Page 32 of Smokin' Situation

And I wanted her.

Annie

Tripp’sexpressionwassoearnest as his thumbs gently stroked the skin of my waist, causing my heart to lurch as I thought about how a lie of omission could rip this closeness I felt to him away in the blink of an eye. Blowing out a heavy breath, I broke eye contact, shifting to stand.

He didn’t let me go far, grasping my hand and pulling me back. Ducking his face slightly, he tilted my face toward him with a crooked finger beneath my chin. “What’s going on?”

“There’s something I probably need to tell you.”

“Hey,” he murmured, situating me sideways on his lap with my head resting against his shoulder. “This isn’t a tit for tat situation. You asked why I came back home, and I wanted to tell you. Don’t feel like you need to spill all your secrets in response.”

Only this wasn’t something I wanted to keep a secret from him. He needed to know, and it’d been unfair of me to let things get as far as they had without telling him. Technically, I wasn’t doing something wrong, but I couldn’t get more invested in things between us unless I came clean with him.

“I’m not even sure how to phrase this without sounding like a terrible person.”

His fingers toyed with the end of my braids before unfastening the elastic ties and combing them through my tangled, wet hair. “Then how about let’s get cleaned up, and you can say what you want to tell me when you’re ready?”

Once he finger-combed my hair out, he stood, making his way across the spring, the dim light illuminating the damage the firehad done to his back. I held back a gasp as my eyes scanned the angry, puckered skin, tears springing to my eyes. Seeing the marks solidified my need to tell him the truth. Because there weren’t any guarantees in life, and while we were safe now, I’d regret it later if I let being worried about his reaction keep me from exploring this connection with him.

I’d spent half my life being terrified of the people around me dying, and it’d be easy to keep an emotional connection from developing, but I knew I’d regret it. Keeping Jay at arm’s length had been easy, because he was doing the same thing. Tripp, on the other hand, had opened up to me in a way that felt honest and vulnerable. If I ruined that by keeping secrets, I would sabotage the first possibility of a relationship that had felt real in a very long time.

“Enjoy the show?” he asked, holding his arms out of the water as he returned, the bottles of shampoo and bars of soap looking comically tiny in his large hands.

“I think someone is looking for compliments,” I teased, reaching for a bottle, but he held it out of my reach, shaking his head. He didn’t need to know I was too stuck in my head to ogle him leaning over the rocks that bordered the hot spring, the taut muscles of his back and strong thighs fully on display.

“Ouch,” he chuckled, settling back onto the ledge we’d been seated on. He grasped my shoulders, turning me away from him. “Can’t even get one suggestive comment out of you. Tough crowd tonight.”

“Pretty sure I told you earlier that you’d poke an eye out with the trouser snake you brought into the water.”

He laughed, leaning close to place a kiss on the back of my shoulder. “Yet no faces got close enough to test out that theory. Such a shame. He was eager for an introduction.”

“Someone stopped things before they got that far. I would’ve been happy to make a new friend.”

His lips traced the back of my neck, settling beneath my ear. “And I will wait patiently until you’re ready for me to make anintroduction. But if you’re thinking this hard about telling me something, you’re not ready.”

Tripp stepped back, and I felt the instant loss of heat from where he’d been. The sound of shampoo squirting from the bottle startled me, but then I let out a sigh of satisfaction when his fingers dug in, massaging it into my scalp. He worked my hair into a lather, his strong fingers relaxing me while they worked.

“Lean back,” he whispered, moving in close and pressing his chest to my back. He dipped lower in the water, the suds dispersing into the clear water around us, the floral scent of the shampoo clouding my senses.

His fingers gently worked the shampoo out of my hair, and suddenly I couldn’t keep it in any longer. This had to be one of the most romantic moments of my life, and I didn’t want to spoil it, but not saying something wasn’t fair to him.

Turning in his arms, I ducked underneath the water, using my hands to smooth the hair back from my face. He waited patiently, studying me as we stared at each other, the steam of the hot spring rising into the air between us.

“I was—kind of am—involved with someone,” I whispered, forcing myself to maintain eye contact so I could see his expression.

“Like a boyfriend?” he asked, finding my hand underneath the water and squeezing it, but not moving any closer.

Shaking my head, I tried to figure out how to phrase exactly what Jay had been to me. “No, it was never romantic. We had a super brief relationship in high school before we went off to different schools, so we were familiar with each other. We’ve been friends for a long time, and I love him, but I’ve never beeninlove with him. Nor do I see that changing.”

“And he knows that?”

Nodding, I tried to step back, but he held firm, not letting me escape just because this conversation was uncomfortable. “I think he’s attracted to me physically, but we see each other as a means to an end. You know what living in a small town is like. I think I’veused him more as a shield than anything. He’s never seen me like that.”

Tripp let out a chuckle, arching an eyebrow, but I was certain that Jayden had never, and would never be in love with me either. His heart belonged to someone else, and I doubted it would change, even if she hadn’t been in the picture for years.

“He’s like my best friend…” I trailed off, whispering the next part. “But we have sex.”

“Is that something you plan to keep doing?” he asked, scanning my face in the dim light reflecting off the surface of the water.

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