“Oh, shit.”
I widen my eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t put a condom into my waders. Or my jeans I was wearing under the waders. I didn’t think…”
“We’d want to leave the fishing poles behind to have sex when our cabin is right across the way?” I laugh. “I didn’t think so either.”
Michael
I roll over next to Emery on the picnic blanket and take her into my arms.
“We could just go back to the cabin,” I say.
“We could,” she says. “Or…”
“Or what?”
What she says next blows my mind.
“I’m on birth control. Are you clean?”
I scan her face. Her expression is blank, giving nothing away.
I try to stay calm even though inside I’m shaking. “Yeah. I was tested before I came here.”
The doctor I went to after my near-accident was thorough and ran every test imaginable to make sure I was in good health. Everything came back fine, although he gave me a referral for trauma counseling that I never filled. Probably should have.
“I’m clean too. I got checked after my ex and I ended things. I just never came off birth control.”
I’m playing with her hair while she traces my anchor tattoo.
“I’d like us to have sex without a condom.”
Emery’s statement hangs loudly in the still mountain air.
“Um…” No one has ever asked this of me before. To be with them unprotected.
I’m aware of the risks. More emotional than physical because I trust Emery. I know she’s safe from any kind of STD. But the idea of being with her bare…
“It’s vulnerable,” she says softly. “I know.”
“It…” I struggle for how to say it. “I want to. I’m just…is this a no-strings kind of thing?”
“Probably not,” she says, and I swear I hear wistfulness in her tone. “But you know what? I think we should decide what is no strings for us. Michael and Emery. And for me, this works. I want to feel all of you these two weeks, Michael Wild. I have a feeling you’re going to change a lot for me.”
“You’ve already changed a lot for me, Mimi.” I say her pet name without thinking. “Sorry. I know that nickname is reserved for your close circle.”
“You’re invited inside that circle.” She kisses my neck, dragging her tongue down to my shoulder.
“I’m honored,” I say sincerely. “But you still can’t call me Mikey.”
She giggles. “I’m okay with that.”
“Good.” I shift and lift her on top of me.
She lowers herself onto me slowly. When she takes me inside, I nearly come right then. Because I canfeelher so fully this way. Before I can say anything, she seats herself on top of me without warning.
And…oh, Christ.
