After we pack up our lunch supplies, I take my seat in front of Derek in the gear boat and spend the next two miles watching him with awe and wonder as he tackles the last few rapids with confidence.
His arms work the oars with precision, his eyes scan the river for rocks and curling waves, his jaw muscles put in overtime as he grits his teeth in concentration, and I…
I’m in so much trouble.
Because when Derek isn’t watching the river, he’s watching me, his eyes dark and intense and telling me that I’m not the only one who isn’t ready to walk away when the trip is over.
Derek pulls the boat up to the beach of Upper Ten Cent Camp, one of my favorite sites along this stretch, and I hop from the boat with the bundled bowline in my good hand. Before I can even attempt to undo the loops to tie off, Derek is at my side with a sand stake and hammer, his hand brushing mine and leaving my body tingling as he takes the rope from me and secures the boat like a seasoned pro.
I’ve never seen anything more attractive than all of the things this man has done in the last few hours, and I am way beyond drooling at this point. He is everything I could want in a man, and not just because of his growing river skills. It’s everything about him.
So after Derek tugs on the rope to make sure the boat is secure, I take him by the hand and gently pull him toward the trees farther up the beach. I keep walking until we’re out of sight of the other boats, and then I spin around and capture his mouth with mine.
As if he expected it, he is quick to take control in true Derek fashion, taking my head in his hands to hold me in place.
I kissed Derek this morning before we shoved off, a bolder move than I should have allowed myself in the moment, but that quick brush of lips did not prepare me for him taking charge. His kiss is warm, soft, achingly tender as he moves his lips against mine in the most gentle way, so different from how I imagined he would do this. There is nothing explosive about this kiss, and yet fireworks go off inside me as I melt into his strong body and sigh into his mouth.
He grins against my lips, and his hands slide from my neck to my shoulders, down my ribcage and to my hips until they shift to my thighs and lift me up. Though I’m careful not to jar my sprained wrist, I curl my arms around his neck while my legs anchor at his waist, and he cradlesmy back as he pulls me against him and teases my mouth open with his tongue.
There’sthe kiss I expected. We ignite as the kiss deepens into something full of fire. Losing all sense of my surroundings except for his warm, strong body flushed with mine, I stuff my hand into his hair and gasp when he responds by pulling the tie from my braid, quickly unraveling my hair so he can tangle his hand into it without once breaking the kiss. He explores my mouth with the same thoroughness he does everything else in his life, devouring me until I can’t think straight.
I don’t want this to end.
Derek and I kiss until snickering laughter from Mason and Thiago breaks us apart. Red-faced, both men pretend they didn’t see anything, asking me where I want to set up the kitchen so they can get started with dinner, and I can’t find the breath to respond.
Derek recovers faster, slowly lowering me back to the ground but keeping his hand at my waist as he tells the other guides to take charge and pick a spot. “Can’t you see Donovan is injured?” he adds, and I can practically hear his wink in his voice. “She needs rest.”
“Rest,” Mason repeats, choking back another laugh. “Right. You do that, Dono. We’ll take care of it.”
They turn to leave, and I am more than ready to resume things with Derek when he tells them, “I’ll come help you in a second.”
The whimper that comes out of me makes me clap my hand to my mouth. “I didnotjust make that sound,” I gasp in disbelief, desperately hoping I was quiet enough that the guys didn’t hear me.
Derek’s grin is wide and full of light as he looks down at me and pulls me tighter to his side. “Something you want to tell me, Donovan?”
I shake my head as heat blossoms across my face, leaving me burning so hot that I’m sure steam is rising from my head. “Not at all. I’m not affected by you in the slightest, so don’t go thinking you’reanything—”
He cuts me off with another kiss that completely erases any fake argument I might have made, and I swear we’re in danger of bursting into flames if he keeps on like this. Let us burn, for all I care. We can go out in a blaze of passion and die happy.
Derek breaks away from my mouth with a breathless curse, one hand in my hair again and the other burning into the skin at my lower back beneath my tank. He presses his forehead to mine and fights to breathe. “That…”
“Yeah,” I gasp as a response. After a few ragged breaths, my thoughts start to return, though I’m still a bit dizzy. “They didn’t teach me that in Hollywood.”
Groaning, Derek digs his fingers deeper into my skin as he kisses me again and again in between attempts at forming a sentence. “I’ve never… You’re… We…” He swears again and kisses me with barely contained desperation that I’m tempted to try to unleash.
But Derek is stronger than I am and finally pulls away, taking a full step back as he stares at me with eyes so dark they send a chill through me. He can’t look at me like that if he thinks I’ll let him walk away, so I force myself to look at the sand at my feet.
Feeling empty without him holding me, I run my good hand through my hair and let out a weak laugh of disbelief. “That just happened.”
“Nova Tate just kissed me,” Derek replies, his words as airy as mine.
Scoffing, I can’t help but look up at him again and raise an eyebrow. “Okay, Superman, I may have started that, butyou—”
“Was that okay?” Suddenly sheepish, he stuffs his hand into his hair and pulls his eyebrows together. “I’m still… My job’s not going away. If you don’t want…” He can’t seem to finish that thought as his worry builds.
I cradle my wrist to my chest, pursing my lips. Being with Derek like I want to—like I’m starting to think Ineedto—means being a part of his fame and re-entering a world I swore to leave in my past. It means lettingthe world know what really happened to Nova Tate because there’s no way the truth won’t come out as soon as someone learns my name. It means saying goodbye to my quiet life because I could never ask Derek to leave his life behind for mine.
Heloveswhat he does, and he’s incredible at it. I could never deprive the world of his talent.
