Chapter Four
AIYLA STOOD BENEATH the stars at the edge of their campsite later that evening, gazing over the inky water, wondering how she was going to make it down the rocks. Her leg had throbbed like fire during the run, but she’d had a minor reprieve while swimming in the cool lake. Now pain settled in again like a toothache. She was beating the hell out of her leg, but she wasn’t about to miss her chance at taking part in the Mad Prix—or let the pain stop her from enjoying her date with Ty, who stood beside her looking hotter than hell in cargo shorts, a dark shirt, and an open sweatshirt. She’d wrestled all evening with his honesty—and his confession. What I had before you was not a good thing…You and I had a great thing, Aiyla, and that’s what I want. I want you. He could have said anything, told her the rumors weren’t true, made himself out to be something he wasn’t. But he hadn’t, and that honesty had sparked even more emotions. It had opened doors for them to communicate in ways she’d been afraid to.
“Race ya,” Ty teased.
He’d stayed with her for the duration of the race, including swimming across the lake right beside her. Afterward, he’d insisted on visiting the health tent together, despite the fact that she was a trained EMT and felt she could handle caring for her leg on her own. His response sailed through her mind. And a carpenter’s house is always the worst one on the block. She smiled with the memory, even though she’d been more than a little annoyed at him for being so overprotective. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had worried so much about her.
“I can totally do this,” she lied. She didn’t like to admit defeat. She’d taken pain medication, and she was hoping it would kick in soon.
Ty stepped in front of her, a big, bad wall of hotness. “I know you can, but I’ve got a better idea.” He turned around and stooped. “Climb on, baby cakes. We’re going for a ride.”
Laughter bubbled out before she could stop it. “I am not getting on your back like a child.”
He rose to his feet and pulled her closer, rubbing against her as he gazed into her eyes. Every press of his delicious muscles chipped away at her resolve. His hand slid down her hip as his whiskers scratched sensually against her cheek, sending shivers along her spine.
“How about you climb on like the sexy woman you are,” he said in a seductive voice, “so I can feel all your sweetness pressed against my back?”
The combination of his hands clutching her hips, the scratchy taunt of his scruff against her skin, and his gravelly voice was about the sexiest thing she’d ever experienced. “When you say it like that, how can I refuse?”
She climbed onto his back and wrapped her arms around his neck. He moaned lecherously, then chuckled at his tease. She couldn’t resist running her hands over his chest. His shirt was soft, his muscles hard and defined. She stretched her fingers lower, trying to touch his abs, and earning another guttural sound of desire. She’d thought of touching him for so long, she allowed herself this time on her Ty playground, even knowing it might not go any further. She still needed to understand what wanting her meant to him in the long run. She wasn’t about to get tied into some sort of open relationship.
His hand slid up her calves as he navigated the rocky terrain with ease. “Oh yeah, baby. This is nice.”
She put her mouth beside his ear as he neared the bottom of the hill and said, “So nice you might have to carry me everywhere.”
He turned as he lowered her to her feet, keeping her close. She felt his hardness against her belly, and he began to sway, singing just above a whisper about how they should take this back to his place. His hands were on a mission, running up her hips, across her back, into her hair, and boy, oh boy, did she love it. She knew she should slow him down and figure out where they really stood, but he was singing about wanting to take his time, and doing this all night long, and she realized he was singing along with Niall Horan’s “Slow Hands,” one of her favorite songs, as it played nearby.
He turned to his side, motioning in the direction of the music, where a blanket was spread out on the ground, another folded beneath his backpack. The music was coming from his phone. He’d remembered her favorite song, too?
“You set all this up for us?” When they were in Saint-Luc he’d played his guitar and sang to her every night. It was so romantic, his voice so compelling, that he’d mesmerized her with every lyric. And when he sang, he’d looked at her like he was right at that very second, like she was the only thing that existed, opening up her heart even more.
“For you, baby cakes. Always for you.”
He danced seductively and slowly as he sang, and memories of the longing she’d felt after he’d left Saint-Luc swamped her. The pain of knowing neither of them could call or text had been almost too much to bear. She’d wanted to hear his voice, needed it like she’d needed oxygen to survive. But her mother had taught her from a young age that wanting and needing were two very different things. True needs, like food, clothing, and a roof over her head in winter were things she should never leave up to chance. Those were things that, as an adult, she needed to work to achieve. But wants? Wants were taunts and teases, with the power to undermine everything she’d worked so hard for. Wants could only be handled by fate. If fate intervened, then nothing could stop what was meant to be.
As she danced in Ty’s arms, she was lulled into his sultry seduction. His warm body pressed against her as he sang, and she wanted to believe they were meant to be. She’d spent years being careful. If her mother’s early death had taught her anything, it was that opening her heart and relying on someone else was dangerous. But she could count on Ty. Hadn’t he proven that by coming after her this afternoon, even if she hadn’t wanted him to? And by not breaking his promise for all this time? The days they’d spent together in Switzerland had been full of opportunities for him to let her down, but he hadn’t. Not once.
“I still can’t believe you’re really here with me,” he said softly, and ran his finger along her jaw, no longer looking at her.
He was looking through her, into her very heart and soul, the way he had their last night together. The night she’d wanted desperately to feel his strong arms around her, his rough hands caressing her naked body as he made love to her. She’d held back then, and the rational part of her knew she needed to hold back now, but every glide of his hands heightened her desires, her greed for him.
“I have missed you so much,” he confessed. “I ache with it.”
The longing in his voice, in her heart, broke the last of her fraying resolve. There beneath the stars, on this gorgeous summer night, she threw caution to the wind and gave herself over to the music and the incredible man she was dancing with, allowing the pain in her leg, and the rest of the world, to take a backseat to the heat thrumming between them.
“Kiss me,” she pleaded, and went up on her toes.
His full lips came down over hers, soft and demanding at once, sending her senses reeling. One of his hands dove into her hair, the other pressed to her back, bringing their bodies so close she could feel his heart beating against her own. He deepened the kiss, a hungry sound escaping his lips, vibrating through her, awakening desires that had lain dormant for far too long. He tasted like sins and blessings all tangled up and impossible to separate. And she wanted him, wanted this—more kisses, longer touches. The anticipation was killing her. He eased his efforts to a slow, lingering slide of their tongues, ending in a series of featherlight kisses along her mouth and jaw. Heat spread down her limbs, and she tried to catch her breath as he placed openmouthed kisses around her neck, tasting her all the way up to her ear. Her entire body electrified, every nerve ending flaming on the surface of her skin.
“Just as sweet and special as I remember. My Aiyla,” he whispered, and caught her earlobe between his teeth, sending electrifying pinpricks beneath her skin.
She inhaled sharply, and he captured her mouth again, easing the sting with more delicious kisses. She clung to his neck, pushed her fingers into his hair, holding on for dear life as his hips pressed forward. His arousal was hard and tempting. His tongue moved over her teeth, along the roof of her mouth, possessing every inch of her. She was trembling, and her thoughts scrambled away. And then she was in his arms as he carried her to the blanket, reclaiming her mouth as he lay down beside her. His thigh moved over hers and her whole body arched toward him. She couldn’t keep a moan from escaping into their kiss.
“Love that sound,” he ground out, and dove in for more, kissing her in the same way he did everything: smooth as butter and hot as fire.
His hands moved up her torso, grazing the undersides of her breasts, and she held her breath. They hadn’t gone further than kissing in Saint-Luc, and she felt his hesitation—and her own—warring with the heat pulsing between them. But she wanted his touch, craved it. She covered his hand with hers, and he held them together.
He drew back from the kiss, and she lifted her head, trying to recapture it.
“Your kisses wreck me” slipped from his lips, and then he was kissing her again, long and deep, his body sinking deliciously into hers.
Their joined hands remained still, his fingers clinging to hers, as if he needed that anchor to keep himself in check. His hot, hungry mouth moved along her jaw and down her neck, every touch of his lips sending darts of lust to her core. She didn’t want him to keep himself in check. She wanted more.
RAW, UNBRIDLED PASSION radiated from every fiber of Aiyla’s being. Ty was as sure of it as he had ever been of anything in his life. But he’d been here before, so lost in her she was all he could see, and she’d sent him away. He’d spent the last several months picking apart what had gone wrong, and now that he knew, he wasn’t leaving anything else up to fate or chance or the goddamn tooth fairy. He forced himself to pull away.
Air rushed from her lungs, and his gut clenched tight. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t go cold turkey after he’d just found her again.
Lowering his mouth to hers, he said, “We need to talk,” between kisses. His hips rocked, his fingers clung to hers, and his cock twitched painfully beneath his shorts. But he knew he had to put on the brakes. When he forced himself to back off again, she made a mewling sound that nearly did him in. How the hell was he supposed to resist her?
He brushed his lips over hers in a series of painstakingly light kisses, easing himself away. “Aiyla, I can’t do this again.”
The sweetest smile he’d ever seen spread across her face. “You were doing pretty well. I’m already drunk on you.”
He laughed and brought their joined hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to her fingers. “I can’t get so lost in you again that I can’t see straight. It messed me up last time. I’m not sure I’d survive it again.”
She trapped her lower lip between her teeth, looking adorable and sexy and so fucking desirable the voice in his head called him a fool for stopping. He gazed into her eyes, willing himself not to lose control, but a tidal wave of emotions bowled him over, and he couldn’t stop the truth from coming out.
“I want to make love to you until the sun comes up, and then I want to do it again and again, until the next day passes and we’ve used every ounce of energy, and we fall asleep in each other’s arms from sheer exhaustion. And right now, with the moonlight reflecting in your eyes, you look like a dreamer, making me want to be in those dreams with you. But I know you’re not. You’re too grounded for that, and I feel too much for you to pretend we’re something we aren’t.”
Her brows knitted. “What are you saying?”
“You sent me away before, and now that I understand why, I think we need to clear the air before we go any further.”
She tried to pull her hand away, but he held on tight. “Don’t,” he said too harshly, and paused, tempering his tone before saying, “Please don’t pull away. This isn’t going to be easy for either of us, but walking away from you is not an option, and I’m hoping that after we talk, it won’t be an option for you, either.”
She pushed up to a sitting position, confusion written all over her face. “I have a feeling I’m going to wish you’d just kept kissing me.”
“No, you won’t. You had a chance to keep kissing me forever, to travel with me and explore the world. You chose not to and for a good reason.”
She looked down at her lap and he lifted her chin, gazing into her sad eyes. “You wanted to know about my past. I’m not sure what you’ve heard about me, but chances are it’s probably true.”
She shifted her eyes away again.
“Aiyla, please look at me. I want you to hear what I have to say and to know that I mean it.”
“It’s not exactly easy to digest what you’ve already said.”
“I know, but nothing worth anything is easy. Remember when you told me about losing your mother? And about the first time you went white-water rafting and you fell out of the raft? You said those were the scariest times in your life. That you almost drowned in sorrow, and three years later, you almost drowned in a river, and it took everything you had to make it to the surface of both situations. That’s what I feel like right now. Like everything I’m going to tell you is another wave dragging me under, but the way I see it, I can sink or I can swim. And I want to swim, Aiyla. I want to swim my fucking heart out. All I need you to do is sit in the boat and decide if you want to toss me a line or not.”
She blew out a breath, fidgeting absently with the edge of her shorts. “I know I asked for this, but maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. I already hate the answer.”
He expected her to get up and leave, and when she took his hand and said, “You walked away when I needed you to. I guess it’s my turn to do what you need me to do,” he felt like he’d been given a gift—and had to walk through a firing line to claim it.
“Thank you.” He hoped he didn’t appear as nervous as he felt. “The most important thing you should know is that my past is just that. My past.”
“That has to be someone’s last words somewhere. Like the thief who swears he’ll never steal again?”
“I probably deserve that,” he said evenly. “But I want you to know the truth. Before we met, I was the kind of guy who had one-night stands. I’d hook up with a beautiful woman, or two. It was a way to pass a few hours. I’m clean. I always used protection and got tested once a year—”
“Okay, first of all,” she interrupted. “Two women at once? I can’t even…” She turned away, and then quickly turned back and shot him a disgusted look. “Just so you know, being safe does not make it any better.”
“I know, babe.”
“And don’t call me babe. I don’t want to be one of many, Ty. I’m willing to listen, but I shouldn’t have let my emotions run away like I did. It was stupid.”
“Aiyla, please hear me out. I’m being blatantly honest because I care about you, and I don’t want to lie to you. Not today, not ever. Yes, I was that guy, and it wasn’t because I was screwed up by bad parenting or a sucky life. I have amazing parents, a supportive family, and a freaking awesome life. The truth is, I never questioned why I did it until I met you. And ever since I left you in Saint-Luc, I have been dissecting my relationships, if you can even call them that.”
“Okay, I get it.” She pushed to her feet and winced, sinking right back down to the blanket, and rubbed her leg.
“Are you okay?” He moved to touch her leg, and she shifted out of reach.
“Fine,” she said stubbornly, though she looked like she was in even more pain than earlier. “Please don’t tell me any more about you and other girls. I’m sure you don’t want to picture me with other guys.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything else about that. And trust me, I’ve already tortured myself explicitly about you and other guys.”
She was rubbing her leg, her face pinched in pain. Pain that was probably caused by him as much as her leg.
“Please let me help you.”
“Stop, Ty. It’s too hard for me to hear you say the things you’re telling me while you’re touching me like that.” She bent her knees and wound her arms around her legs. “Go on. I obviously can’t walk away, so I’m stuck listening.”
“Maybe we should get you to an urgent care center.”
She glared at him. “It’s fine. You heard what the guy in the health tent told me. It’s probably overuse. You’re an athlete. You know how overuse injuries wax and wane. I’ll be even better tomorrow. Just finish whatever it is you wanted to say.”
“Okay. I’m sorry,” he relented. She was as stubborn as he was, and arguing over her leg would get them nowhere. He focused on clearing the air instead. “When we were together before, I never made a move on you.”
“I sure hope this is going somewhere different from where I think it’s headed, because you’re not doing my ego any favors now that I know your history.”
“It is going somewhere. That’s how I knew what we had was real, Aiyla, and different, and not something I could just put out of my mind. Don’t you see? We spent five incredible days together. We went on hikes and took pictures, and stayed up until all hours of the night talking about our lives. Remember the Saint-Luc winter carnival?” It was a day he’d never forget, tobogganing down the mountain together, his hips cradling hers, his body cocooning her from behind. He could still hear her melodic laughter sailing through the air.
A reluctant smile appeared on her beautiful face, but it didn’t reach her eyes, and that slayed him.
“The point is, we were never naked. Our feelings weren’t built on lust. You were enough, Aiyla. Being with you was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. Better than conquering the highest mountains or capturing the best picture. Your laughter filled me up, and your smiles, which I’ve envisioned every day since our last night together, made me want to do everything within my power to see more of them. We didn’t just talk to each other. We shared more in those five days than some people share in a year, and not one second of it had to do with sex.”
He took her hand in his and gazed openly into her eyes, knowing she’d see his hopes, as well as his fears, and wanting that honesty between them. “I haven’t so much as checked out another woman since the very first day we met. If nothing else tells you how what I feel for you and what we have together is different and special, then maybe that will.”
“You want me to believe you went from being a manwhore to being celibate for me?”
“‘Manwhore’ is a little harsh…”
She narrowed her eyes, and he held up his hands in surrender.
“Okay. Call me whatever you want. But yes, I expect you to believe it because it’s the truth.”
“You changed that much for someone you knew for only five days?” The disbelief in her eyes was taken down a notch by the trust in her voice.
“For you, yes. But don’t you see? I didn’t get up one morning and say to myself that I was going to change. It happened seamlessly, like you woke me up from a life in which I thought I was living, but really, I was searching. Or maybe hiding. I don’t know. All I know is that the man I was before I met you and the man I became over those days we spent together are two very different people. Didn’t you feel changed? Or different?”
Her expression grew serious, and his heart sank.
“If you didn’t, then—”
“I did,” she said quickly. “I do. Our time together changed me, too. I thought the most terrifying thing I ever did was survive my mother’s death, and then that rafting incident nearly did me in. But then I met you, and I had to let you go. I was sure life couldn’t get any more difficult than telling you I couldn’t leave Saint-Luc with you. Maybe part of me thought I could send you away and still be okay. Or that even though I told you to stay away, you’d come running back and we could talk all of this out then. I don’t know what I thought, but I believed leaving it up to fate was the right thing to do. Then, every day without you was harder than the last. I looked for you everywhere. In every crowd, every sports magazine, every online article, which I guess might sound like I broke my promise. But I didn’t try to find out where you were. I just wanted to see your face and know you were okay.”
A pained expression came over her, and she said, “That’s not true. I wanted to see your eyes. I wanted to see if what I saw when we were together, what I see right now, was still there.”
“It’s still here, Aiyla, and it’s not going anywhere.” He reached into the backpack that was lying by his feet and set two books in her hands.
She realized they were copies of her coffee-table books, Faces of Nature and Reflections.
“I’ve got copies of all five of your books, and I’ve pored through the pages so many times, trying to see them through your eyes and trying to feel you through your pictures, that I have each of them memorized.”
She leafed through a few pages. The edges were no longer crisp, but dirty with his fingerprints and soft from being touched.
“You told me that you take pictures of the elderly because of your fairy godmother, Ms. Farrington, who taught you that nothing was more beautiful than the history written in the faces of people who had lived long enough to experience all facets of love and loss. I have studied the faces in these books, and, Aiyla, I see what you see. They’re exquisite in their own right. But as an artist, I have my own photographic eye, and I have seen something even more complex and beautiful.”
He withdrew another book from the backpack and set it on the others. Her fingers played over the image on the cover, the hillside where they’d first met, and her eyes misted over. She traced the letters of the title and whispered, “Aeonian.”
“It means ageless,” he explained. “Perpetual, everlasting, permanent.” All the words that reminded him of Aiyla, in one succinct adjective.
She inhaled a ragged breath as she lifted the cover and read the dedication. For Aiyla, wherever you are. “Oh, Ty…”
Blinking against damp eyes, she turned the page, revealing the first picture he’d ever taken of her, standing with her back to him as she gazed out at the valley below. The sun hovered over the trees in the distance, and ribbons of orange and red burned like fire in the sky, illuminating Aiyla like a vision. Heat and ice spread through his chest, the same way it had when he’d first come upon her and had taken the picture.
She turned the page, and a soft laugh escaped her lips. “Lefty Lucy.”
The first evening they’d spent together in Saint-Luc, they’d walked through town and he’d asked her where a certain café was. She’d said they needed to turn right, but she’d pointed left, something she’d told him she’d done all her life. He’d made an L shape with his finger and thumb on his left hand and crossed his first two fingers on his right, teasing her about Lefty Lucy and Right Tighty. She’d made the same symbols and he’d taken the picture, capturing her laughing, her eyes dancing with amusement.
They went through all fifty pages, reliving each stolen moment—Aiyla in profile, her hair catching the morning light, her chin resting on her hand, a small smile on her lips as she watched the sunrise from the window of his hotel room after they’d stayed up all night talking. And a picture of her asleep in the passenger seat of his rental car the next afternoon, when she’d insisted they go to a particular museum. She’d fallen asleep fifteen minutes into the trip, and he’d driven around for two hours just so she wouldn’t wake up. There were pictures from the winter carnival, and silly selfies of the two of them. More than an hour later, she turned to the last page, looking at his favorite picture. He’d taken it the morning after she’d told him to leave their future in fate’s hands. She was sitting in the café window where they’d had breakfast every morning, at their table, with a faraway look in her eyes.
She lifted her gaze to his, a lone tear sliding down her cheek. “I thought you left before dawn that day.”
“I was supposed to. I delayed my flight to try to talk you into coming with me. And then I chickened out. I thought it would push you further away.” He wiped her tear with the pad of his thumb. “When I look at that picture, I like to think you were envisioning the day we’d meet again.”
“I was thinking about buying a plane ticket and following you.” A sweet, soulful smile appeared on her lips, and she reached for his hand. “I wonder what it says about me that I fell for a player when I’ve only been with thirty-five men in my entire life.”
He felt his eyes widen and tried to school his expression, but holy hell. Thirty-five men? Who was he to judge? He couldn’t even imagine her sitting in a bar picking up guys. Maybe she met them on the slopes. Or on hillsides in Switzerland. He ground his teeth together, wanting to ask if she’d been with anyone since she’d met him, but that would make him even more of a jerk, wouldn’t it? Would it matter if she had?
Is this what went through your head when I told you the truth? Man, I hate this.
“Relax, macho man.” She scooted closer. “However many it’s really been, it’s surely a better number than yours.”
He cradled her beautiful face between his hands, his insides aching with adoration and jealousy. “I never thought my past could hurt anyone, but now I know I was wrong. I will do everything within my power to prove to you how much I’ve changed.”
She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. “You just did.”
His mouth descended upon hers, sealing his vow and reveling in her sweetness. The din of the campers on the ridge above faded, replaced with the gentle sounds of the water, the chirping of crickets, and other nightly nature sounds. They kissed and talked, and eventually they fell silent, their fully clothed bodies intertwined as they gazed up at the stars. Ty pulled the extra blanket around them and wrapped her in his arms, listening to the even cadence of her breathing as she drifted in and out of sleep. Tonight ranked right up there with the most difficult—and most beautiful—moments of his life. His fingers itched for his camera, but he knew not even the best photographer in the world could capture the immensity of his emotions.
“Three,” she whispered.
He figured she was in the gray space between sleep and wakefulness. Dreaming with her eyes open. “Three?”
“That’s my number.” She snuggled closer.
He kissed the top of her head and closed his eyes, eager to prove himself worthy of being number four—her best, and final, partner.