She sucked in a sharp breath and then cupped his cold cheeks in her warm palms.
“Take me to bed,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
So he stood from the chair, lifting her and the blanket and piloting them onto the platform and into the tent. He knew he’d have to tend to the smoldering embers of the firepit when all was said and done and he’d be physically and emotionally spent, but it would all be worth it. Because after four years—four goddamn long years—Willow Morgan was his again. And whether it was for this single night or the possibility of many more to come, he would not squander a second of it.
He laid her down on one of the opened sleeping bags and then untied the flaps of the tent so they fell closed. Then he climbed over her, pulling the blanket with him, covering her body with his own.
Chapter 14
“Are you sure no one knows you’re here?” Willow asked him, and the man had the audacity to laugh.
“Yes, Wills. I’m sure.” He kneeled above her and peeled off his T-shirt. “We’re on a private site, inaccessible by car. I paid cash and used my brother’s name. We are in middle-of-nowhere Plumas County, which means middle-of-no-one-gives-a-flying—”
She reached up and clamped a hand over his mouth. “What if there arekids?” she whisper-shouted.
He laughed.Again.“Should I continue undressing, or do you want to park this”—he waggled his brows—“intimacy idea until I give you a tour of our very secluded surroundings?”
Willow blinked at him absently. She knew there were more words that cameafterhe mentioned undressing, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what they were because Ash had already pulledhershirt over her head and had peppered her neck and shoulders with sweet, delicious kisses. And then she’d gone and gotten all in her head about where they were and who might find them and… She was doing it again.
“Wills?” Ash inquired, and she had the distinctfeeling that it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get her attention.
She stared at his lean, muscled torso that looked more defined, moremanthat it had four years ago. Who knew there could be such…changes between twenty-five and twenty-nine?
“What?” she asked, then shook her head. “Sorry. I was just…um…admiring the view.” Her cheeks flamed, which only made him grin wider. Then she remembered the reason for her hesitation in the first place, and she exhaled a steadying breath. “If someone did recognize us, and my picture got splashed all over social media in the morning as the homewrecker who came between country music’s bad boy and Scotland’s tennis darling…”
Ash lowered himself onto his heels and cradled her head in his hands. “You’re safe,” he whispered, all traces of his devil-may-care grin now gone. “I would never knowingly put you in that kind of situation, Willow. You believe me, right?”
She closed her eyes and nodded even as the entertainment news outlets’ posts and tweets replayed themselves on the backs of her eyelids.
Ash Murphy’s opening act attempts an encore but gets booed off the stage…or out of the bedroom.
Willow Morgan tries sleeping her way to headliner, but it’s love-forty in the game of Morgan vs. Calder-Payne.
She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter,but though she couldn’tseethe posts, she still remembered.
“What happened to leaving the past out of tonight?” Ash asked softly.
Willow heard no anger or malice in his voice. He was simply calling her on her own rule that she was clearly breaking.
She opened her eyes and painted on a sad smile. “Memories are assholes,” Willow told him. “They don’t care about rules.”
Ash nodded. “Then I guess we have a choice to make,” he explained.
“What’s that?”
He kissed her forehead and then the tip of her nose, and Willow couldn’t help but smile for real this time.
He sat back on his heels and shrugged. “Hold on to the old memories or replace them with new ones?”
Willow wrapped her hands around his wrists and lowered his hands until each palmed the demi cups of her bra. “New ones,” she whispered, still terrified that someone might be waiting close by to blow their cover or that another camper might stumble upon their campsite.
Or what if she trusted the man who assured her they were safe? What if she seized the opportunity to replace the movie that played behind her closed eyes with something great? What if sheallowed herself to see just how much he’d grownelsewherein the years since she’d seen him last?
Ash flicked open the front clasp of her bra, and Willow gasped as he slid a palm over each of her now-exposed breasts.
