• Nine •

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We drove through the unmanned ticket booth at exactly six fifteen the next morning like we'd agreed upon—Mount Rushmore at sunrise—even if we'd both done it begrudgingly. When Luke wanted to do something, he just did it. Unbothered. So he'd woken me up this time at five a.m. I, on the other hand, wanted to stay sleeping, cradled warm in my bed. But Luke had insisted that I'd promised the night before that I would wake up. Which I had, with a strict stipulation that he would have to force me.

"This better be worth it," I grumbled.

"Look, there's like one person here." Luke pulled into a parking spot where there was one other car two spaces down. "That alone is worth it."

"Mmhmm," I muttered, putting my head against the window and closing my eyes. "Wake me up when you're done being a tourist."

Luke's door shut, and I heard the click of my passenger side door before he swung it open. I pretended to fall out, but Luke caught me.

I was awake now. I wrapped my hands around his neck as I became dead weight in his arms. "Carry me," I whispered.

Too much? Yeah, too much.

I dropped my feet down to the ground and stood, blinking through the dusty yellow-blue that was beginning to cut through the clouds. "Okay, okay. I'm ready."

Luke's left hand lingered on my waist as I turned. He dropped it, but stepped into my back. Luke massaged my shoulders and said softly, "You can sleep in the car on the way to Badlands. Now, go." He pushed me forward toward the entrance.

Luke was in some kind of internal dilemma. Constantly bringing me closer, then pushing me away. Fighting with himself and whatever thoughts he was having about us on this trip. He needed a push because he was being the unrelaxed one.

I stopped short in front of the rectangular openings and looked up at the mountain in the distance. "It's smaller than I thought it would be."

Luke narrowed an eye at me. "You are hard to please."

"Am not," I protested like a child.

"It's a sculpture on the side of a mountain. Created one hundred years ago. Lighten up."

"I'm light," I yelled as I started running through the entrance. I heard Luke laugh behind me, but I didn't stop until I'd made it to the other side where the Avenue of Flags started.

"Work out for today complete," I told him when he reached me.

"You do realize we're hiking later, right?"

"I didn't realize this trip was going to involve so much hiking," I whined. "But I'm actually excited. I googled Badlands, and I'm totally here for it. It looks awesome."

Luke's face lit up in time with the sun as it started to peak out above the skyline. "You're going to be a hiker before this trip is over."

"No. Is there more after today?" I said, eyeing him as we turned and made our way between the state flags to the viewing area.

"Only if you agree. I promise. Otherwise, I'll drag you along to run with me."

We stopped to take a picture with the Massachusetts and Washington flags.
"What marathon are you training for?"

"The New England Green River Marathon. I'm hoping to qualify for the Boston Marathon."

"Wow. How do you even run twenty-six miles?" I asked dumbfounded. "I think my max is, like, two."

Luke sat on a bench in the viewing area. "You hit a stride at some point that it's almost robotic. My most right now is sixteen."

"Miles?" I pulled by jaw back up and sat down beside him. "Jesus. That's like... driving for sixteen minutes on the highway."

"You should come cheer me on. It's in August. Some of my friends are coming out to party afterward."

"Are we like real friends now?" I said without thinking. I couldn't determine my own tone, but I thought it sounded harsh. I tried to soften it. "You know, outside of this trip."

"Only if you want to be," Luke sighed.

He clasped his hands in front of him, elbows on his knees, and stared at his hands. I watched a woman set up her camera tripod while Luke looked at his shoes. She pulled out each of the legs and snapped her camera on top, testing the angles and lighting. She reminded me of Paige, and I felt the ache of missing her.

There's nothing quite like it—not being able to see someone when you want to, to not be able to reach out and touch them, to only hear their smile through the phone.

The sun saved me from having to respond to Luke.

"Whoa," I whispered when it hit the monument.

Luke raised his head. "They call it the Golden Hour."

It was golden. Gold with a tint of red. It ignited across the presidents' faces that faced east toward the sunrise.

"This was worth it," I said in a stupor as the sun creeped up higher. I did a double take at Luke, who was staring at me. "What?"

He shook his head slightly, his bangs brushing over his eyebrows. "Nothing."

I hesitated but pressed, "What?" I leaned slightly into him. "Whaaaat?" I said again, dragging it out.

"You reminded me of when we did that DNA electrophoresis experiment in genetics class senior year and you said 'whoa' just like that when we finally got to see the gel mold when it was done."

I blinked. "That's not at all what I thought you were going to say. How do you even remember that?"

"I've always liked how much you like science," Luke replied. "I was surprised when you told me you were majoring in accounting. I thought for sure you'd go into the medical field."

I laughed under my breath and shook my head. "As terrible as this is to say, I'm not a career girl."

Luke twisted his face tight into the center. "Who says you have to be a career girl?"

"I don't know," I breathed out. "At work they're always asking me where I see myself in five years. For some reason, I feel the need to lie."

"What do you say?" Luke laughed.

"I've perfected my canned responses." I straightened up like I was sitting in a performance review. "In five years I see myself leading a team. I want to mold young accountants and become a mentor to help new graduates in their year of transition and studying for the CPA exam." I threw my arms up. "I want to be sitting in your chair and asking someone else where they see themselves in five years. Why can't you just say 'I don't know' or 'right here?' Like it's bad that you don't aspire to climb the corporate ladder and get sucked in by society."

"You're an oxymoronic salutatorian," Luke quipped. "But I get it. My dad was never around. I assume you want to be a mom?"

"Yeah," I replied, staring at George Washington. "I want to be there for every little thing in my kids' lives because life can be taken from you in an instant. And who knows, maybe one day I'll switch to being a career girl. There's a lot of phases of life."

"What phase are you in right now?"

"I'm taking a chapter out of your book," I said. "The Relax and Enjoy It Phase. It might be my favorite one so far."

I slept as well as I could with Luke's sweatshirt for a pillow on the way to the national park. He woke me up gently after he parked in the lot for the Notch Trail, our first hike.

I stretched my arms high above my head when I jumped down from the car. My muscles lengthened, trying to release the knots I'd given myself from sleeping against a window. Luke came around to my side and leaned against the hood, waiting for me to finish.

"Do you think my shoes are sturdy enough?" I asked, looking up as I was bent over touching my toes.

I caught his slight graze of my boobs before he looked me in the eye. "What?"

I nodded toward the sign that said 'wear sturdy boots.'

He studied my ten-year-old shoes and handed me a water bottle. "Just don't fall."

I took a couple sips and handed it back. "Are you afraid of heights? I read this one has an alternate route if you are."

"Hell no." Luke pushed himself off the car and put his backpack on his back. "We're scaling the cliff."

I smiled and brushed past him. "You're such a daredevil," I joked.

The beginning of the trail was flat and wide. The grass spread out far to the sandy canyon rocks, but as we walked, they started to narrow, closing in tighter with each turn in the trail.

We stopped for water once before we came to the best part of the trail: the wooden ladder that takes you up the rock face.

"You want to go first?" Luke asked, tightening the straps of his backpack.

I looked up at the ladder. It started out relatively flat but got steeper toward the top. "I guess so."

I walked between the wooden rungs for the first twenty steps before I used my arms to help myself when it turned upright, and I started to climb.

I looked behind me to see Luke closing in on me, walking on the rungs like he was Parkouring.

When I was almost to the top, my foot slipped on the dusty wood, and I fell two steps before partly catching myself thanks to Luke.

"Shit," I said breathlessly as my heart picked up speed at the thought that I could have fallen down the entire ladder and taken him down with me.

"Are you okay?" Luke asked with his arm around my thighs. His face must have been close to my ass. He took a step up to remove himself from the awkward position I'd put us in. His arms came around my body as he grabbed the metal wire of the ladder.

"Yes, I just scared myself. I need a second."

"Sure," he replied. "You almost killed us. Take a minute."

"I can still push you." I nudged my butt into him and my heart picked up speed again at how close he was, hovering around me. I wanted him closer.

I pushed everything from my mind the minute I decided and slowly turned to face him.

Luke's face was inches above mine with me a step above him. His pupils were so tiny in the bright sunlight that the yellow in his irises was overpowering the blue. The moment clicked in his face, and he glanced down to my lips quickly.

"Are you going to climb up backwards now?" he joked softly.

I rested my lower back against a rung without responding, keeping my back bent slightly toward him.

He needed to erase his mind of our history, and I almost had him. It didn't matter how we felt about each other. That was the beauty of casual—just how I liked it. No emotions because emotions suck.

He locked eyes with me and his chest pushed me back into the ladder like he couldn't help himself. I tipped my chin toward him. We were both leaning slightly back at an eighty-degree angle with my shoulder blades resting against the hard wood. Luke's right hand came up around my head with his palm against my neck and his thumb around my jawbone. I placed my hand on his abs to steady myself, but when he moved his lips an inch closer to mine, I saw his thoughts rush into his eyes.

"Reese," he whispered.

"Don't think," I whispered back.

His thumb ran back and forth over my cheek. "Reese." His voice sounded conflicted. I gathered his shirt between my fingers and pulled him closer than I thought was possible. I could feel that he wanted me, but he continued, "What are we doing?"

Even as he said that, his hand dropped and slid as close to my cleavage as he could get without touching it. I slipped my hand under his shirt to feel what I knew was there. My palms slid across and up, feeling his own heart beating rapidly.

"I don't know," I confessed before I had a realization. I picked myself back up into him. It was the most real thought I'd had in a long time. "I don't want to die without ever kissing you."

It was like those words quashed any apprehension he had left. He skimmed his fingers between my breasts, around my waist, down my hip, and grabbed my upper thigh. With the strength of one arm, Luke quickly lifted me up to rest my butt on a higher rung so our faces were level. Our motions were simultaneous like our thoughts were connected. My legs opened as his fingers gripped my knee directing me to wrap my legs around him. I closed my hands around his neck at the same time he closed his hand around my waist. I leaned back at the same time he pushed his weight against me. We couldn't break our eyes apart. I felt like I'd been waiting a lifetime to feel his full lips against mine. Maybe I technically had.

And when we finally closed our eyes and our lips came together, I knew he felt the same way. The soft noise that came from his throat was hungry mixed with satisfaction and longing and relief. His mouth parted and pushed harder against my lips as his tongue found mine. I made the same noise back into his mouth because this was what I had been missing out on with Luke—being kissed like we were going to die the second we broke apart.

He pulled back ever so slightly, and for a brief moment I thought he let his reasoning skills back in. Instead, he came back more forceful. His teeth caught my bottom lip, and his mouth formed a suction, drawing it into his. My stomach flipped. My legs tensed. A slow burn creeped from between my thighs into my lower stomach.

He wanted me. Desperately.

His hand found my breasts. I wished he could free up both of them, but his left hand was holding tight to the wire, keeping us nestled against the side of a cliff. His fingers dipped into my sports bra, tracing the outline of my breasts while his hot breath followed my jawline. He left a wave of goosebumps in each place he planted a kiss down my neck. He dropped his hand beneath to the underside of my boob, cupping it and pushing it up. His tongue skirted the edge as he made his way across my chest.

I wrapped my fingers into his thick hair, guiding him closer to my cleavage. I was so focused on his touch I wasn't even registering the beautiful landscape view we now had at the higher elevation.

I wanted him. Desperately.

Then he spoke. "I pretty much want to risk killing us." The whisper of it tickled me in between my boobs and down to my belly button before his warm tongue dropped down into my cleavage. The thought of it between my legs burst out of the neurons in my brain, making me clamp my thighs around him harder. He groaned a deep manly sound like he was about to act on his animal instincts.

"I wouldn't mind." My voice sounded foreign and raspy, but if this was how I died, I could accept it.

His hips rolled against me as he came back up to my face. He moved his mouth against mine, slow and deep. I took his hard marathon-running glutes in my hands. They were stone, but I pressed my weak fingers into them anyway, willing him to rub against me again, so I could feel the sparks he was igniting with the friction.

He listened, grinding his erection harder against me. I let out a soft moan into his mouth before he dropped his shoulders slightly and bit my clavicle.

"God, Reese." His voice hummed eagerly and anguished against my neck. "This isn't enough."

"I know," I said breathily as he sucked my skin. It was my fault. I made the mistake of kissing him fifty feet in the air against a ladder where this was all we were going to get. And it wasn't fucking enough.

"Oh, shit," I heard. It didn't come from either of us. The voice fizzled. "Go back down, dude."

"What? Why?" another voice said.

Luke sprang back as much as he could with us clinging to life fifty feet in the air against a ladder.

"Sorry." His voice was unsteady. His lungs were silently gasping. I wasn't sure if he was apologizing to me or the two college-aged guys standing beneath us. I buried my face in his chest. "We're moving," he told them.

The second guy chuckled as I turned and scaled the remaining few steps.

We both stepped off to the side to let them pass us.

"If I'd known y'all were making out, I wouldn't have started the climb," the first guy laughed, unaffected. His eyes traced me from head to toe. "Sorry, man."

The second guy followed behind him, pointed at his friend's back, and mouthed cockblock to Luke. Luke made no move to respond, keeping his face stoic.

Luke and I watched them traverse the cliff before they disappeared, and Luke turned to face me.

"Was that a mistake?" His voice was unsure, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from my lips.

"Was it?"

"I think so. I don't know." He closed the small gap between us and dipped his head to put his mouth on mine again. It was more sensual, passionate, and slower like he knew it might be the last of what he got. He gripped each side of my head with his hands before he forced himself to pull away.

"God," he muttered under his breath before lightly kissing me. He broke contact for a millisecond and changed his mind, coming back harder. His tongue ran over my bottom lip and slipped inside my mouth. His body firmly but softly pushed me back against the flat rock behind me, pinning me between two hard surfaces. The blood in my body rushed into my lower abdomen at how desperate and urgent he seemed.

Then he was gone and taking a step back while he kept his hands around my head.

"God," I muttered, stepping back into him. That wasn't nearly enough. It couldn't end.

He tipped my head up with the force of his hands and lightly brushed his lips over mine. Then he pressed them harder against me one last time.

"Okay." He dropped his hands, blinked in the sun, and turned away.


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