“Sorry, lost in thought.” I gripped her hips and dug my fingers into her curves. I wanted more time with her, away from all this. The lies, the foundation, my family, my bank account. It might’ve been selfish of me, but if I only had a limited amount of time with her, I wanted her to myself. I knew just the thing.
“Nora, will you come camping with me this weekend?”
“Camping?” Her eyebrows disappeared into her pink hairline. “Like…sleep outside?”
“We’ll have a tent.” I smiled at the panic on her face. Her eyes widened, and she scrunched her nose. “You play in dirt every day, yet the thought of being in a tent is too much for you?”
She blinked a few times and tilted her head to the side, looking at me through her lashes. “You’ve done this before, yes?”
“A ton. It’s one of my favorite getaways.”
“So you know how to prevent bears and tigers from eating us?”
I snorted. “Correct.”
“Do I have to?”
I fisted the end of her shirt and pulled her so she straddled my lap. Pink tinged her cheeks, and I ran my hands under her shirt, holding onto her waist as she sucked in a breath. Yeah, we’d be removing all clothing after the food was done. “Don’t you want to experience everything you can while you’re here?” I licked my bottom lip, and she trailed the movement, her breaths coming out in little puffs.
“Maybe?”
“You’re not sure?” I slowly moved my hands up to tease her breasts and kept going until I traced her collarbone. She sighed against me, and I pressed a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll protect you from any and all animals. We’ll have a fire, eat s’mores, explore nature, and I’ll show you a really good time in the tent.”
She stared at me for a second and then looked at her plants, and I snorted. “We’ll only be gone forty-eight hours max. Your plant babies will be fine.”
“If they die, it’s your conscience. I’ll tell them to haunt you for life. And that’ll be weird to have a little flower ghost following you.”
“I expect nothing less,” I said, grinning as she rolled her eyes. “It’s settled. We leave Friday afternoon.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I wasin my happy place.
Shitty cell service, weathered jeans and a ball cap, all the gear we’d need in the back of the truck, and Nora in the passenger seat in hercampinggear. It seemed my dear neighbor looked up the most stereotypical camping outfit she could find and bought it. Jeans, large brown boots, a blue plaid shirt, and a green vest four sizes too large for her.
She white-knuckled the handlebar as I pulled onto the campground I’d reserved for the weekend. Sir Greg was all taken care of and content in his new home. I could enjoy the weekend with Nora before potentially unraveling everything with the truth.
“This will be fun, I promise you,” I said, even though she looked like I was dragging her to a funeral. “Doc, it’s nature.”
“I understand, yes, but this is…totally new. Like no realm of my life has been close to this.”
“False,” I said, putting the truck in park and undoing my seat belt to free myself. I leaned over and cupped her face. “You like mud. This is just a lot of it. Think of all the trees you could adopt.”
She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward to kiss me. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”
“I know. I get it all the time,” I said, making her smile. We got out of the truck, and Nora put her hands on her hips, sighing as she glanced around the barren land. There were trees in every direction, the sky hardly visible, and the smell of woods lingering in the air. “Where should we put up the tent?”
“Preferably in a hotel somewhere down the road.”
“Stop. You have to at least try to enjoy it.” I walked up to her and put my hands on her shoulders, giving them a squeeze. She melted against me, flooding me with her floral scent. “Just think of all the stories you’ll have after this.”
“If I get eaten by a bear, there won’t be any stories. Only a funeral. I don’t want my obituary to say mauled by a wild animal. I prefer a more graceful exit from earth.”
“And what would you consider graceful, Doc?” I asked, biting her earlobe solely to get a reaction out of her. She trembled, and I wrapped one arm around her middle and picked her up with one swift motion. She yelped, and I carried her toward the fire pit. “You sit and look pretty. I’ll be manly and get the tent ready. Unless you want to sleep on the dirt and admire the stars?”
“I’d rather give up all my plant children than do that.”
I snorted. I set her down and took my time letting my fingers linger on her body, my muscles tightening with an ache I couldn’t decipher. This was more than lust. More than protecting or being her friend. It was deeper.
