by Piper Rayne
Panting, I blink at the dark room.
Caleb: You still with me?
Me: That was amazing
Caleb: You came? Good girl
I grin like I’m his star student. Your turn
Caleb: Give me five seconds
Me: Really?
Caleb: I’ve been practicing
I laugh then remember I need to be quiet and clap my hand over my mouth.
Me: When?
Caleb: Every night after we talk. Sometimes in the morning
My eyes go wide.
Caleb: It’s your fault. I can’t help it
The comment from the girl at the campfire returns to my mind: What makes you so special?
Me: What’s so special about me?
Caleb: You smell like peaches
I give the phone a look. Peaches? I expected him to say something dirty, like “your hot wet pussy” or something equally outrageous.
Caleb: The way you touched yourself
I raise an eyebrow as those moments unspool in my brain. My blood is starting to thump into my belly again.
Caleb: The way you come
Me: Are you trying to turn me on again?
Caleb: Is it working?
Me: Yes
Caleb: Coming
The surprise of how intimate this is hits me like a shock wave. I wait for what feels like the longest minute of my life until finally I see the little dots dance.
Caleb: You’re amazing
Me: How? I didn’t do anything
Caleb: I disagree
Another giggle breaks free. I check the time—it’s now well past midnight.
Me: I wish I was there with you
Caleb: Soon, doll. Rest up, you’re going to need it
We say goodnight and I set my phone down. A little while later, Annika comes in and settles quickly into her bed, then it’s quiet again. I lay there listening to the water lapping the shore and the breeze sifting through the pine boughs, my mind and my heart playing tug of war.
My brain reminds me not to fall for Caleb, that we agreed to just have fun, but my heart is shaking her fists at me, angry for the strain I’m putting her through.
With a groan, I realize she’s right to be pissed off, because despite my best efforts, I’m totally falling for my fling.
16
Caleb
“No, not like that,” I say, flipping my wrist in an exaggerated example of what her wimpy little shotput throw looked like.
She scowls in the cutest way possible. “That wasn’t how I did it.”
“Was too,” I tease with a chuckle while walking back to her, the meadow grass snapping at my ankles. Behind her and through the tall stand of trees, the deep blue of Red Fin Lake sparkles under the hot sun. I loved surprising Lori with this—a boat ride across the lake to what feels like our own private slice of wilderness.
I stand behind her and rotate her shoulders sideways, then draw back her arm. She fights me controlling her body like this, but finally quits resisting. I heave a tight breath through my nose. I’ve been holding back, not wanting to spook her with my eagerness. We have all day, so I’m trying to savor it.
After our sexting went prime time last night, I barely slept because my bed felt empty without her. I laid there with her taste on my tongue, her soft cries in my ear, and the feel of her skin on mine. How am I supposed to keep things casual when I think about her nonstop?
I get her arm poised, elbow up, hand close to her ear. Her peach-like scent filters up through my senses.
“When you throw, think about using your hips more,” I say to keep my mind in the game.
“My hips?”
“Yeah, all that power from your core can be put to use when you rotate forward.”
She seems to think about this, and though I can’t see her face, I picture her frowny look of concentration. “Okay,” she says.
I step back and wait. She takes a deep breath, then throws. The ball goes high and lands twenty feet away.
“Better!” I say to encourage her because we’ve been at this for half an hour and I can tell she’s getting frustrated.
“Ow,” she says.
“What’s wrong?”
She rubs a place above her right breast. “Nothing.”
“Maybe it’s time for a break,” I say.
“No, I want to get this,” she says with that look of fire in her eyes.
“We can totally keep practicing, but how about on the way back? There’s something I really want to show you.”
“Does it involve being naked?”
I chuckle. “Do you want it to?”
She raises an eyebrow with a “seriously?” look.
I take her face in my hands and kiss her. “If you’re good,” I say after I break away.
“I’ll be very good,” she says, her breaths quickening.
I slide on the backpack and grab her hand.
“We can leave the boat here?” she asks.
I glance at the motorboat I borrowed from a buddy working at the marina this summer, anchored in the lake’s shallows.
“You think someone’s gonna steal it all the way out here? This isn’t the big city.”
“Right,” she says.
We walk up a forest-lined trail paralleling a rushing creek, the dry sand crunching beneath our shoes. Birds call from their hidden perches, barely audible above the flowing water. The trail winds away from the creek and up a series of switchbacks. When we reach the top, Lori’s barely breathing hard and I wonder what she does to stay in shape.
“How did you even find out about Camp Osprey?” I ask.
“Google search,” she says.
“Seriously?” I turn back but she’s focused on the trail.
“My summer plans sort of fell through, so…”
“What were you supposed to be doing?”
“An internship at a biotech firm.”
“Forgive me for this, but I think coming to Penny Creek sounds like a lot more fun.”
She shrugs. “It would have been cool to work with all of those scientists. To feel like I’m contributing to something.”
“Just think what you’re contributing to at Camp Osprey. You’re influencing kids’ lives. That’s just as important as working for some lab.”
“Maybe,” she says.
“So, what happened?” I ask, bracing myself because I can sense this isn’t easy.
“Shea’s dad is the lead scientist on the project I’d be working on.” She stops and I turn around to see her crouched down, inspecting a tufty red flower—Indian Paintbrush. “Shea was going to be working there too.”
“Ugh,” I say, resting my hands on my hips. “That sucks.”
She stands, and glances at me with a soft look in her eye. “Yeah, at the time it did, but now, I’m glad.” She looks around. “It’s so beautiful here. And I met Annika. I met you.”
My heart does a little jig inside my chest.
“I’ll probably be behind when I start in the fall, but right now, I sort of don’t care.”
I file this comment away for later, but right now the bait she just threw me is irresistible. “Why don’t you care?”
She steps closer. “Because I’m spending time with you.”
I pull her into my arms and kiss her softly, tasting her perfect lips, gliding my tongue against hers. We stand there in the middle of the trail under the hot sun while the grasshoppers snap in the grass and the breeze filters through the pines until my blood is thundering like a creek in spring flood.
“I forgot to ask you,” I say after we break away to breathe. “What you’re going to show me.”
She grins. “We’ll need an open space, and for it to be dark,” she says.
“Does this involve being naked?”
“Optional,” she says in a noncommittal tone.
I run my hands down her arms and kiss her again. “How about on the boat tonight?”
“That would be perfect, but don’t we have to get it ba
ck before the marina closes?”
I shrug. “Nate knows I’m good for it,” I say, making a mental note to text him, so he doesn’t send a search party. I’ll also owe him more than a six pack for risking his job. But spending time with Lori is totally worth it.
“I didn’t bring any extra clothes, and what about food?”
“Hey, did you forget who you’re dealing with?” I ask, giving her ribs a playful poke. “I have everything you need.”
She lurches away from me, giggling. “I’ll never doubt you again.”
I purse my lips. “Glad we got that straightened out.”
We start walking again.
“Your brother Pete seems pretty intense,” she says after we climb a short rocky section of the trail.
My shoulders hike up before I can stop them. “Yes,” I say.
“What kind of medicine is he going to specialize in?”
“Anesthesiology.”
“Oh wow,” she says.
“It suits his personality perfectly,” I say, barely holding back the bite in my voice. “He’s a total control freak.”
“Has he always been that way?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I glance at her. “I have a theory as to why, actually.” The trail flattens out as it enters the hanging valley. Up here, the air is cool and fresh, like the snowfields on the peaks above us are blowing us icy kisses.
“Our parents led a pretty crazy life together. They were basically hippies. My dad built our first house by hand. My mom grew a giant garden and had cows and let people pay for milk and veggies with bartering. Pete didn’t go to school until third grade, when Annika was born.”
“You guys didn’t go to school?” Lori gasps.
The trail widens enough that we can walk side by side. I get a glimpse of the creek through the trees. Up here, it runs clear as gin over slabs of speckled granite.
I shrug. “We just ran around the woods all day like savages. Then the school board found out and made my parents send us.”
“What that must have been like…” she says, shaking her head.
“I hated going, but Pete and Wyatt thrived.”
“Did Pete resent your parents for keeping him from that life?”
I think about this for a moment, but the answer is too complicated. “At around that same time, my parents sort of grew up, I guess. My dad built up White Cloud Rafting into a business instead of just a collection of patched-up rafts and a rusty shuttle bus. We moved to town.”
“What was that like for you?”
“I was only six, but I remember missing our woods.”
“But you still had rafting, right?”
A pang of grief taps my heart. “Yeah.”
“That sounds like a good compromise,” Lori says, looking thoughtful. “You had your life in town, and then as a family, you had river time.”
I never really thought about it that way. It’s a good theory, but it doesn’t quite stack up like that.
Her eyes soften with kindness. “You must miss him so much.”
My heart thrashes inside my chest. “Yeah.” I don’t trust myself to say more. Lori doesn’t need to know about the last time I saw my dad alive and how hard it is to live with what we said to each other.
Through a gap in the trees, I spot my secret place and tug Lori through the brush, my pulse quickening.
“Whoa, where are we going?” Lori protests behind me.
“You’ll see,” I reply. We have to hop over a few boulders, and then we’re stepping down on a broad slab of glacier-polished granite. Upriver, clear water cascades down a steep section choked with boulders and an old snag to a deep pool. The water flows past us and cascades over the edge.
“Wow!” Lori cries, her smile flashbulb bright. “It’s gorgeous!”
I set the pack down on a dry section of the slab and start removing my shoes and socks, then pull off my shirt. I climb the stairstep of boulders along the right side until I’m above the pool.
“What are you doing?” Lori calls, watching me with disbelief.
Below me, the shiny flecks of mica and quartz in the bottom of the pool shimmer like gems under the sun’s glare. I leap from the rock and fall through the cool air, tucking in my arms. The icy water hits my feet then engulfs me in frigid cold.
I surface shaking the hair from my eyes and let the current take me to the edge of the pool where I walk up the ramp created by the granite slab.
Lori is shaking her head. “You’re crazy.”
“You’re next,” I say, then shake my head like a dog.
Lori shrieks and when I straighten her shirt and face are dotted with my spray.
“No way,” she says, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Come on, it’ll feel so good.”
“Can’t I just wade in?”
I shrug. “You can, but where’s the adventure in that?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I’m not risking my life for an adventure.”
“Aw, come on, it’s not that dangerous. And you know you’ll regret it if you don’t do it.”
Her shoulders slump.
I secretly love that I know this about her.
“Fine,” she says.
I watch her strip down to her bikini, the same black one she wore the first night I met her in the teacup and the day we ran Rogue Canyon. Why does she only own one bikini? Every girl I’ve ever been with owns half a dozen or more. From the clothes she wears to how she talks about her life in Berkeley, I sense that her family’s at least somewhat well off, meaning that it’s not a money thing.
Once she’s piled her clothes neatly on top of her shoes, she strides over to the jumble of rocks and climbs, nimble as a fox up to the top.
She peers over the edge. It’s maybe a fifteen-foot drop. No biggie.
“Don’t think about it,” I call up to her.
Her sharp gaze flashes to me.
“Keep your arms in,” I add. Otherwise, the slap burn is a bitch.
“Promise I won’t die,” she says over the sound of the rushing water.
I cup my mouth and shout, “I know water rescue and CPR. You’re in excellent hands.”
Her grin turns sly and she shakes her head.
For a moment, I think she’s going to retreat, but then her chest and shoulders rise in what I imagine is a breath for bravery, and then she jumps.
Her hair flies out and her arms hug her sides. With a sploosh she disappears into the pool.
I’m already on my feet, wading in quickly.
She surfaces with a gasp, her eyes wide.
I dive in and come up to hug her.
“I need to do that again,” she says.
I laugh, then kiss her until her teeth give a little chatter. “You want to warm up first?”
She shakes her head. “One more, and I will.”
“Okay,” I say, and we wade to the edge of the pool and she hurries ahead of me, scampering up the rocks again, giving me a view of her perfect ass. I give her a playful slap and she yelps.
We get to the top. I’m getting so turned on by her that not even the cold water can douse the raging heat in my blood.
“Ladies first,” I say, motioning with my hand.
But she’s already got that look in her eyes that says she’s going. She gives a little yelp as she goes over this time. I lean out and watch her land. She surfaces with a hoot. I wait until she’s drifted to the edge of the pool, then jump.
We collapse side by side on the granite slab. I shade my eyes into the sun’s intense glare and wait for my breaths to calm before I take her hand and squeeze it.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” she says.
“Glad you like it.” The heat from the sun both soothes and revives me. I let my arm drop to my side.
“How often do you get up here?”
“A couple of times a summer, if I’m lucky,” I say. “Boating keeps me busy, plus there’s too much snow this far up until late July, so it’s a short window.”
Her body stiffens next to me. Is she thinking about our short window?
Suddenly, I can’t stand the thought of wasting another minute of this day not buried in her pussy.
17
Lori
A girl could definitely get used to this, I think as the details of the forest slowly return.
Caleb sighs under me while his touch feathers up and down my bare back. I know I should move but my bones are mush. Is this how sex is supposed to be? Or is it just that Caleb is so good at it?
Slowly, he rolls me to my side on the blanket, slipping out of me. We kiss, his lips gentle and soft. He caresses up and down my side, then over my hip, his fingers making slow circles.
“You better stop that or I’m going to have to attack you,” I say as my skin comes alive with tingles.
His eyes light up. “Yes, please,” he says.
I laugh and he gets to his feet, then pulls me up so we can rinse off in the water. On the way he grabs something from his backpack. It’s a pair of swim goggles.
“Time for a workout?” I tease.
He just shakes his head, but his grin is contagious. “Come here,” he says, wading in waist deep.
I follow, the cold water quenching my hot flesh. He hands me the goggles and says, “look right there.” He points to a location near the top of the pool, below where the water from above cascades into it.
I watch him curiously but his playful eyes tell me he won’t say another word until I do what he says.
After slipping on the goggles and fitting them tight around my eyes, I wade deeper then take a breath and plunge face first into the water.
The sounds of the forest disappear, replaced by the water’s low roar. I look around, wondering what I’m supposed to see. There are rocks, bubbles, sand…whoa.
Ahead and below me near the bottom of the pool are a handful of very large fish.
I burst to the surface. “Oh my God!” I say. “Have they been there the whole time?”
Caleb chuckles. “Don’t be scared of ‘em.”
I scowl at him, but he’s foggy through the goggles. “I’m not … scared… I just wish I’d known they were there. We’re not bothering them, are we?”