Teddy gave him a Cheshire grin. “You’ll just have to wait and find out. Come on now—don’t you want to have another MEM as part of my evening of celebration?”
“MEM?”
Her smile turned sly. “Figure it out, Dr. London.” And with that, she turned and started off toward the path that led to the hot spring.
Oscar stared after her, a bemused smile playing at the corners of his mouth. MEM. Of course he knew what that meant: mutually enjoyable moment.
And damned if he wasn’t remarkably interested in following up on the possibility—and so he fell in behind her.
For some reason, it seemed a shorter walk to the hot springs tonight than it had the previous times. Maybe because most of those other times he’d either been alone, or been slogging along with bags of equipment.
Which reminded him that he hadn’t checked his email to see whether any of his colleagues had gotten back to him with an idea of what those spiky crystal microbes were.
He paused to fix an untied shoelace (to be honest, he’d neglected to retie it because he’d been in a hurry when changing his clothes, in hopes she wouldn’t change her mind about walking all the way over to the springs), and by the time he began walking again, Teddy was far enough ahead of him that he couldn’t see her any longer. But he could hear her traipsing rapidly along the trail, pushing aside branches that grew out over the rudimentary path.
When he came around the corner to the small clearing where the churning pool was, he discovered she was already in the water. A quick glance told him she’d tossed her coverup over a bush, and left her sandals (impractical for hiking, but at least they didn’t come untied) next to it.
She was submerged up to her neck, and Oscar’s heart leapt as his belly did a scary, excited dip. He couldn’t tell whether she’d made good on her implicit threat about going suit-less—and he wasn’t precisely sure how he felt about that either way.
There were parts of him—well, one part in particular—that wasveryintrigued and hopeful, and another part that was a little…not really nervous, not wary, but justcareful. After all, it had been a while since he’d had much of an MEM with anyone since Marcie.
The thought of his former fiancée drifted into his head as he bent to untie his shoes, then poofed into nothing when he saw Teddy watching him. She had that smile she’d been wearing off and on tonight—almost a smirk, where it saucily curled the corners of her lips, and with a hint of feline to it.
A predatory feline.
“Come on in. The water’s great!” she called, and inched up a little from the depths to reveal creamy white—and bare—shoulders. Even though the pool churned around her, he could see there were no straps over her delicate shoulders. The hollows dipping behind each of her clavicles were suddenly very intriguing, and the glistening moisture scattered over her skin beckoned like Odysseus’s sirens.
Oscar swallowed hard, then let himself smile with pleasure. Whatever she was—or wasn’t—wearing, he was definitely going to shoot for an MEM.
Or more.
He stripped off his shirt and added it to the pile her coverup made, then slipped out of his shoes.
When he finally climbed over the barrier of rocks that made the sides of the pool, he sighed with pleasure as the hot, bubbling water enveloped him.
“I know,” she said, tipping her head back against the wall behind her. “It’s heaven, isn’t it?”
She appeared so sensual, so feminine and at ease and so delicious, with her silky neck bare and exposed, and her eyes closed in bliss, that he couldn’t look away.
Oscar didn’t know what possessed him—and he’d be forever glad it did—but before he even settled in the pool, he surged gently over to her.
“Let’s get this out of the way,” he said, sliding a hand up her bare, water-flecked arm. And he tugged her closer as his other hand settled on her shoulder.
When she slid into his arms, her warm, wet body slick and soft against his, he smiled and covered her lips with his.
Not suit-less, but close, he noted as he slid his hands around her and discovered the scrap of a bikini top. Then his thoughts frittered away and became a whirlwind of heat and pleasure. The soft moan she gave when she met his mouth with hers sent a stab of lust into his belly, and the eagerness with which she kissed him back stoked it hotter.
Her lips—those soft, curling, smirking, always moving ones—were lush and tasty and fit perfectly to his. The water from the pool bubbled and steamed around them as he pulled her against him, then settled back against the side of the wall and went deeper. Tongues and teeth stroked and clashed, breaths and sighs mingling with the churning stew of the pool and pleasure.
He slicked his hand over her hot, damp skin and felt her silky-smooth legs twining sexily with his beneath the pool’s surface. She tasted a little salty and a lot sweet, and it was a long while before he could make himself pull away.
“Mmm,” she said, smiling at him. She was so close that he could see the speckles of water on her face, and one tiny drop clinging to an eyelash. A smudge of dark makeup was dashed near one eye, and her lips were full and puffy and glistening. “That was nice.”
“I thought so too,” he replied, and gently released her. His heart was still thudding and there were parts of him that berated him for putting space between them, but Oscar found he wanted to look at her a bit more, even though he’d spent all evening doing so. And if he kept her in his arms any longer, both of them would be suit-less in very short order.
“What a wonderful way to end a day of celebration,” she said, eyeing him with that feline look again.
He crossed his arms over his middle and contemplated her from a relatively safe distance. “I don’t understand how you can be so celebratory when you’re not really finished with the book.”
