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When he emerges from his room, deliciously bare-chested, his gaze consumes me, and his mouth lifts a quarter inch. There’s an acknowledgment there, made silently:I want you; you want me. No need to have a conversation about it, and we’re probably not going to act on it again. Unless we do.
When Ann calls, I don’t mention this development, of course...adding to the slew of lies I’m already telling her: about how much I enjoy the daily NA meetings I attend, about how often I’m going to Hannah’s grave, about how I’mnotworking at a bar. What’s strange, though, is that when I tell her I’m starting to put Caleb behind me—which is definitely a lie—it sort of feels true.
I go into work although it’s a Saturday and Beck’s eyes linger on me as I walk past him. I’m fighting a smile as I continue to my desk.
God, the way he kissed me outside the cabin. And all the things he did to me once we got inside...
Jesus. He didso manythings.
When he enters the office, we both look at his desk, where he fucked me within an inch of my life fifteen hours ago. If he suggests we try it again, I’ll have my jeans off before he finishes the sentence.
I wish he would.
I have no idea why he’s suddenly okay with this situation, but I don’t see how I’ll make it through the day without having him inside me, gripping my hips, doing his level best not to come before I do.
My services are not needed behind the bar that evening—not that I imagine Beck would allow me back there again anyway. I sit at home, overheated, my clothes constricting me. When the sound of his motorcycle wakes me at two AM, it’s a struggle to stay in my own bed. I fall asleep dreaming of his head locked between my thighs.
He’s up before me to surf the next morning and must head straight to the bar since he never returns.
Ineedhim to return. I need a repeat of the other night like I need my next breath.
I’m in the kitchen when he walks out on Sunday morning, shirtless, with that fucking swagger of his. God, I love that swagger.
I picture his shoulders beneath my hands, his teeth sinking into my lower lip. If he’s not going to fuck me again, he needs to start wearing more clothes around here.
“Let’s go camping,” he says.
“Now?”
He holds my gaze very deliberately. “It’s on your bucket list, right? Lawrence can close. He owes me for Thursday night, and the bar will be dead anyway.”
Camping isn’t actually on my bucket list—it was just something I wanted to do when I was six. And today is Rachel’s housewarming—my big chance to show Caleb I’m winning at life. But when I picture being in a very small tent with Beck—nowhere for either of us to scurry off to—it’s as if the decision is made for me.
I fight a smile. “Yeah. Let’s camp.”
Beck hands me a grocery list on his way to borrow gear from Rachel’s husband—an insultingly specific grocery list.Buy four potatoes. If you come back with a fifty-pound bag, you, not me, will be carrying them.
“I’m not an idiot,” I huff as I read. “I wasn’t going to buy a fifty-pound bag of potatoes.”
“When you’re the one carrying all our gear, you can determine whether or not you’re an idiot. For now, let’s just agree that you are.”
When I return from the store, he’s back too and carrying stuff to the truck. His gray T-shirt clings to him as he lifts, those biceps of his flexing. I picture them flexing as he hovers above me with that fierce concentration on his face, the almost pained look he gets when he’s close and trying not to come. My skinitcheswith the need to see it again.
“See something you like?” he asks with a brow raised.
“Yeah,” I reply. “That fifty-pound bag of potatoes you’re lifting.”
Ididbuy a ten-pound bag. Just to fuck with him.
He loads up the backpacks while I look at the clouds moving overhead. The weather is brilliant—sunny but crisp. “I hope Gus lent you some decent sleeping bags. It’ll be cold tonight.”
His glance flickers over me. There’s a beat of silence. “I’m a furnace. You’ll be fine.”
So he plans to keep me warm. I’m beginning to see why people enjoy camping.
We climb in the car and head north to the mountains. Everything grows dense and green the farther we trek. I’m a city kid, but there’s something about this—the clear sky, all the pine trees, the lack of traffic—that I don’t mind, though I sort of suspect I wouldn’t mind any trip if Beck was the guy at the wheel.
About an hour north of Elliott Springs, he swerves into a small gravel area off the shoulder of the road and I look around us in dismay. “We’re campinghere?” I ask.
