34. Now
34
NOW
Jack pushed a jade green fern out of his way, turning and holding it back so it wouldn’t snap into Brooke’s face. She reached for it, her fingers warm where she touched his hand, her eyes locked on his. “Thanks.”
He should be taking photos, but he couldn’t concentrate on composition when his head was so full of Brooke. She’d been looking at him like that all day. He knew that look—it used to pass between them all the time.
He could remember the exact temperature his body would heat to in the middle of class when she’d turn those sky-blue eyes his way, darkened to the hazy gray of a storm on the horizon. And he knew exactly what that storm meant. It meant Brooke laid out on his bed, his mouth on every inch of her skin. Somewhere along the trail her fuck-you eyes had turned to fuck-me eyes and Christ he wanted to oblige.
Jack whipped back around, his heartbeat wild, and kept walking toward the secluded cabin his friend had offered when they’d been in search of accommodations the night of the storm. No Nat and Cat, no Australian backpackers. They’d left every one with big goodbye hugs and exchanged emails as they each planned to finish the trail on separate routes.
And now he and Brooke were alone, and he had no idea how he was going to handle the night with her looking at him like that. He couldn’t do a trail hookup, couldn’t survive touching her only to lose her again.
Although, Jack was beginning to think that was only the half of it—that he couldn’t survive her walking away at the end of the trail no matter what passed between them. But the way she’d kissed him in the bothy gave him all sorts of ideas about exactly what that could mean.
He wanted her, of course, had been burning up with her so close yet just out of his reach. But it wasn’t only the physical release he craved; it was what it would mean: forgiveness, a path forward. A future. His hopes were rampant, but he could tell Brooke needed time and he wouldn’t do anything to make her feel pressured.
The pace was too fast, his knee was throbbing, but he couldn’t stand the anticipation. Jack trudged down the narrow dirt path, trying to notice the twittering birdsong or the dimming daylight or the low clouds heralding rain.
The cabin came into view, tucked into trees on the rise of a hill like a hideaway. When Jack reached it and opened the door, he cursed under his breath. Inside was even more romantic than he’d pictured. A bookshelf towered against the back wall, round lanterns on the top. A small pine table and low chairs with blankets thrown over the backs sat in the corner, an old fireplace with a black stovepipe behind them.
In the front of the room was an enormous white bathtub on a raised platform, looking out the picture window to the rolling green hills and the small blue loch below.
But Jack barely took in these details, because all his attention was on the king bed tucked under the enormous skylight. The white comforter was covered with a pearly blanket at the foot and a mountain of pillows at the head. He pictured walking Brooke backward, swiping away the pillows, laying her down.
There might as well have been rose petals and towels folded into swans on the bed. Jack scrubbed a hand over his face. He could not be having thoughts like that. So what if there was only one bed here? It was significantly larger than the bothy and certainly bigger than Brooke’s tent. They’d feel like they were a continent apart.
But it wouldn’t matter. He’d still feel every shift as she slept, every sigh, every breath.
If the bed didn’t look so damn delightful and his bones didn’t ache so much, he’d consider taking her tent and sleeping outside, away from this torture.
Brooke dropped her pack with a groan and leaned it against the exposed log wall. “Do you mind if I rinse off?” she asked. Jack took in the glass shower. Christ . There couldn’t even be a shower curtain? Forget all-inclusive couples retreats in Mallorca; this place screamed intimacy and he struggled to drown out the call.
“I’ll get the fire going,” he said, crossing the room and crouching in front of the wicker basket of wood, his knees popping like fucking glow sticks. “And then I might use the tub to soak my knee. We’ll just… We’ll face away from each other.” His voice was more than a little coarse. Jesus, he wasn’t going to make it through the night.
“Okay,” Brooke said, a lightness in her tone that sounded an awful lot like amusement.
Jack got the fire roaring in the old fireplace, the reflection of the flames licking up the sides of the glass windows. Outside, the daylight was fading into the muted glow he’d gotten used to. The clouds turned shades of tangerine and candy-floss pink and cast a matching stain across the light pine floorboards and the white of the bed.
The steam of Brooke’s shower was already floating in the air but he didn’t need anything more than the sound of running water to confirm her whereabouts. Keeping his eyes resolutely on the ground, he crossed to the tub and turned the water on.
Christ, must it really be a glass shower? Brooke would be turned away from him—he knew that—but the idea of undressing for the bath with her eyes on him made him unbearably hard. He tugged his shirt and undershirt off in one go, feeling a prickle of her attention as if it clung to the stretch of his back muscles. He pulled off his socks and then unbuttoned his hiking trousers, letting them fall from his hips before tugging down his boxer briefs, picturing her in the shower, water flowing across her skin, watching him strip naked before her.
He climbed into the bath, hissing at the heat and sinking in slowly. The tub was easily big enough for two and Jack shut out the mental image of Brooke joining him. When he looked out the window into the valley below the house, the swaying grasses, the heather, and the loch at the bottom of the hill, he could make out a blurry outline of Brooke’s movements in the reflection. Even though he shouldn’t, it didn’t stop him from pleading with the sky to darken, to turn the window opaque.
Jack ran his hands over his face, the hot water soothing. He tipped backward, his shoulders hitting the cool porcelain, and he slipped below the surface of the water. When he came back up, he pushed his hair out of his face and rested his elbows on the edges of the tub.
The shower shut off and Jack stopped breathing. The door creaked as it opened and closed and he pictured Brooke wrapping herself in a towel. He tracked the pad of her footsteps, sure the sound was getting closer and also sure that was only his hopes carrying him away.
But then Brooke stood in front of him, water skimming down her calves, the material of the white towel hitting at midthigh, cinched at the top around the round slope of her breasts, hair dripping. The setting sunlight clung to her skin. She fairly glowed.
Jack looked up into Brooke’s eyes and her pupils were blown wide.
“Are you still offering that shoulder massage?”