“Dammit,” Anna muttered.
Jackson sucked his cheeks in. He silently handed over his stick.
“Now that’s a good marshmallow,” Louisa declared with her mouth full.
“Think Anna Grace likes ’em gooey on the inside,” he said.
“That right, Anna Grace?”
“Just Anna, please. And yes, I do. Hot, sticky, and melted on the inside, nice and toasty on the outside.”
There went the other half of his blood. He propped himself back on his hands to keep from going too light-headed. “Fits you perfect,” he said, and he almost sounded like his brain cells weren’t operating on a lack of oxygen.
She cut her eyes away from her stick. “I’m toasty?”
“Uh-oh,” Kaci said.
Lance chuckled like a man who’d said his fair share of stupid things.
“In all the good ways,” Jackson said.
“What do you know about her gooey insides?” Louisa asked.
Darned if Anna’s cheeks weren’t suddenly glowing bright as the fire. He couldn’t deny that he liked that polite side of her.
“Gotta have a gooey heart inside to put all that time into helping you with your homework,” he said.
He liked that about her.
Liked it a lot.
Anna’s stick wobbled in the fire. She yanked it up, not so hard this time.
“Sure you don’t want me to do that for you? Ain’t looking so steady, Anna Grace.”
“I’m gonna put you on a stick and roast you.”
Might’ve sounded like a threat to a weaker man, buthe liked those husky undertones.
“If you two are planning on making out, you’re gonna have to do it in the truck, because I’m not sleeping in a dirty tent,” Louisa said.
“No making out,” Anna said crisply. “We’re justfriends.”
“Friends who do the naked hibbity-jibbity,” Louisa said.
Jackson shoved a marshmallow stick at her. “You talk to Momma that way?”
“Where are y’all keeping the graham crackers and chocolate?”
He gestured across the fire. “Picnic table.” When Louisa stood, he shifted closer to Anna and nudged his nose against her cheek. “Might could lose her in the creek tomorrow.”
She brushed a marshmallow kiss over his lips. “No, you couldn’t.”
“Awful tempted.”
He felt her smile. “I could though,” she said.
Kissing Anna was always sweet with the right sprinkling of spice, but with melted sugar hot on her tongue, she was taking his mind and his body places he couldn’t stay.
