I let myself believe, just for this moment, that it’s washing away all the fears and anger and pain—of the last few days, the last few months, the last few years. Maybe even our whole lifetimes.
I can’t take it; I need him right against me again. I tip up and then we’re kissing and kissing, our water-slick bodies pressed tight together, his hardness rubbing against my stomach. We’ve had shower sex before, and usually we spend time soaping each other up—this time we probably need soap more than before—but we’ll have time for that after.
I want him in me.
Jason seems to read my mind; we rarely have problems with that in these kind of situations. He grabs me by the ass and boosts me up like I weigh nothing.That is always sexy as hell. Jason is crazy strong from all the climbing, and even though at five-nine I’m no petite little thing, he could carry me around for days and not break a sweat. He practically did that once when I sprained my ankle and he thought it would be funny to carry me around on all my errands: to the grocery store, the pharmacy, the DMV to get my driver’s license renewed. It was hilarious, and I sure didn’t mind.
The shower’s just big enough for me to wrap my legs around him, and he turns us into a position where we aren’t being sprayed in the face by the shower. He’s so hard against me there and even though I came just minutes ago, I’m building up all over again, wanting him, wanting him.
I reach down and move my hips back just enough to slide him inside of me. He moans and says my name again and I shudder against him, my body swept through with that incomparable feeling of Jason deep inside me. He presses me up against the shower wall, and his hips rock against me and mine against him and I dig my fingers deep into the muscles of his shoulders, his back, feeling his arms tight around me, his hand clutching my ass.
We move together in the heat of the water and heat of each other and god, my body is fully alive and I just want to give him everything. I want him to desperately need me the way I need him, to want me like this always and always and always.
Imoan Emily’s name, almost in reflex to the powerful, delicious sensation of being inside her. A shudder runs through her and transfers to me, and then we’re moving, rocking, fucking each other desperately against the shower wall. Emily’s nails dig into my shoulders, adding just the right amount of sting, and I’m drunk on the feeling of making love to her, holding her, needing her more than the air I breathe. I’m so far gone with this woman that I know if I lose her, I’m never going to be right again.The tears are back behind my eyes, but I push into her again and again, surrendering to wave after wave of pleasure, holding tight to how desperately I need her like that’s the life ring that’s going to keep us afloat.
Emily cries and kicks out and her leg slaps the side of the shower as she comes, her body tensing and relaxing in my arms, pulsing and clenching tight, so tight around me, and I tumble with her, my whole body wracked with the power of coming together. We’re both trembling, after, and clutching each other, and I wish I could find the words to tell her I want her for always and beg her to never leave me.
I open my mouth to try, but I’m still so scared.The fear crashes down over me, and I hold her wet skin against mine, and gasp into her neck.
“I love you, Em,” I say.They’re the most powerful words in the world, and still, somehow, so inadequate to express the full force of what I feel.
“I love you, too,” she says back, and those same words, when she says them to me, feel like more than enough.
We press our foreheads together, standing under the water. I think both of us are aware that the moment we pull apart and out from under the heat of the water, we won’t be one anymore, but two, separate people in the big, cold world.
For right now, though, I hold her tight and pray that we’re never going to stop.
Twelve
Jason
The next morning, I’m standing at the base of a short wall, one chosen more for the angle of the light filtering down through the trees at the top of the ridge than for its climbing difficulty. It would be a harder climb than I’d recommend for the skill level of the Not-Wives, but no one is climbing anything today. My team has finished rigging up ropes so that one person at a time can stand on the wall and pretend to rappel down while wearing a variety of revealing lingerie. In reality, we’ll never be more than four feet off the ground, so that the photographer can take all the shots he wants while standing on the platforms Rich’s people have built to either side of what the photographer decided was the most visually pleasing stretch of rock.
It’s not rock climbing, and it feels ridiculous that my team is even involved. Geoff andTim are going to be acting as belayers, making sure no one falls on their barely-covered ass, and we have a crash pad set up below the wall as backup.The cameramen are talking to the photographer—an older Asian guy with a thick mustache—about where they can set up to get good shots without being in his way.
Meanwhile, I am standing at the bottom of the cliff, wearing nothing but my flip flops and a pair of boxer briefs that Rich had wardrobe bring to my tent this morning.They stretch to mid-thigh, and are tight enough to leave nothing to the imagination. Actually, they look more like cyclist shorts than underwear, which ought to make me feel better, and maybe would, if I wasn’t about to be photographed in them for some pin-up calendar.
God, why does this bother me? I’ve climbed in nothing but shorts before and been filmed in way less than this. Itshouldn’tbe a problem.
But there’s this sick sensation settling in my gut, and I just want to put my clothes back on and join my guys on belay and never let that photographer point his camera at me.
Which is stupid. I know it’s stupid. I’m doing this because it’s my job, and because I signed a contract, and because even if I could wiggle out of this part, playing nice with Rich gets me more leeway to have the time I need with Emily.They did, in fact, count the time in the RV as our alone time yesterday, but that didn’t stop us from making desperate-if-silent love in our tent last night and again this morning. I’m down for sex with Emily anytime, but it’s been a while since we’ve been this voracious for each other, and I think maybe she’s needing the reassurance of being close as much as I do. It’s sexy and feels so good, and I wish we could take a couple days off and spend them entirely in bed.
This, however—standing around in underwear I would never wear in real life and waiting for a photographer to explain to me how to do some supposedly sexy pose—
It’s the opposite of hot, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel anything but awkward about it.
Someone catcalls from behind me, and I shiver, afraid it’s going to be the Not-Wives, who are all going to be here any minute. I turn around to see Emily approaching with a set of harnesses—the photographer asked for the harnesses that cover the least amount of fabric, even though they’re all about the same. Rich suggested we find some clear ones, and I managed to explain to him that there is no transparent material strong enough to make a safe harness and also no good reason for those to exist. I didn’t even yell at him, though I wanted to. A lot.
Emily grins at me and looks me up and down. Usually I like it when she checks me out, but I feel naked out here, much more so than I have other times when I’ve been literally naked in the woods. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she says back. “You look hot.”
I should want to hear that from my girlfriend. Most of the time I do. But right now, it just makes the sick feeling, well, sicker.
“Are you ready for your close-up?” she asks me.
I run my hands up and down my forearms. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
