of course not, but it’s not like she’s even paying me. Marcus said he’d take care of it, and he bought my plane ticket, and here I am. Wanting to wrap myself around his cousin and—
“There’s something delicious about anticipation.”
I blink my eyes open. “What?”
“That’s what I’ve learned over the years, anyway. Don’t you think?”
Sure. Maybe. God, no. That’s a crazy thought, when anticipation marches in lock-step with doubt, and I’m really not sure where my head is at right now.
If I’ve learned anything in the last week it’s that I am not always my own best guide. In life, in love, in any kind of decision making situation.
Lead me, Astrid. Show me what to do here.
She doesn’t do anything, though. She just sits there, gazing at me over the bubbling water with soft, knowing eyes. The same eyes that snap and tighten up when I’m not quick enough, when I stumble over my words. Now almost sweet as she rakes them over my face.
Anticipation. Maybe it is easier to want something, to live in that moment of hope and desire, than to reach for it and find out it isn’t what you thought it was.
Or realize it isn’t anything at all. A myth, a mirage, an illusion.
Are you an illusion, Astrid Dane?
Tonight is not the night for me to find out.
10
Astrid
I can’t blame the wine, because I haven’t drunk much of it. But when Brianne gives me a tired smile and nods toward the house, I still feel a sharp kick of regret.
“I should head inside. Pruny fingers, tired head,” she says.
“Yeah.” I lick my lips and shift away from her, painfully aware of…everything. The proximity of her body, her gorgeous youth, her innocent, wide-eyed expression. Her breasts.
I’m painfully aware of her breasts.
Only a twenty-three-year-old packs a black bikini “just in case”. It’s more sporty than sexy, except for those of us who find sporty very sexy, then it’s real life porn at my fingertips. Low-cut boy shorts that show off her well-defined abs, and a cropped tank top that lifted her breasts into round swells I could rub my face against for hours.
Hours.
I’m a terrible, horny, sex-deprived boss.
Boss, boss, boss.
Not really.
Sort of.
Oh, God. I take a big swallow of wine instead of watching her bottom twitch around the corner of the cabin.
I almost kissed her. Even worse, in my head it didn’t stop there, and I think she knew it.
This is inappropriate on so many levels, starting with the fact that she just broke up with a boyfriend, tripping over the fact that I’m her boss—and a bitchy one at that—and ending with the fact that she’s here because of Marcus.
Complicated? That’s an understatement.
I listen to her move through the cabin and watch the light in her room flick on. I drink more of my wine. Then the bathroom light. On for a few minutes, then off. I can’t hear her close her bedroom door, but I imagine it, and I finish my wine even though it’s not what will slake this particular thirst.
When I’m out of wine and done chastising myself, I close up the hot tub and head back inside to double-check that our packs are ready to go.
When I go to fill the coffee maker with grounds and water, I find she’s already done it.
Oh, my sweet little Brianne. Stop fucking tempting me with your goodness.
The next morning, we’re up and out of the house thirty minutes sooner than the day before. We don’t talk. She moves around me like a helpful ghost, and I try not to snarl. It’s easier once the camera is in my hands. I take a few shots of her with the packs on, the camera bag on her back, the day bag on her front.
She grins at me, and I’m glad I’ve got the camera between us so she can’t see me smiling in return.
It’s hard to capture the start of a hike when it’s still dark out. I use a portable tripod and do a couple of long exposures, but I don’t focus on this part. I can get this right on another day.
“Okay, you’re ready?”
She nods. “I’m going to climb at a fast but steady pace. You’re going to sprint like a bobcat with a camera around me.”
“Pretty much. Off you go.”
She has instructions to pause every hour on the hour if she hasn’t seen me recently, so I can rehydrate and touch base. And maybe she does that, or maybe we’re just climbing in synch, because I’m catching her a fair bit, but then she’s disappearing again, leaving me to just do this thing that I want to do.
I’m not even sure if these photos will turn into anything good, or if they’ll look like some travel YouTuber’s GoPro stills.
But I’m loving what I see through the lens. I capture some wildlife, and a lot of the path. It occurs to me as I go that this many shots would be another good project to duplicate in a decade. I could devote my entire life to documenting these mountains, and I’d never capture it all.
But I have to try. I think of the changes we know about over the last century, and it pains me that there are many we don’t know about because the photographs simply don’t exist.
The second time I catch up to her, she has a protein bar out. “Hungry yet?”
“Maybe for half.”
She breaks it into two and holds out the bigger half. I take it, ignoring the way my insides twist when our fingers touch.
“Thanks.”
Next she hands me a water bottle, and I take a couple of good sips before passing it back.
“Good to go again?” she asks.
“Yep. Thanks.”
She nods and heads up the trail, her legs steady and strong as she powers away from me. Once I’m alone, I lift my camera again to capture this point in the path.
You should have taken her picture with the protein bar.
I will at the next stop, I promise myself. And then I roll my shoulders and get back to work.
The rest of the day goes exactly as planned. Brianne is where I need her, when I need her, and politely elsewhere when I want to be left alone with my camera. The pictures are good, too. I feel a mounting excitement as we near the final climb. I change out the memory card again, then up we head. It’s hard to take pictures when I need my hands to make any progress, but I get a couple. I think they’ll capture the chaotic steepness here, the slide of loose rocks and the peak just ahead.
When we get there, Brianne jumps up and down, laughing as she rubs her thighs. “Fucking yes!” she crows, tossing her fist in the air. “Ah-mazing.”
I snap her victorious grin, then carefully do a couple of three-hundred-sixty degree turns, recording the view on my camera, then I flip back to still images and take some super wide angle shots, too. Those are just for fun. The distortion won’t work for the exhibit, but I like to get it all. Maybe I can do an outtakes off-shoot.
“All good?” Brianne asks, her breath still ragged.
I lower my camera and reach for her hand, squeezing her fingers in gratitude. “All very good. Thank you. You were so helpful today.”
She points back down the path. “We’ll have company soon.”
I nod. “Okay, let’s head back down.”
She wriggles out of the two backpacks, and I stow the camera away before we have some water and food and enjoy the view. It’s cool, and there’s snow on the peaks opposite the valley below us, but the sun is shining and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than in this exact moment.
I can’
t stop grinning.
And I like the little, pleased looks Brianne keeps sneaking my way.
“Hot tub again tonight?” I ask as we put on the packs. I’m done with shooting for today, so I’ll carry the camera bag back down.
She beams at me. “You know it. We’ve earned it for sure.”
11
Brianne
We settle into a good routine over the next week. There are two cold, rainy days, where we stay inside. I read while Astrid works on her computer, pouring over the pictures she’s taken so far. I didn’t realize how much post-production work she’d do here, but it’s a good way to use the time when we can’t climb.
I’m starting to have some seriously inappropriate thoughts about other things we could do to pass the time, but I bury them deep—at least while I’m awake.
My dreams are filled with Astrid. Kisses, endless kisses, and whispered demands. I wake up hot and achey in a very empty bed, and lie there staring at the ceiling wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do about a crush on my boss that’s quickly spiralling out of control.
She hasn’t done anything to encourage me, not after that first night in the hot tub. I wonder if I had a narrow window of opportunity there and I blew it without knowing I wouldn’t get another chance.
I wasn’t ready then. Am I ready now? Who the fuck knows?
But my thighs rub restlessly together, my pussy swells hot and slick, and my body knows. I’m ready, if I can get over my nerves and just say something.
The last few days at the cabin are glorious. Colder now, and there’s more snow on the peaks each day.
On the last day before we’re going to drive back to Vancouver, she takes me on her favourite hike, which requires canoeing across a lake first to find the trail head. We are the only people on the trail the entire day, and it’s incredible.
There’s a moment just before we get back in the canoe when I think she might kiss me, but she clears her throat and moves away.
Say. Something. It’s like a drum beat in my head as we paddle back to the truck.
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