by Tessa Bailey
“Will…” she whispers.
“For the record, baby, I think you’re full of shit. It’s going to kill me to ask you this, but when was the last time you slept beside someone?”
No hesitation. “A long time ago.”
“Yeah. Good.” I twist a fist in the hem of my shirt. “You spent the night warming every inch of your skin on mine, purring for back rubs and tucking your hands and feet in places so I could heat them up. It’s been a long time for me, too, but I know it’s not supposed to feel that goddamn natural and right. Your mouth needs a little longer to admit we’ve got each other tied down? Fine. But I’m going to end up back in New York sooner or later, and if you think I’m not going to knock fucking walls down to get to you, you’ve got another think coming, woman.” I pause to let her sputter. “Give me until morning to convince you to let me fly you there tomorrow. That’s what I’m asking.”
“How did this happen?” she says, seemingly to herself. I miss the second half of what she says, but it sounds like, “He’s trying to convince me…”
“Tomorrow morning, Teresa.” I move into her space and capture her dropped open mouth with a hard kiss. “I’m going to get us a map at the visitor center. Stay on the path and I’ll catch up.”
Leaving her standing there looking half stricken, half impressed is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I harden myself against the need to turn back and kiss her until she’s convinced right now.
Instead, I keep walking…and start to make plans.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Teresa
I stumble blindly down the path in the direction of Southpaw. It’s kind of like we’re playing Marco Polo on dry land, because every time I manage to croak his name, his bark seems to be coming from a different spot in the forest. Finding him is giving me something to focus on, though, and I desperately need to be distracted or I will crawl into a shrub and petrify into part of the landscape.
Did I really just talk Will out of following me to New York?
Yes. It appears I did. My life as a con woman can be summed up in two words: brief and unsuccessful. The Hapless Con, Thursdays on Fox. Maybe someday, if the impossible happens and I make it through film school, I’ll shoot the pilot. I’ll tap Nina Dobrev to play me, the well-meaning but utterly doomed heroine who wears overpriced shoes and discount push-up bras.
No matter who I chose for the hero, he would never live up to the original Will, though. I’d secretly refer to him as The Un-Will.
Tears fill my eyes and I blink them away. “Southpaw!”
Bark. Bark, bark, bark.
“Wait. You’re behind me now?”
I turn on a heel and head down a different path, overgrown brush sliding against my bare legs. In the pilot episode, we would meet The Hapless Con as she competes on Survivor, searching for a good place to tan while everyone else forms alliances. Hapless Con can’t even save her brother, even when the key to doing so is handed over on a silver platter, can she?
God, there wasn’t even a fleeting sense of victory when Will said he’d handle the plane tickets. No, not tickets. Reservations. Probably on a private plane. Not even that gave me the tiniest spark of satisfaction. Nothing but guilt and dread. And more guilt heaped on top. When it came down to it, something inside me wouldn’t let me deceive him any further.
It was your heart, idiot. That thing that feels broken right now.
Realizing my hand is pressed to the center of my chest, I swipe at my eyes with it and let it drop. Come tomorrow morning, I’ll have no choice but to take Will’s offer if I want to help Nicky. Every part of me rebelled against taking that final step to get Will back to New York, though. Am I going to be even less inclined to take that leap tomorrow morning after another night with him?
Resisting the urge to run, just run away from the trap I’ve laid and never look back, I turn in a frustrated circle. “Southpaw!”
The bark is closer this time. I hear it the same time I hear water rushing. A few more steps bring me to a rise in the path and I cross over, my breath catching at the beauty spread out before me. It’s a river. Or more accurately, a rapid. White wash goes whooshing past, down small waterfalls and bumps where rocks stick up in the water. Southpaw dances on the shoreline with a stick in his mouth, like something out of a pioneer movie. I’m the loyal, hard-working wife coming to collect fresh water to do the laundry.
“Sure, that sounds just like you,” I mutter, climbing down the rocky embankment toward the small beach where the dog waits, head tilted. It reminds me a lot of how Will looked at me back on the path, as if to say, what are you scared of? I’m right here. “Hapless Con Woman in the Wilderness,” I blurt in a rush, trying to distract myself. “At first glance, she’s the Plain Jane wife of a Hapless Mountain Man—always plan for a spinoff—but under her handmade cloak, she’s hiding the body and mind of a former con and assassin—”
Southpaw barks, toeing the edge of the water.
“I’m coming. I’m—”
He leaps into the water.
“Whoa!” My laugh sounds sad, a total contrast to the carefree behemoth reveling in his freedom. “You’re lucky that camera is waterproof.”
All I can see of Southpaw is his head sticking out of the rapid at first, but then water starts to splash in front of him. Is he trying to paddle? Yeah…but. Hold on. It’s not working. He’s struggling to get back to shore, but can’t. He’s moving farther away from me, little by little.
“Shit. Oh shit.”
I turn in a circle, looking for a branch long enough to hold out so he can grab on with his mouth, but nothing. “There’s no fucking branches on the ground in a forest? Seriously?” I jog to the end of the water and kick off my Gucci sandals, noticing Southpaw is a good five feet farther away than the last time I checked. And I don’t know a lot about rapids, but I’m pretty sure they move in the direction of a drop. Because physics. “Oh no, no, no.” I gather a scream and let it loose, loud as I can muster. “Help!”
No way I can wait around on the off-chance someone heard me. Southpaw isn’t even paddling anymore, fatigue probably setting in, so he’s traveling along with the current. Crap. This is not happening to me. I’m just The Hapless Con.
But I’ve never run as fast in my life as I do now, sprinting barefoot down the shoreline to get ahead of Southpaw and jumping into the rapid. “Oh, God. That’s cold. Holy shit.” He starts paddling again as soon as I hit the water, barking at me like this is my fault. And I paddle, too, finding my inner swimmer and introducing her to the situation from hell. It takes me a few seconds to reach Southpaw, which is when the next clusterfuck presents itself.
He’s a huge dog and I’m a petite woman.
Suddenly I’ve got one hundred and eighty pounds of wet dog trying to climb me and it hits me that I have a limited amount of time to get us to the shore. I can’t tread water long with the added weight—and we’re obviously headed to a drop.
“Okay.” There’s calmness in my voice I don’t feel in any way, shape or form. “Okay, buddy. It’s fine. Just hang on.”
I start to kick, but we’re pushed sideways into one of the miniature waterfalls—did I once think they were beautiful?—and it rains down on my face. It shocks my lungs into emptying, and my body instinctively searches for oxygen but gets water instead. Panic slices into me hard. I’m choking when we finally shoot out on the other side, my shoulder ricocheting off a rock and spinning us.
Someone is talking. I realize it’s me, rambling in between sucked-in breaths. I’m being tossed in a green and white kaleidoscope, water climbing up my neck. Southpaw is whimpering above me. He’s sitting on my chest and I can’t—I can’t get in enough air. Dizziness hits me at the same time we go flying down another small waterfall, but I cling tight to Southpaw and he does the same. How much longer can I do this? I can barely breathe, let alone swim to the shore.
“TERESA.”
I hear Will shouting from somewhere in the distance, but I ignore him. H
e can’t help us. We’re moving too fast now. The water is up to my chin. I take the biggest breath I can manage, reach for my deepest reserve of willpower and kick my legs hard, one arm wrapped around Southpaw, the other paddling.
The effort starts to drain me almost immediately, but I close my eyes and kick through the screaming strain in my muscles, prayers for a miracle sitting on my lips. When I feel the hand clamp down on my neck, I must be reaching the edge of delirium, because my first thought is sea monster.
“Goddammit, Teresa. Baby, what the fuck?”
Southpaw barks in my ear, mimicking Will’s distress. I can’t see Will, because he’s behind me, his fist wrapped in the neck of my T-shirt, but I feel myself and Southpaw being tugged sideways, against the current. Thank God. Thank God. I have a second of alarm when Southpaw jumps out of my arms, but the sudden lightness allows me to turn around and see him splash through the shallow edge of the rapid and jump onto shore. I join him a moment later, pulled by Will—and sucking in rasping breaths, I’m hauled into his arms.
“I’m going to kill you, woman. I thought you were gone.” I can’t tell which one of us is shaking, but the particulars don’t matter because Will is raining kisses down on my face and head, cursing in between each plant of his hard lips. “You screamed like you were being fucking attacked and I couldn’t find you. Jesus. Is anything hurt?” His hands run down my arms, stomach and legs, making me groan over the warmth. “I swear to God, if you’re hurt…”
Southpaw starts licking my face, reminding me why I jumped into the rapid in the first place. And I don’t know what happens inside me, everything that has taken place in the last week—and especially the last five minutes—catches up at once, twisting me in knots, tightening, tightening, until they snap and I burst into tears. “He jumped in and I couldn’t find a stick to hold out. In the middle of a forest. The water was carrying him away—” Remembering the way the water kept climbing higher toward my head renews my shakes. “I’m not a good swimmer. I’m not good at any of this. I thought I would be, but…”
Will pulls me more firmly onto his lap, clutching me to his chest, as if trying to physically stop me from trembling. “You’re not good at any of what, baby?”
Lying. Using people. In trying to save Nicky, I’ve become the very thing my parents took us away from. I’ve become someone who hurts people. I need to protect Nicky, but I don’t think I can do that while hurting Will. Sitting here on this damp riverbank, I’m a part of a family. A small one. One I didn’t earn, but a family, nonetheless.
I won’t let him get on that plane without knowing the truth. I make that vow to myself right now in the woods with Will crushing me to his chest. Even if it makes him hate me forever, I won’t accept his help. Not unless he offers it with the full knowledge of the deal I made with Silas.
Making that decision fills me with the kind of peace I’ve never experienced. Being honest with this man will always be the right decision, whether or not that honesty makes me lose him forever. And if that’s my fate, I’m going to take advantage of this day. I’m going to live in it without reservation.
“I need you, Will,” I whisper against his mouth. “Now.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Will
Fuck. I’m not okay. I’m eight million miles from okay.
When I came over the incline and saw Teresa being carried by the current, I left my heart on the goddamn ground. It has only just reentered my chest and begun to beat again. Was I worried about Southpaw? Yes. But his entire upper half was above the water line, while Teresa was rapidly sinking and—
Jesus Christ. I can’t think about it.
She’s crawling onto my lap, wrapping her legs around my waist, and she looks so beautiful, so fragile and brave and determined and everything in between, I drop the niggling certainty that she’s keeping something from me…and I let the hunger that has been building for days take over. It takes over without mercy, too, turning my cock to wrought fucking iron in my wet jeans, just in time for Teresa to settle her cunt over it and work, work, work her hips like temptation in the flesh.
She goes in for my mouth, but I fist her hair in my grip, stopping her. Not sure why, since my balls are so high and tight, I can feel them in my throat. Maybe it’s a last-ditch effort to get inside her head before lust makes me its servant and I can’t think anymore. Maybe I’m still shaky from seeing her flying down the rapid, knowing I only had a limited time to reach her before the beach ran out. Whatever the reason, I want to hear some of her husky voice. I’m craving it. “I put us up in the presidential suite at our hotel…” I twist my fist in her hair and she bucks in my lap, mouth falling open on a whimper. “Could’ve taken you the first time in a bed, a couch…a whirlpool. But no. You want my dick in the forest.”
“Not want. Need.” Her wet T-shirt is showing me everything. Those peaked nipples. Hell, the exact tint of dusky pink is obvious because this little temptation isn’t even wearing a bra. Not a damn thing in this world can stop me from leaning down and sucking on her through the sodden cotton, gently tugging on the bud with my teeth. “Will, please.”
I give her other tit the same thorough attention. “We could get in trouble.”
“You love trouble.” Teresa pulls the T-shirt over her head and drops it with a glop, knocking my hands free of her hair in the process. “Asking me to dance for you in the backseat of your car. The way you look at men, daring them to check me out. You want trouble, Will. Come and get it.”
Christ. Does Teresa see me, or what? A lot of our association has felt like a game of chess, but the game board is made of solid stone. The way she’s looking at me, half naked and mind-blowingly gorgeous in the fractured forest light…it makes me feel new. Who the hell cares which life path I’m supposed to be on, so long as it led me to this day, this moment, with this woman.
“You said it yourself last night,” she purrs in my ear, rubbing her tits against my chest. “You might take me to fancy hotels, but you fuck me nasty on the floor. That’s you, isn’t it? Best of both worlds?”
Blood roars in my ears as I stand, Teresa’s legs wrapped around my hips, her naked breasts bouncing around with every step I take. To where? I don’t give a damn. She’s getting it fast and rough against the first solid surface I find. Southpaw has taken a hint and gone off into the trees, away from the water. Thank God I don’t have to worry about him, because my head is full to bursting with Teresa.
Her fresh water and female scent is a drop kick to my senses, curling in my nose and throat like an airborne love potion, stroking my cock with an invisible hand. Getting inside a woman has never been about more than release, but it’s like I’m already worried I won’t get close enough to her. Won’t absorb as much of her as I need to live. Jesus, when her mouth meets mine and our tongues flick together, I really wonder if needing her to live isn’t so crazy. My pulse is slamming up against the sides of my veins, like it wants to join with hers.
The kiss ends and her neck goes loose, head falling back. “Will.”
In my periphery, I see an upright boulder with a broad, flat front and change direction to get us there. “Go on, baby.” I flatten her between me and the rock, baring my teeth against her mouth. “Whine my name again. Whine to me about the achy little pussy inside your shorts.”
“Oh God.” Her tits lift and shudder between us. “Make it better, Will.”
There’s a thread of vulnerability in those words, compelling me to press our foreheads together, search her eyes. “Tell me you’re really okay, Teresa.”
“Yes,” she whispers. “But I was scared.”
Fuck. Based on the way my heart free falls into my stomach, it does not like hearing that. “Is that why you want this?” I frame her face in my hands, keeping it tipped up when she tries to look away. “Because you were scared?”
“Only a little. Like I need somewhere to put the fear. But mostly it’s you.” Disbelief dances across her face. “It’s…this. Us.”
Hearin
g her use the word us knocks over a bucket of warm wax inside my chest. “You’re not afraid of me tying you down. You couldn’t even look at me when you said it.”
“Arrogant man.” A ghost of a smile passes her mouth before vanishing. “It’s not fair. Nothing is fair.”
I press my lower body tighter to the notch of her thighs and she gasps, digging her heels into my ass. “Like what, baby?”
“I-I don’t know. Just circumstances. Timing. Responsibilities.” In the distance, there’s a happy bark, but it sends even more distress cutting through her needy expression. “You…having to lose Southpaw. I couldn’t let it happen earlier than it’s supposed to, Will. I just couldn’t. But you’ll still lose him and it’s not fair—”
“Shh.” I quiet her with a kiss, while my heart breaks out in a riot. For the rest of my life, if anyone doubts out loud in my presence that a man can fall for a woman overnight, I’ll be the first to tell them they’re dead wrong. Because I’ve damn well fallen for this woman who just saved my dog’s life and goes from sex bombshell to honest and afraid in mere seconds. She’s a mystery, she’s truth, she’s black, white and gray. She’s mine. “Here’s the thing, Teresa,” I murmur against her lips. “We’re not dying, you and me. We get to live. This isn’t an end for us.” It’s just the start, I add silently, not wanting to overwhelm her. “You want to feel alive right now, baby?”
“Yes.”
*
Teresa
My adrenaline is still firing from my impromptu swim meet, but it’s quickly being overtaken by lust. Hot, sticky, undeniable lust. Will asked me if I want to feel alive, but I already do. I’ve felt more alive around him in the past couple days than I have in years. Maybe my entire life. And with his hips pumping between my open, eager thighs, I refuse to think of this—of Will—being taken from me. Just for now, for today, we’re two people who collided, and upon standing, maybe found a better version of themselves when the dust settled.