by Emilia Finn
“Sorta,” I hedge. “I told you he had a girlfriend who died, right?”
When she nods, I pull her back in and start walking into the thick forest. In here, there’s no wind, because the trees are too dense. The snow hits the ground, but not a lot of it, so unless you’re caught under an unfortunate branch that dumps a load on your head, it’s unlikely you’ll get any in your hair while walking through the woods.
“Uncle Jack used to live in the house with the skate ramp when he was a little younger. Steph, his girlfriend, hadn’t officially moved in with him or anything, but she was his girlfriend for a long time, so she spent her fair share of nights sleeping there.”
“Okay…?”
“Well, after she died, he felt like the place was a little haunted. My uncle is a recovered…” I pause. “Recovering? Is anyone truly ‘recovered’ from alcoholism?” I shrug. “Anyway. Uncle Jack had trouble with alcohol after Steph passed. He didn’t like being in that house all alone, it bothered him, so he moved out and locked the place up. Eventually, he moved into the house we just passed, and since then, the first house has sat empty.”
“Empty?” Cam galls. “Empty? Your mother’s kitchen counter is half the size of my entire apartment. Your family just has this mansion sitting here, empty, and no one gives a damn about the folks who have pet rats in their place?”
“You have a pet rat?”
“Not one I want!” She kicks a rock as we walk. “Damn, Jamie. You and I are further apart than I thought.”
“Nope.” I stop us where we stand, reverse her until her back presses to a thick tree trunk, then I lean in until our legs twine and our chests touch. “Don’t put shit between us now. Don’t do that.”
“You have a spare house,” she groans. “A nice house. A beautiful house. And there are people squatting in the projects. Like, they’re not even squatting somewhere nice! They’re squatting in dumps.”
“It’s not my house.” I lean forward, and feather my lips over hers. “Don’t go searching for wedges to shove between us. My uncle bought this estate long before I was born. He wanted to protect my Aunt Kit, so it was the first and only time he’s used his money in a way that isn’t regular. That one house he bought just happened to come with six others. Over the years, our family has filled them out. There are spares right now, but I know for a fact one will be filled soon. My family has been talking about it for months.”
“Will it be filled with more Kincaids,” she asks with a defiant lift of her brow, “or will it be helping the needy?”
“I’m contractually unable to tell you that.” I press my lips to her jaw. To her cheekbone. “My family are good people, Cam. We help, we donate, we feed the hungry, we stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. So don’t go looking for reasons to hate, now that I’ve finally got you in my forest.”
Her eyes fly to the trees surrounding us. From one to the next to the next.
I smile with my victory. “I’m gonna call you Eliza Thornberry, except you don’t know how to get out.”
“Jamie!”
“You’re reliant on my guidance. If you run from me, you could get lost in here. Eventually, you’ll lay down to rest, and tomorrow…” I nip at her bottom lip. “Popsicle.”
“You’re a creep!” she snaps. “Take me back to the estate. Now.”
“Nope. I’m gonna keep you out here a little longer. I’m gonna kiss you all over, we’ll talk about love some more, and when you get cold, I’ll give you my coat.”
“Then you’ll become the popsicle.”
“I’ll bow down for you,” I whisper in her ear.
Taking her hand, I gently tug her away from the tree, and continue walking. “What’s Will up to today?”
“He’s calling in the secret service to find my body before I die. And you?”
“Keeping you warm enough that the secret service has plenty of time to find us,” I tease. “Sleep well last night?”
“Yep. I met a guy in the parking lot. He was big, he was black, and he kept me cozy all night long.”
“Liar.” I swing my arm around her neck and pull her in until we walk and she stumbles every step. “You didn’t invite anyone in. Wanna know how I know?”
“Telepathy?”
“Oh, so close.” I lead her around my family’s estate. We’re only twenty or so feet from the wooden fence, but as far as Cam knows, we’re walking further and further away from civilization. “I know, because although I loathe how protective Will is of you – what, with all the no touching rules, and my assumption he would never in a million years say yes if I asked to have a sleepover with you tonight…” I stop. “Right?”
She scoffs. “Right. That would be a firm no.”
“Right.” We continue walking. “Well, despite the fact I hate that about him, I also love that about him. Your black friend could be sexy as fuck and come with a dazzling smile, but he didn’t get into your room last night.”
“Hoodwinked,” she hisses on a laugh.
Reaching into her pocket, she comes back out again with a chocolate-coated cookie, and takes a bite like it’s totally rational to carry chocolatey treats in pockets.
“Uh…”
Her innocent eyes come to me. “What?”
“Not gonna offer me a bite, or…?”
“Um, no. I only have one, and I really kinda want it. So you’re just gonna have to wait till you get home, then you can ask your mommy.”
“Cameron,” I warn. “Just one bite.”
“Jamie…” she says back in a deep, mocking tone. “I said no.”
“Give me a bite of the fucking cookie, Cameron.”
“I.” She takes a bite. “Said.” Another. “No.”
Only a small piece remains. One tenth of the original treat rests pinched between her fingers.
“Cameron Quinn. Don’t make me mad.”
“Or what?” She rolls her eyes. “You act like you’re tough or something.” Slowly, with exaggerated movements and teasing eyes, she brings the last of the treat up and opens her mouth. “Say buh-bye, Jamie Kincaid. Then when you go home and cry to your mommy, I can follow you out of this death trap of a forest and forget you exist.”
“Three…”
She brings her hand closer to her mouth.
“Two.”
She smiles.
“Only rookies count all the way to one.” I snap a hand out fast as a snake to steal the treat, but Cam is faster.
She turns on her heels and whips away like she has rockets in her feet, and NOS in her blood. “Sucker!”
“Dammit, Cameron!”
I pump my arms and lower my head as I dash after her. I duck under low branches, and jump over fallen logs. I slip in the moss, and slide in the black ice. And through it all, Cam seems to glide over the forest floor like gravity doesn’t apply to her. Her hair whips back in the space behind her as she runs. Her laughter echoes in pockets of space as I pass through them, and each time she darts around a tree, she looks back to me and cackles.
I could run faster, maybe. I could catch up, and wrap my arms around her body to stop her escape. But I let this go on for a full minute longer out of pure selfishness. I chase after her, extend my hand to make her nervous, and I continue to just miss her.
Because her laughter echoes in my heart. And she once told me that her smiles are as rare as hundred-dollar bills in her hands.
I chase her at a sprint for minutes. Two minutes. Three. Four. Like in a fight, it’s both the shortest and longest minutes of my life, but when she takes a wrong turn and starts heading too far away from the estate, I turn up my pace and catch her mid-jump, mid-flight over a fallen log, and slam her back to my chest so her screams echo through the forest and send birds flying away in a frenzy.
Her body is warm, pliable, like soft pretzels on a warm summer day. Her breath races, her chest lifts and falls as I hold her against my body and turn back in the direction of the estate. Her legs kick out, but she does me no harm. Her kick
s are gentle, her laughter infectious.
Her ass presses to my dick. Something I’ve never done before in my life: carried a woman around when she makes me react this way. But everything about us is new, shiny, different. Everything we do is an exploration into unchartered territory.
It takes Cam a moment of bubbling giggles and heaving breath for her to feel what I feel. But then her body turns taut, and her hands, instead of trying to peel mine away, now wrap around my wrists and hold on.
From giggles to sizzling electricity.
From chasing chocolate, to chasing something much more addicting.
“Jamie…” Cam pants. She fucking pants! And maybe it’s because she was running, but maybe it’s because of me, too. “You’re making it really hard for me to stay objective.”
“You’re not supposed to be objective, remember?”
I hold her in my arms, and back up to the fallen log she tried to jump over. Lowering down and sitting on the snow-covered surface, I ignore the moisture that soaks through my jeans, and instead, help Cam turn. From sitting on my lap and facing the forest, to sitting on my lap, straddling my thighs, and facing me.
Sliding my hands along her neck and up into her hair, I extend my neck and pucker my lips. “I wanna kiss you some more.”
“Jamie, I…” Her heart beats like a hummingbird’s wings. “You’re gonna—”
“What?” I press my lips to hers. “Make you fall in love?” I steal another kiss, and finally get my taste of chocolate. “Steal your objectivity? Make you miss me when we’re not in the same room?”
“Yes,” she whimpers. “All of those.”
“Good.” I leave one hand in the back of her hair, and slide the other down to her hip to pull her in close. I nudge her in closer, tighter, warmer, until her fiery hot core touches my hardened crotch, and her breath comes out on a gasp. “My goal in all of this is to make you fall in love.”
“Jamie…”
“Because why the fuck not?”
I glide my lips along her jaw, over the intoxicating dimple in the middle of her chin, and then to her neck, so I’m curtained in by her hair, shrouded by the scent of her shampoo, and cloaked by her warmth and grabbing hands.
“Maybe we’re young, Cam. And maybe we don’t even know each other. But there are clichés about love for a reason.” I press my lips to the warm pulse in her neck and smile when she shudders. “The term ‘soulmates’ began somewhere. Someone had to feel it, to know it, for it to become a thing.”
“Jamie, you and I—”
“Have a lifetime to explore whatever this is,” I rasp. I slide my hands along her ribs, the sides of her breasts, and force myself to calm when my thumbs pass over what I’m certain beneath her thick coat are hardened nipples. “We don’t have to figure it all out this year. Or next year. Or the year after that.” I switch sides and go to work tasting more of her neck. “We just have to promise to try. We have to be willing to jump in and see where it leads.”
Cam grinds down onto my lap. I’m not sure she meant to, and I sure as hell wasn’t prepared for it. But on a groan that vibrates right down into her stomach, she slides in my lap and grinds her fiery hot core against my cock until she whimpers.
“Jesus, Jamie.” She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls us so close that her lips and cheek smoosh against mine. “I swear I can’t stand you. You’re not funny.”
“Liar.”
“You’re not cute. You’re not charming.”
“All lies.”
I let my hand fall away from her sides, but instead of going back to holding her hips, I slide it between our bodies, I pull back to study her eyes, then I glide my knuckles over the seam of her jeans, and send her wild in my lap.
My cock swells and throbs in my pants. It seeps, it begs for her. But I leave it alone, and instead press my knuckles against the seam of her jeans again until Cam’s whimpering echoes in the trees around us.
“Have you ever done this before, Cam?” I switch my knuckles for the tips of my fingers, and go to work teasing her toward a kind of insanity. “Hey?” I grab her chin and bring her eyes to mine. “Have you ever let a man touch you?”
Her hips move without her permission. She glides, grinds, dances over my hand. But her innocent eyes scream inexperience. Fear. Need. “No. I’ve never let a man touch me like that.”
“You were saving it.” I reach toward the button of her jeans, unsnap it when she doesn’t scream for me to stop. Then I look back into her eyes and slide my hand into her jeans. “Saving it?” I repeat.
She nods.
“For me.” It’s not a question as I slide my hand over a narrow thatch of hair, and my fingertips stop when I find the fire.
Cam’s eyes dance with insecurity, indecision. But not fear.
“You knew you’d see me again this year. You knew you were coming back to me.”
“It’s crazy.” And yet, she places her feet on the snow-covered ground and pushes up just a little to give me room to move. “This isn’t how normal people fall in love.”
“Who said we were normal?” I let my fingertips tease around her clit, but I don’t touch it. I don’t want her to shoot away. “Nobody said we have to follow the rules.” I use my left hand to bring her closer. So our lips touch, and her whimpering breath scorches into my throat. “We don’t have to follow someone else’s rules, you know? No one else is us, no one knows what’s in our hearts.” I stare into her eyes, and tap my fingertips on the inside of her thigh. “Can I touch?”
“I don’t know how to do this,” she rasps. “I don’t… I’ve never…”
“So let’s learn together.” I walk my fingers closer to her heat, and when she nods, I slide a single finger inside and groan when she throws her head back on a cry. “You’re like fire,” I choke out. I slide my finger all the way in, collect her moisture, and slide out again. “When you speak, when you argue, you’re like ice. But here.” I press a kiss to her lips, and swallow her cry when I slide my finger back inside. “When you love, it’s like fire.”
“Jamie!”
“I should have expected you to be both. I should have known you’d be this amazing.”
“Oh god, Jamie…”
“Let me take your pants down just a bit?” I expected the way her eyes would fire, so I press my lips to hers, and keep moving my finger. “It’s just me and you, and a few deer sometimes. No one will come out here.”
“But your family…”
“Are all at the gym. The only person who routinely comes into these woods is my cousin Brooke, but her treehouse isn’t over this way. There’s zero chance of her or anyone else wandering this way.”
“Do you promise?” Her eyes flip between mine. “You swear?”
“I swear.”
I help her out of my lap, but my finger remains inside her pussy. The more she moves, the more she tightens. The more nervous she gets, the more exciting it becomes, because she’s not drying up around my hand.
“You’re so wet,” I groan. “Jesus, Cam. Just thinking about you makes me nearly come.”
“Don’t break my heart, okay?” She reaches up to unzip her coat. “I’m fragile.”
“Leave this on.” I stop her hand before she undresses. “It’s way too cold to take your coat off. But lemme…”
I remove my hand from her panties, tear her zipper down, then I do what I told her not to. I undo my coat, lay it out flat on the log, and I help her lay back so her legs remain open, her feet on the forest floor on each side.
“You’re gonna catch a cold,” she nervously laughs. “It’s fight week, and you’re gonna get sick.”
“Totally worth it.”
Her legs can’t open too wide, her jeans make that impossible, but I tug them halfway down her thighs and pull back to catch sight of what’s mine. I study her trim, muscular thighs. Her hips, the bones poking out a little because of the angle she lays. Her hands nervously reach out for me, and her throat moves with each anxious swallow.
> “You’re so fucking beautiful, Cameron.” I take her hand, and press a kiss to the palm. “I knew it the moment I saw you that you would be mine.”
“Are we…” Her eyes flick between mine. “Are we gonna have sex?”
“No.” I look into her eyes and grin. “When we do that, you won’t be asking me. You’ll be an active participant. You’ll be demanding it. You’ll want it, and you won’t be ready to pass out from nerves.”
Her brows pinch together with confusion. “So we’re…” She tilts her head to the side. “I’m half naked in the freezing forest for no reason?”
I bark out a fast, desperate laugh, but then I lean over her, almost like we are going to make love. I rest an elbow on the log above her head, press my chest to hers, not too heavily, but enough that she knows she can’t get up and run. Then I use one knee to pry her legs as far apart as her jeans will allow.
This denim will stretch. Or it’ll break.
“Not for no reason,” I croak past my desperation and lust. “Have you ever made yourself come before?”
“With my hand?” She chews on her bottom lip so hard that she’ll soon make it bleed. “I don’t… I’ve… um. No.”
“But you’ve tried?”
She nods. “Either the movies are lying about how an orgasm feels and sounds, or I’m just not very good at it.”
Chuckling, I press a kiss to her lips, and swallow her cry when I slide my finger back inside her wet pussy. “Let’s test it, then,” I whisper. “Maybe you just need a little help.” I glide my finger in and out. Fast, wet strokes, and press my chest to hers so our hearts slam together and beat in sync. “But we have to be quick,” I prod. “Or we’ll freeze to death.”
“No pressure,” she grunts. “Dammit, Jamie.”
Shaking my head, I slide my tongue past her lips and swallow her cry when I add a second finger. “The pressure is on me, not you. You merely have to… feel.”
“What if I can’t come?” she whimpers.
She worries, overthinks, but her body does as it was made to do. Her hips piston and chase my hand. Her heart spins out of control. And when I add my thumb and press it over her pulsing clit, she throws her head back and cries.