Chapter Twenty-Six
I push through the front door. “Amy?”
Chuck greets me with a woof and his happy, full-body wag, but there’s no human response—which only makes me more determined to follow through with the plan I’d concocted while stuck in rush hour on the way back. I head for the bathroom and throw my deodorant into a plastic bag, followed by my toothbrush, shampoo, and whatever else my hands come across.
In the spare room, I hesitate when I see that the bed has been remade—that she’s been here—but I toss the bag into a nearly packed box and fold the flaps shut.
Chuck sits with his back to the wall, tracking my movements as I empty the drawers into my backpack, and stuff the clothes from my closet on top. “We’re moving a little earlier than planned, bud.”
I stack the boxes by the front door, shrug into my backpack, and head into the living room for my guitar. The house still looks like the place I inherited from Fred. It looks like my home, but it’s not, and I need Amy to be sure of that.
With a deep breath, I open the door. “Let’s go, Chuck.”
Chuck bounds beside me and we make it a few steps toward the rec hall before the hurried crunch of gravel beneath feet stops me.
“Paul!” Amy half runs, her pack bouncing behind her. “Where are you going? I mean, why are you here? I mean, no.” She comes to a stop close enough that I can see the flush in her cheeks and catch the shine left on her lip when she rolls it between her teeth. “Where are you going?”
Chuck shoves his nose into her hand and she scratches under his chin without looking away from me. It’s all so perfect. Her and me and Chuck and this wild place where instinct collides with practice—where risk and reward are the same thing, and there’s space to fuck up and try again. I tighten my grip on the guitar case. “We’re going to the rec hall. I’m giving you your house.”
Her hand stalls on Chuck’s chin. “What?”
“I need you to know that I don’t want to stay here just because I’m afraid of leaving. That I didn’t ask you to let me stay because I regret quitting. Because I don’t. I would do it a hundred times over if it got us to right here, right now.”
Amy feeds her hands under the straps of her daypack and looks up through her eyelashes. “Are you, though? Scared to leave?”
“No. Well, yeah, actually. But not because this job is that great. I mean, it is, but it’s not that good. Dammit. This isn’t coming out right.” I rest the butt end of the case on the ground and wrap my hands around the top. “You like blunt, right?” She nods, but her forehead creases. I lose myself in her eyes—the eyes that look at me, not past me. I take a deep breath. “I want to stay here, at camp, but I need you to know that I don’t want to stick around because I’ll miss the job. I mean, I will, but you’re the director now. This is your camp.”
“Right.” Her cheek sinks into her teeth.
“So, I’m going to give you the training manuals I was putting together. I’m going to hand over the whole house like I should have done the first day you got here. I’m going to separate myself from your job.”
“Great, but—”
My voice grows gravelly. “Bobcat told me this place would rule me like a woman, and it did. But camp doesn’t have control of my soul anymore, Amy. You do.”
Her mouth parts and her chest stops rising and falling, but she doesn’t look away.
“I’m not going to beg you to let me stay. And that’s going to be hard, because fuck, I want to stay. But I’m going to try, because I hope to hell I’ve made it clear that I want you, Amy. All of you, for as long as you’ll have me.”
Amy rubs her thumb along my jaw. “Are you done?”
I swallow hard. “Yeah.”
Her hand cups my cheek. “I’m not making any guarantees. I can’t. But today was exactly as I imagined this job would be.” She strokes my skin. “I was alone. Nobody was demanding anything of me. I could do whatever I wanted. Only I couldn’t. And you know why?”
I shake my head farther into her grasp.
“Because of all the things in this fucking world, I wanted you.” She pulls her hand away and smooths back the little hairs that have come loose from her ponytail. “I tried to escape it. I got some things prepped for camp. Made some playlists for themed lunches. I even had a little detour to my old job, but you know where it led me?”
My heart hammers against my chest and I wet my lips. “Where?”
“Tawny Ridge. I had the whole camp to myself and I ended up there. So I’m all for not begging. But I will do it if you don’t get back in that house.” She sets her eyes on mine. “So take your shit back inside. Please.”
My fingers flex against my case. “Be clear with me. What aren’t you guaranteeing?”
“That you can stay. Longer.” She rolls her shoulders. “But I am thinking about it.”
* * *
Amy sets her pack on the floor when I kick the door closed, and it’s beautiful—her things in this living room, sharing space with mine. My cheeks twitch and settle into a grin when I swing my bag down next to hers.
She’s thinking about it. Not that she will think about it, or that she might. She’s already doing it.
Chuck herds us into the living room and I flop onto the couch, pulling her down with me, her cheek to my chest, our legs intertwined. Every nerve in my body hums with hope. I pull out her hair elastic and massage her scalp.
“God, that feels good,” she sighs.
My fingers work in slow circles. “Know what else feels good?”
She nuzzles her head up to see me, her eyes dark and lips wet. “What?”
“Not wearing a fucking tie.”
Amy laughs and pushes herself up so she’s between my legs, facing me. She draws a finger along the skin showing through my unbuttoned collar. “How was the interview?”
I weave my fingers through hers and graze my thumb back and forth over her skin. “Not good. Thanks for the car though. You’re right that it was a much better fit down there than the huge van I was going to take.”
“It was no big deal.”
I kiss her hand. “It was. You were thinking about me.”
Her fingers squeeze mine. “Definitely was. But I’m sorry. About the interview.”
My lips work their way across her knuckles. Her eyes watch the soft caress and her mouth parts. “I’m not,” I say.
I press languid kisses to the inside of her wrist. “But you need a job,” she says.
“Eventually.” I work my way up the thin skin of her forearm. “But I have some inheritance from my parents, and there’s really nothing to spend money on up here. I’m not worried about an income.”
“But what would you do? You’d never be happy sitting around the house all day.”
“I’d figure it out. Online tutoring, maybe. YouTube sensation. One of those shirtless guys on the cover of romance novels. We’d figure it out one day.” My lips linger on the thin skin at the crease of her elbow. I scrape my teeth across her flesh and she creeps forward until her chest grazes mine.
Her lips hover achingly close. “So your plan is to have no plan. To take it one day at a time.”
I brush my thumb over her cheek. “With you? While you think?”
“With everything,” she breathes. “With work. Life. Us.”
“God, that last one sounds good.” My tongue takes an exploratory lick of her lower lip and her eyelids drift closed. “Know what else sounds good?”
Her eyes flutter open. “What?”
I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “You.” I palm over her ass and press the seam between her legs.
Her gasp changes to a moan when I seal my lips to hers. Her mouth parts and my tongue dips inside, tasting. I run my hand back up her ass and grip her by the hips, forcing myself to hold back—to take it slow. To make sure her brain responds along with her body. “You sound so good, Amy.” A thumb slips under her shirt and I rain kisses across her jaw. “Do you know what it does to me when you sound like that?”
She tilts her head and my mouth takes the invitation, trailing down her hike-salted skin. “What does it do to you?” she asks.
I pull her onto my growing erection and she grins. Her hips draw back in my hands, and I hold her in place—keep her from rubbing our bodies and blurring our thoughts with want. “This is only half of it,” I say. “You turn my cock to a fucking rock just by breathing. But this is just what you can see.” I guide her hips in finishing their roll and her weight pins my dick tight against me like the squeeze of a desperate fist. I lick my lips and fight through the urge to do it again—to shift her back and forth over my length until she pants my name. “This is what you can feel. But it’s not all I’m feeling. For you. For what we could be together.”
Amy blinks, her jaw loose. But second by second, her lips turn upward. She pushes her hand through my hair and pins me to the couch. Her tongue drags to the spot behind my ear that drives me crazy, and I hold her hips tight to keep her from moving, but the extra pressure on my dick shoots need through every part of me.
“Amy?” I rasp. “Do you understand me?”
“Mmhmm.” Her lips brush against my ear.
And with that single sound, the featherlight contact, she releases the binds that have pressed against my chest since I ran out of that kitchen, hair dripping. She flicks my earlobe with her tongue and I nudge my mouth toward hers, seeking her taste and warmth—chasing the connection between our bodies and what we’ve said. She kisses her way across my cheek, but pulls back without warning.
Amy’s eyebrows press together. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you taste a bit like banana.”
I trail the back of my hand down her spine and chuckle.
“Do I even want to know?”
My stomach flips, but I give my words a lightness I don’t feel. “Probably not.”
Amy swings herself off the couch and my windpipe knots with fear that she’ll ask. That I’ll have to explain. Now. Where I was. Who I was with. When there’s no other woman I want in my thoughts. Not right now.
But she holds out her hand and my palm meets hers. “Come on,” she says. “I have an idea.”