Chapter Fifteen Gideon #2
Me: I’m not that mad, baby girl. Do you have some paperbacks that you don’t mind loaning out? Some of the romance ones?
Expecting her to still be asleep, I stand to leave, but the three dots appear on my screen, and I pause.
Willow: Wow, I had no idea you were into smut. I have plenty around here. What are you in the mood for? Small town? Sports? Alien smut?
What the fuck is alien smut? You know what? I don’t want to know.
Me: It’s not for me, smart ass. It’s for Lena. I don’t know, a little of each maybe? I don’t feel comfortable taking her to a bookstore.
Willow: I’ll put some together for her.
Me: Thanks. Love you.
Leaving my office, I walk down the hall to the bedroom. It already smells like her. Lena’s sweet oranges hit me as soon as I step through the door, and I stride right to the bed and climb over the covers, and over her body, planting kisses all over her precious face.
“Mm.” She shifts beneath me, pulls her arms out from under the blankets, and loops them around my neck, hugging me close. “Morning.”
“Good morning, gorgeous.” I bury my face in her neck and breathe her in. “We have to get to work.”
“Let’s play hooky and stay here. It’s too good in this bed.”
“Don’t fucking tempt me.” I nip at her ear, then drag my nose down her cheek and kiss her lips softly. “We have to get up. I’ll get you some coffee and start breakfast.”
“Okay. Give me five.”
By the time I’ve made her coffee and have scrambled eggs and bacon in the pan, Lena comes walking downstairs in her typical workout uniform of leggings, a form-fitting tank, and a zip-up hoodie.
Her bra is thinner, and I can see the outline of her metal through the material, and I can’t resist moving over to her and brushing my thumbs over her nipples as I kiss her senseless.
“No one else is allowed to see these,” I grumble against her lips, making her grin.
“I don’t make a habit of walking around without a top on.”
“Even like this. I can see them through the shirt, and if anyone else sees you this way, they won’t have their eyes in their head for long.”
“Have you always had violent tendencies?”
I growl against her lips, making her chuckle.
“My thicker bra was dirty today, possessive man.”
“Buy more of them” is all I say before I go to check on the food and then dish us up. Thirty minutes later, we’re jogging toward the gym and obstacle course.
Over the past week, Lena’s breathing has improved as she’s adapted to the altitude. She’s hardly out of breath when we arrive at the course, and she props her hands on her curvy hips, scowling.
“You’re going to do great.”
“I’m going to make a fool out of myself, and you’re not going to want to fuck me ever again.”
I’m in front of her so fast, it startles her, my hand gripping the back of her neck, my forehead pressed to hers.
“There is nothing that could make me keep my hands to myself when it comes to you. This, what we do out here, has no bearing on my attraction to you. You’re not going to make a fool out of yourself. Give yourself some grace, Rebel. No one’s a master at this on the first try.”
She swallows hard and gives me a little nod, and then I back away.
“This is the starting point.” I point at the twenty rubber tires lined up side by side for her to run through, and then talk about the rest of the hurdles throughout the course, which spans a quarter of a mile. It’s rigorous as fuck, and it’s meant to be hard.
I can’t adjust it for her to go easier on her. I don’t think I would even if I could. She can do this. If not today, we’ll get her there.
“We’re going to time you on this. Eventually, I want you to be through everything, without failing, in less than fifteen minutes.”
She blinks at me. “How long does it take you to do it?”
“Eight minutes.”
“Christ.” She shakes her head, and she looks nervous as hell.
“Do you want me to do it first, and you watch?”
“Yes. Hello, eye candy.”
Shaking my head with a laugh, I hand her the stopwatch.
“Go!”
I make it through each obstacle—swinging through hanging rings, climbing over walls, crawling under rope webs, the whole thing—with Lena running beside me, watching raptly.
When I ring the bell at the end, she stops the watch and lifts an eyebrow.
“Seven minutes, fifty-six seconds.”
“Your turn.” I’m out of breath, but damn, it feels good. Sometimes, I come out here and run the course over and over again for exercise.
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t care.” I cross my arms over my chest, unmoving. “Let’s go. We don’t have all day, Lena.”
Her brows pull together for just a heartbeat, and then she firms her chin and moves to stand in front of the tires.
I hate how nervous she looks.
“Every time you give up, you start back at the beginning.”
“Okay, hard-ass.”
“Just spelling it out for you.”
“How long are we doing this?”
“Until you’re able to get through it all and finish.”
“So for several months, then. You’re going to get tired, Sergeant.”
“That’s lieutenant. Stop stalling. Go!”
She runs through the tires without a problem.
“Take your time through those tires.”
She flips me off, and it makes me grin.
She’s so fucking adorable.
But when she gets to the rings, where she has to hang and move hand over hand to the other side, she falls.
“Back to the start.”
“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.