“Fuck.”
Three more times, she gets to the rings and falls in the middle, so I step over to her to give her some tips.
“Use your legs when you’re swinging,” I tell her, demonstrating. “You want to use the momentum to move, so you’re suspended in the air and taking some weight off your hands.”
She’s listening, watching me, her face hard with concentration.
Finally, she nods and goes back to the beginning to try again.
This time, when she gets to the rings, she gets to the end, and she looks shocked as shit.
“Don’t stop. Keep going.”
She runs over to the wall, where she has to use a thick rope to climb. First, she rubs her palms down her leggings, then she grabs the rope, and to my surprise, she climbs it easily and is over in seconds.
“Good job.”
She doesn’t answer as she runs to crawl under the rope web, immediately dropping down and shimmying under, her front pressed to the dirt below as she maneuvers through.
“This wasn’t built for women with boobs,” she mutters before she manages to wiggle out the other side and runs to the balance beam.
“Easy.”
Her adrenaline is too high, and she falls off the middle of the beam.
“Goddamn it.”
“Back to the start.”
“I hate you.”
I’m crazy about her.
Chapter Sixteen
Lena
This. Fucking. Sucks.
My legs feel like they’re going to give out on me, but I’ll be damned if I’ll say something to the asshole barking orders.
No way will I admit that he’s pushed me too far.
Or that I want to punch him.
This isnotthe man who said sweet things in my ear while he fucked me and kissed me awake this morning.
No, the drill sergeant is back, and I don’t like him.
“Back to the beginning,” he barks when I fall from the rings again.
My lungs burn, my hips ache. My hands feel like the skin is going to split open from all the hanging and climbing ropes.
Rather than flipping him the bird or telling him off, I’ve gone silent. I won’t even look at him now. I’ll do what I’m told, and when we get back to the house, I’ll take a hot shower and then sketch.
Or die.
“Lena.”
