Page 84 of Cocky Prince
“Someplace special.” I glance at my sweatshirt and sleep shorts, and he does too. “You can wear what you have on. Well—maybe throw on pants, or sweats. Something warm. We’ll be outside.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Adam drives up a long, winding road through the forest. We’re on a slope of the mountain that faces the lake from a southeastern vantage point. He pulls off to the side and kills the engine. The area is pitch-dark, the only light coming from the stars and crescent moon overhead.
I step out of the car, and Adam turns on a flashlight. “Whose property is this?”
“Levi’s. He lives in the house we passed.”
Adam pulls a blanket from the trunk and leads the way to a tent in front of a fire pit.
I peek inside the half-dome tent. “There’s an air mattress. What does your brother do out here?”
Adam sets out the blanket and grins. “Dirty girl. Not what you’re thinking—or, at least, I don’t think so. I don’t want to know. My brothers and I come out for campfires, and Levi uses the place to mellow under the stars.”
“Will it bother him that we’re here?”
“Nope. I use it all the time. I texted Levi to let him know.”
I sit on the edge of the air mattress cross-legged and look up at the star-dotted sky through the wide opening of the tent and the break in the trees. “Have I mentioned how much I like Levi and his awesome piece of land? Do you think he’d mind if I lived in his tent?”
Adam drops his coat on my lap and squats in front of me. “No, but I would have an issue with it.”
I hold back a smile. “As handsome as Levi is, he has nothing on you, Adam Cade. I’ve never met a more handsome man. Used to piss me off when you first started working at Blue. It was distracting.”
His hands slide down my calves. “And now?”
“Now it’s ten times worse, because I know you.” My voice is sober, and I swallow the burn in my throat. Adam has asked me to trust him, and that’s what I want to do, but I’m scared.
For a moment, he doesn’t say or do anything. The sound of my unsteady breathing fills the tent. And then his hands come down on either side of me, dipping the air mattress as he leans forward. I drop back until I’m lying with him hovering over me.
His body slowly lowers, his hips settling between my thighs, elbows propped on either side of my head. Then his mouth covers me too. First a soft whisper along my jaw, a gentle kiss below my ear. Then his lips are on mine.
My hands flutter at my sides as Adam tilts my jaw and deepens the kiss, his tongue and lips and his palm along my jaw soothing the fear and frustration boiling inside me.
He leans on one elbow and reaches for my hand, linking our fingers above my head. He gazes down at me. He should say something, reassure me, but he doesn’t. He drops his head and kisses me again. Telling me with the movement of his lips and the circular motion of his thumb against my palm how much I mean to him.
And it goes on and on like this until I feel dizzy.
A shiver racks my body.
“Cold?” he asks, and I nod. It’s summer, but the temperatures drop sharply in the basin at night and I can feel the change, even with Adam’s body heat above me.
He presses a soft kiss to my lips, now tender from all the kissing. “Wait here.” He rises and spreads his coat over me, then rolls up his sleeves and reaches for the flashlight. Flicking it on, he walks off and disappears into the dark.
A minute passes and I don’t hear him or see the flashlight. “Where did you go?” I call out.
A loud thump sounds beside me and I flinch. “Holy crap.” I slap a hand to my chest.
Adam’s flashlight crosses in front of me to a bunch of chopped wood. He looks inside the tent. “I’m building you a fire. Pretty sure it’s on the honey-do list.”
I attempt to compose myself after I nearly peed my pants over an armload of wood. “Damn straight. Get on that, will you? And please flex your muscles while you’re at it.”
“As my lady wishes.” He unbuttons his shirt and pulls it out of his pants and off his arms, dropping it onto the mattress beside me. Then he collects the wood and swaggers to the fire pit. Adam orients the pieces in what looks like the shape of a teepee. It’s really dark out, and I can hardly see anything, which pisses me off because this is as manly as it gets and I’m missing half the show. And then the glow of fire flickers, illuminating Adam’s body and the wood pyramid.
Golden light touches the strong curve of Adam’s jaw as he squats beside the wood, lighting it in strategic places, his thick thigh muscles straining against suit pants he never changed out of. His undershirt cuts into his biceps, accentuating the dip and swell of strong arms…
I sit back and admire. Nowthisis what I’m talking about.
