‘Yeah, but on his salary…’ Harper trailed off when Noah frowned at her. ‘Sorry.’
Alice sensed tension in the air as Noah and Harper exchanged glances. She wanted to look at Briar, to see if her expression gave anything away, but she couldn’t trust herself to glance anywhere in Briar’s vicinity right now.
‘I think we’re gonna call it a night,’ Noah said, after a moment.
‘Please,’ Freddie said, shaking himself awake. ‘These kids have ruined me. I’m knackered.’
‘Yes,’ Alice said wryly, ‘the kids and nothing else have made you tired.’
Sierra looked up from counting her other winnings. ‘My work here is done.’
The others stumbled back into their clothes and said their goodbyes, leaving Briar and Alice still half-naked and alone. Alice stood purposefully, keen on setting the office back to how it had been and going immediately to bed before she did anything stupid.
‘We should move the desk back,’ she said, grabbing blankets and pillows and throwing them across the hall and into their bedroom. ‘Tidy up.’
‘Okay.’
She heard Briar moving behind her. Alice hoped that the way she was staring at the opposite side of the room seemed normal. Her eyes caught on the CPR poster in the corner.
‘Thinking of getting recertified?’ Briar teased. Her voice came closer. ‘It’s probably like riding a bike.’
‘I could have forgotten,’ Alice said indignantly, refusing to turn around. She wished she had thought to put her clothes back on. Then she wouldn’t feel like this, like her skin was on fire, prickling over every inch exposed to Briar’s gaze.
‘And it’s very important to remember CPR, obviously.’
Alice turned to face Briar. She was standing very close now, and something rooted Alice to the spot. ‘Exactly. What if a camper is struck by lightning?’
Briar huffed, and Alice focused on maintaining extremely careful eye contact, not letting her gaze dip. ‘I know CPR. Brainsanda great rack – really, I’m the whole package.’
Alice’s cheeks burned. She’d hoped Briar hadn’t noticed her fleeting glances during the game of strip poker, but she was sure now that Briar had been paying close attention. Maybe they’d been trading those same fleeting glances for the past week.
‘I haven’t noticed anything related to your… um…’ Alice blinked rapidly, trying to think of something to say to defuse the tension but also wanting more than anything else to just give in. It felt like Briar was testing her, and she desperately wanted to ace the test.
‘Yeah?’ Briar asked, making a disbelieving sound in the back of her throat. She took a step forward, and Alice instinctively stepped back, her thighs hitting the desk they were meant to be repositioning. ‘Is this where I make a joke about mouth-to-mouth?’
‘Ha,’ Alice said, so close now she could count every freckle on Briar’s face. She hadn’t even realized she’d leaned in. ‘What are you—’
Briar cut her off with a kiss, and Alice let herself dissolve into it. She savored the sensation of Briar’s body pressing against hers, trying to memorize each detail that had previously escaped her drunken mind. She would never drink alcohol again if it meant that she would remember the exact feeling of Briar’s skin forever.
She ducked her head, sucking at the juncture of Briar’s jaw, moving across her exposed clavicle.
‘Think I might be too old for hickeys,’ Briar said, her voice breaking. ‘God, Alice, you make me…’
‘Me too,’ Alice whispered, grasping at Briar’s hips. They stumbled, crashing back into the desk. Briar lifted her onto it, pushing between Alice’s knees.
It would be easy for Alice to lose herself in this, to get swept up in the scent of Briar, the touch of her hands, and to think of nothing else. But she couldn’t, not after Briar had regretted it the last time.
Alice leaned away. ‘We should talk about this.’
Briar ran a hand over her face in frustration. ‘I was enjoying not talking.’
‘We need to be practical,’ Alice said.
‘I knew you were going to say something like that.’
‘I just think,’ Alice said, charging ahead, ‘we can’t fool ourselves that this isn’t going to happen again. It’s becoming a bit of a pattern with us. So why don’t we plan for the most likely outcome?’
‘The most likely outcome being that we have sex again?’ Briar asked wryly.
