“You really don’t play fair,” I said, voice low.
She blinked up at me, wide-eyed. “I don’t?”
“You don’t eventry,” I said. “And it still wrecks me.”
She didn’t move away. Didn’t blink. Just swallowed hard and whispered, “Then stop trying not to be wrecked.”
And just like that, I kissed her again.
There was no slow lead-in this time. No gentle pause.
I backed her against the red stone wall and kissed her like I couldn’t get close enough. Like every second I hadn’t been kissing her had been a mistake I needed to fix immediately.
She melted into me with a gasp, her hands sliding up my chest, fingers curling into my shirt like she’d been waiting for this all morning.
Her mouth opened under mine, and I took full advantage, tasting her, devouring her. I felt her shiver and pressed closer, letting her know exactly how much she was affecting me.
Every barrier I’d built, the walls, the distance, the carefully constructed detachment, cracked open under the weight of her kiss.
She kissed me like shemeant it.
And God help me, I kissed her like I’d forgotten how not to.
Her hand slid to the back of my neck, pulling me closer, and I let out a low groan, deep and unfiltered, becausethis—she—was undoing me in every way that counted.
And I didn’t care.
When we finally pulled apart, both of us breathless, her hands still fisted in my shirt, she looked up at me with flushed cheeks and a wicked, dazed smile.
“Well,” she murmured. “Hikingisstarting to grow on me.”
I pressed my forehead to hers, still trying to catch my breath. “Don’t tempt me to make out with you every quarter mile.”
“Oh no,” she whispered. “That’sexactlywhat I’m doing.”
I stared at her.
And then I laughed…honest, helpless, full-bodied.
She laughed too, and for the first time in a long time, everything feltright.
Even if it scared me.
Even if I had no idea what came next.
I wantedmore.
And right now, more looked a lot like Fifi, smiling like sin and sunlight beneath a canyon sky.
“I need to jump in that lake,” I said, still breathless, still pressed against the canyon wall like I hadn’t just devoured her mouth in broad daylight.
Fifi blinked up at me, flushed and grinning like she’d just won something. “Seriously?”
I nodded, lips brushing hers one last time before I forced myself to back up an inch. “Yeah. Or you’re going to have to carry me back up that trail. One or the other.”
She tilted her head and made a show of inspecting me. “Hmm. You don’t lookthatheavy.”
I gave her a look. “I bench sarcasm for breakfast.”
