“I can’t believe you remembered this place.” She stands with her hands on her hips at the edge of the lake, smiling from ear to ear, eyes sparkling. Eyes as blue as the sky. I could stare into them all day, especially when she’s as happy as she is now.

“You mean you forgot all the times we spent here?” I spread a blanket out on the grass and go back to the trunk to pull out the basket she packed.

“How could I forget that?” She’s blushing a little when I get back to where she’s waiting, and I don’t think it’s because of the slight chill in the breeze coming off the water. “You’re the first person I ever went skinny dipping with.”

“The first and only?” I ask, cocking one eyebrow.

“Uh, no. Just the first.” She smirks as she sits cross-legged on the blanket. “Nice try, though.”

I move so fast she gasps when she lands on her back with me on top of her. The sunlight shines into her eyes making them appear like sparkling gemstones. “Why do you like to lie to me?”

She blinks. “I was just teasing you. Why were you jealous?” she taunts.

“I pretended to myself I wasn’t whenever I saw you linked to another man in some celebrity magazine or other, but fuck, Taylor, I’m insanely jealous. Hearing about you with any other guy makes my guts burn like acid.”

She licks her lips. “What about you? Did you … er … bring anyone else here?”

“What do you think?”

She smiles cheekily. “No?”

“Go straight to the top of the class, Taylor Rose McCarthy.”

Her smile becomes a grin. “You’re turning me on. Either get off me or inside me.”

“You’ll pay for that later.”

“What? Like the last time you said that.”

The memory throws me off guard. That was the night I tied her up and teased her for hours without letting her come. She winks up at me and pushes me off her before turning back to unpacking the food. I lie back on the grass, hard as a rock, and watch her. How can she think about food after reminding me of that night? Now I’m remembering the moonlit nights when it was just the two of us, and all the times I took her right here in the grass. Or in the water. Or anywhere.

“Do you remember that night the grizzly came?” she asks.

Her expression makes me laugh.

“How can you laugh about that?” she shrieks. “I was scared to death. I thought it was going to tear us to pieces!”

“It wouldn’t have because it wasn’t a damn bear in the first place, but I’m sure the sound of you screaming and running around would’ve really protected us if that stray dog had been a bear.”

“Stop calling it a dog. If it was a dog, it was a very big dog. Like abnormally big.”

I lie back on my hands and laugh at the memory of that night.

She savagely tears at a baguette and layers cheese and sliced apple on top, then takes a big bite. “God, you’re such a jerk.”

“I’m just saying, you might have overreacted a little. That’s all.” I wonder if she knows how gorgeous she is when she’s all fired up the way she is right now.

“Not half as much as you overreacted when you thought there were leeches in the lake. I can’t even believe you would make fun of me when you’re the one who ran out of the water, slapping at yourself, jumping around like the soles of your feet were on fire.” She jumps to her feet and does an imitation which, I have to admit, is probably pretty accurate.

I crack open my ale with a laugh. “Because you’re the one who said there were leeches out there!”

“I didn’t say there were leeches on you,” she points out between bursts of infectious giggles. “I only said I heard there were leeches in the lake and one of them attached itself to Jimmy Dolan’s penis. That’s all I said.”

“You don’t say a thing like that to a guy and expect him not to react the way I did. Certain things are precious,” I say, taking the makeshift sandwich she hands me.

“Like the almighty penis,” she says with a dramatic eye roll.

“Excuse me, Miss, but you weren’t complaining about my almighty penis last night. All four times.”

“No, but I doubt a simple little leech would’ve done much to hurt something as big as your dick.” She winks at me again. Damn, does she have any idea what it does to me when she winks and gives me that sexy half-smile?

“Way to bring it back around,” I chuckle as I tear into my sandwich and finish off my ale. There’s something about being here with her, and it’s not just the almost perfect weather. A little warmer and I might ask her to revisit our skinny-dipping days, only a lot more X-rated than before. I never used to understand when adults told me that youth was wasted on the young, but now I get it. When we were young and carefree, we didn’t know shit about how to really have fun.

When the bread and toppings are gone and she’s finished off her ale, Taylor stretches out on her back with one arm bent under her head. “I missed this. Isn’t it funny how you can miss something and not know you’re missing it until it’s back in your life again? Then you look back, and you think, oh. That’s what was wrong.”

I stretch out, too, on my side so I can watch her. Clouds are starting to build; big, fluffy, white clouds that I watch passing overhead in the reflection in her eyes. Her hair is a puddle of gold under her head, sparkling against the blanket. She’s so young and so impossibly gorgeous, but there’s something in her that won’t let her be happy. A grave maturity behind her perfect face. She’s already lived an entire lifetime in the eight years we spent apart.

“You know you could have this again if you wanted it.” What am I saying? Why can’t I control the thoughts pouring out of my mouth? Why not give her my Letterman jacket while I’m at it and ask her if she wants to go steady? That’s about the level of pushiness I’m exhibiting.

Her eyes shift until she’s looking at me again. “Sorry, Cole, but you’re going to have to work much harder than that to undo the past. It’s not the sort of change that can happen overnight.”

“I know. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying to keep you in my life by any means necessary.”

“Oh?” She arches an eyebrow. “What do you plan to do? Tie me up and lock me away?”

“Don’t give me any ideas.” I lean over her and see her smile before my mouth is on hers and she’s in my arms again.

“What happens if a bear comes along?” she murmurs between kisses, while her fingers dance over the back of my neck and across my shoulders.

“I guess we’ll have to take our chances.”