It’s the sense of adventure she imbues every moment with, throwing herself wholeheartedly into the activities.
I’ve never found a woman I could share this part of myself with.
I’ve always been too rough, too eager to get out there anddothings.
Granted, I haven’t been looking, but as I watch Grace forge bravely between two stalagmites, giggling when one brushes her shirt, making it cling to her chest for an aching second … dammit, I feel like a bloke who’s losing his mind.
I hurry after her as we delve deeper, taking a turning and ending up in a private nook where I have to stoop slightly under the pressing presence of the cave ceiling.
She wheels on me. “Uh-ho,” she laughs. “I think we might’ve taken a wrong turn.”
“I know what you’re doing, Nancy Drew.” I smirk. “Don’t think I believe you’ve forgotten our Imagine game for a second.”
Her eyes light up and she lets out a giggle that’d be all too easy to imagine at business functions. I can see her in a sparkling form-hugging dress, hanging from my arm until it’s time to wage war with sponsors. Then she’ll leap from my embrace and wield her cheekiness like a weapon.
What the hell am I thinking?
This is a trick, not a relationship.
“I thoughtyou’dforgotten,” she breathes. “I thought this was just a coincidence.”
I stalk closer to her, unable to help myself. The voices of the guide and the other adventurers recede behind me, as though they’re drifting into another world. Adrip-drip-dripsounds in the corner, reverberating. The glisten on the cave walls is nothing compared with the brightness of her oh-so-kissable lips.
“Never,” I snarl. “We were under the football stands—”
“Ah-ah.” She wags her finger at me, stepping closer. The cave is cool, but with the swelter of her body close to mine, it feels like a furnace. Instincts awaken in me, starving and primal. “I think you meansoccer bleachers.”
I grin, moving forward. “Whatever the hell you wanna call them, I remember what I said.‘Imagine we went exploring a cave together one day—’”
“‘And we got lost,’”she whispers, picking up the thread of the memory.
“‘And it was just us two, all alone, in some private world.’”
“‘And then you kissed me, because—’”
We pause, staring into each other’s eyes.
The guide’s calling out for us now, but his voice might as well be the rain in a different country. The only thing I have ears for is the way Grace’s breathing picks up, the slight noise her lips makes when she parts them.
“‘Because what the hell are we supposed to do, all alone in a cave?’”we say together, our voices becoming one, high- and low-pitched, in the semidarkness.
“Harry, I need—” She raises her hand and presses it against my chest. Incandescent sensations bloom from the touch, spreading all across my torso, right down to my manhood.
I feel like it could puncture my goddamn pants.
“I need to—” She looks up at me as if she’s willing me to read her mind.
“I need it too,” I growl.
I reach forward and grab her shoulders, squeezing tightly. She lets out a little exhalation as I pull her toward me, mashing our bodies together.
Her breasts flatten against my chest, willing me to smooth my hand up the tight space between us and explore her.
Our lips meet in a conflagration.
I move my tongue around her mouth, seeking her. For a second I think she’s going to pull away, tell me to go to hell. But then she meets me and our tongue tips writhe together. My mouth is consumed in impossible-to-repress desire as I push her further back, bracing her so that she doesn’t bump into the cave wall.
She lets out a stifled moan that does things to me I don’t even understand.
