Page 62 of Those Who Are Bound

She made a pained face as she looked around again, wondering where the room with harnesses and ropes was located.

“Elliott?” He caressed her arm. “What’s wrong? Are you afraid of heights?”

“No.” She glanced to ensure the employee wasn’t on his way back before she said with no small amount of embarrassment and hesitation. “I have a… complicated relationship with ropes.” She looked around again, ducking her head. “I don’t want to talk about it, please. Can I do… this?” She indicated the free styling boulders and angled walls as she looked back up at him.

Jonah stared at her for a few seconds before his gaze shifted to the boulders. “If that’s where you want to start, that’s where we start.”

The goateed employee came back with a pair of brown shoes. “What are you guys thinking today? Need me to get a spotter over for you? I could do it; pull Jason up here.”

“No, I’ll be spotting her,” Jonah said. He indicated the angled walls with his head. “We’ll be on those.”

The guy nodded. “Solid choice, solid choice.”He informed Elliott, “You got an expert here, so you’re in good hands.”

Elliott beamed at Jonah. “I had no doubt.”

The guy gave Jonah a quick side-eye where some non-verbal communication took place in the span of a glance. The guy gave a half nod of begrudging acknowledgment and said, “Right then.” He looked back at Elliott and said with a hint less enthusiasm than he’d had previously, “Have fun.”

Jonah led her toward the angled walls, which appeared higher as they approached. Elliott surveyed them even as Jonah moved to a wall of cubbyholes for personal belongings. He shrugged off his jacket as he watched her checking out a couple of climbers clinging to the underside of an angled wall, then climbing over a lip at the top. There, they disappeared.

“If you get to the top, there are stairs to bring you back down.”

“And you said this wasn’t competitive.” She also wriggled out of the motorcycle jacket, again thrilling at how he watched the movements of her body with appreciation as the article was shed.He took the jacket and stored it in one of the bins, tracking her as she moved to a bench to remove her boots and armored pants.

“You compete against yourself here.”

“Wanna bet?” She looked back at the others, who were making it look easy to scale the impossibly angled walls. “I probably don’t have enough upper body strength for this,” she pointed out, untying a boot.

“Climbing isn’t about the arms; it’s about the legs. You climb with your legs. If you climb with your arms, you’ll wear out too quickly.”

Elliott admired his jeans-clad thighs. Yes, she’d felt the rock-hard proof of his strength between her own thighs, and she was hoping to experience it again in a more flesh-on-flesh manner. She raised a mischievous look to him.

Jonah grinned.

Climbing shoes donned, Jonah led Elliott to an unoccupied area. He obviously didn’t want her bothered or intimidated by other climbers—or competing against the others. The section he took her to wasn’t as angled, either, and had more purple grips.

“Some basics,” he said as he came up close behind her, his hands on her hips as he stood at her shoulder, also facing the wall. “Remember, climb with your legs. Be sure of your grip before you move on; this isn’t a race. Use your toes to step on footholds, not the middle of your foot. Climb with straight arms and don’t move both your right arm and right leg at the same time. Take a second to plan your route. Stick to the purple; the jugs.”

Overconfident, Elliott immediately blew the last couple of rules and grabbed onto a blue and stepped onto a tiny protrusion with no plan on where to go next. She teetered and slipped off, Jonah’s hands on her hips guiding her off. “Oops.”

“Yeah, I saw what you were doing.”

“A little forewarning, maybe?”

“Nope, not when you ignore my instructions. You’ll figure out quickly you need to listen to me,” he said. “Try it again.”

His reprimand titillated her.

Because you’re a freak.

Shaking her head to clear it, she grabbed hold with both hands before stepping up. She just stayed there a minute and looked around. “Well, this is a lot harder than it looks.” When she reached for another handhold, she leaned back too far and slipped off. Jonah was there to steady her.

Elliott seriously contemplated the wall, mentally mapping where she would go, and then tried again. She got a few moves in before she slipped off with a curse. After several more attempts, she would only get as far as three or four maneuvers before a misplaced toe or bad grip had her falling.

“It’s embarrassing to keep falling in front of them.” Elliott cast a look over at the other, more experienced climbers monkeying up the walls not too far away.

Jonah grasped her head and forced her to face the wall in front of her. “It’s not about them, it’s about you.”

“It’s embarrassing to fail in front of you.”

---