She tilted her head backward on her neck and sighed. “Ram, that’s not what I meant. I said it before—I know you’re not stupid. My point is, I’ve never actually heard anyone use that word in a sentence before, and I was impressed.”
I let out a sigh. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry. People thinking I’m stupid is kind of a thing for me.”
“Clearly,” she drawled, her voice dry and droll.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Back to you, though. You’re so damn tense it hurts just looking at you.” I gently took her by the shoulders, squeezing, kneading her knotted muscles with my thumbs. “Relax. Breathe deep. Hold it, now breathe out. Let your shoulders settle. Breathe deep, and let go of everything but being right here, right now. Just let it all go.”
She grinned. “You sound like a yoga instructor.”
“Would you believe me if I told you I’ve actually taken yoga? On a regular basis?”
She just blinked for a moment, and then burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, I just have a hard time picturing you in tree pose.”
I arched an eyebrow at her as I pressed my palms together in front of my chest, slid my left foot up and braced it against my right knee with my toes pointing downward, balancing perfectly despite my backpack. “I’d show you flying turtle pose, but I’d have to take off my pack.”
She shook her head. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “Only to those who underestimate me.”
“Which is pretty much everyone?”
I nodded, grinning. “Especially hot bitches who are determined to not like me.”
She glared at me. “Rude!”
I laughed as I started walking again. “I was kidding.”
“Well, I don’t find being called a hot bitch funny.”
“Who said I was talking about you?”
Izzy stopped and stomped her foot. “UGH! You’re so annoying!”
“You need to learn how to take a joke, yo.”
“So do you, yo,” she shot back. “Also, I’m not trying not to like you, I just genuinely don’t.”
I walked a few paces in silence, eyeing her sideways. I wanted to believe she was kidding again, but a small, quiet, but insistent part of me kept suggesting that maybe she wasn’t.
A secret for you: inside every confident alpha male is that still, quiet voice that whispers doubts--just like everyone else has; we’re just better at ignoring and silencing it.
We walked in silence for quite a while, then. Izzy’s head was still on a swivel, but she was more relaxed now, and it seemed like she was starting to enjoy the hike. I was content to continue in silence—I didn’t need a lot of chitchat and small talk to be comfortable and, oddly, it kind of seemed like Izzy was the same way. Our silence wasn’t awkward or tense, although I did still wonder how much she genuinely disliked me, and how much of that was her just trying to deny her attraction and our connection.
I glanced at my Fenix and realized we’d already made nearly two miles, which considering she was a total rookie wasn’t too bad for the first hour. Granted, I was keeping the pace to what felt like a crawl, but still. I was enjoying the slower pace, come to think of it—it afforded me time to really look around, to breathe, to soak up the peacefulness.
We rounded a bend and the trees thinned out, exposing a breathtaking view of the creek, which chuckled and gurgled and rushed down the mountain. Izzy slowed to a stop, resting a hand on a tree trunk, watching the creek. She sucked in a deep breath, held it for a long time, and then let it out slowly.
Her hazel-green eyes flitted up to mine for a fleeting moment, back down to the creek, and then back to me; she was starting to get it. I smiled at her and let her take all the time she needed to just look and breathe.
After a moment, she forged onward, and now she was the one to push the pace a little, her arms swinging more freely, her breathing easy, her gaze constantly swiveling, trying to take in everything at once.
Neither of us said a word as we hiked. Every once in a while, Izzy would stop and take a moment to appreciate a view of something, and I found myself spending as much time during those brief pauses looking at her as I did at the view.
She was stunningly beautiful, and the way she dressed really was classy—if sometimes a little on the revealing side, which I found sexy—but out here, like this, in jeans and a T-shirt and an old ball cap? This was the sexiest version of Izzy, to me. She was more…real, somehow. Her cheeks were flushed with exertion, her strawberry blonde hair wisping out from her swinging ponytail and sticking to her forehead and cheeks. Her chest rose and fell deeply and steadily, swelling her breasts against the thin, faded, vintage Sonic the Hedgehog T-shirt she was wearing. Her jeans were tight and flexed with each step, and I often found myself fading back a few steps just so I could watch her walk, especially when the trail ascended a little hill here or there.
Fucking gorgeous is what she was. A woman who could rock a designer miniskirt and four-inch heels, and then turn around and kill it in secondhand jeans and clunky hiking boots? Hell yes.
I told myself to keep my head in the game—this was a hike. We were friends, if that. Assume nothing. She may not even like me—I still wasn’t sure, as she was hard to read. I felt like sometimes she disguised her real feelings behind a thick layer of snark and sarcasm, and her repeated dislike of, and annoyance at, me felt like it was in that realm.
Whatever.
Whether she liked me or not, I enjoyed her presence, and not just for the nice view of her ass in those tight jeans as she hiked ahead of me, or the way her boobs bounced when she trotted down the occasional descent. The woman herself was interesting. I understood her humor; I understood her reticence to talk about herself and her past, which was why I wasn’t going to push her to talk about it. Hell, I wasn’t super interested in talking about my own, so why would I expect her to talk about hers?
At the top of the third hour of our hike, Izzy finally broke the silence.
“I’m hungry.”
“Reach up and back with your left hand,” I told her, “find the little zipper toward the bottom. I put some protein bars in there.”
She shook her head. “No, I mean I’m hungry. I hate being the fifth wheel with Rome, Rem, Kitty, and Juneau, so I didn’t eat much this morning.”
I snorted, nodding. “Yeah, I feel you there. They’re all so lovey-dovey it’s fucking obnoxious.”
“Your brothers are worse about that than Kitty or June, though,” Izzy said. “They hang on the girls like they’re worried they’re gonna disappear or something.”
“Well, that’s because they are,” I said. “They probably feel like Kitty and Juneau are too good for them, so they’re still half expecting them to realize this and leave.”
Izzy laughed. “Well, that’s stupid. I’m pretty sure Kitty thinks Roman hung the actual moon specifically for her, and Juneau is the same way with Remington.”
I didn’t have anything to add to that, so I gestured at the trail ahead of us. “If I have our position reckoned right, we should be reaching a pretty good spot to break for lunch soon. There’s a place up ahead where the trail crosses the creek. I can even see if I can catch some fish.”
She eyed me. “Catch fish…and eat them?”
“Yes, Izzy.” I laughed. “Catch fish and eat them. You ever eat fish you caught yourself?”
“I’ve never been fishing.”
I shook my head. “Dude, what have you done?”
She snorted. “Um, well…? I took dance lessons for eight years—tap, ballet, and jazz. I went on vacation with my parents every summer until—well, until things…changed, and we’d go somewhere amazing every year. One year it was Spain, the next it was Italy. I’ve been to Iceland, Germany, Norway, Greece, Mexico, Brazil, Poland, the Czech Republic…”
“Wow, “ I said, suitably impressed. “I’ve been to…uh, Oklahoma, California, and Alaska.”
“That’s it? You’ve never left the country?
”
I shook my head. “Nope. I mean, we drove through Canada to get here, but that barely counts.”
She laughed. “I took piano lessons for four years, too. And, umm…” Another laugh, a harder one. “Okay, fine! I lived a very spoiled, sheltered suburban life. I went to school and dance and piano, and I went on bike rides with Mom and Dad, and had family movie night every Friday, with popcorn Dad would make in the popper. We had a dog, a golden retriever named Charlie, and he was my best friend. I had sleepovers with my friends and we’d play truth or dare and listen to Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears and ’N Sync.”
“Well, you know what they say: admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery,” I said, smirking at her.
She whacked me on the chest with the back of her hand—a gesture I was learning was actually a gesture of affection. “Shut up, butthead.” She glanced at me. “So, you said you and your brothers raised yourself…what was that like? I mean, what did you guys do?”
I blew out a breath, shaking my head with a laugh. “What didn’t we do?” I said. “We got into trouble, that’s what. Dad worked at a factory from midnight to eight am, so he was either asleep or drinking himself to sleep by the time we woke up. Breakfast was usually a box of sugar cereal each, and cartoons—and that’s a habit we still have, actually.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “You do not eat a whole box of sugar cereal every morning.”
I chuckled. “No. Now we each eat half a dozen eggs and split three pounds of bacon between us, but we still watch cartoons while we eat. Nothing like the good ol’ classics—Looney Toons, Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man.”
She was suppressing laughter, now. “Oh god, seriously?”
“Why is that funny?”
She glanced at me between gales of laughter. “It’s just…I’m picturing you, Rome, and Rem sitting on the couch in your underwear, shoveling eggs into your mouths, hair all messy, watching He-Man. It’s just funny. I mean, you’re these big giant tough firefighting alpha male macho mountain men dudes, but you watch kiddie cartoons every morning.”
I paused, head tilted, and then laughter comes over me. “Okay, you’re not far wrong in that mental picture, honestly.”
She eyed me sideways, biting her lower lip.
“What?” I asked, laughing. “You’re looking at me weird.”
She shook her head, turning away and walking faster—as if to hide a flush. “Nothing. It’s just a…a funny image.”
“Funny, huh?” I said, my voice a murmur. “You think me in my underwear is funny?”
She forged ahead even faster. “No.”
I caught up easily, walking beside her as she basically trotted to get away. “You know, I don’t always wear underwear, but when I do, they’re tiny and black and very, very tight.”
She didn’t look at me. “Good to know.”
“Why are you running, Izz?”
She slowed. “Because you’re annoying me.”
“I’m just explaining what my underwear looks like, so you can get the correct mental image. I’m helping you out.”
She couldn’t quite hide a smirk. “Why thank you, Ramsey. So kind and helpful.”
“I live but to serve.”
She shook her head, snorting a laugh. “You are such a dork.”
I stopped walking entirely at that. “You know, I’ve been called a lot of names in my life, but I can say with one hundred percent certainty that no one has ever accused me of being a dork.”
She halted and looked back at me. “Yeah, well, you hide it behind that facade of big, dumb, sexy macho man.”
“Snap into a Slim Jim!” I quoted, in a fast, deep, gravelly voice; when she just blinked at me like I’d spoken Swahili, I laughed. “Randy Savage? Macho Man? No?” I shook my head. “What were you doing in the 80s?”
“Not watching wrestling, that’s for damn sure,” she said, breaking into a brisk walk again.
I caught up to her with a couple of quick strides. “So you do know who he is!”
“Just from the Slim Jim commercial.”
“It’s not a facade,” I said. “This is me.”
She then sang a few bars of a song with that phrase as the lyrics, which I’d heard a few times on the radio here and there around town. When I failed to sing along, she shook her head. “The Greatest Showman. Duh.”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“That’s a tragedy. Everyone needs to see it.”
“I’ll watch it with you,” I said.
She glanced sideways at me. “You’d watch a musical with me?”
“Sure.” I grinned. “On one condition.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh boy, here we go.” She tapped her chin, glancing up and to the side, pretending to be deep in thought. “Hmmm, let me guess: your condition will involve me wearing one hundred percent fewer clothes and doing something of a one-sidedly sexual nature.”
I arched an eyebrow. “I said condition, not sexual extortion—Jesus.”
She sighed. “Okay, I’ll hear you out. What’s your condition.”
“I’ll watch that show dude musical or whatever it is, if you watch cartoons in your underwear with me.”
She snickered, snorted, and then burst out laughing. “That’s your condition?”
“Yup.”
“Just watching cartoons with you?”
“In your underwear,” I clarified.
“What constitutes underwear?” she asked.
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Whatever you want, Izzy. T-shirt and nothing else, bra and underwear, bra and boxers…just a pair of panties.” I watched her for her reaction to that last part.
Was it me, or did she blush a little, and start to bite her lip and then stop? “You wish.”
“All day long, baby,” I said.
“Really? All day long? You wish to see me in my underwear all day long?”
I nodded and shrugged. “Sure. You’re hot as fuck, Izz. There’s nothing I’d like more than to take my time getting you from fully clothed to fully naked, and enjoying every stage in between.”
I sounded casual as I said this, but I didn’t feel casual. My heart was thumping and hammering, my pulse pounding.
“Nothing?” she muttered, glancing at me sideways.
I let a leer slide across my lips. “Well, I can think of a few things, but they all come after I’ve stripped you naked.”
She shook her head, lunging forward faster than ever. “Again I say, dream on, Bullwinkle.”
I let it go, and we walked a few more minutes in silence, her a few paces ahead, and me trailing behind and just enjoying the view.
We rounded a bend which ascended a gentle hill, emerging from the forest—Izzy was farther ahead of me than I’d like, knowing all too well how suddenly you could run into unexpected ursine company. I opened my stride to catch up, but she was climbing the hill like she had a vendetta against it.
She paused at the top and glanced over her shoulder at me. “Quit staring at my ass.”
I kept climbing. “I’ll quote you: dream on, Bullwinkle.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but then smirked and wiggled her butt at me. “You want it? You better catch up!”
I laughed and broke into a sprint up the hill, causing Izzy’s eyes to widen as I crossed the distance between us faster than she probably thought possible. I reached her before she had time to react, sinking my hands into the thick meat of her juicy, wiggling backside.
“Got it,” I growled.
She squeaked and darted out of my reach, looking over her shoulder at me rather than at the trail ahead. I trotted to keep up, and she laughed breathlessly, not really trying to get away.
I heard something, then. A scraping and scratching up ahead, and a whuffling groan.
“Izzy! Stop!” I called, keeping my voice calm but loud.
“No way,” she called back, laughing. “I’m not letting you cop another feel!”
I hoped my voice was ca
rrying enough to scare it away. “Isadora—stop!”
She heard the urgent snap of authority in my voice then and halted, skidding in the dirt. I caught up, wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back, shoving her forcefully behind me.
“Ram? What is it?” she asked.
“Bear,” I murmured. “Up ahead.”
I could still hear it ahead, snuffling, whuffling, groaning. The temptation is to step quietly so it won’t hear you; instead, I grabbed Izzy’s hand in mine, reaching down into the brush at the side of the trail and snagged a big stick, which I smacked against the trees as I took a couple slow steps forward, listening.
“Ram?” Her voice was low, thin, scared. “I still hear it.”
“I know,” I said, keeping my voice loud. “So, Izzy. What was your favorite overseas destination?”
“You’re asking me this now?” she demanded, her voice shrill and panicked.
“I told you before, babe, you gotta make noises. They’ll hear you coming and take off.” I glanced at her, keeping my hand firmly clasped in hers, dragging her forward. “So? Favorite vacation?”
We still heard it, closer now, and I realized it must have some kind of treat it was trying to get at, and wasn’t paying attention to us.
“HEY!” I called. “HEY! HEY! HEY!”
I moved us to the far edge of the trail’s curve so I could see as far ahead as possible—Izzy was right up behind me, pressed against my side and clinging to me for dear life.
We reached the end of the curve where the trail straightened, and there, right in the middle of the trail fifty feet away was a massive Alaskan brown bear—a grizzly. It was on its hind legs, digging in the hollow of a tree, snuffling and groaning as it withdrew its paw dripping with golden honey. Bees buzzed angrily around it, and every once in a while the bear would grumble and shake its head and swipe at the cloud of offended bees.
Izzy pressed her face against my shoulder, making a noise which I thought at first was her crying, but then I realized she was suppressing laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I whispered.
She pointed at the bear. “It’s Winnie the Pooh!”
Badd Medicine Page 9
