“And by ‘never,’ do you mean just for now? Until I have to go back to the real world?” she asks, smiling sadly.
“I mean fucking never,” I say, as every part of me rebels against the catastrophic idea of losing her, ever. Her eyes widen slightly, and I’m choked with regret for keeping anything from her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything sooner. It’s why I was such a dick about anything happening between us. I’ve always had a rule to keep my hands off guests, and Charlotte gave me a pretty solid reason to never cross that line again.”
“Well, I hate to break this to you,” she says softly, the corners of her lips lifting as I stroke the barest hint of her dimple, “but you suck at following your own rules.”
My fingertips and thumb slip down either side of her neck, and I feel her pulse jump.
“You’re not a guest. You stopped being a guest the second you ran away from Bullwinkle and jumped into my arms,” I argue stupidly. Anything to keep playing this game of slow-motion touching.
Her hand slides almost imperceptibly from my knee to my thigh, and every moment of wishing I hadn’t left her this week throbs through me.
“Not a guest?” she asks, leaning into my touch until my hand is lightly wrapped around her beautiful throat. “Then what am I, Forrest?”
Mine. The word is white-hot in the darkness of my mind, and my hand tightens for one reflexive moment. Her mouth parts as her eyes turn hungry, and I struggle to form other thoughts. With effort, I force myself to let go and explain what I see in her so that she can see it too.
“You’re selfless,” I say, sliding my palm lower, fingers stroking into the dip behind her collarbone. “Fiercely protective, loyal, and kind. So fucking brave.” She shudders at my touch, and her breathing gets quicker. Shallower. “You try to hide it, but you’re so giving underneath it all. You care about my dad, Jo, and even Scout. You’d never do something to hurt them or this lodge.”
“So you’re saying I’m a family friend?” she asks breathlessly, pressing her knees to the side of my thigh. “Hot.”
“It is hot,” I agree. “How many people do you trust with Savannah?”
Her eyelids get heavy as she searches my face, her gaze catching on my mouth. “I’d trust you.”
There wasn’t much space on the couch between us to start, and now it’s practically gone.
“I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry you had to go through that. For being one more man you thought you couldn’t trust,” I say, my hand drifting to the softest sweater I’ve ever touched. “How long has it been since you read that bullshit?”
“Three days,” she almost whimpers, like it’s been three centuries. Her hand finds mine, pressing it to her cashmere-covered heart like I’m the only one who might soothe it, and yeah, three centuries feels about accurate.
“Who told you?” I ask, like I don’t already know the Shit-stirrer in Chief.
“Ollie,” she confirms, and I feel like a bear yanked on a chain. I’m not thinking when I lift her onto my lap so that she’s facing me. I pull her hips close, and her pretty mouth opens in a quiet gasp. “He was looking out for me,” she says, her fingers curling into my chest.
“Yeah, I know exactly what he was looking for,” I grumble. At the thought, a sudden, alarming possibility burns acid up my esophagus, and my fingers dig into her tight yoga pants. “You take him up on anything while you were pissed at me, sweetheart?” I ask, my rocky voice betraying me.
Her white teeth snag on her bottom lip, and she shakes her head quickly. “No.”
But her pulse is racing in her neck, and she won’t look anywhere above my chest, despite how close we are.
“And why not?” I ask, trying to maintain some semblance of rational thought as guilt and jealousy tornado through me. The only thing grounding me are her hips, which have started making rocking movements so tiny I doubt she even realizes what she’s doing.
“Because he’s not—” She stops talking, her flush only getting deeper, and Christ, this woman. She feels so fucking good spread wide across my lap, giving in to these feelings neither of us has any business having. Soon enough, I can’t stop my hands from helpingher hips along, tugging and pushing until I know she can feel what she’s doing to me.
“He’s not what, sweetheart?”
Her eyes are dark and sweet as maple syrup when she looks up at me. “He’s not you.”
Three short syllables, and I’m flush with victory. Greedy with triumph. I want her to say it again, but she falls forward and presses her forehead to mine like she’s been defeated. Like she knows all about the secret room in my heart with the flowers on the table and the candles going, and she wants in. My eyelids drop like cinder blocks, and despite all good sense, I’m ready to roll out a goddamn welcome mat for her.
It’s slow, the way it starts. A slide of my hand up the back of her sweater, a needy tilt of her hips against me. There’s no ambiguity about what we’re doing now, and I’m on my way to breathless when I ask, “Missed me?”
The side of her nose glides against mine in an imitation of a nod. “Too much,” she whispers, like it’s okay to tell secrets if we’re this close together. And fuck, I missed her too. Missed how soft she is beneath all her armor and the way I feel when she takes it off for me. But I only have two more weeks left with her. I missed six precious days of this, ofher, and my urgency to make up for lost time feels spring-loaded.
She must feel it too because her hips start rolling harder against me, seeking friction, and I slide forward on the seat to give her better access. She huffs a breath as she centers herself on what feels like the business end of a baseball bat in my pants, and I can’t stop the rusty sound she pulls from me when our lips catch for the first time. It’s just a graze, but the tease of her mint ChapStick may as well be a narcotic.
My head falls back onto the couch, unable to support itself when she starts rubbing herself off on me in earnest, her little whimpers warm against my parted lips. My tongue slips into hermouth for one life-stopping moment, and I’m moaning. She’s teasing me, her lips brushing mine, teeth nipping, and I want to be a gentleman, but my hand finds the nape of her neck and holds her in place so I can taste her properly.
We’re panting, hands seeking and grasping, when she leans back, out of reach. I want to protest, but it dies on my lips when she grabs the hem of her sweater and pulls it off, her long hair cascading down one shoulder.
