Page 43 of Pictures in Blue
“What are you doing?”
“Setting up,” he answers.
“For?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight?” I ask, confused.
“Yes.”
Clearly, I’m going to have to ask specific questions for him to actually explain in more than one word. Our almost kiss apparently reset him to factory settings and we are back to one word answers.
“Why are you setting up anything for tonight? What do you mean?”
He gestured to the ground. “Well, because of the mud, it took us a bit longer to hike and you,” he points to my ankle, “are in no condition to hike all the way back and we would be trying to hike in the dark. Too dangerous. So, we camp here tonight.”
Great. Perfect. Grand. Just what I need. Camping in a secluded area with a man I am insanely attracted to, but need to stay away from. And I’m sure there’s only one sleeping bag.
I walk over and glance in the pack. Yep. Empty.
This night just got a lot more interesting.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HUDSON
Ican feel her watching me. I know I shouldn’t have tried to kiss her, but damn. When she undressed and came into the water with me, I could only hold back so much. I didn’t want to hold back at all and I wouldn’t have if she didn’t ask what I was doing. I wanted to do more than just kiss her under that waterfall. The image of her behind the waterfall, perched on the rock’s surface, legs spread, my face buried between them, invades my mind. And my body. I shift myself so my back is to her, hiding other parts of my body, as I flatten out the tarp as much as I can to give us plenty of space to sleep later.
“I’m surprised you know to put the tarp on the ground,” she teases. I smile, glad she brought back whatever back and forth we’ve been doing since she came here.
“I have lived near these mountains my whole life. It’s common sense that—”
“A tarp is twice as useful under you than above you,” she finishes. I don’t try to hide my shock.
“What?” she shrugs. “I watchBear Grylls. But if you suggest we drink our own pee, I’m walking back to the inn, pain or no pain. I don’t give a shit how dark it is or how many bears might be waiting in the trees to maul me.”
“I’d filter it before we drank it,” I joke.
She wrinkles her nose in response and I chuckle at her. I unzip the sleeping bag and spread it out on top of the tarp. My nerves grow at the makeshift bed, knowing we will be closer than either of us would like to be overnight. But, warmth and all that. Not an excuse at all to spoon her. But I find myself glad I don’t own a second sleeping bag.
“So, what now?” She asks, wrapping the blanket tighter around her.
“Now, we try to get a fire going. And you, put your clothes back on unless you want this night to go a different way,” I say bluntly, because I’m still hard from the image of her in the waterfall, and if she doesn’t put her clothes back on now, the rest of what she does have on is going to come off.
Before I grab the matches, I gather my hair behind me and wrap the hair tie around it, tying it in a high bun to keep it out of my face. Avery hasn’t moved from her spot to get dressed and I’m pretty sure she has stopped breathing.
“Then you have to put your clothes back on too. And,” she swallows. “Maybe not do that again.”
“What?” I ask innocently. “Keep my hair out of my face?”
“Yeah, that. Don’t put your hair up again. In fact, just don’t touch your hair again,” she mumbles and gathers up her clothes before hiding behind a nearby tree to dress. I have a feeling we both know if she unwrapped that blanket out here, it would have been game over for both of us. I pull on my jeans and the thick flannel jacket I packed and get to work on the fire. By the time she emerges from behind the tree, blanket draped over her arm, the twigs crackle as the fire grows enough that I can sit back on the tarp and poke at it until the flames grow.
Avery wordlessly sits a few inches away from me, her own stick in hand to move the firewood around. The tension between us hangs in the air again, waiting to be broken. The anticipation building more and more, and it feels like something before a big life event.
The excitement before buying or building a house; the wait before a vacation; or, in my case before a new pup comes into the animal shelter. But this is something more than that. Something bigger. No matter how much we both want to deny it. But according to the gossip, she is leaving in a few weeks. Avery is leaving. I have to keep reminding myself of that fact. It doesn’t matter how attracted we are to each other. She’s going home to her life. Her friends. Her job. She’s not sticking around. And I am not going to allow myself to fall when I know she’s going to leave. I can’t.
I grab my pack and start digging in the side pocket.
