One second I’m walking along, savoring the oyster-eating-afterglow and the feel of Emma’s hand in mine. The next, Emma’s shoved me against the railing of the bridge, jumped into my arms—locking her legs firmly around my waist—and kissed me hard enough to make my blood pressure spike with an audible pop.

With a moan, I drop the boat and bring my hands to her hips, fingers digging into her ass as I spin, reversing our positions, setting her on top of the railing so I can devote myself to kissing her even more thoroughly. Our tongues wage sweet war, sparing and stroking as the smoke-and-salt taste of the oysters fades, replaced by the taste of Emma.

Sweet, sexy, insatiable Emma, who is quickly making me wonder if I’m capable of going more than twelve hours without getting the shakes from sex withdrawal. Her body is my drug of choice. I know someday—maybe someday soon—I’m going to regret letting myself get so damned hooked, but right now all I can think about is how incredible it is to be this close to her and on my way to getting even closer.

“I’m so sorry,” she says when we part long enough to take a deep breath. “It’s the oysters. They overpowered me. I couldn’t help myself.”

I snort, eyes narrowing as she slides her cool hands up the front of my sweatshirt. “The oysters, huh? My irresistible sex vibe had nothing to do with it?”

She bites her bottom lip as her legs tighten around me, drawing my oyster-shell-hard cock tighter to where he always wants to be—inside her, buried deep. “No, I don’t think so,” she teases, rocking her hips against me. “I think it was the oysters. And you know what that means?”

“What?” I groan as she leans in, nipping at my earlobe before she whispers—

“My clothes are going to come off. It’s happening, Hunter. It can happen here or it can happen in that abandoned lighthouse you were talking about, but I—”

Her words end in a yip of surprise as I turn and jog down the trail with her bouncing in my arms, her legs still wrapped around me.

“Put me down!” She giggles as I run faster, and tightens her grip on my shoulders. “We’ll get there sooner if you’re not carrying me.”

“Negative on that, princess,” I say, continuing to make swift work of the rest of the trail. “You’re under the influence of oysters, and I can’t risk you stripping down in the middle of a nature preserve. You could get arrested or catch a cold, neither of which is happening on my watch.”

“I’m not going to strip down, you nut. I was kidding. Now put me down.”

She laughs harder as I clutch her closer and announce in my best Captain America voice, “Sorry, ma’am. That’s not a risk I can take. Hold on for a few more minutes. We’re going to get you the help you need.”

“The help I need,” she echoes, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh my God, stop. Stop making me laugh. My lungs are starting to hurt.”

“Take a deep breath and hold it,” I urge, making a sharp right toward the cliff’s edge and the lighthouse.

“I can’t,” she gasps. “I can’t stop laughing. You’re insane. Why do people think you’re normal?”

I set her on her feet in front of the lighthouse’s padlocked door with a soft curse. “I don’t know. Good coping skills, I guess. But we’ve got bigger problems, my little horn dog. Looks like they decided to lock the doors in the off-season.”

She makes a distressed sound that echoes the disappointment keening through me. “No! Why would they do that? Don’t they know people need somewhere to bang after they’ve eaten too many oysters?”

I shake my head, breath rushing out. “Because they’re bastards, that’s why. Bastards who aren’t getting laid, so they want to interfere in the getting laid plans of other people.”

“Monsters.” Emma leans back against the door, her eyes going wide as it swings open behind her. I lunge forward, grabbing her before she can tumble onto her fine ass. “God, what happened?”

“Someone installed it wrong.” I reach out, lifting the padlock and letting it fall. “How dumb do you have to do something like that?”

“Maybe they weren’t dumb.” Emma’s arms go around my neck as her voice drops to a husky whisper. “Maybe they were angels of mercy. Rebels with a cause.”

My hand skims up her ribs to cup her breast through her pink sweater. “You may be right. And you’re absolutely sexy as fuck.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks, eyes glittering. “Prove it.”

So I do.

First up against the wall, and then with Emma’s hands on the wavy glass of the window overlooking the ocean while I come into her from behind, fighting to hold on for as long as possible. And maybe it’s how beautiful she is with the sun in her hair, or maybe it’s the magical libido-enhancing power of oysters, but I set a quickie record for most orgasms in a twenty-minute session.

By the time we stagger out of the lighthouse, both of us weak-kneed and spent, Emma’s been visited by the orgasm fairy three times and I’m pretty sure I did that thing that only Sting can do, where a guy comes, but doesn’t ejaculate, and then comes again with enough force to make every muscle in his abdominal wall hurt.

Seriously, my stomach muscles ache like I just spent a solid half hour on core work at the gym, and all I have to say is—worth it.

Totally worth it.

Sign me up for more of this sweet, sweet pain.

When we get back to the shack, Bobby is busy serving a VW van full of surfer hippies, so Emma and I wave goodbye and load up for our next stop.

“The cheese at this place is great,” I say as I steer into Point Reyes proper. “But it’s going to be hard to top our first stop. We may have peaked too early.”

Emma scoffs and wags a scolding finger my way. “No. The peaking was perfect. And who knows, maybe we’ll peak again later. Assuming you feed me cheese and wine and chocolate and other things that make my clothes fall off.”

Laughing, I park the truck and reach for her, pulling her into my lap because I can’t stand the thought of going inside without first getting another fix of her lips. After I’ve had a long, deep, devoted taste of gorgeous, feisty blonde, I’m able to work up the strength to leave the truck and go in search of cheese.

At Cowpoke Creamery, Emma and I are treated to three of their staple cheeses and a seasonal specialty that brings the heat, but is absolutely fucking delicious.

“Am I crazy,” she asks. “Or would this kick ass with Bobby’s oyster sauce and some toasted garlic bread?”

I groan in approval of her brilliance as I chew. “Yes. That. We’re doing that. Next week. I’ll make the twins take the cooler and go pick up oysters and sauce for dinner. They love Bobby.”

“He seems so sweet,” Emma says. “He has the kindest eyes.”

I nod, watching bliss spread across her features as she savors her last bite of the Devil’s Smokestack. “He’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Kind to the core. You’ve got good instincts, Haverford.”

She looks up, expression softening. “Thanks.”

I lean closer, brushing her hair over her shoulder, not because it needs to be moved, but because I need an excuse to touch her. “Maybe there’s something to the oyster thing, after all?”

She grins. “Could be. But I don’t see any abandoned lighthouses around here.”

“Nope.” I sigh. “Then I guess we should try to cool it down. Ready for dessert?”

Emma glances at her watch. “As long as it’s not too big. If I eat much more, I won’t be able to inflict the damage I want to inflict on your picnic basket.”

“Come on.” I tug out my wallet to pay for the cheese we’ve decided to take with us. “I’ve seen you eat. For a tiny thing, you can take it down. I believe that you can handle waffle cones at the Salty Goat and still put a hurting on our picnic.”

“You should have said it was ice cream,” she says, looping her arm through mine as we start toward the door. “There’s always room for ice cream.”

We step out into the sunny afternoon, where the cool bite of the ocean breeze serves as a reminder of how close we are to autumn fading into winter. In two more months, every leaf will be on the ground, seasonal rains will be soggifying Sonoma County, and if Emma and I haven’t made a baby by the end of December, this will be over.

Or she’ll be gone.

I turn to her outside the Salty Goat, pulling her into my arms on instinct, because that’s what you do when you don’t want to deal with reality. She’s like the last few weeks of summer as a kid, when you can feel the nip in the air, but go swimming every day anyway, as if plunging into increasingly freezing water will somehow keep summer around forever.

“What’s up?” she asks, hands flush against my chest.

I shake my head. “Nothing. Just hate to see the day going by so fast.”

“Me, too.” She leans into me with a sigh. “I like adventuring with you.”

“I like doing most things with you,” I find myself confessing, though I know it’s stupid. Emma wants a baby from me, nothing more. She’s been pretty clear about that from the beginning. And if she’d changed her mind, I would know that, too.

She’s a good communicator, which she proves with her next words. “Me, too. I guess that’s why it’s been so easy to become friends.”

“Yeah,” I agree, though the word leaves a sour taste in my mouth not even honey lavender hand-churned goat’s milk ice cream can banish.

She is my friend, but there are times lately when this doesn’t feel friendly.

It feels real. And scary. And…incredible.

Like falling in love, that’s what it fucking feels like.

I’ve only been here once before, when I wasn’t much more than a kid, but I remember the electricity and the connection and the way something deep inside starts to ache when your person isn’t around. In some ways, this is nothing like what I had with Gretchen—Emma and I are adults and there is none of the awkwardness in the bedroom or the emotional upheaval of having big feelings for the first time—but in other ways, it’s exactly the same. I hate leaving her and count the hours until I can be with her again. I think about her all the time and dream about fucking her and can remember in vivid detail every single time I’ve made her come.

Mental scrapbooking of orgasms is a classic warning sign that love is right around the corner.

I should be keeping my distance from Emma, limiting exposure for the sake of keeping my heart from getting blown to pieces when this ends in one disappointing way or the other. Instead, I bundle her back into my truck and take her for a picnic at my favorite spot in the mountains above Armstrong Woods, the one with the view of the ancient redwoods covering the valley below and golden hills stretching all the way to the horizon.

It’s romantic as hell.

Glutton for punishment. I am one.

“You can see San Francisco today,” I say when we’re finished eating and are snuggled under a sleeping bag in the bed of my truck, staying warm as the sun goes down. I point to the sharp edges barely visible in the distance. “There, where the sky is still pale blue.”

“I see it,” she says softly. “The city feels like another world out here, though, doesn’t it? Or another planet.”

“Which planet do you like better, city girl?” I ask, tucking my arm tighter around her shoulders.

“This one,” she says without hesitation. “I’m not a city girl anymore.”

I shake my head. “No, you’re not.”

Emma fits in here like she was born and raised on a farm. She belongs in this country, on her land, cruising up and down the trail on her bike with her scarf flying out behind her.

I don’t want her to go. But if she’s already pregnant, I can’t ask her to stay. It would kill me to see her moving on with her life with our baby and know I’m just the friendly neighborhood sperm donor.

Don’t think about it. Don’t ruin the day.

But my thoughts aren’t as cooperative as I would like them to be, and by the time we get back to Emma’s place—sliding out of my truck under a sky full of stars—I’m crashing hard. So hard I almost make my excuses and head for home to sleep in my own bed for once, but then Emma takes my hand in the dark. “Bath before bed? With candles and one more glass of wine? And the lavender bubble bath I’m not allowed to tell any of your brothers you like?”

I smile. “You can tell them if you want. My manliness isn’t that fragile.”

“No, it isn’t. Not even a little bit.” She draws me up the porch steps and into the house, where we come together like words and music, beautiful and true and better together than they are apart. And for now, it’s enough, though I can’t help but wish she heard the band playing, too.