His muscles ached by the time the sun had begun to peek over the horizon. The male's body was dying for a break but he kept pushing on, wishing to feel more of the burn that ran through his body. It was a reminder that he had freed himself from Aileen's grasp. She had been awfully good to him but smothered him more than he could handle. Granted he had never been one for good feelings. For wherever he went he seemed to leave a wash of bitterness in his path.
Only a year ago he would have tried to fight that bitterness. Now he wallowed in it, accepted it and moved on.
It was why he put him through the burn of climbing the heights. No one would find him up here for only fools dared to climb the mountain in the winter. Of course, he had also traveled back north where conditions had been harsher than they had been down in the south. Sunny days seemed endless there and he would have stayed was it not for that smothering lover.