"Your goal today isn't to hit the top," I tell her. "It's just to get some practice dealing with these kind of angles. There are a couple moments when you're going to feel like you're leaning backward. Just know that I've got you, okay? If you don't have the grip strength yet, you can just slide back down."
She rolls her eyes as cocky as ever. "I've got the grip strength," she says. It should irritate me, but instead, I feel a shot of lust through my stomach so strong that my fist tightens around the rope in response.
///
It doesn't go away as I watch her begin to scale the cliff face. She goes at it like she's on the attack, and something about her intensity makes me long for a whole lot of things I can't have.
She scrambles to the mid-point far faster than I imagined she could.
"That's good," I shout up to her. "Come on back down."
She looks down, arching a single eyebrow. "Right. After you said I was terrible, you think I'm giving up halfway?"
Shit. I didn't bank on her not listening to me and why the hell wouldn't I bank on it? When has she ever listened to me? "I didn't say you were terrible," I shout up to her, "but seriously, Liv, the climb gets harder and you've got to be tiring out. I haven't checked the bolts above where you are right now either. Don't be stupid."
"The next time you don't want me to act stupid," she calls back, "don't make the grave error of telling me I'm terrible at something."
She resumes her climbing, going past the midpoint, and all I can do is watch. She's still safe at the moment, not far above the last bolt I checked, but not for long. I have no idea who established this route and how long ago it was. For all I know, a good breeze could knock them loose. I wish to God someone were here so I could hand off the rope and scramble up after her, but I'm stuck watching her, angrier than I've ever been.
"Olivia, stop!" I demand as she clips onto the new bolt, but she ignores me. God damn it, I'm never taking her climbing again. If those bolts come out, she could wind up plummeting to her death.
Exhaustion has set in too. There's a strain I can see in her hands and shoulders that wasn't there before, and I'm not sure if she's doing this to punish me, but it's fucking working. I struggle to think of some way to make her stop while at the same time I marvel at her. Sometimes her grace and agility seem unnatural, and I wish … Fuck. I wish a whole lot of things and not a single one of them will ever happen.
"Come down NOW!" I finally bellow. "I'm serious, Olivia. Now! You're too tired and you're going to get hurt."
She ignores me.
"I'm never taking you climbing again if you keep going!" I threaten in desperation.
"I'm never climbing with you again anyway, asshole!" she shouts back, and I hear that wounded thing behind her anger. "Who the fuck do you think you are anyway? You kissed me and then you just ran off like I was going to stalk you or something."
"Olivia, that's not why I ran. Please, come down and we'll discuss it."
That's when it happens, when her hand slips above her and she starts to fall. I watch her progress through my worst nightmare, falling, screaming, the first bolt ripping out of the mountain under her weight and sending her hurtling downward. I watch it happen, frozen in place, so terrified I can't think.
I already know exactly what will happen. If that second bolt doesn't hold, she'll die. It will be too great a fall and her weight will pull out the bolts beneath or she'll swing into the cliff face like a wrecking ball. It can't take more than three seconds, but it is the longest, slowest three seconds of my life waiting to see if the bolt holds, the bolt I didn't secure for her.
The rope goes taut as it pulls against the bolt, and it holds, but the momentum sends her swinging against the face of the cliff anyway. For a moment, I'm speechless. I can't find the words to ask if she's injured. It's been a long time since I've prayed but, in that millisecond, I pray as fervently as anyone ever prayed for anything.
"I'm okay," she shouts down to me as if she knows.
My heart is still in my throat, but I'm able to call up to her. "Just hold still. I'm going to lower you down."
"I'm okay," she shouts. "I can climb."
"No," I reply, my voice far too harsh. "Don't even think about it."
60
Olivia
I'm bruised and my heart is still beating fast enough that I can't believe it doesn't just explode as Will lowers me. He's going to yell at me for climbing after he told me not to and he was right, damn it. It was unbelievably stupid.
As I approach the ground, I brace myself for the coming onslaught, but instead, I find him silent and panicked, wrapping his arms around me before I've even hit the ground. His front is pressed so hard to my back that I can feel his heart racing just as fast as mine.
He buries his face in my hair, holding me so tightly I can't quite take a full breath. "Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me."
///
"I'm sorry," I begin, turning toward him. "You were right and I-"
Something in his eyes makes my stomach clench, the way a flower contracts before it bursts open. His mouth lowers and captures mine, silencing my gasp of surprise. It's a heedless kiss, one that holds nothing back and shuts down my brain entirely.
His hand runs from my waist to the outside of my breast, cradling the weight in his hand and his exhale shudders against my lips, making me arch against him in a silent demand for more. More pressure, more contact, more skin.
"I thought you were going to die, Olivia," he growls. "If you ever do that again, I'll kill you myself."
His hands cup my ass to pull me tight against him. Desire for him coils in my belly, makes me strain to be closer to him as his hands slide into my shirt, spanning my back, pressing fingertips to overheated skin.
"We've got to stop," he groans, but his mouth is still on my neck, his hands sliding up, beneath my bra.
I reach between us, snaking my hand into his waistband. He inhales sharply as my hand slides down to wrap around him, and not that I'd expected any differently, but there's a lot to grasp. "Olivia," he hisses. "I … "
I run my hand over his length, loving the way his whole body jolts when I do it, his eyes squeezing shut.
"Oh fuck," he says. "Stop. We have to stop."
I ignore him, running my thumb over the tip of him, slick and swollen and ready.
The air catches in his throat even as he grabs my wrist to stop me. "Please," he begs, resting his forehead against mine, his voice a harsh whisper. "I'm not sure I've got enough self-control to stop if this goes any farther."
"Good."
"Liv … Jesus, I don't know what I'm doing anymore," he says, pulling back. "If things were different … but they're not. Nothing's changing. Nothing's going to make this okay. We both know that. I've tried so hard to do the right thing and then this shit happens, like you falling and Brendan kissing you, and I just lose my fucking mind. I don't even know what to say. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Based on what's happened, I should be driving straight to Peter and handing in my resignation, and I can't even do that."
I want to be angry at him right now but I can't. He looks so torn, so guilty. Will wants to help all of us. He wants to save me, he wants to see Brendan get through school, he wants to save the farm and give Peter a winning season and do the right thing by everyone, and I'm the one making it impossible, making him put it all at risk.
I tell him I understand. I ignore, for the time being, the part of me that doesn't.
That night I climb into bed knowing that it's my last night in this house for a long time, possibly forever. It has to be that way, if only for my own sanity. Dorothy, Brendan, the farm-none of these things are in my future. Nor is Will, and that's the part that kills me. The fact that he doesn't care about me enough to wait.
My chest aches, my throat goes tight. "Don't you dare cry," I hiss. My heart races, but I manage to push it back down, that sadness. I'm not going to cry over Will.
I'm not going to cry about anything.
My mom calls me her early bird. "Please go back to sleep, baby," she'll murmur when I climb in her bed in the morning. So it's weird to find Matthew up before me, perched at the end of my bed.
"Dad's home," he says quietly.
"Oh." My stomach drops.