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, ever
y 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.
Chapter Five
AIYLA STARTLED AWAKE at the sound of Ty’s phone alarm, their bodies still intertwined. He tightened his hold around her, the colorful sunrise reflecting in his eyes.
“Just one more minute,” he said in a groggy voice.
The alarm continued beeping from somewhere behind him. “Shouldn’t you at least turn it off?”
He nuzzled against her. “Not if it means letting go of you.”
“Finally y’all are awake.” Trixie’s voice startled them.
Ty groaned and pressed his hand to the back of Aiyla’s head, holding her still. “Don’t move,” he whispered conspiratorially. “She might mistake us for part of the landscape.”
A shadow fell over them as Trixie turned off Ty’s alarm and tossed his phone beside them. Her dark hair was pinned up in a high ponytail. She set her hands on her hips, flashing a playful smile. “That whole landscape thing isn’t really happening. Please tell me you’ve got pants on under there, because you’ve got an audience.”
She pointed up at the top of the ridge, where Speed and James and a handful of other people cheered and whistled and hollered.
“Thank God we’re not naked,” Aiyla said.
“There are worse things in life than getting caught in the arms of Ty Braden,” Trixie said. “Like skinny-dipping in a neighbor’s pool and realizing too late that they have motion sensor lights pointed directly at you.”
Aiyla winced. “That would be embarrassing.”
“Especially if you weren’t alone,” Trixie said on her way up the hill.
“I don’t want to know this about you.” Ty covered his ears.
Aiyla c
rawled out from under the blanket, and as Ty sat up, he grabbed her around the waist, hauling her onto his lap. Drawn to him like a bee to honey, she wrapped her arms around his neck. He pressed his lips to hers, causing more cheers to ring out from the peanut gallery.
“Thank you for hearing me out last night,” he said.
“Thank you for being honest with me.”
He eyed the gawkers at the top of the hill. “Shall we give them something to talk about?”
“Who gives a crap about them? Give me something to talk about.”
He kissed her deeply, earning a round of applause. She felt a momentary pang of embarrassment, but as quickly as the applause had sounded, it faded away, taking her embarrassment with it, until all she heard were the hungry sounds of her and Ty’s kisses and all she felt was the desire for more. His hands moved into her hair, something she’d already come to expect. When he wound her hair around his fingers, her insides flamed, and she felt him get hard beneath her.
He smiled against her lips. “If we didn’t have an audience, you might be in big trouble.” The devilish intent in his eyes left no room for misinterpretation.
“I wish we could stay right here all day.” Kissing and touching and making up for lost time.
“Ride with me today. Be my partner in the rafting race.”
Her heart screamed, Yes! But she was determined to complete this race on her own. “We signed up as singles, not a couple.”
“Hurry up, guys!” Trixie called. “You need to take down your tents!”
They pushed to their feet, and pain shot down her leg. She dug a few pain pills from her pocket, and Ty handed her a bottle of water from his backpack. “Thanks.”
He watched her take the pills as he gathered the blankets. “You’re basically living on those things.”
She grabbed his backpack and he took it from her and swung it over his shoulder.
“It’s just Motrin and Tylenol, to take the edge off. Today’s the rafting race, so there’ll be no strain on my leg, and by tomorrow I’ll be as good as new.”
Thrill of Love Page 5
