Take a Chance on Me
Page 1
Take a Chance on Me
Camp Firefly Falls Book 12
Zoe York
Camp Firefly Falls Books
Contents
Welcome to Camp Firefly Falls
About This Book
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
What to Read Next
Welcome to Camp Firefly Falls
Are you ready for the summer? Camp Firefly Falls, a sexy sleepaway summer camp for grownups is ready for you...
We are thrilled to announce a connected series of seven “escape from real life” stories set at Camp Firefly Falls, a fictional sleepaway camp for grownups, set in the Berkshires.
Visit our website at www.campfireflyfalls.com to see the latest releases and sign up for our special new release alert—we’ll send you an email from camp every time there’s a new book out!
This is my third book in this world. If you enjoy it, go back and read Wyatt and Tegan’s story in Skinny Dipping Dare, and Michael and Heather’s story in Winning Back His Wife.
About This Book
Navy SEAL Grady Mills has returned to summer camp intent on winning back a certain sexy news producer with whom he shared a secret one night stand—and then a single scorching phone call that ended with a promise to stay in touch. A promise he promptly broke.
Priya Mattu knows better than to trust Grady’s significant charms. But when he shows up on her cabin doorstep, crashing her solo week at Camp Firefly Falls’ Back to Nature retreat, she can’t help but remember how good it had been between them. Plus she’d be silly to turn away big, strong, backpack-carrying company on the long daily hikes—and the hot summer nights, too.
This lighthearted, sexy rom com is a standalone romance in the Camp Firefly Falls world. Readers previously met Grady and Priya in Skinny Dipping Dare (Wyatt and Tegan’s book).
Foreword
I’m so glad you’ve discovered Camp Firefly Falls! I love this world. If you haven’t yet read Winning Back His Wife, book 1 in the series, pick it up today—it’s FREE! I co-wrote that story with Gwen Hayes to kick off the CFF adventure. In it you meet Heather and Michael Tully, who you’ll see in this book, too.
If you’re a new-to-me reader, nice to meet you! This story completely stands on its own inside the CFF world, but if you like this story, you’ll love all of my SEALs Undone series, because they’re very similar. Big, tough military men falling hard in the most unexpected (to them) ways.
At least one of those books is always free, so visit my website at www.zoeyork.com and check them out if you haven’t already!
I hope you enjoy Priya and Grady’s story. I loved writing it.
~ Zoe
Chapter 1
Grady knew there was a solid chance Priya would slam the door in his face when he arrived at Camp Firefly Falls unannounced.
He was not wrong.
The feisty news producer took one look at him—wind-burned, with three days of facial hair and a filthy gleam in his eye—and let go of the wood frame with a healthy amount of hell-no enthusiasm.
Unfortunately for her, it was just a screen door and he could still see her.
“You cut your hair,” he said gruffly.
She crossed her arms and glowered at him.
“It looks great. You look great.” He meant it. It had been nearly a year since he’d seen her in person, here at camp. Where they’d met and bonded and fought and fucked.
He watched her on TV every chance he got, though.
And they’d had that one late-night phone call.
He regularly enjoyed a mental replay of that.
“I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here,” he said, giving her a winning smile.
“Not in the least,” she said frostily, pulling the door open again. But instead of letting him enter her—their—cabin, she came out to stand on the porch. “You’re camp alumni. I bet you’ll come back every year to relive your glory days.”
That wasn’t the reason at all, and she knew it. “I’m here for you.”
She laughed and stepped around him. “Nice try, Grady.”
Then she walked away.
Oh, hell no.
But Grady’s internal protest didn’t stop him from checking her out as she stormed off. Dark, glossy hair, now chopped to her shoulders. Slim arms, churning in outrage. A curvy bottom he could still feel in his hands, a year later.
She really did look great.
He had a lot of work to do to get back into her good graces.
Priya’s heart pounded in her chest as she marched down the path toward the main lodge.
No, seriously, what was he doing here? She’d double-checked with Tegan that…
She slowed to a stop, then twisted around, her leading hand thumping into the Navy SEAL’s hard, unyielding chest. Of course he was right behind her.
She jerked her chin up—way up—and glared at him in all his handsome, unabashed glory. “You set this up.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I’m going to kill her.”
“Nah, don’t do that. I’ll sleep on the porch if you insist.”
“The porch— Grady, tell me you have your own bunk in a boys’ cabin somewhere.”
“Camp’s full up, I’m afraid.” He grinned. “But I hear you’ve got a cabin all to yourself this week. What’s that all about?”
“None of your business.”
“Mental health break?”
More like a physical health break. “I’m on vacation.”
“And you came back to where we met.”
She laughed. “Also known as a fun resort where I had a good time with two of my girlfriends last year.”
“And an even better time with a certain sexy sailor…” He flashed her a rakish smile. He wasn’t wrong. Their secret hook-up had been spectacular. But it had also been a mistake, one she had no intention of making again.
“I remember splinters?” She screwed up her face in thought. “And it was over pretty fast, too.”
“I made you whimper my name for hours,” he said, lowering his voice to a threatening burr. “Hours.”
She ignored the thrill that danced through her at the private tone. “Minutes. And it was more of a giving instructions situation.”
“Like, ‘more, Grady, yes, Grady, oh my God—‘“
“Grady!” She clapped her hand over his mouth.
He licked her.
She squealed and pulled her hand back.
“Yeah, I remember that sound, too.” He leaned right in. Not touching her, but…close. “And I want to hear it again.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s been a year. And that’s too long. So…no.” Unexpected heat prickled behind her eyelids and she spun around again. Nope. Not crying over a one-night-stand that wouldn’t be repeated.
Did phone sex count as a repeat? Okay, a one-night-stand and a follow-up-phone-call, neither of which would be repeated.
“I missed you,” he said from behind her. “I know that’s not enough, but—”
She nodded definitively, feeling his eyes boring into the back of her head. “It’s not. So…I don’t know what you and Tegan thought would happen, but I’m going in search of a Lake Waawaatesi Iced Tea, and I’d prefer you not follow me.”
She didn’t get far before he called out to her. “You didn’t tell her about us.”
<
br /> Tegan? No, she hadn’t told her best friend that Tegan wasn’t the only person to hook-up with a Navy SEAL last summer. Because Tegan’s fling had turned into the real deal and Priya’s had fizzled before it had really gotten started.
“It wasn’t any of her business,” she tossed back over her shoulder.
“I’m not following you,” he hollered, his voice getting louder as she put distance between them. “But I’ll be sitting on the porch when you get back. Bring me a drink.”
Chapter 2
Grady stretched out on the porch, his head on his backpack, his legs crossed in front of him. He tried to read for a bit, but his mind kept wandering back to that night. Their night, as he’d thought of it over the last year. His one night with Priya that had changed everything.
They’d drifted away from the crowd, and she’d been drinking a Lake Waawaatesi Iced Tea then, too.
“What do you think is in this?” Priya asked, taking a nervous sip.
“I swear it’s just all the bar contents at the end of the week,” Grady said. They were sitting at a picnic table overlooking the boathouse and the dock. Behind them, the rest of camp was celebrating.
He wasn’t exactly sure how they’d ended up out here, in the quiet darkness, but he liked it.
He liked Priya. A lot, even though she’d spent most of the week teasing him and using her feminine wiles to help her friend Tegan win a bizarre series of dares against his friend Wyatt.
Grady didn’t care. For one thing, Wyatt didn’t seem to mind the games. And for another, Grady liked Priya’s feminine wiles.
Yeah, her feminine wiles. He’d liked those a lot. But she was also the smartest woman he’d ever talked to. He’d met some whip-smart officers in the navy, translators who spoke six languages in the special forces, and diplomats galore.
None of them held a candle to Priya’s sharpness. She had a way of reading people, of instantly gauging where they were at, and how that affected whatever was going on. He could see how that would help her at her job. And he’d loved how she talked about her work, too. That they were both in intense careers appealed to him. He’d known what he was getting with her, and she could say the same about him.
No expectations of white picket fences. Just a good time.
That had been their agreement as he’d stripped her down behind the boathouse. Between breathy little sighs, she’d made it clear she wouldn’t be chasing him all over the country, and he agreed.
One night. Get their mutual attraction out of their systems.
Famous last words. He swallowed hard as he lay on the cabin porch and thought about how it had done the exact opposite.
He’d given in to his urge and called her.
Once.
That had lasted for hours, too. She’d been so wary at the start. Why was he calling? What did he want?
Jesus H. Christ, he just wanted to hear her come apart again. And again.
He’d wrung two orgasms from her before he even let himself open his fly.
But it hadn’t helped with the all-consuming want. And then he’d gone on tour, and the last thing he could do from a war zone was carry on an on-again, off-again affair with a television news producer.
He’d told himself that was why he hadn’t called. He’d spent a year denying how much he wanted her. He’d lied to himself and given in to his dreams of her when things got really dark.
That nostalgia fucked with his memories, turned them into something larger than life.
And he knew better than to give in. He told himself to leave her alone. It worked right up until Wyatt told him, in a completely accidental aside, that Tegan was thrilled she’d been able to convince Priya to sign up for Camp Firefly Falls’ Back to Nature retreat week.
And now he was lying on the porch of her cabin, waiting for another chance to tell her all of that.
It hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t want to know.
It wasn’t possible that she didn’t want him, too. Was it?
Charlie H. Murphy, had he fallen in love with a woman who had tumbled out of lust with him?
True to his word, Grady was still on her—their—porch when Priya returned.
She’d had two drinks at the mixer while hunting for her best friend, who managed to always be somewhere else whenever Priya asked after her. Busy doing camp stuff. Ha. Busy hiding for her life was more like it.
Then she’d grabbed Grady a soda because she wasn’t heartless, and headed back to explain to him why he definitely could not stay with her.
At first, she thought he was asleep because he was stretched out with his head on a backpack, his eyes closed.
But as she neared, he opened his eyes and turned his head to watch her. He didn’t say anything, and her heart thumped under his careful scrutiny. Crap, she didn’t want to be the one to start the conversation. She was so much more clever when she was pushing back against his ridiculous talk of having missed her.
Two could play the silent game. She held out the bottle of soda and he gave her a look that said, what, no Camp Waawaatesi Iced Tea?
Nope. No alcohol for the bad boy trying to crash her solo cabin party.
She was tipsy enough for the both of them. If she plied him with alcohol, who knew what might happen?
His tongue on her neck, his hands on her—
She scowled at him and stomped into the cabin, letting the door swing shut behind her.
Inside, the bed taunted her, because it was definitely big enough for two. In fact, it was two beds, two twins pushed together because she had requested it like that. She’d been tossing and turning in her sleep a lot lately.
Her therapist said she was anxious. Well no shit, Sherlock. The world was going to hell in a handbasket and her job was to make entertaining fluff out of half of it, and turn the other half into the drama of the week.
So yeah, she hadn’t been sleeping well.
And she wanted a giant bed for her retreat week.
How was she supposed to know Grady would land on the other side of the screen door and turn her bed into an X-rated proposition just by his very presence?
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to call again,” said the devil himself from the porch.
He moved far too silently for her liking.
She glanced over her shoulder and shrugged at his silhouette in the screen door. “No. It’s that you didn’t call, period. Actions speak louder than words.”
“I showed up here.”
“Not all actions are good.”
“I really like the shorter hair.”
She laughed despite herself. “If I let you in, you’re going to be incorrigible all week, aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer right away. Her chest tightened as he looked at her. “No,” he finally said. “I’ll be good. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t want another chance with you, but we can take this at your pace.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that she had other things to worry about this week—like getting her blood pressure back to a normal level. Grady was not good for her blood pressure. He couldn’t be. He made her burn from the inside out.
But as much as she liked the idea of kicking his ass in verbal sparring matches, that wasn’t good for her stress levels, either.
No, the better plan would be to let him in. Show him in no uncertain terms that she had moved on.
Convince him this was a misguided mistake, and get to the end of the week as unaffected friends who could shake hands and say goodbye for good.
Right. That was a good plan.
First she’d have to convince herself of that truth, of course. She’d do that over dinner. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. “Sure. Fine. Whatever. Come in and make yourself at home. We can grab new bedding at the main lodge after dinner so we can push the beds apart.”
He swung the door open and stepped inside, raking his gaze over her and the too small space she’d just foolishly suggested they share. Fell right into his trap.
Fin
ally he brought his attention back to her face. Immediately the temperature in the cabin leapt by ten degrees. His jaw flexed, but he just gruffly jerked his head in acknowledgment. “Sounds like a plan. What do you want to do until dinner?”
Her nipples tightened, as if they had a say in the matter. They did not. Could he see her blushing in the dim cabin light? The best defense was a good offense. “Well, we haven’t talked in ten months. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to?”
He slung his bag into the corner, then leaned against the wall. “I told you I was heading overseas.”
“Right.” She frowned. “When did you get back?”
“Last week.” A direct hit, and he knew it.
“Long tour of duty.” Her voice almost cracked. Almost. She’d been to war zones, too. Not in the same way, but with way less training. She knew better than to get emotional.
One of his shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “Some of them are.”
“I know that.” That sounded more confident. Like an understanding friend.
“I know you do.” He needed to stop looking at her like he knew a lot more than the fact she got the nuances of his job. “What have you been up to for the last ten months?”
“You can probably guess.” A news cycle that ramped up instead of down after the election. Fifteen hour days, more flights than she could count, a blur of generic hotel rooms. Stories that changed faster than ever before, and a new hostility towards the media—especially visible minorities like herself. Intersectionality was a four-letter word in a chaotic newsroom, so she kept her head down and did her job better than anyone else.