Page 25 of Lost With You
“I’m good, Dylan.” She swiveled her head to show him a soft curve of cheek. “Trouble makes for good copy, remember?”
Not all trouble.
He’d sure like to know what kind of trouble she’d had with the fiancé she wouldn’t talk about, to make her so reticent to share any details about her life. Casey liked to tell other people’s stories, but he suspected she hid a doozy of her own. Something, someone, somehow, she’d been hurt. He couldn’t help wondering, as he lay under the stars while she slept in the tent nearby, what Casey Michaels dreamed about.
“Dylan?”
Her voice was soft, wary. How long had he been paddling?
He said, “Need a break?”
“No…but it’s getting dark.”
He glanced up at the sky between the trees. He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t noticed the ozone-scented tinge to the wind, or the crosshatched ripples on the surface of the river. In the sky above, slate-dark clouds billowed, moving fast.
“A storm’s coming.” He scanned the banks of the river, but in this span of the waterway, underbrush billowed from the steep banks and dipped the tips of greenery in the water. He glimpsed a mallard tucked in a shelter formed by the brush, already hiding from the oncoming rain. “Keep an eye on the south bank. I’ll look to the north. We need a high place to pitch the tent.”
She’d heard the urgency in his voice. She paddled with renewed strength. Half a mile up the river, just when the sky began to spit, he caught sight of a clearing. They pulled up onto the shore as big droplets of rain began to dot his shoulders. Digging the tent out of the canoe, he tossed it into the clearing. She’d already grabbed the mallet, handing it to him as he headed up the bank to find a good spot to pitch camp.
Not much later, the rain falling steadily, he pounded the last peg of the tent. Casey squealed as thunder boomed, and the rain intensified. She’d already dug out of the canoe their two overnight packs, the sleeping bags, some food, and the camp stove. It all sat in a pile in front of the tent. While she searched the canoe for more gear, he dragged everything inside.
Then the sky opened.
He said, “Get in!” And held the tent flap open as she ducked, running up the bank. She dove inside, and he followed, zipping the tent shut behind him. Running a hand down his face, he slid to the opposite wall, as far as he could get away from the dripping, shivering woman now pulling a towel out of her pack.
“Wow, that hit fast.” She scrubbed her throat, her arms, then patted the soaked T-shirt stuck to her body. “I think I fetched everything we needed.”
“It’ll be enough for now.” He listened to the rain pounding on the roof. “This might pass quickly.”
Wishful thinking.They’d been lucky not to have any rain so far. This time of year, midafternoon squalls weren’t unusual. Fortunately, they’d found a steep bank, making it less likely they’d be flooded out. But the pooling of the rainwater made the taut roof above sag between the struts. Water dripped off his hair, his shirt, his legs to form little puddles on the floor. The space filled with the smell of river water, the pungent scent of the storm-sizzled air, and the faintest whiff of coconut-scented sunscreen. It wasn’t yet time for lunch, and the storm could last for hours.
Lightning flashed, and he got a good look at Casey’s face as she lifted it from the towel. He saw a mirror of his own tension.
“I need to change,” she said, plucking at the wet hem of her T-shirt. “I can’t sit in these soaking clothes for long.”
Images of her undressing in front of him exploded in his mind.
“You need to change, too, Dylan.” She jerked her chin toward the puddle forming around him. “Otherwise, we’ll both be crawling into soggy sleeping bags later.”
“Yeah.”
He cleared his throat and dragged his pack closer before swiveling to turn his back to her. After peeling off his own dripping shirt, he used it to mop up the moisture on his chest and abdomen. Clothing rustled behind him. He tried not to imagine her T-shirt discarded, the ties of her bikini coming loose. He tried not to envision a glimpse of side boob, or the furrow of her spine all the way down to that heart-shaped backside. He tried not to dream of the lift of that tight ass as she dragged the bikini bottoms down her long, sleek legs.
He pulled a dry T-shirt over his head, willing his cock down, hoping she wasn’t reading his mind right now. He mopped up the puddles around him and then gripped the waistband of his trunks. Would she sneak a glimpse ofhisass as he shoved the shorts off? If only they were disrobing for a far more interesting reason than to put on dry clothing. Tossing the soaked clothes in a pile in a corner, he buried his head in the towel on the excuse of drying his hair until he was sure she was completely dressed.
He said over his shoulder, “You good?”
“I’m good.”
He swiveled around. Her oversized T-shirt sported a huge image of a cartoon mouse. She leaned back, head propped on her rolled sleeping bag, sucking on an end of her wet hair with her nose already buried in a book.
His chest moved. Casey was the most fetching thing he’d ever seen, looking rumpled and cozy and so damn close.
Then she sighed and dropped the book to her stomach. “Do you know any good ghost stories?”
She slid him a look from under those thick lashes, a look that acknowledged that this was going to be a difficult afternoon.
“I wish I did.” He dragged his sleeping bag to his side of the tent. “I haven’t done the Boy Scout thing for a while. Were you a Scout?”
