“Not necessarily. Now, if you’d asked me if I wanted her to be able to suffocate me with her thighs—”
Laughter broke out. I couldn’t help it. I joined them. Jamie rolled his eyes and smiled.
“I want to explore more of this place. Did you hear there’s a make out tree?”
There was a clinking of bottles and some side chatter. Jamie mouthed, “Make out tree?” to me, and I nodded and shrugged. The things he didn’t know about this camp.
“Yeah, didn’t Monica and Marisol already christen it?”
My eyebrows went up, and Jamie watched me with rapt eyes as I mentally tracked what they were saying. I didn’t care about being intrusive. Hell, they’d stood over me for god’s sake. Finding good gossip was an art form, and my allegiance was to the shipping board and its veracity, not to these unsuspecting campers. Also, I needed information to win this game. Monica and Marisol had been my sleeper couple—one I had added on at the final due date, so I was very pleased.
“I heard it was Tara and Crispin.”
“I didn’t know they were hooking up.”
“I thought Tara was with Leroy.”
“No, Leroy is with Priscilla.”
“Who’s Leroy?”
Jamie snorted quietly, and I nearly lost it. This gossip would be harder to decipher, but I’d wade my way through it. The takeaway was that even with all my distractions, I knew who all these people were. I was proud.
That pride dissipated as wind-touched waves started picking up, pushing me closer to him. I instantly covered my chest and peaked nipples, right before pushing into his body. I swear I could feel the hem of his underwear up against my thigh, our feet bumping into each other. His eyebrows went up, and his free hand shot to my hip, helping to hold me back. Except I didn’t think he remembered how little clothing I was wearing. The waves didn’t let up, however, so he kept his hand there, staring deep into my eyes while I bit my lip. A million questions went unsaid. Did I want him to touch me like this? Did he like it? If I moved just a little bit closer, would I be able to tell how much he liked it?
His hand flexed beneath mine as he gripped the ladder tighter. The water rippled around us and pushed me a smidge closer to him. One more wave and we’d be chest to chest, and the wind definitely wasn’t letting up anytime soon.
“Fuck, it’s windy,” one voice said, their feet raising off the ledge. The rest of the feet followed, and soon they were walking away from us.
One set of footsteps stopped. “Hey, look—”
Another set. “What?”
We both held our breath and waited as someone presumably saw our clothing. We were about to be outed.
“Nothing,” the voice responded, feet carrying on as before.
And then they left us, as if they hadn’t just created tension between two unsuspecting people who were relearning how to be around each other after a decade of nothingness. Jamie and I didn’t move for a full minute after they’d gone, until we knew the coast was clear.
“That was close,” he whispered, his hand still on my side.
“Yeah,” I breathed out, but my failure to speak at a normal volume had nothing to do with almost being caught andeverything to do with his skin touching mine. A little lower and he’d be touching me right where I wanted him. “Are you okay?”
“Okay?” Nothing had happened to him to warrant the question. “I’m good. Are you?”
“Yeah,” I blurted. “I’m good.” I didn’t know how I got the words out because his thumb was caressing circles into my side. He must not have noticed he was doing it.
“Did you recognize the voices?” he asked.
“No.” Thank goodness they weren’t from my pod.
“That’s too bad. Sounds like there’s a man desperate to have his head squeezed—”
I stopped covering my chest to splash him as we separated. He burst into laughter. I pressed my hand to his pectoral and shoved him back, but he barely moved thanks to the rung he still held. He didn’t stop laughing. The wind breezed around us, and I winced as it weaved through my loose hair. Jamie pushed it behind my ear and smiled. Could you melt in a body of water? Because I was about to find out.
