He angled his leg against hers, nudged closer with his shoulder. “Takes a remarkable woman to stand up to life like you’re doing. Got a lot of respect for that myself.” He nipped at her shoulder. “Turns me on, if we’re being honest.”
Her breath hitched. She wanted to say more, but she didn’t want to break the connection with him. She leaned into him. “I didn’t mean to hit her in the face with a fish.”
It started with a chuckle, but soon he was laughing so hard she worried he’d use up all his good energy before they finished this quasi-making-up thing.
But then she pictured that fish landing square in the middle of Louisa’s shocked face, and soon she was laughing too.
He pulled her to his side and chuckled into her neck. “Ah, Anna Grace.”
“Bet she doesn’t crash any more camping trips.”
“Nah, that’d take a dead squirrel tucked up in her sleeping bag.”
At the speculative look on his face, she gave him a friendly shove. “Not in my tent, buster.”
He pulled her in for a kiss, then tugged her up on top of him. “No?”
“Nuh-uh.”
He threaded his fingers through her hair, holding her close while he did that thing with his mouth that he did so well. She shifted to straddle him better and felt his erection throb in response. “We shouldn’t.”
“Nobody comin’ this way.”
“But it’s dirty.”
The grin that lit his face told her that was the exact wrong thing to say.
“They’ll all know,” she said.
“Darlin’, they already know.” He suckled her earlobe and slipped a hand beneath her waistband.
She gasped and arched into his hand. “We don’t have?—”
“Back pocket.”
“But—”
His hand inched lower. “Anna Grace. Hush.” He sealed his mouth over hers and did things with his fingers that she was convinced no Southern gentlemen should know, but which she was infinitely grateful to him for knowing anyway. Soon, she was bare-assed for all the fish in the river to see, and, most surprising of all, she didn’t mind a bit.
Because she was with Jackson, and he knew her, and he knew her body, and he handled both with the right amount of care and attention. Because he was Jackson, and that was what he did.
And if she was lucky, he’d keep doing it for a long, long time.
When Jackson broughtAnna and Radish back up to camp, Kaci and Louisa were setting logs on the fire while Lance fetched more wood. The girls both looked up and grinned.Kaci in a grown-up, good-for-you way, Louisa in a want-to-be-grown-up way he didn’t like on his sister. Louisa lifted a pointed eyebrow at Anna and tugged her hair. Anna’s cheeks flushed. She lifted her hand as if she were going to brush something incriminating out of her hair, but Jackson caught it. “No, you don’t.”
Louisa wrinkled her nose at him. He sent her another one of Daddy’s looks.
The wrinkled nose morphed into a full-on irritated pout. “Where you been? I’m hungry.”
Jackson started toward the coolers, before he checked himself. “Food’s right there. You want some, help cook it.”
Kaci lit the fire. It wasn’t as hot as the one picking up in Louisa’s face. She tromped across to the cooler, picked out a cheese stick, then plopped down in a lawn chair, one leg dangling over the arm. If she could’ve turned that smoke from her silent temper fit into poison and put it in his fried chicken, he suspected she would’ve.
Wasn’t easy to remind himself she was old enough to be self-sufficient.
“Progress,” Anna murmured. She squeezed his fingers then went to help Kaci pull good old-fashioned foil packs out of the coolers.
Making up might not’ve been the smart thing to do, but not making up with Anna was impossible.
