by Ally Decker
She opened her eyes to see it had to be late afternoon now, maybe early evening, which meant she didn't sleep long. Orgasms always made her tired, and two in such a short amount of time were guaranteed to put her to sleep. She felt refreshed now, though, and ready to do something.
She lifted her head to look at Jeremy's face. He was awake and smiling at her, dropping his tablet on the mattress on his other side. He must have been reading while she slept.
"Sorry," she said, pushing herself onto her elbow. She looked down on him now.
"Nothing to be sorry about, I don't mind." Jeremy smiled when she leaned into the touch as he ran his fingers over her cheek. "I would've woken you up for dinner."
"What time is it?"
"Half past six. Dinner is at eight, unless you're hungry—"
She shook her head. "Not yet." She ran her hand up and down his chest, thrilled she could do a simple thing like that after so long. "What is it going to be? A group dinner, tables for two, or what?"
"Tables for two. Every meal is like that, but most nights there will be something at the beach where we can spend time together, too. A grill or a bonfire, or just a sit-up with a couple bottles of wine." He shrugged. "We'll wing it. The goal is to do whatever we feel like. Although I thought we could skip tonight's get-together and spend time alone, just the two of us."
Tara was nodding before he even finished. She didn't mind spending time in a group later in the week, but tonight, she wanted Jeremy to herself. Warmth bloomed in her chest at the realization that he wanted the same thing.
She leaned in to give him a chaste kiss that turned into a heated one right away. They were both grinning when they parted.
"I'm glad you agree," he told her, brushing a lone strand of hair off her face. "There are so many things I want to do to you, you have no idea."
How did he do that? He just said things like that as if it wasn't… She bit her lip. He wasn't even trying to seduce her right now, he was just stating a fact, as if people said things like that in normal conversations. 'Nice weather today, isn't it? I want to fuck you against that tree.'
"Did I say something funny?" Jeremy asked, tilting his head.
"No, sorry, I just thought of something." She sat up, curling her legs under her and resting against his side. "I'm all for you doing many things to me," she said, giving him a teasing smile. Maybe he could be unintentionally seductive, but she knew how to do it on purpose. "I have some ideas of my own, too."
His grin turned dangerous and heat flashed in his eyes. "Do tell."
"All in good time." She shook her head. "Although I can give you one. We're definitely checking out that waterfall in the woods. Last year it was the place to be for outdoor sex, it seemed. We didn't get there then, we need to do it now."
Jeremy chuckled. "I heard. And that's one of the rare things that is scheduled this week."
She raised her eyebrows. "What?"
"Every couple got a day when the waterfall is theirs, to avoid walking into each other." He pulled her by her braid for a kiss. "We got Wednesday."
"I can't believe a bunch of you actually discussed this." She blushed, but she wasn't sure if she was more embarrassed about the idea or embarrassed about being embarrassed in the first place. People talked about sex, she talked about sex from time to time with her friends, too. Not in detail, but…
"We didn't, I was told we got Wednesday so it wouldn't get crowded and I accepted." He rubbed his finger over one of the marks he'd left earlier. "I don't kiss and tell. Before or after."
She nodded, relieved. Tara had never considered herself a prude, but there were lines. For some reason, this was hers.
They changed the subject, talking about things they might want to do during the week that didn't involve sex. She was surprised that there were options that weren't available last year, like couples massages. The security was tight, like last year, but there was also personal staff some of the actors brought with them. Jeremy didn't bat an eye, but he was living in a different world. For her, it was like another planet—cool to visit, but that was no way to live.
Before she could go too far down the road of the differences between their worlds, Tara checked the time and decided it was time she started getting ready. But when she told him that, he leaned in.
"How about that joint shower now?" he asked, his lips brushing her ear, and there was no way she was saying no. Getting ready could wait, after all.
***
The sun was heading down by the time they left the cabin, and Tara and Jeremy caught its descent over the water. They paused to watch, and she tightened her grip on his hand for a second. It reminded her of the first evening they'd met, last year. She'd been at the camp for a few days when the Hollywoods arrived on Friday, since they were only coming for the wedding celebrations. She'd noticed him right away, but he was the one who approached her, right before the pre-wedding dinner. She'd been on her way when she'd paused to take in the view and he stopped by her side and started the conversation.
The weekend had been theirs, after that.
Tara glanced at him now and found him already looking at her, smiling.
"Looks like it's a tradition," he said, and lifted their hands to kiss her knuckles.
She leaned in for a proper kiss, touched that he remembered.
"Thankfully it's not a sunrise," she told him when she pulled back and turned to watch the view again. "That would be a pain to keep up with."
Jeremy laughed. "Yeah, no way we'd be up so early."
When the sun was almost gone and with it, so was the light, they headed towards the dining area. It looked different than last year since there were no long tables but instead a bunch of small ones, each prepared for two and farther apart from the others than in a typical restaurant. It was obviously set up for couples and even that she and Jeremy had been doing…whatever they had been doing for a year now, in that moment she felt as if she was going on a first date.
Maybe because the two of you never go out anywhere, the unhelpful voice suggested, but she ignored it. Tonight, she wanted to spend a nice, romantic evening with Jeremy. She was not going to overthink everything and ruin her fun.
Three couples were already there—Sylvia and Greg, Chin and Michiko, and Alicia with Caleb. She smiled and nodded as Jeremy led her after the waiter who had shown up to take them to their table. Sylvia winked at her, but Tara pretended she didn't see it. Life was easier like that sometimes.
Their table was a little to the side, and thanks to that, she had a view not only at all the tables, but also at the deck and the beach in the distance, beautifully lit with thousands of little lights. She could see big beach chairs spread on the sand and was almost tempted to suggest they spend some time after dinner there. But when she turned to look at Jeremy over the candle at their table, all thoughts of that were gone. She would take a night in with this man over any beach on earth, no matter how nice.
Besides, there was always tomorrow.
"What are you thinking about?" Jeremy asked, reaching out his hand over the table, palm up in invitation.
She slid her hand into it and answered his smile with one of her own. "There are thousands of places where people like you," she said, nodding towards the rest of the tables so he would know she didn't mean only him, "could spend their vacations. Bigger beaches, bigger everything. Why here?" She could understand that Sylvia and Greg would like to come back for sentimental reasons, to celebrate their first anniversary. But others had unlimited choices.
"One reason is that no one would think to look for us here," Jeremy said with a half-smile. "Media expect us to go to a specific kind of places. Nothing like this." He waved his hand to the side to encompass the camp. "The other is simple—we all liked it here last year."
Before she could answer, the waiter reappeared to pour them wine and bring aperitifs. When he left, Jeremy lifted his glass with his free hand.
"How about a toast to making new memories?"
His eyes made h
er heart beat faster, and she tried to ignore it, but the heat rushing through her body didn't help at all. It's nothing, she told herself. Just an innocent toast and you're melting like ice-cream on a hot day.
She lifted her glass and clinked with his before taking a small sip. "I liked it here last year as well," she said. It was supposed to be a simple admission, but the way his gaze turned softer, more intimate, made her think that maybe she'd said more than she'd wanted to let on.
"I wish I could've been here for the whole week," he said, brushing the tips of his fingers over her pulse point, making it difficult to think.
Tara managed to swallow I wish you've been there, too, though.
"It was fun," she told him instead. "It didn't even feel like a wedding before Friday. There were no decorations, no nothing. Regular camp things, plus all the singing."
"I've heard about the campfire concert. Greg was very impressed, and Sylvia was over the moon, obviously." He sipped his wine. "I have to admit, I'm jealous about that."
"Sylvia is good for our egos, that's for sure," Tara said, glancing fondly towards her friend, who was laughing at something Greg had said. Sylvia was a self-proclaimed Broadway geek and a big fan of musical theater, and she wasn't shy about gushing to the actors about how much she'd loved pretty much everything they'd done.
"So you're saying I should ask Sylvia to organize another musical campfire?"
Tara shook her head. "Oh no. Not unless all of you promise to sing as well."
"Get enough wine into Chin and he'll give us a medley of pretty much any 80s band that ever sold a record. You and Greg can cover musicals, although Jess and Sonia may just give you a run for your money when it comes to Hamilton lyrics."
"Them's fightin' words," she said, raising her eyebrows.
Jeremy laughed. "Good to know it's a challenge that does it for you. We have that in common."
"There are many things that do it for me." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She bit her lower lip as an afterthought.
He dropped his gaze to her lips. "I enjoy finding more and more."
She took another sip of wine to calm her rapidly beating heart. Maybe it was a good thing they'd never gone anywhere in New York together. There was a chance she wouldn't have been able to control herself around him and would have ravished him on the spot, paparazzi—and anybody with a cell phone—be damned.
The waiter chose that moment to bring them their meal, and the spell was broken, but throughout the dinner, the looks and the accidental and not-so-accidental touches were slowly building up the heat between them. Jeremy would talk about his last project and brush his knee against hers. She would share a story about her first audition and he would drop his gaze to her mouth again and again. She would ask him about his old auditions and then lick her lower lip while holding his gaze.
Despite it all, neither of them rushed to finish their meal. They knew what was ahead, and they were looking forward to it, but for now, they enjoyed what they had. Tara's cheeks hurt from smiling and her heart was doing somersaults, and maybe she should be more careful, but she didn't care. She loved being here, with him.
CHAPTER SIX
Opening his eyes and seeing Tara's face on the pillow next to him was a treat Jeremy appreciated a great deal. Long-distance dating meant that they had spent very few nights in the same bed, despite knowing each other for a year. He knew that he'd be used to sight like this by now if they were sleeping together regularly, but right now it felt special. Maybe the one good thing about being apart was that they could still appreciate little things like this one.
Tara had gone to sleep with her hair down and right now it was spread over her pillow and half covering her face. He reached out slowly and brushed the strands of hair off carefully, trying his best not to wake her in the process. He loved her hair, it had been the very first thing he'd noticed about her last year, and he enjoyed every time she left it loose. He also loved running his hands through it, but that was a rare thing, since she preferred it braided or at least tucked at the back of her head. She looked good like that as well, of course, but it wasn't quite the same.
Once again, a flash of longing shot through him. It was stupid, missing her when she was right there next to him, with her feet tucked under his calf and her fingers resting against his arm. He knew it was stupid, but it didn't change anything.
He thought of all those times when they'd been on the other ends of the country and he'd wished she was there at his side. There had been the Collectibles premiere in December, and the one for Road To Us, his indie project from last year, in March. There had been two weddings, three engagement parties, holiday parties, and any other kind of parties he'd gone stag to, and made up excuses about being too busy and wanting to focus on his work for the time being. And those weren't lies, since he had been busy and had focused on his work—otherwise he would have been flying to New York every other weekend and trying to make a real go at their relationship earlier—but they were not the whole truth either. He wasn't single, he hadn't felt single for almost a year now.
In the beginning, he'd thought he was losing his mind, putting too much hope on one weekend together in the middle of nowhere, but the first time they'd met again in New York Jeremy knew it was worth it. They were worth it.
He'd promised himself he would try his best, but then the work had picked up, shooting, the press tour, holidays with family, trying to keep his head while the world tried to pull him each and every way.
Had he really been trying his best if they'd spent months at a time without seeing each other? If Tara hadn't known he wasn't sleeping with anyone else until they'd had their ditching-condoms talk last time? Seeing her surprise had hurt, even if he'd known from the start that she was more careful about what they were to each other than he was, as if she was expecting it to end at any moment. Jeremy had realized then that "his best" obviously wasn't enough and he needed to step up his game. That was a big part of the reason why he'd jumped on the chance to come back here, to Firefly Falls, when Greg had brought up the idea during lunch one day.
Other things had required a little more thought and planning, but Jeremy felt he finally had a solid plan. All that was left was to share it with Tara and hope she would be on board. If not…
Before he could spiral into self-doubt, he heard a quiet sniff and he looked up from Tara's collarbone to her face, right in time to see her frown before opening her eyes slowly. She scrunched her nose and closed them again. He grinned at the sight. She always did that, as if she was offended by the idea of waking up and refused to comply.
"'M not up," she muttered into the pillow.
"Okay," he said softly, brushing off the hair that fell onto her face again as she moved. "There's no hurry."
She hummed in reply and brushed the back of her fingers against his arm before circling them around his elbow and leaving them there. Jeremy stared at her some more, watching as her breathing slowed again. He would let her sleep, but if she didn't wake in half an hour or so, he had a few ideas about how he could make her see the upsides of being awake.
Smiling to himself, he slowly turned to lie on his back and managed not to dislodge Tara's grip on his elbow as he did so. He used his free hand to reach his phone from the nightstand and busied himself with checking the messages and the news. He texted his brother and both his parents in answer to their last night's texts, he ignored most of his emails, and he scrolled through the news app, reading headlines only, before giving it up with a grimace. He was on vacation, there was no need to destroy his good mood. He switched his phone for his tablet and settled back with the book he'd started yesterday.
He got lost in the story, but the pleasure of lying in bed without care in the world, with Tara at his side and the warmth coming through the window, was there in the background of his mind.
When he checked the time after a while, he realized it had been almost an hour since Tara had drifted off again. As if reading his mind, she mo
ved a bit closer to him in her sleep, and Jeremy's body reacted at once to the fact that a beautiful, barely dressed Tara was right there next to him. He put the tablet away and turned them so that she was lying on her back and he was leaning over her from the side, keeping most of his weight off of her by putting his hand on the other side of her head. She sniffed but didn't open her eyes, even as her breathing changed.
He grinned. Okay, then.
He dropped a line of kisses along her collarbones before he pulled back to lie on his side again, but this time right there along her body. He pushed the covers off and took a moment to appreciate the sight of her in her short top and panties, skin pink and warm and covered in myriads of freckles he'd spent hours mapping out in the past. He brushed his fingers over the sliver of her stomach visible below the top's cut, smiling at the way her breath stuttered and the muscles under his touch tightened and relaxed.
He looked at her face right before slipping his little finger under the line of her panties, and watched her eyes open and her mouth spread into a slow, lazy smile.
"I thought there was no hurry," she said and the rasp in her voice sent a flash of heat down his body and straight to his cock.
"That was then," he told her, leaning in for a kiss. "I got impatient," he added right against her lips.
The kiss was soft and unhurried, a hello. Jeremy put his wandering hand flat over her belly, pausing his quest as he sucked Tara's lower lip into his mouth and grazed his teeth over it before releasing it only to lick over it and slip his tongue back into her mouth. She tangled her fingers into his hair as if to keep him close.
I'm not going anywhere, he wanted to tell her. I'm here. I'm right where I want to be.
He slid his hand into her panties instead.
***
After breakfast, they took their coffee refills and headed to the lake. Greg and Sylvia were the only ones there, but they were sitting at the end of the deck. The beach was completely empty, so Tara and he had their picks of the beach chairs, but instead they stood right at the edge of the lake and let the water circle around their feet. It was cold still, but hopefully it would warm up later, because he was looking forward to going in at some point today.
