It should have been awkward—trudging through the woods without filling the space between them with words. With anyone else, it might have been, but being quiet with Amanda as the sounds of the forest swirled around them was as rich and deep as any conversation.
They made it to the crest of the hill and followed along one of the smaller ridges for a while before the trail turned and headed back down again. He judged they’d been walking for about an hour, but he liked losing himself in the one step after another meditation too much to check his watch. He simply followed behind Amanda, emptying his thoughts of everything but her and the woods around them. By the time she stopped to study the map again, he’d lost track of everything else.
“How much farther to the next flag?” he asked, handing her the last bit of chocolate.
He licked melted chocolate off his fingers, wishing he was tasting her lips instead. But if he touched her every time he wanted to, they’d never get to the end of the hike.
“It’s still a ways. Maybe another hour if the terrain stays like this. How are your boots holding up?”
“They’re good.” She’d been so worried about him getting blisters and he’d be lying if he said her concern hadn’t paid off. He’d also started to figure out why hiking boots were so tight around the ankle. The extra support had saved him more than once when he caught an uneven bit of trail.
He slung his pack off his back, setting it on the ground beside hers. He took a minute to stretch the knots out of his back, pulling his arms across his chest to offset the weight the pack put on his shoulders. Rolling his neck, he groaned at the string of pops, repeating the process again with his lips parted. It wasn’t until he opened his eyes that he realized she was watching him with the same kind of hungry gaze he’d watched her.
When his eyes met hers, she blinked quickly, but it was too late. He’d seen the way she’d been looking at him, the heat in her eyes, and he had no intention of letting her off the hook. Despite his plans, he closed the distance between them, watching her eyes go wide as he cupped her head in his hands and bent to steal the last taste of chocolate from her lips.
––––––––
AMANDA TURNED THE small plastic tile printed with the worditover inside her pocket. She had four stress balls painted different shades of red, gold, and gray stuffed in her pack. Oh, and the whistle; it wouldn’t do to forget the whistle. She had no idea if there was some hidden meaning to the items they’d found in the three caches or if they were just some random things. Maybe when they found the rest the next day it would suddenly all make sense. Or not. It wasn’t the most pressing thing on her mind at the moment.
She and Michael managed to make it fifteen miles before finally setting up camp for the night. They’d made decent time and set themselves up for a manageable start in the morning. When they were hiking, they fell into an easy kind of rhythm. She appreciated that Michael didn’t feel the need to fill up the quiet with words. He seemed to enjoy the almost meditative quality of hiking as much as she did and she found despite the lack of conversation—or maybe because of it—she enjoyed traveling with him.
The problem came when they stopped. As long as they were walking they were fine, but once they stopped, they couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other. They’d start kissing—God, the man could kiss—and all of a sudden, nothing mattered but the feeling of Michael’s lips on hers, Michael pulling her into his arms. Michael’s hands moving over her body while she...
She shook her head, desperate to clear it before he glanced her way and realized exactly what she’d been thinking. Once they started kissing, it was like they couldn’t stop. The only reason they weren’t slumped, lips bruised and exhausted against some tree somewhere had been the need to get to the spot they’d decided to make camp before it got too dark to see. Except now that they were at the spot and there was no reason for them to go anywhere until daybreak, a kind of awkwardness had settled over them.
Everything felt so much weightier, so much more significant. She wanted to touch him, to reach out and stroke the shadow of stubble on his cheek with her finger, feel it scrape against the tender skin of her neck. Her inner thigh. Knowing that once they started, they wouldn’t have to stop started to make her skin feel too tight and achy and her stomach twist in nervous butterflies.Was she really going to do this? Start a relationship with Michael? Hadn’t she already?The whole afternoon had been foreplay and she wasn’t sure she was ready for what came next.
Pulling the cinch sack holding their food out of her pack, she glanced over to where Michael struggled with starting a fire. He’d made the requisite ring and a teepee of wood that looked straight out of the Cub Scout handbook, but he seemed to be having a hard time getting it to catch. As she watched him scramble to make more than smoke, she saw his frustration build. Instead of walking away from it or delegating the task to her, however, he dug in harder, squaring his shoulders and going at it with more kindling. When he managed to make a small flame leap to life, he let out a triumphant whoop and turned to grin at her.
“Fire’s going,” he said, sliding an extra layer of cool into his voice. He leaned back on his heels, looking way too proud of himself given how long it took him to get anything to catch.
“I see that. Good job.” The man was the craziest mix of contradictions. Every time she thought she had him figured out, he did something, usually something adorable, that turned her preconceived notions on their head.
She grabbed the pair of apples that had been stashed with the second cache where they’d found the tile and pulled a pack of beef jerky and two packs of instant mashed potatoes out of the food bag. She’d never been a big fan of dehydrated camp food. It was expensive and hit-or-miss for taste. Instant mashed potatoes were the exception. Each pack cost less than a dollar, weighed next to nothing and just needed the addition of warm water to make it taste like food. Her brother Gabe teased her about her habit but she’d caught a glimpse of the red foil packs in his gear at the start of the course.
Balancing the makings of their dinner along with a metal cup to heat the water, she joined Michael beside the fire. His welcoming smile had almost as much of an effect on her as the heat from the burning wood and some of the awkwardness that had crept in between them since they stopped for the night began to melt.
By the time they’d made camp, it was heading toward full dark, and the only real light was the glow from the fire. She filled their cups from what was left of her larger water bottle. They each still had one full bottle for the morning but they’d have to find some water they could treat along the trail before tomorrow night. Setting the cups as close to the fire as she could without burning her fingers, she rocked back on her heels and let the heat from the growing coals warm her face. It got markedly cooler once the sun went down and her fleece was just enough to knock back the chill.
Michael managed to pull a chunk of downed log up against the largest rock in the clearing, making himself something of a makeshift chair. While she kept an eye on the water, he grabbed his insulite pad and set it, still rolled up, on its side at his feet. He looked way too pleased with himself, and she wondered what kind of Swiss Family Robinson fantasy he was playing out in his head. She also couldn’t seem to take her gaze off him.
The glow from the fire carved his face into angles, emphasizing the shadow of stubble across his jaw. There were just enough lines at the corners of his eyes when he smiled—which was often—to emphasize that he was a grown man in his full power. And the way his thermal shirt stretched over his broad shoulders made her mouth water.
“I’m going to need you to stop looking at me like that,” he said, catching and holding her gaze. “Or you’re not going to get to eat dinner.”
She swallowed hard, grateful he couldn’t see her face flush in the glow from the fire. Not that he could have any doubt about her attraction to him. She hadn’t exactly been subtle. Forcing herself to turn away from the heat of his gaze, she noticed the water starting to steam. She ignored for the time being everything he made her feel and concentrated on preparing the food. Tearing open the packets of instant potatoes, she propped them up against a rock so she could fill them with hot water.
She had no doubt Michael would gladly help her if she asked him to, but she needed the distance the fire provided to get control of her hammering heart. She stirred the powdered potatoes, adding water until they plumped up and started to smell warm and buttery.
“Here you go,” she said, holding out a bag of potatoes and one of the apples.
“Come sit over here with me,” he said when their fingers brushed.
She could say no and find a spot on the opposite side of the fire, but as nervous as she was to get close to Michael again, she couldn’t lie to herself about what she wanted. Not trusting her voice not to shake when she answered, she nodded, grabbed her dinner and crossed to his side of the fire. He’d settled himself on the piece of stump with his back against the rock. For a moment, she wondered where she was supposed to go, and then he motioned to the pad on the ground between his feet. With his knees on either side, he’d made her a makeshift armchair out of his body.
“Come on. I won’t bite until you beg me to.”
The laughter bubbled out of her too-tight throat, and she let go of the last of the reservations she’d been holding. Clutching her dinner in one hand, she sank onto the pad in front of him and settled in the shelter of his body. For a moment, they simply sat, staring at the fire while they ate. She was warm from the fire in front of her and nestled in the warmth of his body behind her. Under any other circumstance after having hiked seven hours, she would have been ready to drift off to sleep or at least into her own thoughts. But sitting this close to Michael made it impossible for her to think of anything else. Instead of winding down, her body practically vibrated for him.
