She stood there, brazenly letting him caress her in the middle of the empty path. “Then I guess we should go exploring,” she said pointedly, well aware of how different she sounded from the girl who’d been in the cab with him last night. He tugged on the front of her dress to snag the view that had eluded him before. Her cleavage rose and fell with her breath. Yes, it definitely seemed like he wanted to explore.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” He raised an eyebrow, and Julia turned and started down the dirt path, pushing the overgrown brush out of the way with her hands.
The paved route wound farther down to the river but the path stayed level. It hugged the edge of the cliff tightly, turning sharply in as the sun sent dappled streaks of light over the leaves. All of a sudden it came to an end, tangled in vines.
“That was disappointing,” Julia said as she slowed to a stop. She’d been hoping for something exciting—another winding path, an unexplored part of the falls, something unique to discover. “I guess there’s a reason some paths are more used than others.” She turned to head back to the main, paved route down.
But Blake was busy pulling apart the vines, trying to peer through. “What do you think is through there?”
“Trees?”
“No wait, come here.”
“You think the path continues?”
Julia peered through the opening he’d made. Blake stood behind her and pressed his body against hers. She could feel the muscles of his chest and stomach pressed against her back, his breath warm in the shadowy air rich with the smell of dirt and green and clear running water all around. She used her hands to open the vines more.
“Watch out for the rocks,” she pointed, and carefully stepped through.
He was right—the path did continue, and although it was by no means cleared or well used, it wasn’t impossible to walk along. She thought he was going to kiss her—to take her right then and there—but instead he grabbed her wrist and pulled her along, saying he wanted to see what was ahead.
She knew what he was looking for. After they’d passed through the opening they’d made, the sound of water had grown. And now it was unmistakable: the steady rush that said they were heading for one of the falls. Since hundreds of smaller waterfalls cascaded over these cliffs, it wasn’t surprising that at some point a path cutting along the cliff would lead directly toward one.
It was around the next bend that the narrow path opened and Julia stopped dead in her tracks. The path probably used to be for tourists, but it had since been closed down and fallen into disrepair. With so many tourists visiting the falls, it was impossible to keep up a winding network of trails that got this close to the water. The trail ended in a flat, round opening where the ground was tamped down and mostly still cleared, bits of green struggling through the soil in nothing but shade.
Along one side of the path was the cliff wall, slick and damp and dark. The other side was open to the river below, but it wasn’t really open at all. It was covered with a thick, undulating curtain, a constant stream of water cascading down. They were behind the waterfall, watching it from the inside. Compared to the water rushing through the Devil’s Throat, it was nothing, only six or eight feet wide. But still it rushed over them, surrounding them in the pulse of its incessant drive.
“This is beautiful,” Julia exclaimed, her voice echoing against the cliff wall. It was almost like being in a cave, but with the light still hitting them through the sheet of water. A dilapidated wooden railing ran around part of the edge of the opening, the wood soggy and rotting with much of it long crumbled down. Green vines with broad, leafy fans snaked up over the edge, taking over the enclosure year by year.
“I can’t believe we found this,” Blake said.
“Do you think anyone is coming?” She peered back down the path.
“Not a chance. People go to the Devil’s Throat, and then walk around the upper paths or take a boat ride like everyone else. I don’t think they’re coming down here.”
“It’s a shame to miss this.” She couldn’t get over the light dancing over her forearms, the glitter and pulse of the waterfall delicate and deadly at the same time. All that power from nothing but water accumulating into sheer force barreling down.
She could feel his eyes on her as she explored the area, running her fingers along the dirt wall of the cliff, the dark shiny rocks of the edge. Everything was rich and moist and vibrant to her touch. At the fence she felt the pieces of wet wood disintegrate in her hand from the spray that kissed her face more urgently the closer she got.
She extended her hand, as close as she dared to come to the edge. Maybe Blake was right and she was afraid of heights. All she knew was that she couldn’t trust herself if temptation got too close.
The tips of her fingers grazed the sheet of water and she gasped. The cold slap was almost enough to force her hand down. Dangerous. Exhilarating. Water splashed her dress, coating her hair in a fine mist that cooled down the heat building within her whenever she caught Blake’s hungry eyes.
She felt, rather than heard, his body sidling up behind her. He put his hand under the waterfall and ran his wet fingers across her mouth, kissing the spray that clung to her lashes and beaded on her lips. She collapsed against him, collapsed into him, like nothing was holding her up and nothing could keep her away. Her nipples strained through the thin material of her wet sundress, and she could feel his eyes taking in every curve she knew the clinging material hardly concealed.
When he pressed himself to her, she could feel how hard he was, pushing against the fly of his cargo shorts. She thought about how he had rubbed himself against her bathing suit in the pool and was amazed at how the slightest graze against her thigh threw her into such a frenzy. Melted her. Made her his.
“So here we are,” he whispered in her ear, running a hand through her hair, down her back, brushing her ass under her dress that now felt so flimsy, like nothing on her skin.
“Mmm, so we are.” She put her hands in his pockets and pulled his hips against hers to better feel that tantalizing bulge.
“We’re under a waterfall. There’s no one around. Our comrades won’t be off the river for another hour at least. Whatever do you think we should do?”
“I guess I can think of a few things,” she said sweetly, tracing lazy circles with her finger down his chest.
He grabbed her tighter. “Such as?”
She undid the button at the top of his shorts, not breaking eye contact with him. Watching him pant for her touch.
“Such as anything you had in mind.”
But he wouldn’t let her off that easily. “Tell me what you want,” he breathed as he ran a thumb over her breasts, making her nipples stand up and take notice.
It was hard to know what to say to a request like that. The whole idea of saying what she wanted was totally foreign to Julia. It took so much to get herself to say something, like she was still afraid that even now, when they were both so obviously aroused, he might laugh or say she’d misunderstood or he wasn’t interested and wished he’d taken that bus to Buenos Aires instead.
But of course that was ridiculous. She took a deep breath and made the words come out. “I want you,” she admitted, shy to be put on the spot even though they’d already done it all before.
“You want me what?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
She rolled her eyes.
“Say it,” he urged her. Soft and somehow sweet, despite what he was asking.
She chewed on the corner of her lip, trying to think of something good. She remembered what he’d said about how she shouldn’t do that because it drew his attention to her mouth and then she knew what to say. “I want you to kiss me.”
He brushed his lips softly against her cheek.
She shook her head. “On the mouth.”