Page 96 of The Path to Loving Him
“Idiotic questions aren’t needed either.”
Huffing, he feels around. “Where are you?”
“Holding on to the pole, staring at my immediate death, where else?”
“I know you’re on the pole.”
“Then why ask?” I yell as my arms start to sweat around the pole.
“I don’t know, I’m stressed.”
“You’re stressed?” I glance down at the ground. “You’re not about to break your spine with one slide down a pole.”
“Christ.” He moves around. “Let me try to grab the ladder.”
“Might be a novel idea.”
I hear him bumble around, swear, then bump into a few things. When I glance down to the ground, I see him on all fours, feeling around for the ladder. At that point, I realize there’s no way this will work out in my favor.
He’s unable to locate a ladder, a giant sixteen-foot ladder. He can find the exact spot inside me that can make me scream out his name, but a ladder? Nope.
Such a freaking man.
“I think . . . I think I’m going to slide down the pole.”
“What, no, you’re going to hurt yourself,” he calls up.
No shit.
“I can’t hold on much longer. I’m . . . I’m slipping.”
“Just give me a second. Fuck, this paint.”
“To the right,” I shout. He goes to the left. “No, the other right.” He moves forward. “Jesus, Ryland. Your right. Your right. YOUR FUCKING RIGHT!”
He fumbles some more.
I slide.
He curses.
More sweat forms between my arms and the pole.
“Ryland, I can’t.”
“Fuck,” he shouts just as his hand connects with the bottom half of the ladder. “Got it.”
But it’s too late.
My grip loosens on the pole, allowing the most intense, ear-piercing screech to fill the silent air, the sound of my skin getting raw-dogged right off the bone as I make it all the way down to the ground.
I land with a thump.
A grunt falls out of my lips.
And a fiery pain shoots up my legs.
“Death,” I whisper as I flop back on the grass and stare up at the brilliantly blue sky, my inner thighs on fire . . . and not in a good way.
