I use my toes to fish my pajamas out from the bottom of my sleeping bag and shimmy into them without so much as a nip slip. Thorn and I make our way over to the waterfall pool—
And realize the flaw in our plan at the exact same moment.
“How are we supposed togetto the cave?” I ask, eyeing the pool of water and the cascading falls at its far side.
Clearly, the answer is that we’ll need to swim across fully clothed.
It’s already warming up, thankfully, but I don’t exactly care to know what the breeze feels like while soaking wet.
Thorn’s gaze shifts across the landscape. The waterfall pool spills out into a winding creek—while there’s dry ground on the other side of it, I don’t see any way to get there without getting wet.
“It’s not terribly deep, I don’t think,” Thorn finally says. “Maybe waist-high? It’s calm today, at least, pretty good conditions. There’s a crossing farther down the creek, but if we backtrack, we’ll miss the sunrise.”
He glances at the horizon behind us—the sunrise is imminent, from what I can tell—and then back to me.
I must have a strongplease don’t subject me to an ice bathvibe at the moment, because his features shift from perplexed to determined as he makes a snap decision.
“Okay,” he says, kneeling down. “How about this?”
“You’re going to pray for a Red Sea situation?” I ask, imagining the waters parting down the middle, because the only other thing I can think of that he’d be doing in that position is proposing—and it’sdefinitelynot that.
“Or,” he replies, grinning, “you could get on my shoulders?”
Oh. Right.
He’s so tall, and I’m so not, that he has to crouch over just a little more so I can climb on. I settle onto his shoulders and tuck my feet behind his lower back to make sure I’m locked in; he wraps his arms around my legs to help me feel extra secure.
Thorn’s skin prickles with goosebumps as soon as we’re in the water.
As soon ashe’sin the water, anyway. It comes up to his hips, afraction of an inch below my toes. He takes steady, confident steps; I feel his core stabilizing as we make our way across.
“A little looser?” he grits out.
Only now do I realize my thighs are clamping his neck like a vise.
I ease up, but my butt shifts in the process—and for a single, slow-motion moment I fear I’ve altered his center of gravity in a way that’s going to leave us both submerged right here in the middle of the pool.
With one quick flex of his shoulders, though, we’re back on track. He edges us just to the side of the waterfall—it’ssoloud, this close—and bends down so I can step off him and onto the rocky ledge.
It’s a clumsy dismount in which he gets a face full of my pajama shorts, possibly even a glimpse at the strawberry-print underwear I have on just underneath. My cheeks are on fire, as is the rest of me.
“I—um. Sorry about that,” I manage.
His hair is disheveled, entirely my fault, and there’s something new in his eyes: a hunger I haven’t seen in him before.
He hoists himself onto the ledge and then holds out his hand for me.
I take it, winding my fingers with his, and follow his lead.
His shoes leave wet footprints all along the rock as we slip behind the waterfall. Sure enough, as promised, there’s a small cave, a semicircle no more than six feet deep. The waterfall crashes, its cascade like warped glass separating us from the outside world.
We don’t waste a single second.
Thorn’s hands are in my hair in a heartbeat, his mouth on mine, making up for everything we couldn’t do last night now that we’re tucked away in private. His kiss is hot and hungry, an electric surge lighting me up all over; his touch is a fire that I can’t get enough of.
His hands make their way down to my hips, and in one effortless motion he’s lifting me, my legs curling around him. I pull him in asclose as we can get, only my pajamas and his wet clothes between us. It’s that day in the lake all over again, except now he backs me up against the smooth rock of the cave wall—
And I can’t get enough: of him, of his body against mine.
