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So she can’t leave me. So she’ll stay forever.
“Is it just me, or did this ledge get lower by few feet.” Her nose wrinkles and I get the sudden, powerful urge to kiss it. “Remember how scary it used to look?” She smiles up at me and I get lost in it. That smile that forced me to fall in love with her. Not the one that sells sneakers and pasta and yogurt. The smile a ten-year-old girl gave me, and a sixteen-year-old, and the woman that girl eventually became.
“You were ten, Mare.”
“Oh please, you were thirteen and you almost peed yourself.”
“Yeah, thanks for the reminder,” I tell her, chuckling as the memory comes flooding back. “Come on. Let’s do it for old time’s sake.”
She bites her bottom lip and a surge of lust makes me painfully hard, my dick straining against my running tights. Jesus, I gotta get in the water before she notices.
“Okay. Let me put my cast sleeve on.” While she goes through her backpack and puts on her waterproof sleeve, I kick off my hiking boots and take off my running tights and put my shorts back on with my back to her. Then I strip off my shirt knowing what she’ll see, knowing how exposed I am.
Maren gets down to her sports bra and shorts and the moment of truth arrives. It’s been so hard hiding this from her I’m almost relieved to show her. She stands straight and faces me. That’s when I hear her breath catch.
“What’s that?” She points at my chest. Her eyes, wide and filled with wonder, trace the tattoo of her name above my heart while I stay quiet.
She steps closer, her attention never straying from the cursive writing, and slowly lifts a finger. She places it on the M, following it until she spells every letter in her name. Each curve and straight line, her claim on my heart. I shiver under her touch, my skin burning, my body as hard as fuck. That touch, that connection––I want it to last forever.
“Is this new?” Her eyes lift to meet mine. Warm. Curious. I don’t know how much to tell her. We’ve been getting along so well on this trip and I don’t want to ruin it.
Just a little longer. A little more time. I’m not a man that often prays but I’m praying now. I’m praying my goddamn heart out.
“No.” It’s been there a while. I don’t tell her. I don’t because that would be admitting more than I want to, more than she’s ready to hear.
“Why?” she breathes out, voice low and sexy. The anticipation in her eyes makes me want to give her anything and everything I have to give.
Looking down, I lace my fingers with the ones of her left hand. “On jump?”
She studies my face for a beat and nods. She doesn’t push. She doesn’t insist. No one has ever understood me as implicitly as Maren has.
Just a little more time, I beg. Because once she knows, this thing, this new beginning or time-out or whatever it is will be over, maybe for good, and I’m not ready to give her up yet.
Together we step up to the ledge and look down, then at each other, smiling like two maniacs. “I count to three and we go on jump.”
“On jump,” she echoes.
I count backward and on jump we leap off the rocky ledge together. Maren squeals and my grip on her hand tightens. A second later the cold water practically knocks the wind out of me, the shock seizing up my lungs. We break the surface, come up at the same time sucking in oxygen. Laughing, screaming.
“Ahhhh!! It’s freezing!” She laughs and laughs. A full throaty laugh that has me smiling so hard my face hurts.
She plasters her body to mine and the cold doesn’t feel so cold anymore. Her arms circle around my neck and the empty ache in my chest that’s been there since she left me fades away.
I pull her even closer, close enough that I can feel her from hip bone to breast bone. Close enough that she can feel the growing interest in my shorts. Her nipples are hard enough to cut glass. They press against my chest and a surge of lust hits me as fast and hard as a runaway train. Her eyebrows quirk, a smirk decorating her lips. Which are now pale from the cold.
Man, does it feel good to have her in my arms again.
Her lashes flutter as she stares at my mouth and my heart begins to race, pumping what’s left of my blood straight to my dick. She licks the moisture off her lips and my control starts to unravel. I tip my chin down, lower my mouth over hers. My hand brushes back the wet hair sticking to her forehead.
