Chapter Four | FLINT #2
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” Sunny softened around the word, not enough to lose the teasing but enough that I felt it in my hands. “I like it when you notice I’m trying.”
The fire caught fast under the kindling.
Small flame, clean rise, no spit. I fed it just enough to build a bed of coals while Sunny unpacked her tote with the concentration of a woman preparing surgery.
Chocolate bars. Marshmallows. Graham crackers.
A small jar of fudge sauce. A tiny tin of flaky salt.
Metal skewers. Cloth napkins. A sealed bag of ice.
“You own travel salt,” I said.
“I own many salts. This is my wilderness salt.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is if you believe.”
“I don’t.”
“Then your s’more will lack emotional range.”
I sat on the low bench opposite her and held out my hand for a skewer. “Give me a marshmallow.”
She handed me one with grave seriousness. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”
“I won Round One with this.”
“You won Round One because nostalgia has a chokehold on America.”
“I won because I didn’t put leaves in cream.”
“Basil is an herb, not a leaf, and your stubbornness is showing.”
I slid the marshmallow onto the skewer. “Watch and learn.”
Sunny leaned back on her hands, bare knees angled toward the fire, yellow sandals planted in the dirt. The flames painted gold over her skin and caught in the copper of her hair. She watched the marshmallow instead of me for about three seconds.
Then her gaze moved to my hands.
I turned the skewer slowly over the coals.
“Your technique is annoyingly elegant,” she said.
“It’s patience.”
“It’s showing off.”
“It’s food.”
“It’s flirtation with a sugar puff.”
I kept turning the marshmallow. “You’re the one giving it a personality.”
“It deserves a rich inner life before you smash it into chocolate.”
The marshmallow browned evenly, puffing at the sides without catching. Sunny leaned in despite herself. Her shoulder brushed mine, and every useful thought I had took a step back from the fire.
I pulled the skewer away. “Chocolate.”
She put a graham cracker in my palm, then a square of dark chocolate. Her fingers brushed my skin. Brief. Deliberate. Not an accident.
I set the marshmallow on top and pressed the second cracker down.
Sunny accepted it with both hands. “If this is bad, I’m never letting you recover.”
“It won’t be.”
She took a bite.
Her eyes closed.
Her lashes lowered, her shoulders eased, and the fight in her face went sweet for one second before she caught herself.
I stared at the fire.
Not at her mouth.
Not at the bit of melted chocolate near the corner of it.
The fire was safer.
Sunny swallowed. “That is a very smug marshmallow.”
“I told you.”
“It’s simple.”
“That’s not an insult.”
“It’s simple,” she said again, slower this time. “And it’s good.”
I looked at her.
The firelight moved across her face, softening nothing, sharpening everything I’d been trying not to want. “That sounded painful.”
“Personal growth is hard for everyone.”
She lifted the s’more toward me. “Bite?”
“I’ve had one.”
“Not this one.”
She was challenging me.
I took the edge she offered. My teeth broke graham cracker. Marshmallow pulled soft between us before snapping back against the chocolate. Sunny’s fingers held steady under mine, but her breath changed. One small hitch.
The coals popped.
She looked at the s’more, then at me. “You’ve got chocolate on your thumb.”
“I’ll live.”
“That’s not the point.”
She caught my wrist before I could move.
I let her.
Sunny brought my hand closer and used her napkin to wipe the chocolate from my thumb with careful, exaggerated seriousness. It should’ve been funny. It was funny. It also made every muscle in my back draw tight.
The napkin missed a streak.
Her attention lifted to mine. “I can’t tell if you did that on purpose.”
“I didn’t.”
“Shame.”
She reached into the bag of ice, wrapped one cube in the napkin, and dragged the cold bundle over my sticky thumb.
I stopped breathing for a second.
Sunny smiled. “Useful?”
“Dangerous.”
“Same thing in a better outfit.”
I leaned forward and took the napkin-wrapped ice from her hand. “You’ve got some too.”
“Where?”
“Wrist.”
I touched it to the inside of her wrist, where a glossy smear of fudge had escaped. Her skin was warm from the fire. Her pulse kicked under my fingers.
Sunny didn’t move away.
“Flint.”
My name in her voice came out low and real.
I looked at her face. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“You sure?”
She shifted closer, her knees brushing my thigh. “I’m sure.”
I put the napkin down.
Her chin tipped up before I touched her. The last of my patience went with it. I slid one hand to the side of her neck, careful at first, giving her room to pull back.
She didn’t.
Sunny came to me.
The kiss started hot and got hotter fast, chocolate and marshmallow and her soft sound against my mouth.
Her hand gripped the front of my shirt, not gentle, and the bench creaked when I pulled her closer.
She laughed into the kiss, breathless, and that laugh tore straight through whatever control I’d been pretending to have.
I broke away just enough to breathe. “Sunny.”
“If you’re about to say something responsible, I need you to make it quick.”
“I want you.”
Her grip on my shirt tightened. “Good. I was worried this was a very intense food-safety demonstration.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I brushed my thumb along the side of her throat. Her skin went warm under my hand. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the competition.”
“No kidding. If this were strategy, I’d be wearing better lip gloss.”
“I’m not using the permit mess, the fire rules, or the fact that we’re on my land to push you into anything.”
Her expression changed. The humor stayed, but something underneath it opened. “I know.”
“I need to hear it.”
“I want to be here.” Sunny’s hand slid from my shirt to my jaw.
“I want you. Not because of cameras, not because Caprice sees dollar signs, and not because you saved the meadow from my allegedly criminal dessert. Because I haven’t stopped thinking about your hands since you caught my apron tie, and I’m tired of pretending this is about hot dogs. ”
Heat punched through me so hard I nearly closed my eyes.
Instead, I made myself stay still. “Protection?”
She held my gaze. “I have an IUD. I’m clean.”
“Me too. Clean. Nothing since my last test.”
A tiny smile threatened. “That was very practical.”
“I’m good at practical.”
“Then be practical about the part where I’m sticky, overheated, and running out of patience.”
I looked at the fudge on her wrist, the marshmallow on my knuckle, the open ice bag beside the tote, and the creek path dark beyond the cabin.
“Creek,” I said.
Sunny’s eyes lit. “That is either the best idea you’ve had or the coldest.”
“Both.”
“Grab a blanket, mountain man.”
I did.
The path to the creek dropped behind the cabin through lodgepole pine and brush thick enough to hide the whole world.
I carried the blanket and towel under one arm, the ice bag in my free hand.
Sunny walked ahead of me, flat sandals careful on the packed dirt, one hand skimming the brush when the trail narrowed.
“Private?” she asked.
“My land. No public trail. Camp’s nowhere near here. Crew’s gone.”
“Excellent. I’d hate to traumatize a hiker with my emotional range.”
“Your s’more already tried.”
“My s’more was vulnerable.”
The creek appeared between boulders, silver-dark in the last light. It ran cold and clear over stone, with a smooth bank tucked behind a stand of brush where the ground leveled out. I’d come down here after hard days, after calls, after any shift when my head needed water and rock more than words.
I’d never brought anyone here.
Sunny stepped to the water’s edge and slipped out of her sandals. “If I fall in, you’re not allowed to say one word about footwear.”
“I won’t.”
“You’ll think it.”
“Probably.”
“Honesty. Suspicious, but refreshing.”
She dipped one foot into the creek and sucked in a breath. “Holy tiny snow demons.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Sunny pointed at me. “That wasn’t supportive.”
“It was accurate.”
“It’s freezing.”
“That’s the point.”
I set the ice bag beside the towel, then shook the blanket out on the smooth bank. “Come here.”
She checked the blanket, then me. “That sounded almost like a command.”
“It was an invitation with poor phrasing.”
“Better.” She stepped carefully onto the bank. “Try again.”
I held out my hand. “Come here, Sunny.”
She put her hand in mine. “See? You can be trained.”
I pulled her in slow enough to give her every chance to tease, retreat, or change her mind. She did none of those. She rose on her toes and kissed me, cold creek water still shining on her skin.
This kiss was different.
No bench between us. No fire at our knees. No crew down the road. Her body pressed against mine, her hands already under the hem of my shirt, her breath catching when I lifted the fabric over my head and dropped it beside the blanket.
Her palms landed on my chest.
Her palms stayed there, warm and steady.
Her palms moved over my collarbone and ribs. When I lifted my hand to her hair, her thumb found the old mark on my forearm. She traced it without asking, just touching.
I covered her hand with mine. “Later.”
Sunny nodded. “Later.”
Then she tugged at the knot of her red top. “Help me before I make this look like a fight with a tablecloth.”
I laughed against her mouth and undid the knot.
The top slid loose. I lifted it over her head, and the last of the sunset caught on her bare shoulders, her freckled skin, the red bra that looked like she’d chosen it to win an argument no one else knew we were having.
I went still.
Sunny’s chin dipped. “If you say something practical about underwire, I’m leaving.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“What were you going to say?”
I brushed my thumb over the strap on her shoulder. “You’re beautiful.”