Take Me Higher by Pamela Clare

Chapter 7

Mitch belayedMegs on the tenth and final pitch, letting out the slack, his mind focused on Megs as she neared the crux move. Even so, some part of him was still aware that they were doing it. The two of them were about to finish the first free ascent of a new route on El Capitan.

The whole thing had been Megs’ idea. They’d been taking turns climbing the lower pitches of The Nose with the rest of the gang when Megs had wandered off, her gaze on the rock. When she’d returned, she’d told him that she’d found a new route near the Salathé Wall that she wanted to try.

He'd walked with her to get a look. The first pitch was identical to the Salathé Wall, but from there, it deviated to the left. The line she’d picked out was gutsy and ambitious, a solid 5.11. In just ten pitches, it had everything that made climbing El Cap an adrenaline rush—opposing crack systems, loose flakes, a wicked roof, considerable exposure, smooth-looking granite with thin holds.

And now here they were, so close to finishing.

Mitch watched as Megs shifted her feet and hips to increase her reach, caught a pocket with two fingers, then swung one leg over the roof, catching an edge with her heel. It was a tricky sequence for any climber, but she made it look easy. Every action she took was smooth and well-planned. She moved more like a dancer or a gymnast than a climber. When at last she stood on the ledge at the end of the route, she turned to face the valley, arms raised in triumph, her hair blowing in the wind.

“Woohoo!” She cheered, the smile on her face putting a hitch in Mitch’s chest.

God, she was amazing. He’d never met another woman like her. No one else could match her wit or her smart mouth or her grace on rock.

She switched to a belay stance. “Belay on!”

“Climbing.”

“Climb on.”

It wasn’t an easy pitch, but Mitch threw everything he had into it, knowing she was watching. His performance anxiety cleared as he got into the flow, and he found himself transfixed by the challenge and amazed again at her skill. But he was a foot taller than she was, so he climbed it a bit differently, dynoing through the crux move to the roof, then catching his heel and pulling himself onto the ledge beside her.

“I knew we could do it!” She threw her arms around him.

He drew her close, the adrenaline of the climb mixed with pheromone in his blood. It was the first time he’d held her like this, and, oh, she felt sweet in his arms, the scents of sunshine and pine in her hair. And he knew that he’d remember this moment for the rest of his life.

They fixed protection then hydrated and shared trail mix, their legs dangling over the side, Yosemite Valley a thousand feet below them.

“Look.” Mitch pointed to a peregrine falcon that soared below them. “We’re higher than the birds. Watch it dive!”

She smiled, seeming more relaxed now than he’d ever seen her. “It would be nice to have wings.”

He had to ask. “How did you get into climbing?”

“I’m from a small town not far from Pueblo, Colorado. God, I hate that place. But we did have a climbing wall in our gym at my high school. It wasn’t much, and the routes never changed. But I learned the basics—how to tie into a harness, how to belay, how to rappel. My PE teacher had a hard time getting me to come down.”

Mitch laughed, an image of a younger Megs refusing to climb down coming to his mind. “I bet he did.”

She told him how her teacher had noticed her ability and talked to some friends who were part of the climbing scene in Boulder. They’d taken her out on weekends, reluctantly at first. Then, when they’d seen how much she loved it and how quickly she learned, she’d become a climbing partner and not just some kid who was tagging along.

“By the end of the year, I was climbing the hard stuff in Eldorado Canyon. That’s where I met Dean. How about you?”

“I’m from Colorado, too.”

“Really? That’s crazy!”

“I was born in a little town called Scarlet Springs. It’s barely a blip on the map, but I love it. My parents moved to Stanford the year I started high school. Growing up in the mountains, I saw climbers all the time. I guess it was just natural that I’d want to try it out. A friend taught me to rappel, and I was hooked.”

After that, the conversation drifted from treating sunburns to favorite hiking snacks to the climbing gear they wished someone would invent. Through it all, Mitch could barely take his gaze off her face.

By the time they started their long descent, rappelling pitch by pitch, Mitch had fallen for her—hard. He’d never expected to meet a woman who loved climbing as much as he did, who lived to be in the mountains. Not only that, she was damned good.

When their feet were back on the ground, a cheer went up, and they found the dirtbags waiting for them, Gridwall looking envious, Dean with a big grin on his face.

“What are you naming it?” Dean asked.

Megs looked to Mitch. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“That honor should go to you. You spotted the line.”

Megs nibbled her lower lip, her brow bent as she pondered the possibilities. Then her face lit up. “How about ‘Free Spirit.’”

Mitch couldn’t think of any phrase that fit Megs more.

God, he wanted to kiss her. “That’s perfect.”

Megs satfor a moment in silence, savoring the memory of that day. She’d spent three years dreaming of putting up a first ascent on El Capitan. When she’d stood on the Mammoth Terraces, the valley stretched out below her, Mitch beside her, she’d felt triumphant. The high had been incredible—better than when she’d summitted Everest or free climbed The Nose.

And, oh, she remembered that first hug, too—the hard press of his body, the warm scent of his skin, strong arms surrounding her. For the first time in her life, she’d felt more than a teenage girl’s crush. She’d felt desire.

That day had changed everything.

“Remember what happened when we got back?”

A photographer had been waiting for them in Camp 4. Sent by a newspaper to get photos of the new rock climbing fad, he’d had his lens focused on El Cap and had seen Megs standing on the Terraces, arms raised. He'd taken a few photos of her and then asked around to find out if anyone knew who she was.

“He asked so many stupid questions. ‘Do you have a boyfriend? What’s a pretty girl like you doing in such a rough sport? Is this your contribution to the Battle of the Sexes? Do you really think women can compete with men?’” Megs laughed. “My answer made you and the dirtbags laugh—and shocked the hell out of him.”

Since a penis doesn’t work as climbing gear, yes, I do believe that women can compete with men and come out on top.

The photographer had watched her send White Lightning, heard the story about how she’d climbed it first, and had taken more photos before driving away.

“I thought that was it.” She’d had no idea that the story had been published in a major paper and would start a feeding frenzy.

A trickle of reporters became a flood, all of them wanting to interview the girl climber. The attention had scared the hell out of Megs. She’d been afraid her stepfather would see the coverage, show up in that ugly green Dodge Charger of his, and try to drag her away as he’d once threatened to do outside her high school.

“You got all protective. You didn’t know about my stepfather yet, but you saw that the reporters made me nervous. You took me hiking to get away from it all, and that was our first kiss. Remember?”

She turned the page to see if he’d written about it and found that his entry went on for three whole pages, all of it about her. “You’re going to like this.”

She reached for the recorder.

Mitch hiked alongside Megs,leading her through the forest to one of the high mountain tarns he’d stumbled on last summer. Surrounded by glades of aspen and open meadow, it was the place he liked to come when he needed to be alone. He’d suggested the two of them hike up to the lake to ditch the reporters who’d been hanging around Camp 4 all week. In truth, he just wanted to be alone with her.

Lately, he’d been getting signals from her that she liked him the same way he liked her. There was something in the way she looked at him, a softness she didn’t show the other guys. She sat by him in camp, shared food with him, and asked him to climb with her. But her attempts to flirt with him—if that’s what she’d been doing—were shy and uncertain, lacking her usual confidence. Then again, she couldn’t be much older than eighteen. She probably didn’t have much experience with men.

She stepped over a tree root, her legs mostly bare, her denim cutoffs dangerously short, her shoulders and back bare apart from the ties of her halter top. She wasn’t wearing a bra, either, though he supposed she was small enough that she didn’t need one.

Stop thinking about her breasts.

“Those reporters act like seeing a woman rock climbing is like finding a giraffe on the moon.”

Mitch chuckled, but he understood her frustration. “They think we’re all crazy, but they sit at desks all day. Not a single one of them took us up on our offer to try climbing. They don’t know a damned thing about it.”

“Good point.”

“Watch your step.” He took her hand, drew her to the side so she wouldn’t step on a hornet nest in an old ground squirrel burrow.

“Those little bastards.” She held onto his hand a little longer than was necessary. “Thanks.”

It took them almost two hours of hiking off-trail to reach the tarn. Just as he’d hoped, there was no one else there. The lake sat in the middle of a wildflower meadow, its waters almost turquoise, pine and hemlock forest surrounding it, no sound but birds in the trees and the buzzing of insects. It was his special place.

“It’s beautiful!” A look of wonder on her face, she walked slowly to the lake’s edge, almost as if she were entering a church. “Look at all the flowers!”

Warmth blossomed in his chest at her reaction. By bringing her here, he was sharing a secret part of himself, offering her something that he loved. “This is where I come to read and be alone.”

Megs sat on a nearby boulder, then took off her hiking boots and socks and set them aside. “You like to read?”

Was that so strange?

“I do. I always keep a book in my backpack.” Mitch removed his boots and socks, too. “I get to travel the world and experience all sorts of things I wouldn’t otherwise. How about you? Do you read?”

“I read when I had to in school.” She walked into the water up to her ankles, moaned, the sound sending a jolt of lust through him. “Oh, that feels good.”

Mitch rolled up his bellbottoms and followed her in, the cold water soothing to his feet, soft mud squishing between his toes. “Do you have any favorite authors?”

She shook her head. “I just have a GED.”

Mitch bit back a smile at her assumption that being well-read meant being well-educated. “Hey, a GED is cool.”

But he hadn’t brought her here to talk about books.

She kept walking until the water reached her knees. “How deep is the lake?”

“I’ve gone in up to my chest before.”

Her next question made his mind go blank.

“Have you ever gone skinny-dipping here?”

“Um…” It took him a moment. “Yes, but I was alone.”

“Are you sure there are no leeches?”

He chuckled. “Yes.”

“Then turn around.”

His heart gave a hard knock. “Megs, I…”

She made a turning motion with her finger. “Turn around.”

He did as she asked, heard her stepping through the water, blood rushing to his groin when he saw her halter top, shorts, and panties land on the rock beside her boots.

Splashing. A gasp. “This is cold!”

Thank God for that.

“Okay, now I’ll turn around, and you can undress and come in.”

Mitch glanced over his shoulder, saw that she was in the water up to her breasts, her back turned toward him, her hair floating behind her. He walked to the boulder, stripped down to his skin, his dick still half hard.

Naked, he turned to walk into the water—only to find her gaze raking over him. He couldn’t help but grin. “That’s cheating.”

She stared at his cock for a moment, her cheeks flushed pink. Then she turned away. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

Mitch wasn’t ashamed of his body, and, judging from her reaction, she hadn’t seen many naked men. He waded in and made his way over to her, sucking in a breath when the cold water reached his nuts, the shock of it stealing his wood. Well, that was probably a good thing. “I’m in now.”

The words were out before he realized their double meaning.

He coughed.

But she hadn’t picked up the double entendre, her gaze fixed on the scenery. “The view is incredible. That’s the back of El Cap, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He was a foot taller than she was, and the water was almost crystal clear. He could see her breasts with their puckered, rosy tips. He ached to touch her, to run his hands all over her, to kiss her.

Damn.

She turned toward him, took a step in his direction, rested a wet palm on his chest. “What would you do if I told you to kiss me?”

He sucked in a breath. “I would—”

A knock.

Startled, Megs jumped. “Oh, hey.”

She stopped recording, tucked the receipt in the journal to hold her place.

Debby walked in, rolling a cart beside her. “His blood work for sepsis came back negative again, and his fever hasn’t climbed.”

Megs let out a breath. “I’m relieved.”

“I’ve come to give Mitch a sponge bath. We do what we can to keep down pathogens. It helps reduce infection rates. Would you like to help?”

“Yes, I’d love that.” Megs set the journal aside, put on a pair of gloves, and followed Debby’s lead, washing Mitch’s body with a warm washcloth dipped in an emesis basin full of soapy water. It felt strange to see another woman’s hands on Mitch’s body, but there was nothing sexual about this.

Debby worked with an efficiency born of experience. “We need to keep his incisions dry, so be careful on his abdomen.”

“I’ll leave that to you.” Megs might be an EMT, but she’d never dealt with anything like this before.

She focused on his legs after that, working her way upward. When she came to the towel that covered his privates, she stopped, feeling strange about touching him in such an intimate place with another person present.

Debby noticed. “Would you like me to handle that?”

Megs shook her head. “No. I was hoping to have privacy. I know it probably seems silly to you, but—”

“I understand.” Debby set her washcloth on the cart. “Let me know when you’re finished, and I’ll come get this stuff out of your way.”

Megs drew the curtain, shielding Mitch from view, then removed the towel and began to wash his testicles with their dark curls and then his penis. She’d always loved this part of his body. He knew how to use it to make her scream. He’d always been an incredible lover—considerate, skilled, passionate. Not that she had any way to compare him to any other man…

She’d never been with anyone else.

It was strange and bittersweet to care for him like this just after reading about that day at the lake. It was the first time she’d seen him naked. She’d heard the dirtbags joking about his “meat” so often after the ranger raid that she’d had to see him for herself.

She remembered the sweet thrill of it so well. “I got belly flutters.”

She’d only seen one other man’s junk, and that hadn’t been consensual. How freeing it had been to choose to be naked with him—and to see him nude. When she’d touched him, her heart had raced. It had been like stepping into a new world, one in which she had power. She decided who got to touch her—and where and when.

Megs couldn’t help but smile, the memory so fresh in her mind now. “I had no idea you’d asked me to go with you just to be alone with me, but I did understand on some level that it was your special place. I was touched that you shared it with me.”

After that day, it had become their special place.

Megs finished washing him, dried him, and covered him with a clean towel. Then she drew the sheet over him, thinking he might be cold from his bath. She took off her gloves, opened the curtain, and waved to Debby, who came for the cart.

“I’ll be in to check the vent in a minute.”

Megs thanked Debby, waited for her to finish, wanting to get back to the journal—and what she remembered came next.