Next To Me

by Amabel Daniels

  “What if we can’t find her tomorrow?” she asked after swallowing down a bite of jerky.

  I shrugged. “Then we find her the next day. Honestly, how long can she evade him? Is this some serious case of playing hard to get?”

  She ripped open a bag of pretzels. “Evading a guy doesn’t always mean a girl’s playing hard to get. Sometimes she really doesn’t want him to stick around.”

  I opened my mouth to ask, Then why do you always push me away? Why did you turn me down the one time I’d asked you out but then secretly watch me like you want to make love in the worst way possible? I wasn’t butthurt she’d rejected me. It confused me, though, because she acted interested otherwise. Even Amber mentioned how she thought that Carly “liked liked” me—her words. And I’m getting my hopes up based on a ten-year-old’s wise assessment of attraction? Laughable.

  Carly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I don’t think she is, though. And remember, she didn’t even know there was a ring in that cupcake. She can’t be running from his proposal or him if she didn’t know it’d be coming.”

  “True.”

  Rather than falling into an argument about how else Richard could convey his wish for matrimony, she explained a strategy for the morning. On the drive here, she’d read Felicia’s posts and gathered that she and her buddies meant to hike the Upper East Trail of the park, wanting to see some special landmark of a copse of endangered trees. Our strategy was to get an early start on the trail and finally hand off the ring there.

  We finished eating, and to my surprise, we’d mostly left the alcohol alone. I couldn’t speak for her, but I didn’t want to get too comfy and then oversleep the next morning. I gathered the unopened goods and stuffed them in the bag, and she crushed up all the wrappers and set them in another.

  After I unfolded the blankets to make something of a bed, I lay back. My arms folded under my head for a pillow, I stared at the mossy green roof of the tent. Pings of rain pelleting our little fort soothed me in a way white noise usually did. Hell, this was much better than where I was last night.

  “How’s your injury?”

  Carly asked it as she entered my field of vision, standing up and leaning over me. In her hand was the compressed ice pack.

  “It’s fine.”

  Her smirk lightened into a smile as she crouched down to me. On her knees, she got closer and touched the pack to my cheek. “You say fine and I say okay.”

  “Means we’re agreeable.”

  “For everything and anyone but each other.” She dabbed the cold block to my skin and I closed my eyes.

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  “Most of the time.”

  Case in point. “You weren’t arguing when I kissed you.”

  “Perhaps I wasn’t.”

  I grinned like a fool. Damn woman. Still couldn’t simply agree on a fact.

  “Thought you wanted to finish that book.”

  I blinked my eyes open at her. An invitation. From her…

  “Isn’t it in the car?”

  She huffed. “If it is, I’m not fetching it.”

  I rolled to my side and reached for my bag. Nope. It was in here. I scooted back to the blanket “bed” and stretched out along my side. Cheek in hand and elbow on the fleece material, I raised my gaze to her.

  Sitting next to me, she leaned back, her weight on her hands behind her butt.

  I picked up where we’d left off, falling back into the weird sayings and phrases of old English. We’d already read past the first time they screwed—the bit that had inspired Susana Mae to reunite with her artifact of a vibrator—and now it was mushier, sappy lines of love and promises and dowagers and—why are they so obsessed with the balls? He has a ball. Then she does. Is that where AC/DC got the song from?

  Carly sat forward and stretched her arms out, like they might have been going numb.

  “Wanna come here?” I suggested.

  I picked up the book with my right hand and patted the blankets with my left. “You’ll be more comfortable.”

  She scoffed. “Wanna bet?”

  I slanted my head at her retort. Narrowing my eyes, I waited for her to clarify.

  “Fine,” I said and lowered my arm again, at the same time she said, “Okay,” and got to her hands and knees.

  She lay next to me, on her side, facing me.

  I resumed reading, doing my best to keep my focus on the words on the paper and not the intoxicating pull she had on me. After another chapter—of them at another dancing-party shindig—Carly put her finger on the top of the book and pushed it lower.

  “Yes?” I drawled.

  “Are you comfortable?”

  I barked something like a groaned laugh. So she’d noticed. “No.”

  It didn’t matter how much I concentrated to only see and narrate the words in the book. My body strained to feel her and show her a story. I was only human. I was only a mortal man. It might have been doable to lie here and read about a man wanting to “ravish his beauty” if I didn’t catch Carly sneaking stares at me. Licking her lips. Sighing so wistfully that her breasts could have escaped the cheap shirt she bought.

  “At least you’re honest.”

  I slapped the book down, not caring about the page number. “It’s not like I can successfully lie about it.”

  The green canvas domed over us wasn’t the only tent around here. The stretchy mesh of my track pants was no coat of armor to hide behind.

  Her laughter was light, like she was struggling to breathe around it. “Is the…uh, literature turning you on?”

  I tossed the book over her, onto the sleeping bag behind her. Then I was free to stare at her without any distractions.

  “Oh.” She licked her lips again. “Not the book.”

  No, not the book. You. I dropped my head to the blanket, no longer strong enough to watch her…debate? What was she thinking? What did she want?

  It’s on her. It’s her call. I can’t be the only one wanting this to happen, to make it happen. I’d been tormenting myself with an erection for ten minutes and considering running out in the woods to get rid of it.

  “I’m not really comfy either,” she admitted.

  I rolled my forehead on the blanket to look at her.

  “I know you’ve got a mean streak, Carly. But have mercy on me. Don’t tease.”

  Pfft. “Who has time for games?” She sat up and put her hands on the hem of her shirt. Then hesitated. My lungs locked the air inside. I couldn’t breathe. What a hypocrite—

  “Why didn’t this happen in the hotel? In New York?”

  I lay on my back and rested my head on one arm. “Because I’m done pushing you, pursuing you. You want something with me, you call the shots.”

  She quirked a brow at me and tapped a finger at the hem. “What about when I push you?”

  “Try not to knock me on my ass?” I shrugged a shoulder. “I get it, Carly. I get you. I respect that you haven’t had a great track record with guys. I won’t lie and say I don’t want you just to be delicate and honor your shitty past, but it’s gotta be your choice to take that step for yourself. If I’m a guy who’s worth it.”

  She sighed and looked to the roof. Then frowned at the growing sagging water spot. Back at me, she twisted her lips. “That’s just it. You are worth it. Or you seem to be. That’s why…why I turned you down when we first moved. Why we can’t get along. You’re too damn right and worth it. And that scares me. The last time I thought I’d hit gold, I was wrong. Very wrong.”

  “I’m not your ex, darling.”

  She grinned. “Damn right, you’re not.” Without another word, she whipped her shirt off over her head and flung it to the side. In her pale-pink bra and white-trashy short shorts, she got on her hands and knees to crawl over to me. Maybe it was more of a dive. There was nothing slow about it.

  My next breath was stolen from her crashing into me. Onto me.

  Oh…hell yes. Finally.

  She pinned me, body
and soul. Her arms bracketed my head and her fingers clawed into my hair. A hard grind of her hips brought a groan from me and she straddled me fully. Tucking her legs over and to the sides of mine, I was locked under her.

  Kisses so potent they were electrifying my psyche, I swam into a hot, swirling whirlpool of fire with her. Of her.

  “Mav,” she murmured at my lips. “I’m still fucking scared.”

  “I promise.” I sucked hard kisses along her jaw as she pulled at my shirt. “There’s no spiders in here.”

  She rocked her hips onto me harder and I nearly jack-knifed at the pain. Pleasure. Both. God, she was the best kind of an oxymoron. “Not that.”

  So deflection wasn’t going to work. She meant me. Us. This. She was still scared. I let my hands fell back and she sat up on me, frowning. “Then stop.”

  “Are you kidding me?” She smiled like the naughty vixen she’d been hiding. “I don’t want to stop, I was just…admitting it. Owning it. You were…right.”

  “Now prove me wrong. Prove yourself wrong, that there’s nothing to fear.”

  “Oh, I intend to.”

  I leaned up to help her get my shirt off and then I grinned at her as she unhooked her bra. I’d barely had time to appreciate her perfect, small breasts because she slammed back down to me. Her mouth pressed to mine. My hands on her ass. Her hard nipples smashed to my chest.

  When she rubbed against me harder and spread her legs further apart, I slid my hands into her shorts, around her cheek and then to her wet core.

  “Goddamn, Carly.”

  Her breath hitched when I slipped two fingers in her. Tight, but so slick and ready for me. I brought them back out and in again.

  “Yeah.” She breathed the confession on a hot whisper against the corner of my mouth. “Yeah, I’m soaked.”

  And then we were.

  I was drowning in her, and then we were both gasping for air.

  Water. Everywhere. Plastering her hair to my eyes. My forearm was chilled with iced rain.

  “Fucking hell!”

  The roof had busted open. It wasn’t like I’d had the time or thought to push the damn puddle out while we’d been getting cozy.

  “Oh”—she spat out water—“my”—she coughed on more water as she stood up. “Goddammit!”

  Eleven

  Carly

  I jumped to my feet with my eyes closed since it was like standing at the base of a waterfall.

  “Wait,” he said just as I stepped to the side. And promptly slipped and fell face-down.

  “Get out,” he told me as the side of the tent blew in.

  In a wrangle of grabbing clothes, the lantern, and the blankets, we slipped and tripped in what remained of the tent. With the roof opened, rain pelted in and winds followed suit. One by one, the poles gave in and bent, dropping the fabric over and around us.

  That was us. Getting it on one minute and then fumbling in a failing tent like an amoeba with too many arms.

  “I told you camping was a bad idea!” I said as I hugged all our clothes in my arms.

  “Fine! Just get in the car.”

  We shoved out of the tent before it suffocated us. It might have been drier in the open than inside the tent. Or at least the nylon-like material wasn’t smothering our skin anymore.

  Skin.

  I was rinsing off a whole lot of it in the rain. Like a peace-loving hippie in the original Woodstock, I ran in nothing but ass-hugging shorts for the rental car.

  Mav beat me there and dumped all the stuff he’d saved into the backseat. He held his arm out to me as I sprinted toward him and clambered inside. Rain sluiced down his face and chest as he ran around and got in the other side.

  “I am never, ever camping again.”

  He grinned at me from the driver’s seat. Like a lunatic. “I was having fun.” Then he shook his head, flinging water at me.

  “Argh!” I dove over the console and—well, smacking his chest didn’t do much. Being this slippery and almost naked didn’t help either. I silenced him with a hard, punishing kiss. Once I reveled in the groan rumbling from his chest and his hard arms snaking around me, I felt like I’d gotten retribution.

  He slanted his head to the side, demanding a deeper kiss, sliding his tongue along mine and dueling.

  Dueling. Oh, we had that part down.

  I lifted to get access to his pants and tugged the band down some. Enough to pull him out and stroke.

  “How about we go into the”—he bit on my neck and then sucked the hurt away—“backseat.” Another nip. “More room.”

  “Let us do that,” I said and reclined from his chiseled chest.

  His pants for air were loud in the car but the heated promise in his eyes was even bolder. I rose to my knees from the straddling position I’d fallen into. With my heightened pose, he lashed out hard and hot, hugging me close so he could cover my nipple with his mouth.

  I jerked back, arching into his torture. “Oh,” I gasped as he sucked hard—

  A ground-shaking thunder of a crash struck behind me, in front of the SUV.

  “What the—” He held me close as he looked around me. I twisted to see what had happened.

  That pine tree had fallen. Feet from the front bumper.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t stay parked here,” he said, his eyes wide.

  Maybe Mother Nature really doesn’t want me to ever get laid again!

  “Okay,” I rushed out as I scrambled back to the passenger seat.

  He wasted no time starting the car and reversing out of our ill-fated lodging spot for the night. We bumped and rocked over ruts and debris in the path we’d driven on earlier. Enough jostling around to hint that crossing my arms over my boobs wasn’t going to cut it. Besides, the mood was ruined. What’d happen next? A fricking tornado to blow us away from actually having sex? Was this the universe’s push notification to talk me out of letting Mav into my life like this?

  “I’ll just park off the main road.”

  Main road? Looked just like all the other gravel-dirt lanes with hardly any clearance in this neck of the woods.

  “Okay.”

  “Fine,” he said on a tired exhale. Or perhaps that was defeat.

  I pulled on my wife-beater. While it wasn’t thick or warm, it was dry. Good thing I’d gotten into the I’m-a-sex-goddess mood and flung it to the corner of the tent.

  Tent. Ha. More like a water balloon waiting to happen.

  He reached into the backseat for his bag and scrounged for something to change into. I looked out the rain-streaked window into the dark, soggy forest as he got into boxer briefs and nothing else. I quirked a brow at him.

  Already, the temperature had dropped. I guessed we could keep the heat on—one pro of staying in the solid car. We’d be dry and warm. Yay. Tokens of civilization!

  “There are a couple of blankets that didn’t get wet.”

  I slumped in my seat. “Uh-huh.”

  “I’ll put the seat down and we can sleep back there.”

  I smirked at the window and sighed.

  “Just sleep,” he added. “Foiled attempts of making love aside, we’ve both had a crappy night of sleep.”

  I yawned, as though he’d cued me to do so with his words. Through the rearview mirror, I watched his tight ass as he set up our “bed.” The more I took note of his finely toned physique and the bulge of his cock I’d gripped earlier, I wondered if we could just sleep. Or if I could.

  Wait. Lovemaking? I blinked as the word sank in. Love? Too…soon? Too…intimate?

  Like screwing each other wouldn’t be intimate? Even though his choice of words took me by surprise, I didn’t rebel the reality of it. Mav and I wouldn’t just be scratching an itch… It didn’t feel that flimsy to me.

  If we ever get around to it.

  I huffed and crawled back to him.

  “Here.” He lay back and held his arm open for me. A sight that was becoming habit and not at all unwanted. I nestled into the nook that fitted me just right and
he draped his arm around my waist. Our faces inches apart, we sighed in unison. “Comfortable?”

  I quirked a brow at him. That was my line. My cheesy attempt of asking how’s about we get this tent a-shaking without actually having to say it.

  His smile was instant and smoldering. “Well…”

  I patted his chest and snuggled closer. He set his leg over me, securing me to his front. “Let’s try again on solid ground.”

  “Dry ground,” he added.

  “A bed.”

  “Eh, horizontal on a mattress is overrated.” He pulled me close for a tender kiss. “Sweet dreams, darling.”

  I smiled into his cheek and hoped I would.

  *

  Morning couldn’t come fast enough.

  Not that I particularly wanted to leave the blissful heaven it was to be sleeping in Mav’s arms. That was beyond amazing. Such an instant, full-body, heart-stealing perfect way to wake up.

  Sleeping on a folded-out backseat of a rented SUV wasn’t. I think I’d slept on sofa sleepers with I-beams in the middle of the frame that were more comfortable than this.

  The immediate urge to pee, in the middle of a sopping-wet forest, was the second moment of aww…dammit.

  There were no toilets around. Nothing to wipe with. Hell, even the roll of paper towel Mav had bought was now a blob of watery uselessness back in that tent.

  Stupid-ass tent.

  I eased out of Mav’s hold without waking him and snuck out to pee.

  I’m so filing a customer service complaint. That tent had zero quality for any semblance of a shelter.

  After I found a trio of bushes that didn’t have any animals residing in them, I squatted to do my business. Bringing me to waist level with a wet-barked tree, right in the line of sight of a long beetle that eyed me like it’d love to launch at me.

  “Fuck!” I jerked back and managed not to fall in my own puddle.

  Shuddering, I stood up, pulled my shorts on, and headed back to the SUV. I tried to, at least. Of course, my miserably slacking navigation skills kicked in.