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ten

MOLLIE

I’m not sure what to expect from a shared house where a bunch of outdoorsy guys live. Perhaps muddy shoes everywhere, mountains of beer cans, and athletic gear stored in the pantry.

But the house Hunter takes me to, which is near the adventure center, looks like my parents’ house and is maintained about as well. There’s a nice wrap-around porch—swept clean—and while the front room is full of gear and shoes, everything is lined up in rows and tidy piles. The dining room table is full of maps and guidebooks—words like “rock climbing” and Utah’s 50 Best Hikes and Colorado’s Fourteeners jump out at me but I don’t poke around.

When Hunter directs me to his room, down a hallway of closed doors, I stop in the doorway and close my mouth. His room is filled with books. There are two full bookshelves against one wall by a desk, and there are also stacks everywhere. There’s a stack on his nightstand and another on the floor by the bed. There’s a stack on the windowsill, propping open the window, and another by the door-jam as we walk in. Most of the stacks have bookmarks poking out of some of the books.

“How many of these are you reading at the same time?” I ask, turning in a circle once I manage to cross the threshold of the room. I’m surrounded by more reading material than I’ve seen anywhere outside a library. “And how many do you read every year?”

Hunter stands barely inside the door with his hands tucked in the pockets of his jeans. “I’m kind of a grazer. I read a chapter here and there when it’s relevant to my interests at the time. I don’t always follow through on reading the whole book. Often, I come back to things.”

“Are there more in your closet?”

He laughs a little. “Maybe a few.”

Moving slowly to give him the chance to protest, I walk over to the closed closet door and open it. Even under a pair of cleated bike shoes, there are a few more books. No skeletons in this closet, merely a well-rounded man.

I wasn’t expecting my emotional reaction to that, like a punch to the throat. Getting to know Hunter is hard, because everything he reveals about himself makes me want to know more. I want to hug all this information, along with the man himself, close to my chest and squeeze. I can’t be the only woman to have seen this closet— can I? —and I wonder if we’ve all reacted this way. And all lost him in the end, this man who is so much more than we expected.

Swallowing back all the feels, I face him. “I like it,” I say.

His mouth tugs up into a grin. “Sorry there’s not really anywhere to sit.” He pulls out the desk chair and moves the stack of books off it, offering it to me.

I look between the offered chair and the bed. With a bite of my lower lip, I choose the bed. I’m not here for a relationship. There’s no reason to pretend otherwise. This is a temporary arrangement between Hunter and me. I need to keep my eye on what I want to get out of it, as Nora said to me before slapping my butt and sending me off to “have fun” after the hike.

Nora and Sophie mean well. But they’re much more certain about everything than I am. When I’m around them, I often adopt what they want because it’s so much easier than figuring out what I do.

I want to sleep with Hunter. I do.

But I’m still second-guessing my choice of seat. Because what if my own closet is filled with feelings and they all come pouring out, turning this into an impossible situation for both of us?

Hunter picks up one of his books and sits down on the bed beside me. “This is going to sound like a line, but I can’t help it. I haven’t had a woman in my room in a long time, so I’ve gotta ask. A couple of months ago I tried to find a book to read that portrayed the female perspective, and it involved a lot of trial and error and I eventually read this. Do you think it fits the bill?” He holds the book up, allowing me to read it’s title: We Should All Be Feminists.

“I haven’t read that,” I admit, ignoring the tingle in my lady parts. “Are you sure this isn’t a line? Did you take that book to the bars and wait for women to approach you? Because I feel like it would work.”

“No.” He grimaces. “Although, Scott suggested it. So I thought about it. I never did. I was too interested in actually reading the book. I didn’t want to be interrupted.”

“That’s fair.” My heart squeezes from how adorable this man is.

“In complete transparency, after I finished the book, Scott tried it out and he said it worked really well.” Hunter puts the book back on the stack on the floor by his bed.

“Could you hear it working really well?” I gesture at the walls of his bedroom. “How thin are these?”

“Yeah, you called that. They’re pretty bad,” he admits. “Usually nobody’s here during the day.” He winces and looks at his hands as he adds, “If you’re worried about that. Not that you have any reason to be.”

His darkening cheeks make me want to be the bold one. It’s not Nora and Sophie urging me on in this moment, it’s the fact that foreplay with Hunter involves a literary discussion.

“Hunter,” I say. “Let’s be real here. We want to have sex. And I’d rather no one be listening to us.”

He meets my eyes. His blue ones are surprised only briefly, then turn thoughtful. “I guess I shouldn't be surprised you are so straightforward about this.”

“No? Most people would be.” The truth is, Hunter’s one of the only people I would be so straightforward with. It’s easy to be brave around him. Sweet and daring. The gentle way he coaxes her out of me makes it easy for me to be the woman he seems to see.

“No,” he says. “You’re spicy, remember? And daring. You’re one of the only people I know who doesn’t, you know, grandstand or coat everything with a layer of bullshit. Even my friends—even though I love them—they can’t have a heart-to-heart conversation without pretending they’re joking around.”

“I just coat everything with a layer of failure instead.” I laugh, then wince. “Sorry. That was bullshit, like you said. I know I fail a lot but not every time.”

“So long as you keep trying, anyway.” He grins. “Success is the result of as many fails as you’re willing to give. Remember when I taught you about sessioning, on the bike? That’s the same thing. You repeat it over and over, breaking it down into achievable parts, until you succeed at the whole thing.”

“That seems like a life approach.” I mean it. I’m not agreeing only because Hunter’s nearness is getting to me. And despite being brave, despite my personal determination to live without bullshit, I’m still struggling to reach between us and touch him. I need him to make the first move.

“What if we approach this like that?” he murmurs, twisting toward me. “When I look at you, there are a lot of parts I want to…well—a lot of things I want to do. And touch. So maybe we break it down and take it slow?”

Slow is not what I’m used to, and I should have expected it from this man. His care—the way he waits for me to answer before he reaches out—makes me bold again. “And maybe you could start by touching me here?” I rest my hand on my thigh.

“I like a map.” He puts his hand there.

“More like a guidebook, I think,” I reply, laying down on my back with my legs still dangling off the bed. “I didn’t give you the contour lines.”

He grins, leaning over me propped on his elbow, one hand still tracing the seam of my jeans. “Look how well you listen.”

We both know I wasn’t actually any good at the contour lines. This is something I can do, though. I can present my own body to explore. There’s nothing else I want more in this moment. “Anything else you want to teach me?”

He pauses, looking down at what his hand is doing. “I’d like to learn the contour lines of your body. Is that OK?”

Mutely, I nod, because I’m holding my breath for what I think is going to happen next. And then, Hunter puts both hands on me. He slides them up my body, over the swell of my breasts, where he pauses to feel my nipples perk against his palms.

Oh my god, so this is what elevation gain is really like. The rush goes straight to my head. Every part of me is attuned to his hands, to the next turn they might take as they explore.

He runs his hands over all of me, from my collarbones to my toes after he takes off my shoes. From the look of concentration on his face, I think he really is learning my dimensions. It feels as if he’s not just touching me, but every inch of me onto the map he’s creating with his hands.

His hands study me. And I study back, sensitized to every pressure change, to the way his hands caress around my breasts and then firmly grasp my hips. The way he maps me tells me he knows what to do with my body, from my flesh to my bones, and I keep forgetting to breathe with the anticipation of it.

By the time he’s traveled the length of me twice, I can’t wait for him do it again with less clothes. My heart is beating so hard I can hear it in my ears, and my throat is so dry I keep swallowing.

“You look thirsty.” Hunter offers me some water.

I’ve never been this parched. I sit up and gulp it. I eye him over the top of the bottle, there on his knees in front of me. He’s taken off his glasses and he stares back at me, intent on his project. Waiting for me to be ready.

“You gotta hydrate,” he murmurs.

When I reach for him, intending to map him in return, he shakes his head and asks if he can remove one of my layers. My fingers tremble when I hand the water bottle back.

He unbuttons my jeans and slides them down my legs gently, and the rough denim feels like sandpaper scratching across my overly sensitized skin. I crave his touch at this point. I ache for it.

I’ve had hook-ups where I felt embarrassed when I took off my clothes, uncertain of my curvy body or my body hair routine. Not with Hunter. There is no judgment in his touch, just a hunger to learn. When he runs his fingers up my thighs, he takes in their contour without shame. This is my body; this is the scenic route he takes to see more of me.

When he touches me, running his palms up over my calves, my knees, my thighs, there’s a gush of warmth at my core. Holy shit, I’m not sure I’ve ever been this ready for someone before they’ve ever touched me there. Imagining Hunter’s fingers thrust inside me makes me close my eyes and moan. I stretch my arms up above my body and luxuriate in the fact this man knows how to orienteer my body. When was the last time I didn’t have to lead a man by the hand to the places that would make me scream for him? I thought that was simply the burden of being a woman: having to draw a map for every man I slept with. Now, here is Hunter, drawing a map without help from me. Finding his way to places I hadn’t even thought to show him.

Hunter spreads my legs and rubs up my inner thighs, over my pantied mound, tickling the sides of my belly, then over my bra-covered breasts again. Sessioning me. Running the same—what did they call the rock formations in the trail?— features to gain familiarity and figure out a plan for success.

I’m dying to know Hunter’s plan for my breasts. And elsewhere.

“Can we…” I pluck at my bra, wanting to take it off. Hunter helps me, reaching around my back to unhook it. He does it so easily, his nimble fingers working the bra like he would any other gear. Then the cool air hits my bare breasts and I shiver.

“Cold?” he asks.

“Your hands are warm.”

So he covers my breasts with them. Now he knows the shape of them, the gentle slopes and valley between. He traces lines up and down and blows on their highest elevation, making pebbles of my nipples. He tugs on the peaks, making sparks shoot down my body to my toes.

He helps me lift my hips to pull my panties down, and at last scoots me up the bed so my feet are no longer on the floor. Then he turns to mapping new terrain—the folds between my legs. He doesn’t need a guide there, either. He nuzzles into me, parts my flesh with his fingers, and doesn’t hesitate.

Only in my wildest dreams did I imagine Hunter using his tongue to trace my core, taking the scenic route up and down over my clit before dipping deep inside. Something gives way for him, my hips straining to press into his hold, my core calling out for more.

“Fuck,” I gasp, and put my hands on his shoulders which are still fully dressed. I push on his shirt, blindly demanding in my eagerness for skin against skin, and Hunter relents and pulls back to undress.

He undresses, revealing bulging biceps and shoulders cut like granite. I knew Hunter was fit, from his job and his lifestyle. His muscles aren’t from the gym. He has a soft belly but sculpted thighs. His cock, hard and strong as the rest of him, bobs in my direction when he takes off his boxer briefs.

He comes to me when I reach for him with both hands, greedy for him. I slide my hands over his body, knowing I’m not skilled enough—or patient enough—to learn him the way he did me. Not right now. Not when I’m leaking all over his bed from the need to have him between my legs.

Combing my hands through his loose hair as it falls over his shoulder, something animalistic takes over and I arch my back, pulling his head down to my breast. He laves my nipple, his hair tickling me. I take fists full of it. I part my legs as wide as I can and the tip of his cock almost slips inside of me.

Finally, Hunter takes mercy on me and gets a condom from his nightstand. “Are you ready?” he asks. He climbs up my geography and holds himself over me, braced on both hands.

“I can’t wait any longer,” I moan, raising my knees up around his hips.

When he enters me, it’s what I imagine summiting a mountain must be like. I gasp a deep breath and open for him, ready for this new adventure.

Hunter is as ready as I am, spearing me deeply with his hard length. We rut together, finding our rhythm, sweat gliding between our skin. The angles of his body above, against, inside mine are miraculous. We are perfect together.

He reaches between us and rubs my clit, and that’s all it takes for me to take off, soaring above our bodies for one out-of-body moment of climax. While I’m there, I watch Hunter come inside my body, his face a mask of bliss.

He collapses on top of me for only a moment before he hops up and runs away naked. I blink around in confusion and he’s back quickly with a washcloth and a flannel robe that he helps me into. He directs me to the bathroom and then curls around me, tucking the robe close around my legs, and holding me as I enjoy the remnants of my orgasm.

“You OK?” he murmurs against the back of my neck. I nod, shivering as his whiskers rub my neck. He tucks the plaid blanket on his bed closer around me, and then I stare at the map tacked to Hunter’s wall as he starts to snore behind me.

Well, shit . I can’t ignore the way Hunter revealed so much of who he is during sex, nor the way pieces of me connected to pieces of him as more than just sex. We fit together. I didn’t expect that. He was like a puzzle piece that completed my map. And the aftercare—the way he made sure I was comfortable, warm and clean after—was a big part of that.

I can’t deny it now. This man is more than a summer fling for me.