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“If you have to sleep in the woods, you might as well kick a few pinecones while you’re at it.”
I threw my hands up helplessly smiling. “Okay. I’m officially banning you from metaphors. I mean, am I supposed to be the pinecones or the sleeping in the woods?”
Landon actually seemed slightly offended. He took a deep breath and folded his fingers together. “Kicking pinecones is something enjoyable you can do in the woods. I was trying to say I plan to enjoy this arrangement.”
I leaned forward. “I just want to make sure I understand. You’re saying that Landon Collins, the mysterious BDSM club owner, likes to go into the woods sometimes and kick pinecones for fun? Haven’t you ever heard of like… Woodcarving? Or burning stuff in the campfire? I mean, kicking pinecones?”
“Enough,” he growled. “I get it. You don’t think it’s fun to kick pinecones. Can we move on?”
I grinned. “I’m just enjoying the image is all. You all dressed in your cute little suit. Maybe you’re so excited to get to the woods that you’re skipping through a meadow somewhere. Then you see your first pinecone and your face lights up. A big windup, and… kick!”
Landon was glaring at me now. “I take it back. The way I feel about this is more like I woke up in the morning to find a bear eating all my food.”
I wiggled my eyebrows and then tugged the tray of fries to my side of the table. “Rawr.”10LandonI’d brought a pair of board shorts for myself but had to swing by the gift shop to pick up a swimsuit for Andi.
“You know,” Andi said. “I’m capable of picking out my own swimsuit.”
She was standing behind me with her arms crossed while I rooted through a rack of matching tops and bottoms. I pulled out a pink suit with white polka dots and put it beside her face. “Yeah. I think this is the one.”
She snatched it from me. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you are enjoying the idea of picking this out for me.”
“More like the idea of seeing it on you.”
Andi smiled, but something seemed to cross her mind that wiped it from her face.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m just trying to figure you out.”
I spent most of my life thinking I’d hate you, but I don’t. Now I’m too much of a coward to tell you who I really am because I don’t want to chase you away. I shrugged. “Is it so out of the ordinary for someone to enjoy your company, Wainwright?”
We walked together to the outdoor area where the dolphin encounter took place. A few other groups of people gathered to wait with us until we were let into locker rooms to get into our swimsuits.
I found Andi already waiting outside in the pink swimsuit. The body she’d been trying so hard to hide was spectacular. She was athletic, but still with curves in the right places. When she caught me looking, she crossed her hands in front of herself.
“Enjoying the view, perv?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
Andi paused, clearly not expecting my answer. “Uh, well, just don’t get all excited and mistake me for a pinecone. I’d rather not be kicked today.”
“It wasn’t kicking that I was thinking about.”
“Well, are we going to get to ride some dolphins, or what?” she asked in a slightly high-pitched voice.
We were standing on a patch of blue-painted concrete between three large tanks of water. Each tank had a shallow ledge where customers and trainers could stand in waist level water while the dolphins swam up from the deeper section of the tank.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I said.
“Back again, Landon?” one of the trainers asked. He was a college-aged kid with oversized teeth and messy hair.
I cleared my throat and tried to glare at him until he got the message. I’d probably been to this thing at least a dozen times in the past year, but I would prefer that bit of information to stay private. Andi already knew too much about me—especially after I was dumb enough to tell her about how much fun I apparently found it to kick pinecones. I wanted to groan at the memory. That had been a massive misunderstanding, but it would’ve been too awkward to try to clear it up, so now I’d forever be the pinecone kicker in her eyes.
Andi was looking at me funny while a young girl hopped up on a box and started explaining the rules to everyone who was gathered around.
“What?” I murmured.
“Just trying to figure out what your angle is. Back again,” Andi mused. “It’s almost like you’re here all the time. And he even remembered your name.”
“Back again could also mean I’ve been here once before. And some people are good with names.”
“Sure,” she said. “But you also stared at him like you were about to grab a dolphin by the tail and beat him to death with it if he didn’t look away.”
