I watched the sweat track a slow, glistening line down the canyon of your chest, and I hated you for breathing so easily.
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Tuesday, 5:14 AM
The ink from this pen is the only thing moving in the Lodge right now. Outside the window, the Gore Range is a jagged, black ink-stain against a sky that hasn’t decided if it wants to be purple or grey yet. My hands are shaking, Soren. It isn’t from the three-thousand-foot vertical climb we did yesterday, and it isn’t from the four hours of sleep I managed to snatch before the adrenaline forced me upright. It’s the sheer, theatrical weight of what you did to me in the recovery suite.
I’m writing this because if I look at you at breakfast, I will either throw my hot coffee in your face or climb you like a technical route in Boulder Canyon. There is no middle ground. We have spent six days at this 'Elite Performance Summit' trying to out-endure one another. I saw the way you looked at my splits on the trail; I saw the way you smirked when I reached for the twenty-five-pound plates instead of the thirties. You think you’re the apex predator of this retreat, some kind of mountain deity in expensive compression gear.
But last night, when the rest of the overachievers were tucked into their high-thread-count sheets dreaming of their VO2 max, I found you in the infrared room. The smell of cedar and eucalyptus was so thick it felt like something I could reach out and bruise. You were sitting on the bench, your back against the wood, sweat turning your skin into a landscape of salt and light. You didn’t even open your eyes when I walked in. You just said, 'You’re late, Thorne. The elevation finally get to your ego?'
God, you are an arrogant bastard. I stood there in my thin nylon shorts and a sports bra that felt like it was trying to strangle me, watching the way your chest moved. You were vibrating with the same restless, kinetic energy that’s been driving me crazy since the shuttle picked us up in Denver. I didn’t answer. I just sat down on the opposite bench, the heat of the lamps hitting my skin like a physical confrontation.
'I’m not late,' I told you, my voice sounding more like a challenge than a statement. 'I was waiting for the crowd to clear. I can’t stand the way they all look at you, Soren. Like you’re something to be studied.'
You opened your eyes then. They weren't soft. They were predatory, reflecting the red glow of the infrared panels. You looked me up and down, lingering on the scrape on my knee from the afternoon scramble, the way my hair was plastered to the back of my neck. 'And how do you look at me, Cassie?'
I didn't answer with words. I couldn't. The theatricality of the moment—the red light, the silence of the mountains pressing against the glass, the smell of our shared exhaustion—it felt like a stage set for a disaster. I stood up, my quadriceps screaming a protest that I ignored, and walked across the small, sweltering space. I stood between your knees. You didn’t pull them together. You kept them wide, an invitation that felt more like a dare.
'I look at you like a peak I haven't bagged yet,' I whispered.
Your hand came up then, your fingers rough and calloused from the climbing wall, and gripped the back of my thigh. You squeezed, hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough to make me gasp. It wasn't a 'moan that escaped my lips'—it was a sharp, jagged sound of pure, unadulterated shock. You pulled me closer until my pelvis was inches from your face. The heat in that room was nothing compared to the flash-fire that erupted when your thumb brushed the edge of my shorts.
'Then start climbing,' you said, your voice a low, gravelly rasp.
I didn’t hesitate. I reached down and grabbed your hair, pulling your head back so I could see your throat. I wanted to see the pulse there, the one thing you couldn't control with your elite training. It was hammering. You were just as wrecked as I was. I dropped to my knees on the cedar floor, the wood grain biting into my skin, and I didn't waste time with games. I tore at the drawstring of your shorts, my fingers clumsy with a desperation that felt like oxygen deprivation.
When you spilled out of them, you were already hard, a heavy, blunt weight that looked enormous in the crimson light. You didn't look like a fitness influencer then. You looked like a man who had been starved. I took you into my mouth all at once, the salt of your skin and the heat of you hitting me like a shot of high-altitude whiskey. You groaned, a deep, guttural sound that vibrated through my skull, and your hands locked into my hair, guiding me, demanding more.
I worked you with a rhythmic, punishing intensity. I wanted to see you break. I wanted to take that composure of yours and shatter it like a sheet of ice on a mountain lake. I used my tongue to trace the vein that ran the length of your cock, feeling it throb against my palate. Every time I sucked the head of your dick, you bucked against me, your heels digging into the bench, your breath coming in short, panicked hitches.
'Cassie,' you choked out, your voice breaking. 'Stop. Get up here.'
You didn't wait for me to comply. You hauled me up by my armpits, your strength effortless even after the day we’d had, and flipped me around. You pressed my chest into the cedar bench, the wood hot and rough against my breasts. I felt you behind me, a wall of solid, sweating muscle. You didn't use a condom—you didn't even ask—and in that moment, the recklessness felt like part of the high. You hooked your fingers into the waistband of my shorts and ripped them down, exposing me to the dry, searing air of the sauna.
I was so wet I felt like I was melting. You reached around, your hand finding the spot where I was most sensitive, and you didn't tease. You ground your palm against my clit, your fingers sliding into my pussy with a brutal, direct efficiency. I arched my back, my forehead pressing into the wood, and I screamed. I didn't care if the yoga instructor in the next room heard me. I didn't care if the whole lodge woke up.
'You've been wanting this since the trailhead,' you hissed into my ear, your teeth grazing the lobe. 'You’ve been tracking me like a predator all week.'
'Shut up,' I gasped, my fingers clawing at the cedar. 'Just do it, Soren. Fuck me.'
You entered me in one violent, seamless motion. It felt like being split open, like a tectonic shift. You were so thick, so uncompromising, that I felt my breath leave me in a rush. You didn't start slow. You hit a pace that was as relentless as a forced march, your hips slamming into mine with a rhythmic thud that echoed in the small room. Every thrust was deep, bottoming out against my cervix, sending sparks of white-hot lightning through my gut.
I could feel the friction of our skin, the way our sweat acted as a lubricant, making everything messy and loud. The smell of us—sex and salt and the Sharpie-scent of the sauna—was intoxicating. I reached back, trying to find purchase on your hips, my nails digging into your glutes as you drove yourself into me. You were breathing like you were at the summit of Everest, ragged and desperate, and I loved it. I loved that I was the one making you lose your rhythm.
'Look at me,' you commanded, your voice shaking.
I twisted my head back, my hair a tangled mess across my face. Your eyes were blown wide, the pupils swallowing the irises, and for a second, the mask of the elite athlete was gone. You looked terrified. You looked like you were falling. You grabbed my chin, forcing me to hold your gaze as you increased the speed, your cock sliding in and out of me with a wet, slapping sound that made my toes curl.
I felt the orgasm building, a physical pressure like a storm front moving in over the divide. It started in my thighs and coiled upward, tightening every muscle in my body until I thought I would snap. I began to shake, my internal muscles clenching around you, milking you, demanding everything you had left.
'Soren, please,' I sobbed, the melodrama of it all finally spilling over. 'I can't—I'm going to—'
'Wait for it,' you growled, your hands shifting to my waist, your thumbs digging into my hip bones. 'Wait for the burn, Cassie. Don't you dare quit now.'
You pushed me further, your thrusts becoming shorter, sharper, more focused. You were aiming for something deep inside me, some hidden trigger point that you found with a devastating accuracy. When I finally broke, it wasn't a quiet release. It was a convulsion. My vision went white, and I felt my pussy pulse around you in heavy, rhythmic waves that seemed to go on forever. I heard myself screaming your name, a theatrical, desperate sound that felt like it was being ripped out of my lungs.
You followed me a second later. I felt your cock swell even larger inside me, and then the hot, thick jet of your come hitting my internal walls. You groaned, a long, low sound of absolute defeat, and collapsed against my back, your weight pinning me to the bench. We stayed like that for a long time, two bodies radiating heat in a room designed to make people sweat, our hearts racing in a frantic, syncopated rhythm.
Eventually, you pulled out of me, the sound of it wet and final. You didn't say anything sweet. You didn't tell me it was beautiful. You just wiped the sweat from your forehead with the back of your hand and looked at me with a smirk that was half-respect and half-arrogance.
'Five minutes,' you said, checking the timer on the wall. 'Then we hit the cold plunge. Don't be a pussy, Thorne.'
And then you walked out, leaving me there, shaking and sticky and more alive than I have felt in years.
So, that’s why I’m sitting here at this desk, Soren. I’m watching the sun hit the peaks, turning them the color of a fresh bruise, and I’m wondering how the hell I’m supposed to go on a three-hour recovery hike with you today without dragging you behind a stand of Aspens and doing it all over again. You are the most infuriating, exhausting, beautiful man I have ever encountered, and I hate that you know exactly how to break me.
I’m not going to send this. I’m going to fold it up and hide it in the pocket of my hiking pack, a little secret to carry with me while we pretend to be professionals today. I’ll see you at the trailhead. I’ll be the one out-climbing you.
Try to keep up.
— C.
