by Lori Wilde
“Yep.”
“Well, there’s the fact that I’m something of an introvert, and he loves people.”
“You love people.”
“Yes, but only one at a time.”
“So what was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Why did you break up?”
“He got me into trouble, and my parents forbade me to go out with him.”
Izzy sat up. “He got you pregnant!”
“Shh, not that kind of trouble.”
“Then what?”
Emma didn’t like to talk about her secret shame, but maybe if she told Izzy, she’d quit pestering her. “He got me arrested.”
“What? You? Miss Goody Two-Shoes?”
“I’m not that good.”
“Well, you’re certainly not bad. You don’t even keep overdue library books.”
“Of course not, I’m a librarian.”
“So, what’d you do? Steal a car and go joyriding like Deanna’s kid? Shoplift?”
“We graffitied a water tower. Or rather, Trent graffitied it. I was just along for the ride.”
“Cool. What did you write?”
Emma paused, remembering that night. She’d sneaked from the house at midnight to meet him. He’d had a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck. Giggling and passing the bottle back and forth, they’d climbed the water tower in the light of the full moon. “In five-foot letters in green neon paint, he wrote ‘Trent loves Emma.’”
“Awww, that’s so sweet.”
“The police chief of Tarrytown didn’t think so.”
“What’s it like in jail?”
“Stinky. Luckily, I wasn’t there long. My dad bailed me out, but he also forbade me to ever go near Trent again.”
“And like a good little girl, you obeyed?”
Emma felt her face flush. “They watched me like a hawk. But one day I did sneak out to see him, but then...” She paused, remembering. But it was too painful to continue, so she said, “Then his dad got a job here in Colorado, and he moved away not long after. I hadn’t seen him again until today.”
“Wow,” Izzy said, “so how are you feeling now?”
“For one thing, I’m ticked off at you. Or at least I was.”
“You’ve forgiven me?”
“I can’t stay mad at you for very long. Besides, I realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“My whacked-out notions about love and romance started with Trent. I poured everything into him, assuming a relationship would make me whole. I never got over that notion. I kept searching for my missing piece. There were Doug and Ryan, but nothing ever felt completely right, and the harder I tried to force things to work, the more it seemed I pushed those guys away. I think from now on I’m going to be more like you, Izz. Take me as I am or leave me alone.”
“I don’t have all the answers, Em,” Izzy whispered. “Far from it. I keep things light because I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
Izzy paused for so long that Emma thought she wasn’t going to say anything at all, but finally she took a deep breath and continued. “That no one will really want me. Not for the long term.”
“C’mon, Izz, of course someone will want you. You’re gorgeous and fun and—”
“A long-term relationship with a quality guy is about more than just having fun. I don’t think I have the staying power, you know? I mean what role models do I have? My mom’s been married four times. Dad is on his third wife. I haven’t a clue what makes a good relationship.”
“Ah, hell, Izz, none of us do.”
“Except Bianca and Madison. I can’t believe how quickly they found guys they’re so sure about.”
“I would be skeptical, too, but they both seem very happy, and Thomaz and Jake are great guys.”
“Why can’t we find guys like that?”
“Beats me,” Emma sighed.
Silence fell between them. Outside the tent they could hear the snap of embers settling in the firepit, smell the smoky scent on the air.
“Do you think that the reason you never felt complete with Doug or Ryan is because you were supposed to be with Trent?” Izzy ventured.
“You mean he’s my soul mate?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in soul mates and destiny and true love and stuff like that.”
“I didn’t think I did, either. Until Bianca and Madison. They make it seem so possible.”
“Yes.” Emma nodded in the darkness, feeling something tighten in her chest. “They do.”
“But you believe in that stuff, right?”
“I used to. Now I’m not sure.”
“You know what I heard once?” Izzy asked.
“What’s that?”
“That your soul mate isn’t the one who makes your life easier, but rather the person who challenges you to be your best self.”
“Interesting theory.”
“Neither Doug nor Ryan challenged you, Em. You picked guys who were just like you. You wanted someone you could get along with. You avoided conflict.”
Izzy was right, but Emma didn’t want to tell her that. “I bet that after Trent, you went out of your way to avoid guys who scared you in favor of guys who just went along for the ride.”
“Are you sure you didn’t go to college and sneak in a few psychology classes?” Emma asked.
“Hey, I spend my days analyzing my cartoon character, Cherry Forever. Maybe I absorbed a thing or two about relationships in the process.”
“Great, now we’re taking love advice from your fictional alter ego.” Emma laughed.
“Too bad we’ve got this bet going on.” Izzy sighed. “Otherwise, you could see where this thing with Trent is destined to go.”
“I, for one, am grateful for the bet. It’ll keep me from doing something I might regret later.”
“Hmm,” Izzy said.
“Hmm what?”
“I don’t think anyone would ever regret having sex with Trent.”
That, Emma thought, was an understatement if she’d ever heard one.
The next morning, Emma crawled slowly out of bed, sorer than she’d ever been in her life. Every muscle in her body ached. Even her teeth ached. She got up just before dawn, unable to stay lying on the cold ground one second longer.
Izzy was sound asleep, curled up in a ball inside her sleeping bag. Emma was a true morning person, and she loved being up before everyone else. She woke up cheerful and wide awake, something none of her boyfriends had ever appreciated.
Except for Trent. He’d been a morning person, too.
She took a bath towel and the eco-friendly soap she’d bought specially—she had read some of the brochure—from her backpack, eased from the tent, careful not to awaken Izzy, and slipped outside. She found her canteen and took a long drink, then used the toilet facilities that had been set up.
Stretching, she wished for a shower, but the closest she was going to come to one was to wash in the river. No one else was stirring so she padded down to the water. A whisper of orange and purple lights pushed at the edge of the eastern horizon, and the air smelt crisp and clean and natural. This made up for all the aches and twinges tugging at her body.
The water was going to be frigid; no two ways about it. She draped the towel over a nearby bush, then took off her pajamas and placed them alongside the towel. Wearing only her undergarments and armed with a bar of soap, she steeled herself and stepped to the water’s edge.
Although generally she was the type to ease gradually into things, when it came to cold water, the best course of action was simply to dive in and submerge. Once you had the shock over with, your body quickly adjusted.
She jumped in, grateful that the sensor in the sex-toy undies was waterproof. No one could accuse her of having sex.
The shock of the icy water took her breath, and a shiver drove through her like a spike. She forced herself to stay under with only her head breaking the surface, and in a few seconds, the stunning effec
ts of the water lessened.
When she was so numb that she couldn’t really feel the cold anymore, she stood up and began soaping up her arms. A half-moon shone down on her, glistening whitely off the ripples in the river. And she felt utterly at peace.
Wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his naked waist, Trent padded barefoot down to the river, intent on washing up. Then he saw the woman standing in the water. Instantly, he knew it was Emma. She’d always been a morning person just like him.
He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her, fascinated.
Lust cemented him to the spot. Instantly, he was aroused.
He should call out to her, alert her that he was coming to the water’s edge. He should move. Make noise. Do something. Instead, he merely fisted his hands and kept staring.
Just a second longer. Then he’d say something. That is if he didn’t ejaculate all over himself first.
His mouth dropped open in delight as he watched her. Transfixed. There was no other word for it.
She had her back to him, and at first, he thought she was naked, but then she turned, and the moonlight caught her full-on, and he realized she was wearing some kind of white, diaphanous garment.
It wasn’t a nightgown, and it was more than underwear. It had a thin bodice and a skimpy little white G-string panty that was practically nonexistent when wet. But there was something else, as well. A thin white belt that went around her waist and dipped low into a V in the front.
Somehow, the fact that she was not completely nude was even more erotic. She soaped up, splashing like a water nymph.
He was breathing fast, and he got harder, and he could not move. God, he’d forgotten just how gorgeous she was. So ripe and lush and feminine.
And if Trent didn’t have her, he was going to die.
Emma thought she heard a noise and raised her head. There standing on the path to the water was a wholly masculine figure wearing nothing but a white towel around his waist. And that towel was jutting straight out over a very impressive penis.
Trent.
She smiled and allowed her gaze to track from his face to his bare chest. God, she’d forgotten just how handsome he was. If anything, he looked even better than he had ten years ago.
He could have doubled for an underwear model; that’s how fabulous his torso was with those sinewy muscles and a masculine tuft of hair running from his nipples to where it disappeared beneath the stark white towel.
That’s when Emma realized he’d apparently been standing there for quite a while watching her. “Come on in,” she called. “I was just about to get out.”
He sauntered down to the water’s edge, his penis bouncing like a proud soldier on parade.
Okay, this was a mistake. Why had she told him to come down? She had a mad impulse to bolt and swim away into the darkness. He was giving her that naughty-boy grin she remembered.
Fine. All right. She could handle this like an adult. She started for the shore just as he reached the water. She was so busy staring at his broad, muscular chest and trying desperately not to look down at his steel rod of an erection that she slipped and stumbled.
“Whoa there,” he murmured huskily and put out a hand to catch her.
His hand felt warm, the water cool. Emma stared into his eyes, pinned to the spot by his strong, steady gaze. He moistened his lip with the tip of his tongue, and she realized she was simultaneously doing the same thing.
“I’ve got my balance; you can let go of me now.”
He took away his hand and with it the heat. Instantly, she felt cold.
“Could you hand me that towel please?”
He handed her the towel, his eyes eating her up.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The conversation was trite, but the exchange between them was not. Every bit of sexual energy she possessed snapped in the air from her to him. She wrapped the towel around herself, and they stood, their eyes locked. And if Myrtle hadn’t chosen that moment to come stumbling out of her tent, Emma couldn’t say what might have happened.
14
Chastity belt.
Trent couldn’t get over the fact Emma was wearing a chastity belt. He’d seen it up close and personal. Why was she wearing a chastity belt? The question had been driving him nuts all morning.
Trent grinned to himself. He’d like nothing better than to spring open that little lock—with his teeth.
She sat at the front of the raft as far away from him as she could get. He wished she wasn’t wearing that bulky life jacket and helmet so he could appreciate the sweet curve of her back, but whatever. He still had a good image of her in his mind, standing waist-deep in the water in the pale light of breaking dawn, her sheaf of wheat-colored hair brushing against her spine. He gulped. Felt himself harden again.
Okay, this was nonsense. He’d never been so out of control before. But Emma wasn’t just any woman. She was the first woman he’d ever had sex with. The first women he’d ever loved.
And ten years ago, he’d blown it. Big-time.
He still remembered the night they’d gotten arrested. The fear in her eyes. Her father’s anger when he’d come to spring her. The dark conversation her old man had had with him out of Emma’s earshot, telling him that his daughter was too good for bad boy riffraff like him. And Trent had agreed, never talking to her again.
He’d given in to his insecurities. Secretly, he’d thought the same thing as her father—that Emma was too good for him. She was smart and loved books. She’d been class valedictorian, whereas he’d been a C student at best. She had ambitions. He’d had no direction. Her family was upper middle class, and his family lived in a trailer park.
That same week, she’d learned she’d been accepted into Yale. He wasn’t going to college. He didn’t want to keep her from achieving her full potential, especially for a loser like him. It still hurt to remember how much pain he’d caused her, though he’d believed it was for the best. He closed his eyes, recalling how she’d slipped from her father’s house in the middle of the night to see him.
But when she’d tapped on his bedroom window, he’d cruelly told her to go away, that she’d been nothing more to him than a fling. She’d started to cry and then fled, and he’d had to fist his hands and bite the inside of his cheek to keep from going after her.
What was done was done. It had played out the way it had, and no amount of wishing or hoping could change it.
He steered the raft down the river and took a deep breath. He’d finally found peace here and he wasn’t going back to the city. Emma was a nice blast from the past, but that’s all she was. He was an outdoorsman from Colorado. She was a librarian from New York. You couldn’t get much more opposite than that.
So why was he so attracted to her? Why had he always been attracted to her?
He remembered the first time—hell, the only time— they’d made love, the night before the water tower incident. It had been in her bedroom on a weekend when her parents had gone out of town. Everything in her room had been decorated in pink and white, a frilly girl’s room. He’d felt completely out of place, his big masculine body in that girly bed. The riffraff mucking up Daddy’s little princess.
Trent moistened his lips as the old anxiety swept through him. His self-confidence hadn’t been this shaky in a very long time. Emma. Apparently, her love life hadn’t been so hot lately if she’d resorted to a chastity belt. Neither had his. He hadn’t had a real girlfriend in over two years. He’d had a couple of casual flings since then, and while they’d satisfied him at the time, he longed for more.
A longing for Emma.
Opposites attract.
She’d been the yin to his yang. He’d been spontaneous and athletic and aggressive. She was cautious and a couch potato and shy. Or at least she used to be. From the looks of it, she’d changed. He’d changed, too. More than he should, Trent wanted to discover all the ways she was different.
Leave it alone. She wasn’t for
you then, and she isn’t now.
Yes, he should just forget about her. Forget about anything more going on between them.
That’s what a smart man would do.
But when it came to Emma, Trent had never been smart.
The hours passed in a flurry of activity. They ran more rapids. These more strenuous than the ones they’d encountered before. This time, Emma had learned from her mistakes, and she did not end up in the water again.
They did some birdwatching with a pair of big binoculars that Trent had brought with him, taking turns looking for a rare bird that inhabited this part of Colorado.
After that, they went ashore to hike a small mountain, scaling up to ten thousand feet for a beautiful view of the river below. The panorama was breathtaking. They made camp in the mountains that night, no tents this time. Sleeping near the campfire, directly under the stars. Emma had never felt so free.
In the middle of the night, she got up to relieve herself. Beyond the campfire, it was pitch-black. She’d never seen darkness this complete. It took her breath and stilled her heart. She felt at once utterly alone and completely joined with the entire universe. The stars glowed like little beacons in the vast night sky. She gazed up and saw a shooting star so bright it made her blink.
Make a wish.
“I wish,” she whispered, “I could kiss Trent just one more time before I die.”
“That could be arranged,” came the sound of a deep-throated voice from the darkness.
Emma whirled around, but she couldn’t see a thing. She heard heavy footsteps crunching on falling pine needles and twigs, smelled the sharp bite of pine, tasted the crisp night air on her tongue, felt her heart stumble headlong down a rabbit hole of trouble. “Trent?”
“Still wishing on stars, huh, Emma. You always were a romantic.”
She could sense him more than see him. It was too dark to see more than a couple of inches in front of her face. And she could hear him breathing, rough and quick, matching her own erratic rhythm. “I...” She didn’t know what to say so she just kept stammering. “I...I...”