“Why do you sound amused?”
“I’m not amused; I’m incredulous. You don’t seem like the type to sit around a campfire.”
“We did it a lot when I was at that arts camp last summer. Well, everyone else did it a lot. I only went once.”
“You were still in your curmudgeon era back then.”
“Am I out of it now?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t think so. I think you just earned yourself an exemption.”
Back at Allie’s, Jack made quick work of the fire, and before Blair knew it, they were kissing under the stars.
It wasn’t the first time Blair had kissed under the stars. But it was the first time she’d done so next to a lake—next to theGreen Lightlake—and with a man who knew what that meant to her.
“Should we take this inside?” she mumbled against his lips as things started to heat up, and she laughed when he got up so fast he almost knocked her over.
“Sit tight for a second.” He came back with a bucket he filled with lake water and upended over the fire.
“Dousing the fire,” she said. “Speaking of heavy-handed metaphors, that’s a good one. Or maybe it’s abadone.” She for one did not want the spark to die out.
“It’s not a metaphor,” he said tersely as he went back to refill the bucket.
“What is it, then?”
“It’s just a necessary task that must be performed before I can get you upstairs and get inside you.”
She sucked in a breath, and when he dumped the second bucket on the fire, a plume of steam rose.
“Good enough,” he muttered.
She was closer to the stairs that led back up to the house, and he pointed toward them, silently ordering her to ascend.
“Did you bring condoms?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Yes.”
There was something about thatyes, a single, simple syllable, but one infused with a sense of urgency and inevitability.
Once inside, he passed her and headed into the bedroom, pulling his shirt off as he went.
“Wow,” she said, as by the time she rounded the corner, he was unbuttoning his jeans. “You don’t waste any time.”
He looked up. “Did you want me to romance you?” The question could have been asked with a dose of standard-issue Jack Branksome snark, but it wasn’t.
“No,” she said, and it was the truth. If she’d wanted romance—which she didn’t—kissing under the stars just now would have more than sufficed. “I guess I’m just nervous.” It felt like a lot, to confess that.
“Well, I would tell you to take off that dress, but”—he stepped toward her and sent his hands up under the skirt and made contact with her thighs—“I fucking love this dress.”
“You do?”
“It’s been driving me mad all evening.”
“Really?” Blair looked down at herself. It wasn’t that exciting a dress. The cherry print was cute, but the cut was modest. It was your basic A-line, cap-sleeve, tea-length dress. The white cotton had been a poor choice for lake life. “It’s all dirty,” she said, turning herback to him to display the evidence—at the firepit, she had sat on a railroad tie.
He was behind her then, his front to her back, and she could feel his arousal against her bottom. He lowered his mouth to the side of her neck and kissed her before pulling back and saying, “I don’t know if I want to tear it off you or insist that you keep it on.”
