Chapter Twenty-Two
Amy has turned my kitchen into a bakery. I’ve managed to track down enough sugar and cocoa to pull together some brownies, and she’s made the rest of my cereal into marshmallow dessert treats. She puts her hands on her hips and scans the counter, taking stock of the fresh veggies she insisted I cut and pack into lunch containers in the name of balance.
“What’re you looking for?” I ask.
Her cheek caves in when she looks up, but her eyes light when they catch mine. She shakes her head and laughs. “I don’t even know. Just feel like I’m missing something.”
I press my lips to hers. “Was that it?”
She taps a finger against her chin. “Might have been. Should we do it again? Just to be sure.”
I cup her face in my hands and tilt her head back. Her eyes flutter closed and I stroke her cheek with my thumb. My lip slips between hers and the kiss is slow. Lazy. Like we have all the time in the world. Like this is her kitchen and my kitchen and neither of us ever has to leave. I lean my forehead against hers. “So?”
“Mmm. Definitely what I was missing.”
It’s the little purr that gets me. Her soft sound of contentment in this kitchen, half-stuck in the past, but filled with the present. The remnants of Bobcat mixed with bits of me. The kitchen that Amy has stepped into like it’s hers. But it was me she was missing. Me she was looking for. And I have to wonder if Bobcat was wrong—if it is possible to have it all. Camp. A relationship. If the only difference between fantasy and reality are the people in the story.
She washes her hands and dries them on her shorts. “Okay, those will take a bit to bake, so let’s keep going. You’re on blankets and pillows. As many as you can find. I’ll handle party games.”
“What kind of party games?”
Amy’s lips curve into a smile and she glides across the room. Her nipples graze my chest and I slip my hands into her back pockets. “It’s no fun if I tell you,” she teases. “But trust me. You’ll definitely want to play.”
My fingers knead her ass, but she spins out of my grip with a flirtatious smirk. “Patience, Paul. It’ll be worth it.”
Lightness fills my body even as my dick grows heavy with anticipation, because this kind of fun with Amy—this random afternoon slumber party—is just us, playing with our clothes on. And it’s the kind of fun I’d stopped believing I could have up here.
“Take the brownies out when the timer goes off, and leave the blankets on the porch. Meet me in the rec hall in forty-five minutes.” She pulls the door open. “Oh. And wear pajamas. With the game I have in mind, well.” She fingers the hem of her shirt and bites her lip. “You’ll see.”
The snap of the latch kicks me into gear. I pull the comforters and pillows from both beds. The scent of her and me lingers in the air when I strip the master bed, and I palm the throbbing beneath my zipper, amazed at how much I still want her. I’ve had Amy more times than anyone since college, and even her smell and the promise of making her come is enough to make me hard.
I fold the blankets before I can lose myself in memories of what we’ve done and thoughts of what we might do, and grab the seventies-style afghan from the back of the couch. Chuck eyes me warily from his bed, as if I’m going to steal his blanket too, but he sighs with the kind of contentment that’s waiting for me at the rec hall when I ignore him and eventually manage to get the door open. Arms piled to near-blindness, I jog my way to the porch on muscle memory and stack the slumber-party materials on the bench. I creep forward and press my ear to the door.
“Paul,” she calls. “Don’t forget the brownies.”
“On it.” A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth when I turn away. The porch barely creaks under my steps, but still, she heard me. It’s like she can sense me—like we’re tuned in to each other in a way that makes her anticipate my presence and seek me out in the same way I’m drawn to her.
The timer beeps as I close the door behind me. The house is warm with a sweetness and promise I’ve never shown it. I pull the brownies from the oven and she’s everywhere. I smell Amy in the pan in front of me, see her in the dishes stacked precisely on the drying rack, hear her in the second hand ticking loudly around the clock.
I swap my jeans for plaid pajamas and tuck a sleeve of condoms in my pocket. As an afterthought, I grab a bottle of wine that Fred left behind when I moved in. It might be vinegar by now, but there’s no one I’d rather laugh about piss-terrible wine with than Amy.
The door cracks open when I step onto the porch. “I have a theory about how you’re doing that,” I say. “You nearly jumped out of your skin cartoon-style every time I came near for the first...”
My sentence trails off as she pulls the door open. She’s traded her jean shorts for boy-cut underwear that cling to every curve and valley, and her tank top is gone, leaving her breasts wrapped in black lace.
The corner of her mouth curves up. “I don’t think it’s much of a mystery. Having you touch my skin is a lot more fun than jumping out of it.”
Her bare feet float over the rough wood of the porch and she takes the pan of brownies from my stunned hands. My eyes stay glued to her ass when she turns back, and my feet are nailed to the ground.
She looks over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to come in if you want to keep enjoying my pajamas.”
The door clicks shut behind me and I watch Amy’s silhouette retreat as my eyes adjust to the artificial darkness. I reluctantly drag my eyes away from her swaying hips and flick them around the room. “Are those potato sacks on the windows?”
“They are. I had to improvise a little, but digging through the supply closet was actually a lot of fun. Did you know there are pool noodles in the rafters?”
I move toward her in the dimness, letting the flashlights she’s turned toward the ceiling guide the way. The low light encircles a blanket-and-pillow nest in the middle of the floor. “Yep. Or I put them there, at least. May have forgotten about them.”
Amy leans over a storage bin repurposed as a snack table. She keeps her knees locked and bends at the waist to put the brownies down. “So you won’t mind if I cut them in two? I was thinking that pool-noodle jousting could be a fun update to walking the plank.”
Her hips move from side to side and my eyes follow the curve of her ass peeking out from her short shorts. “I’d be into that.”
“And prepping this food got me thinking about meal times. What do you think about doing some themed lunches or dinners? Something like beach lunch on the rainy days where I can play a bunch of summer songs and everyone can wear sunglasses. Or a monk lunch if they’ve already had their weekly movie and the staff just need some peace.”
I drop the condoms on the floor and kick off my shoes near the mess of pillows and blankets. “Monk lunch?”
She uncaps a marker and scribbles something on paper the size of a playing card. “Yeah. A lunch where nobody can talk.”
“And what if they do?” I crawl into the blanket nest and it crinkles under my weight.
“I don’t know. Maybe they lose something. Their fork, maybe?” She looks over her shoulder. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I make a valiant attempt to swallow the laughter bubbling from deep inside me, but some sneaks out. “Did you make a love nest by wrapping futon mattresses in a tarp?”
She caps her pen and joins me in the nest she built for us. “Sure did. Had to use what I had available. But at least I covered it with my sleeping bag, so it’s a little less, you know.” She makes air quotes. “‘Rustic.’”
I thread my fingers through her hair and pull her lips against mine. “You’re going to be a great camp director.”
“You think so?”
“Definitely. The way you pulled this together and came up with kick-ass ideas at the same time? You’ll put your stamp on this place real fast.” My hand smooths over the curve of her ass and the tip of my finger dips under her underwear. I drop my voice. “But that’s not all I’m thinking about right now.”
She pulls her shoulders back and cocks her head. “You don’t say. What else is on your mind?”
“You said to wear pajamas. And these,” I tug at the spandex, “are not your pajamas.”
She rises to her knees and leans over my lap on all fours. “They are today.”
And she’s right. It’s still day. But she’s manipulated time like she alone controls the ticking of the clock—the rise and fall of the sun. And inside the rec hall, a sultry night has fallen. I slide my palm over her spine and she arches into the touch.
Amy looks back over her shoulder. “You haven’t even seen the best part.” She reaches for the papers she left just outside of the love nest and hands me five handwritten cards. “Sleepaway Camp Truth and Dare, copyright right now. Whenever you see something onscreen that matches your card,” she settles in next to me and pulls a square from her pile, “camel toe, for instance. You call it out and the other person has to do a truth and dare of your choosing.”
I read through my cards. “Isn’t it supposed to be truth or dare?”
Her eyes flash. “It could be more fun this way. So, hit play. And toss me some snacks.”
We work our way closer as we balance veggies with sugar and watching the movie with sneaking none-too-subtle glances at each other. I’m enthralled by a mole just below the underwire on Amy’s left side when she lunges forward and holds up a game card.
“Yes! Whining camper means it’s my turn.” She crunches on a carrot while she thinks. “Okay, I’ve got it.”
I unscrew the cap from the wine, half hoping she asks the questions I want to tell her, but not wanting to say a single word that would make her pull away. I take a sip straight from the bottle. “Lay it on me.”
“Cheeseburger or steak?”
I pass her the wine. “Homemade, or eating out?”
She shrugs and raises the bottle to her lips. “Either or.”
“I’m going to have to go with cheeseburger.”
“How come?” Her eyebrows knit when she takes a swallow of wine, and she turns the bottle to read the label before taking another sip.
“You’re not going to take ‘because they taste good’ as an answer, are you?”
She puts the wine on the floor. “You are correct.”
I run my hand through my hair, and I swear she tracks my every move. “I don’t know. There are just so many ways to have a cheeseburger, you know? There’s one for every mood, but it all starts with the same basic ingredients of meat and cheese.”
“So what you’re saying,” the corner of her mouth turns up, “is that you’d choose the potentially complicated burger over a straightforward steak.”
“If you want to read that much into food,” I say. “What about you? Cheeseburger, or steak?”
“I’ve always been a steak girl. But I have to admit that you do make burgers sound pretty appealing. Now.” She leans back on her hands and her soft curves strain against their lace constraints. Blood flows to my dick and I’m really, really happy for the extra room in my pajamas. She rolls her lower lip between her teeth. “Ready for your dare?”
The low-budget audio screeches from the speakers, but every fiber in my being is tuned to Amy. To her shift from the predictable to the potentially messy and the way the darker skin of her nipples shows through her bra. I lick my lips.
“Mmm,” she says. “Good idea. I dare you to lick me. Let’s say, from my hip to collarbone?”
Our eyes meet and a slow static charges the air between us. I crawl toward her and lower my face to the waist of her panties, never letting her eyes go. I slip a finger under the elastic and pull them down just enough so the tip of my tongue flicks over her ink before flattening against her soft skin and drawing a trail across her pubic bone. Her eyes flutter closed and I rise up on my knees, tasting the curve of her stomach and drawing circles around her bellybutton. Her breath catches when I blow on the trails I’ve left, and I draw my tongue up her side, tasting every molecule of her, and feeling her chest expand against my chin with each controlled breath.
I drag the tip of my tongue over her mesmerizing mole and along the wire under the curve of her breast, before lazily licking up the lace. My tongue catches on the texture and I work my way up with quick licks, drawing the hard point of her nipple between my lips. She makes a sound of protest when my mouth moves on, and works its way over the swell of flesh straining against the lace. I complete my dare with a lingering kiss on her collarbone and her head falls onto her shoulder.
She sighs. “Yep. Truth and dare. Definitely both.”
I chuckle and reach for a cereal treat. The first bite of snack is still on my tongue when she squeals and lunges for another card. I swallow in a hurry. “Again?”
She smiles and nods. “I may not have mentioned that I’ve seen this movie at least eight times.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Eight?”
“Yep.” She pulls herself onto her knees and rests her butt on her feet. “I used to watch it every year before coming up.”
“Why?”
She takes a swig of wine. “Why not?”
“It’s a movie about people getting killed at a summer camp. Why would you watch that before going to summer camp?”
“Because it was hilarious. Camp was never like that.” She creeps forward on her knees. “But then again, it was never like this, either. Now. Truth time. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”
I force my throat to swallow the cereal treat. “Nowhere.”
She runs a thumb under her bra strap. “You have to choose somewhere.”
My palms smooth down my thighs. “No. Because your question implies that I’d have to leave here. And there is literally nowhere else I want to be right now.”
Her eyes flick up to mine. “Not even Paris?”
“Are you in Paris?” I raise my eyebrows.
She gives a small shake of her head.
I shift to face her. “Then definitely not.”
“What about the Rockies?” She folds her game card in half, and in half again. “You’d like it there.”
“I have always wanted to go to Yellowstone.” My fingers wrap around hers and still the folding. “But are you still here?”
Amy looks up from our joined hands. “Yeah.”
“Then hell no.” I pull her into my lap and tuck my chin onto her shoulder. “This is the only place in the world I want to be.”
Her pulse hammers into my cheek and her chest stops expanding with breaths. Her voice is small and quiet. “Paul?”
My lips trail down her shoulder. “Mmm?”
“I dare you to suck my tits.”