“You’re supposed to be the incapacitated one,” she breathed, toying with the sodden,
braided hemp at his wrist.
His voice scalded her skin. “Rope’s wet. It’s lost its power.” A strong hand moved
down her back, along her waist, around her hip. She did as it asked, widening her
stance, and he cupped her sex.
“Oh.”
The heat of his hand grew with each second, and her blood flooded eagerly to the
spot. For long moments he did nothing more than hold his palm to her. Then the length
of one finger pressed along her lips, then drew back, glancing her clit. She shivered,
shocked by the contact and by the cold that palmed her in Rob’s stead. The air prickled
as she looped her arms around his neck, every sensation electrified. His touch was
soft, slow, subtle, but it stoked her excitement as readily as the most brazen friction.
He abandoned her sex to tug at her waistband. “Can I . . . ?”
She did it for him, pushing her panties down and letting them float around her feet,
tethered to one ankle. Then, she shocked herself—she grasped her bra’s band and peeled
the thing up and over her head. Without a thought. Without scanning for witnesses.
Without fear. She gave the thing a mighty lassoing twirl and flung it to shore, laughing.
Rob smiled, and she wondered if he knew how significant that act was; if it had an
equivalent in his own collection of worries, so many of which he’d already bared to
her.
Again, that unfinished question. “Can I . . . ?”
She nodded, and gently, so gently, his hands moved, cradling her defenseless flesh,
anchoring it with firm reassurance. Her eyes shut once more and she held him tightly,
nails digging at his back. His lips coaxed hers to part, and his kisses were reverent,
exploratory, curious. She met his eyes as he broke away. Blue as the sky, it seemed.
“I’ve never done this,” he murmured. “Kissed anyone in the water.”
“Me, neither.”
“I never did a million things, it feels like, until I met you.”
His words made her sinuses sting. “Me, neither.”
Her breasts were warm from his palms, the rest of her held in the loch’s cool thrall.
“Rob.”
His name seemed to spur something, snap him out of spacey admiration. Cold water caught
her flesh as his hands drifted—one to her back, the other between her legs. Merry
felt the rope brush between her thighs, its scratchiness dulled but no less exotic.
The locked muscle of his arm glanced her breast as his fingers stroked her, and for
once she didn’t shy from the contact.
His touch was a flame in the darkness, a single point of heat in this chilly sea.
Two points, when his warm mouth brushed hers, moving back and forth, back and forth,
not a kiss so much as a grazing of lips and noses and chins. The sweetest seduction,
mirrored by the baser caresses he gave her beneath the surface, locked in a muted,
alien intimacy. Those caresses flashed on and off, hot and cold, hot and cold, and
stole the breath from her lungs.
It was building. Pleasure. Never in the water, never standing up, never outside, never
so naked . . . but she felt it growing, the need and heat, an inevitable thing. A
promise his fingertips whispered against her clit, again, again, again.
His mouth was at her temple, words like a summer breeze on her skin. “I want to make
you feel good.”
Her head was spinning. “You are.”
“Tell me how to . . . to make you come.”
“Just keep doing what you are.”
He did, and the pleasure grew in steady strokes, leaving her dizzy. She clutched his
hard, fidgeting arm, needing an anchor.
“Please, Merry.”
“I will. Don’t stop.” Her eyes opened and closed, seeking a glimpse of his face or
stubble or blue eyes, then shutting, overwhelmed by the intensity she found burning
there.
“Oh . . .”
The climax was like nothing she’d felt before—a physical, living thing, coaxed and
lured by Rob’s touch until it surfaced, bursting open in a flash of heat and electricity.
“Oh my.” She found her hands on his shoulders, knuckles bleached white. They flushed
pink as she softened her grip, the effect like magic in her delightfully addled state.
He wasn’t crouching anymore, but smiling down at her, lips level with her forehead,
hands at her hips. The water lapped icy-cold against her fevered clit. Fascinating.
She let her hands slide down Rob’s chest and belly, but he caught her wrists before
she could return the favor.
“Don’t.”
“You sure?”
A sharp edge glinted along his smile now. “Make me wait.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Sure as this rope is driving me insane,” he said and planted a kiss at her hairline.
“As you wish.” After another minute’s soft kisses, the water gripped her tight in
its cold fist. She shivered, the change not lost on Rob.
He stepped back a pace. “Better get you dried off and warmed up.”
“Hungry yet?”
“In far more ways than one.”
Merry scanned the perimeter, but found it as isolated as ever. She pulled her bottoms
back up her legs and resisted the urge to cover her breasts as they splashed ashore.
Rob stole a couple glances at her, and she let him. His admiration felt like sunshine
on her naked skin, and her heart broke for the woman she’d been for so long, always
running for the shadows.
She wrestled her wet bra on, almost sad to cover up. But her dry, warm clothes felt
good, the way they stuck to her damp skin. A sensation she’d forgotten before this
trip, buried with a million other childhood memories.
Once dressed, Rob stowed his flies and unscrewed the fishing pole at its joints. With
his hair dripping dark patches down his shirt, still-rolled-up jeans showcasing those
muscular calves . . . He looked like a page out of an outdoor gear catalog. The kind
Merry had perused while preparing for this trip, mentally dog-earing fantasy flings
from some life she’d hoped to one day live—and, miraculously, currently
was
living. Weird.
She uncinched her bag, pulled out the fleece throw she’d packed, and found a flat
patch of sandy ground.
Rob joined her with the Thermos, and they sat facing the water. Nice as the sun was,
it didn’t feel half as pure and warm as this man’s nearness, Merry decided.
“Worked up an appetite, I trust?” His sidelong smile was wicked.
“However did you guess?”
“I have my sources. What’s for lunch?”
“I’ve brought a selection of delicacies, including . . .” She pulled out a bag of
cashews and tossed it between them on the blanket, followed by jerky, fruit leather,
trail mix, and her very last little sack of coveted macadamias.
Rob’s gaze moved over the collection. “Five-course meal—you spoil me.”
“Not very thrilling, I know.”
“Are you mad?” He picked up a packet. “Have you any idea how long it’s been since
I’ve tasted a macadamia nut?”
“Oh, well. We’ll save those for last, then.”
“And I might get lucky and bag a pheasant now and then, but certainly not . . .” He
picked up another bag. “Hot and spicy turkey jerky. Very exotic, trust me.” He opened
the zipper seal and took a deep sniff, eyes closing like he was visited by a powerful
memory. “Yes. That’ll do.”
“I figured you’d be sick to death of hiking snacks . . . though I didn’t spot much
of this stuff in your cupboards, now that I think about it. Does that go along with
your do-everything-the-hard-way philosophy?”
“As I said, I like the hassle.” He tried a piece of jerky, chewing thoughtfully, then
blinking quite a lot.
“Too spicy?”
His cheeks went pink, but he didn’t cough or tear up. “Nearly. Hoo. I’m afraid any
spice tolerance I ever built up has abandoned me.”
She stole the bag and selected a thick strip for herself. “My grandma—on my dad’s
side—grew up outside Guadalajara. I was weaned onto hot foods at a young age.”
Rob unscrewed the Thermos and poured coffee into the cap, passing it over. He took
a slug straight from the mouth, squinting thoughtfully. “You know, I don’t think you’ve
even told me your surname.”
“It’s Murray.”
“Ah. Your mum’s name, I take it.”
“Yeah. Merry Murray.”
“Oh, right. That’s very . . .”
“Perky?”
He smiled. “Yes, very.”
“Merry Murray. And Rob Rush,” she added. “We sound like cartoon characters. Are you
a Robert?”
“I am.”
“Middle name?”
“Don’t have one. Does yours begin with M?”
“No, it’s Lucia. My mom let my dad pick it. That was his grandma’s name.”
“Merry Lucia. That’s quite nice.”
“Thanks.”
“Your dad’s gay, you said?”
She nodded, sipping her coffee.
“Is he married, or done one of those civil ceremonies, or is that not yet . . . I
haven’t kept up, obviously.”
“He’s actually getting married next weekend. It’s been such a shambles in California,
he and his partner are going up to Seattle.”
“They’ve been together a long time?”
“Oh God, ages. Since before I was born. I’m pretty much flying home, taking a shower,
swapping all my hiking gear for dresses and heels, then hopping back on a plane for
their wedding.”
“And your mom never married?”
“No. And she never intended to. I think she had her share of boyfriends in her wild,
bohemian youth, but she never dated anyone after I showed up. Not as far as I know.”
“Huh.”
“I think she wrote men off in her twenties. I have a suspicion she was in an abusive
relationship at some point.”
Rob frowned. “Must have been nasty, to make her swear off men the whole rest of her
life.”
She stared at the rippling water. “I wonder sometimes if I should’ve asked her about
it, before she died . . . but she was so strong and self-sufficient. I thought maybe
she’d prefer to have the world believe she just didn’t have any use for men. And maybe
that was the case. Though I kind of doubt it.” She looked to Rob, finding his eyes
aimed at the coffee he held. He looked sad, and Merry remembered too late that he’d
proclaimed himself a terrible partner in his last relationship. Oops.
Her mother surely would’ve demanded the details of why Rob felt this way about himself.
She’d always been quick to cross-examine a man, and slow to trust one. But the Rob
that Merry had met . . . He’d been grumpy, sure, and a touch cold, to start. But now
he’d proven himself thoughtful and kind and shy, certainly gentle. And in bed?
Yeah, no threat there, Mom.
In bed, Merry was the villain.
One fault Rob did possess, however, was that he was quite tough on himself. She made
a choice in that moment to believe that whatever shortcomings he saw in his character,
they were likely magnified.
Plus I used to be a self-sabotaging coward, living in massive denial.
And she wasn’t anymore, and didn’t want the world to see her as that person.
So whoever Rob used to be, perceived or not . . . he was gone. She’d never meet him.
And the man sharing this blanket and this Thermos and this lunch with her was lovely,
and he’d earned every benefit of the doubt she was prepared to give him.
Good-bye, old Merry. Good-bye, old Rob.
They were far away now. Farther than Leeds or even San Francisco. And good riddance.
They found a more cheerful conversational thread for the remainder of lunch, and packed
everything up as the sun rose high overhead. The rays warmed Merry’s damp hair, and
it was shaping up to be a gorgeous final day of her unplanned layover.
As they began their hike back, she asked, “Can we do more target practice this afternoon?”
“We may.” Rob smiled tightly, a private sort of gesture.
“What?”
He held the thought in for a very long time, until she gave him a couple pokes in
the shoulder. “C’mon. What?”
“Do you . . . Do you think you might ever visit Scotland again?”
“Oh.” She felt her face heat, a rushing tide of . . . not embarrassment. Flattery?
Something awesome and thrilling, if he was hinting at what she suspected. “I hadn’t
given it any thought . . . But I’ve certainly had a nice time.”
With you.
And if he invited her to come stay with him again? Could she bow out of the dating
game back home for the next year, keep herself strategically unattached? She’d only
just earned her new body and fostered all this confidence, after wanting it for so
long. Could she really put it on the back burner, leaving herself free for the next
time she and Rob might cross paths? It was a lot to ask.
But then she tried to imagine herself on a date with some other man. Kissing another
man. Kissing the handsomest guy from her gym, the one she’d crushed on for nearly
a year.
And . . . nothing. It was like imagining kissing a cardboard cutout.
This fling with Rob was so strange and intense and exciting, she wouldn’t be getting
over it anytime soon. And imagining joining him again after a year of longing and
pious celibacy . . . Goodness, why was that so undeniably appealing?
She shot him a look. “What are you asking me, Rob?”
“Oh. Well, you joked about it, this morning . . .”
“Are you asking if I’d like to come back for a reunion?”
“I was—I don’t know.”
“Because I would.”
He met her eyes. “Would you?”
She nodded. “If you want that. If you don’t take up with some other nauseous hiker
in the meantime.” Ooh, even joking about that gave her the meanest, dumbest pang.
Hands off mah hermit, bitch!
“I do,” he said quietly, shifting his gear to the other hand. “I want that.”
She eyed this man, sexy with his damp hair and rare smile, and she knew then it would
be longest year of her life, waiting for their next meeting. “It’s a date, then. When
do the midges clear out? Late summer?”
He nodded.
“Early September then. Look for me before the first ground frost,” she said with a
dramatic hush.
How oddly romantic that they couldn’t even plan an exact date, with Rob incommunicado.
It was like she was going off to war in a faraway land, to return only as the fates
allowed.