“I honestly don’t know what I would do if my world fell apart like that, Mac.”
“Ah, you’d be fine. You’re a fighter, Avalon. You’d probably go about it differently, but I have no doubt you’d still buy this house out from under me.”
She laughed again, and he knew then, definitively, that it was all right. That whatever had spooked her back there he had fixed for now.
“I swear to you... all I wanted to do was show you the damn hot springs because you were sore. That bathing suit with the frill on it wassoworth it.”
She flashed a swift little smile. “I believe you.”
The mood was feather-soft, suddenly. “So you like my abs, huh?”
“Nope,” she said instantly.
They both knew this was a big lie.
“So since I just told you something pretty awkward, why don’t you tell me why you’re really here in Hellcat Canyon, Avalon. I read SilliPutty. I have my theories.”
“Oh, is that how it works?” She sighed. “I might as well tell you. Corbin cheated on me. To be more specific, Icaughthim cheating on me.”
He hissed in a breath. “That sucks, Avalon. I’m sorry.”
This won him a bleakish laugh. “Nothing a little retail therapy couldn’t help.”
She gestured to the house.
His theory had been correct. Shewaskind of doing what he’d done: trying to impose a little order on something in the wake of destruction. Metaphorically reforming something that had fallen into disrepair.
He thought of a dozen things he could say about Corbin and how he was out of his fucking mind to cheat on her. But he didn’t want another guy in the conversation any longer than necessary.
“You’re through?” he said shortly. “The two of you?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “Mac... can I ask you something?” She sounded tentative.
“Of course.”
“Do you think GradYouAte is stupid?”
He was so astonished by the question for a moment he was speechless. “Stupid? Avalon, it’samazing.”
She pushed a streamer of still-damp hair behind her ear. “It’s just... some days I feel like I got caught up in the momentum of it before I knew whether it was what I really wanted. I had this idea and we just sort of made it happen. I bought this house because I wanted to make a deliberate choice. To do something from the beginning to the end. Kind of like you did, I guess.”
He moved closer, nearly closing completely the remaining distance between them.
“Listen, Avalon... I know I’ve given you a little shit about it. But you created a virtual world, something that had never before existed, from just anidea. As far as I’m concerned, you’re like Hermione Granger with a wand, conjuring something from the ether. No matter how you feel about it now, I’m convinced you can do anything you want. You’re kind of a sorceress.”
He was a little embarrassed that he’d pulled out a word likesorceress. But her face was turned up toward his, luminous and unguarded, close enough for him to count her freckles. She was listening, softly enthralled, her eyes brilliant, intent, in that way he remembered from when they were so hungry to touch each other.
And just like that it felt like someone was playing racquetball with his heart.
His hand closed around her arm. He tugged her up against him.
Her mouth was there to meet his, all softness and yielding hunger. Everything he knew her to be—the sweetness, the ferocity, the fearless pleasure seeker—was in her kiss, and any plans he had for finessing it were swept under by a greedy panic of want. They kissed as though they’d been starved of each other.
Her fingers curled into his belt loops to pull his hips hard against hers; he slid his hands down to cup the curve of her butt and urge her hard up against his cock. A bolt of pleasure cleaved him; her breath snagged and her head fell back; he claimed her lips with his again, and their tongues met, tangled, teased, in a familiar carnal little dance. The only sound was the saw of breath as their lips met, parted, went back for more, for harder, for deeper.
And now their hips were doing what their lips were doing, finding a rhythm that helped them mine every second of contact for every minute degree of bliss, just like teenagers. His cock was rock hard and he thought his head might fly from his body to join the moon overhead from the rush of pleasure. He was beginning to plan how to get her out of that ridiculous bathing suit when... not abruptly... gently, but decidedly...
She took her lips from his.
