Chapter 19
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
ALLY
E ventually, we both ran out of excuses.
I’d eaten three s’mores, which was two s’mores more than I’d ever eaten in one sitting in my life, and I felt a little sick to my stomach. Clay had stopped after two, claiming he didn’t want to open a new package of chocolate, but he was probably just as ill as me.
The fire had died down to a few lonely embers, which made the air around us much colder. We’d have to put another log on the fire if we had any chance of continuing to brave the elements, and there was no reason to do that when the whole point was to put the fire out.
So I watched as Clay scooped up the dirt and small rocks he’d piled nearby and dropped them on the embers. For a moment, a rogue flame shot up, somehow enthused by the dirt dousing. “You sure you don’t have kindling mixed in with that dirt?” I asked.
“Reminds me of a time Shane and I went camping as kids and did exactly that. Our dad told us to scoop some dirt on the dying fire. To a couple of kids, that meant throwing the closest dirt pile on top and getting inside our tents.”
“Uh-oh. Tell me you didn’t burn down the Smoky Mountains.”
“No, but about an hour after I went to bed, I opened my eyes and saw the fire had kicked back to life and was blazing in the firepit. In the middle of the forest with no one watching it. I started screaming and kicked out of my sleeping bag, unzipped the tent, and ran out barefoot. And there was my dad watching from inside his tent.”
“Why didn’t he just put the fire out himself?”
“Because then I wouldn’t be a stickler for fire safety twenty-five years later.”
“Smart dad.”
“Yup. Still is.”
I made no move to get up, content to sit out here a while longer if it meant getting to know Clay bit by bit in the darkness. As he stood and stretched his arms toward the sky, his shirt rode up, exposing some nicely defined abs and a light trail of hair. I couldn’t tear my eyes away, wondering where it led and how it might feel to touch. “I’m gonna feel that pack in the morning,” he said.
Leaning toward me, Clay extended a large, strong hand to help me up. Grasping it, I flashed back to the litany of tasks I’d watched Clay’s hands perform over the past few hours—hefting logs like they were lightweight sticks, commandeering rope to throw over tall branches, tossing vegetables in a frying pan like a master chef.
With each grip of his hands on the equipment, my brain registered and added up his skills one by one. And each time, I felt something.
At first it was appreciation for all the things he knew how to do and seemed to take for granted. Appreciation for how different wilderness Clay was from the musclebound Clark Kent who darted around campus and let people think he was disinterested in relationships. I’d gone along with it too, assuming that what I saw was all there was to him, even if I knew better than to judge a book by its cover.
And when the cover looked that good, reality felt like even more of a betrayal.
But now, with my palm firmly in his grip, I felt something entirely different. It was electric. My hand felt gripped by flames hotter than the ones we’d just doused with dirt. The heat crawled along my skin and begged me not to let go.
I wanted him to touch me everywhere, and it wasn’t until that moment that I really, truly realized how completely fucked I was agreeing to share a tent with this man when nothing would or could happen between us.
And it wouldn’t. I knew that.
I also knew I’d lie awake for most of the night trying not to accidentally wrap my body around his.
“I guess we should hit the hay.” Clay’s pronouncement pulled me from my thoughts.
“Um, yeah. And I should brush my teeth, make sure a bear doesn’t come find me and kiss the marshmallow off my mouth.”
Clay’s jaw went slack at the suggestion. I swallowed hard, then cleared my throat, searching for something else to say. I found nothing.
We walked in silence toward the bear boxes, our path lit only by Clay’s headlamp, which bounced light over the grassy terrain. After stashing the s’mores supplies in the box, along with my toothpaste and toothbrush in the small Ziploc of toiletries I’d brought, Clay secured the box and gave it a fierce rattle. “Seems bear-proof to me.”
“Ha. I’m pretty sure a determined bear could rip through the metal if he was hungry enough.”
“No doubt. But at least this’ll keep a bear busy so he won’t come nosing in the tents.”
We began walking toward the lone tent opposite from the student tents, where it sounded like a house party was happening. “Do we need to tell them to quiet down?” I asked, fairly certain it would be a futile effort.
“Nah, let ’em go. They’re not bothering anyone out here, except maybe the animals. And that’ll just keep them far away.”
“In that case, they can scream all night.”
He laughed, and even though I’d heard the sound before, in the quiet empty space of our campsite, it felt more seductive. Hotter. Like a siren song, luring me to a place where panties were incinerated on contact.
I was losing my mind. This was just a normal night. He was just a teacher. A colleague. Jefferson’s dorky friend. The hottest man I’d ever spent time with.
The tent looked forlorn sitting in its small clearing among the trees. And also perfect. A charming home away from home, which made me question yet again why it had taken me so long to conquer my fear of the outdoors.
And here, now, I had a whole new host of fears and none of them had anything to do with camping.
Clay unzipped the front of our tent and gestured for me to climb inside. “After you.”
I crawled into the tent, then flipped around so I was sitting down with my feet sticking out. I leaned forward to unlace my boots. While I worked on the double-knotted laces of the first one, Clay crouched down and began unlacing the other.
I felt my face heat as I watched him carefully untangling the knot with his long fingers and tucking his large hand under the heel of the boot to wrench it off my foot. When I’d finished unlacing the other, he grabbed it and easily pulled it off too.
Not wanting him to see my flushed cheeks, I scrambled inside the tent and moved toward the back wall. Clay’s large form joined me a moment later, sitting in a similar position as I had while he took off his own boots.
When he scooted back and zipped the tent closed, the tension in the small space ratcheted up a million or so degrees. Pressing my back so hard against the tent wall that I risked tearing the fabric, I still couldn’t bring myself to look at Clay. His presence was so strong I felt overwhelmed.
Clay placed his flashlight under a white shirt, giving the light a muted glow. What had I been thinking, saying we should share a tent? I’d slept in these tents at Clay’s house, and I knew they were barely big enough for one person, let alone two.
Maybe you want to be in close quarters with him.
Well, sure. Who wouldn’t want to be in close quarters with this hunk of Clay? But could I handle the swarm of butterflies in my stomach and the raging libido he unleashed? Doubtful.
“Alexandra.” We were only a couple feet apart. Clay wasn’t speaking loudly. But the tent had an echo chamber effect, which meant his voice came at me from all sides, the lilt of his Tennessee drawl coating me like a pour of warm pancake syrup. I shuddered unconsciously.
“Yes?” I asked, looking anywhere in the tent but at his face. I busied myself smoothing out my sleeping bag and maneuvering it so my head would be as far away as possible from Clay’s while we slept. As if I’d be able to sleep with him so close by.
“Look at me.”
Tipping my head up only enough so I could see him through my eyelashes, I told myself I had complete control over my reaction to him. I could look at him without feeling a lurch in my gut, right?
Wrong, wrong, and triple wrong.
His chiseled features had dissolved into a look of concern that creased his forehead and removed all traces of his smile. And somehow he appeared even more beautiful. No one had ever gazed at me like that, even my parents, and I knew empirically that they loved me. This was something different, and my body responded to its magnetic pull. I was powerless to resist him, and as much as it thrilled my senses, it annoyed my brain.
He’s just a guy, a colleague , I told myself in what was becoming a truly useless refrain.
Reaching with a steady hand, Clay tipped my chin up with the knuckle of his index finger. Chills raced over my skin. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing. All good,” I said, my voice crackling like the fire we’d just extinguished. And now the damn hottie was lighting a new one. I forced a yawn. “I’m just super tired. Probably should get some sleep.”
He let his hand drop to his lap, and I felt suddenly cold. But that was a good thing. Keeping my distance, I shoved my feet into my sleeping bag without taking off my socks, and shimmied into the warm cocoon until I could barely see Clay. I heard him rustling around at the opposite corner of the tent, and I assumed he was loading himself into his own sleeping bag.
More rustling. And a few jerky movements. He wasn’t settling down, and after another minute, I became curious enough to peek over the edge of my purple sleeping bag, only to find Clay sitting cross-legged, rummaging through several small nylon sacks he’d taken from his backpack.
Cue tiny orgasm from organizational porn. The man had everything sorted in small bundles, and I couldn’t help but stare as he opened one and removed a long-sleeved tee. He then reached for the neck of his fleece and pulled it off, along with the shirt beneath it. My jaw went slack at the sight of his naked torso, all carved into muscular bas-relief like a granite sculpture. His abs flexed as he folded—folded!—his fleece and packed it into the small sack.
When he pulled on the long-sleeved shirt, I let out an exhale of thanks for taking mercy on me. Apparently, it was a loud exhale. Clay looked up, so I quickly buried myself again under the top of the bag.
“Alexandra,” he said.
“Yes?” My voice was muffled by three inches of down and nylon.
“Is this going to make you uncomfortable?”
“This?” I sounded like a squeaky bird.
“Sharing a tent. I really don’t mind sleeping on the ground. You can have the tent to yourself.” He gestured around as though he was highlighting the spaciousness of a villa instead of a tent spanning four square feet.
His words hit me like a shovel to the back of the head. I was being ridiculous. It was just a few butterflies, and I was the strong, capable sort of person who could talk them down. Mind over matter.
“No, no. You don’t need to do that. Head to feet, we’re all good.”
But we weren’t all good because he didn’t slide his feet into the sleeping bag for another ten minutes, during which time I snuck more looks at his flexing biceps while he organized more small sacks of camping items. He changed out of the socks he’d been wearing all day and put on a fresh pair, reminding me I’d shoved my dusty, socked feet into my bag and now I’d have the pleasure of sleeping that way.
Unfurling a pair of sweatpants that he’d rolled into a tidy bundle, Clay glanced in my direction. I hunkered down in my bag, wondering if he was about to take his pants off in the tent. Instead, he opened the tent, tossed a thin camping towel onto the ground outside, and stepped out. I could only see him from mid-thigh downward, but when he dropped his hiking pants, I caught a shadowy view of some very muscular runner’s legs before he stepped into the dark blue sweatpants and crawled back into the tent.
My heart clenched the moment he zipped the tent closed and I realized how small the space felt. I began to rethink my insistence that this would be fine. Was it me, or was there suddenly less air in here?
Finally—finally—he slipped his feet into the sleeping bag and stretched them out toward my head. His own head was about as far away from me as it could be without sticking out of the tent.
Clay fished the flashlight out from the corner and flicked it off. The darkness provided its own kind of relief because I could no longer worry about catching sight of Clay. But then I had a different problem—hyperawareness of his every shift and movement, which I could feel because our sleeping bags had no distance between them.
It was so quiet for such a long time that I assumed Clay had fallen asleep instantly.
I was making a mental note to ask him in the morning how he managed that, when he shifted in his sleeping bag and started talking.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You comfortable?”
Was I...what? In a list of words to describe my state of being, “comfortable” would round out the very bottom.
I’d been lying there for fifteen minutes, stiff as a wooden plank, trying to breathe quietly and stay on my side of the tent. My muscles were so tense and tight that I’d make an excellent soldier, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Not to mention that there was a rock or a pinecone underneath the tent, and no matter how I positioned myself, it kept jabbing me in the back.
I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh. “Um, not really. I was afraid to move because I thought I might wake you.”
His laugh joined mine. “Oh, thank God. Me too. I’ve been waiting for you to fall asleep so I can exhale.”
“Impressed that you can hold your breath for fifteen minutes.”
“I am a runner, you know.”
I heard some shuffling in the dark, and a moment later, the flashlight popped back on, muted by the same white shirt. It gave the tent a warm glow under the low green ceiling.
“What are we gonna do?” His voice was a low grumble. Sleepy and deep. Almost intimate.
“I don’t know. Tell each other ghost stories?”
Still inside the sleeping bag, I sat up, finally relieved of the pesky rock. I rubbed my back. “I was so busy telling all the kids to check the ground for rocks, I somehow neglected to do it myself.”
“There’s a rock under you?”
“More like a shard.”
He sat up. Now we were facing each other, only a foot of space between us. Then he started scooting toward me. “Here, switch places with me.”
“No, I’m not making you sleep on a rock.”
He was already moving toward me like an inchworm, but in the cramped tent, there was no way for him to get past me without contact. Before I knew it, he’d picked up the bottom half of me, still in the bag, and propped my legs on his lap. Then he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and swung us both around until he was sitting in my former half of the tent, and I was in his.
But he didn’t let my legs go.
Acutely aware of his legs beneath mine, I stopped breathing momentarily.
When I glanced up, his gaze was bearing down on me. In the dim light, I was close enough to see gold flecks dance in the hazel of his irises. His muscled arm wrapped me up in heat. I let out a shaky exhale and felt him do the same.
Unconsciously, I leaned forward, drawn in by him. I wanted to memorize the details of his face in case I never got this close again. He tipped his head down slightly. Now we were mere inches apart, and it would take only the slightest movement for one of us to close the gap.
Clay’s lips looked soft, and I fixed my gaze on the corner of his mouth that crooked to the side the way I always liked, as though he was fighting a smile.
I felt his exhale as though it were my own. When he rolled to the side, I wanted to roll with him. Instead, I lay frozen in the dark, afraid of moving a muscle lest I inadvertently climb on top of him.
Finally, Clay settled down and seemed to find a comfortable sleeping position because he stopped moving and I could hear his even breathing.
I started to shiver. It made no sense because my sleeping bag was plenty warm, but I knew it had nothing to do with being cold. The proximity to Clay was making me tremble with anticipation that something was about to happen. We could ignite ten campfires with the sparks shooting between us.
Then Clay turned abruptly, and my eyes locked on his. I watched them heat, irises turning a deeper color, pupils dilating.
“What’s happening right now?” he asked.
“I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“Why are you nervous? It’s just me.”
“Exactly. It’s you.” I didn’t know what I was saying. And then again, I knew exactly what I was saying. It was Clay, the man I’d fantasized about for half my life, even as I told myself nothing could ever happen between us. I’d used him as the cautionary tale, convinced myself I was better off staying far away from the greyhound who’d never stop moving.
But that wasn’t the guy I’d seen over the past couple weeks of spending time together. And the man I was getting to know now had my insides melting. He had me wanting things I’d convinced myself never to believe I could have.
I wanted those things. And I wanted him.
I couldn’t say all of that to him, not when we were chaperoning a group of students, not when telling him how I felt made me feel intensely vulnerable, not when I couldn’t be sure my feelings would be reciprocated. Easier to chicken out. “I guess I just...I don’t know.”
His head fell forward, almost in defeat. “Ally...” The growl of his voice in the small space sent a cascade of chills down my neck. “Why do I make you nervous?”
Bunching up a wad of sleeping bag in my fists, I exhaled a long breath and closed my eyes. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. His proximity made me nervous. The heavy air between us. The simplicity of moving a few inches closer and feeling the warmth of his body.
The inescapable pull of him. The electricity I felt sizzling in my chest, daring me to lean closer, take a whiff of him, touch his skin.
And yet...I still had a chance to reel it back. Or at least diffuse the situation. Despite spending half my life trying to convince myself I didn’t flat-out want Clay Meadows to kiss me, I could admit the truth now—at least to myself. But I didn’t have to admit it to Clay.
Had I learned nothing from my mother—and my father? Had no wisdom lingered after my failed relationships to convince me that I was better off on my own?
I wished I could believe it. I wished the romantic in me still didn’t wish to be proven wrong. I’d always imagined someone like Clay—or Clay himself—making a case for the fantasy. Proving I could have the fantasy I secretly still dreamed about.
“I think I’ve changed my mind about the fantasy.”
He flinched almost imperceptibly. Eyes heating. Losing their color to a molten darkness.
My heart thundered in my chest like an entire orchestra woodwind section. I moved closer to him, near enough that I felt the heat of him, saw the pulsing of his heart in his throat, felt the sharp inhale of breath.
“Ally . . .”
A warning I ignored.
“Yes?”
His hands flexed and he looked around the tent before his eyes returned to me. Boldly, I leaned in a little more. Our faces inches apart. My nerves raking my skin with goose bumps.
I heard him draw a shaky breath. “I can’t have you this close to me and not kiss you.”
I swallowed hard. “So kiss me.”
He didn’t. He stared, eyes searching mine for something—a sign I didn’t mean it? A reason to back away? There were plenty.
“Goddammit.” A growl mixed with a curse. The snap of tension.
He yanked me toward him. The nylon shell of my sleeping bag swept along the floor of the tent as he reduced the space between us to zero.
The feel of his lips against my jaw was sensory overload. His breath was hot against my skin, one hand slipping along the side of my face and into my hair.
He kissed my jaw, my cheek...finally my lips. His mouth was soft, tentatively tasting, exploring without being insistent.
This was the first time I’d experienced Clay moving like he wasn’t in a hurry. The first brush of our lips turned into a languid, slow burn that made me moan for more.
I licked Clay’s bottom lip and his mouth opened, fusing with mine. Our tongues found each other and tangled mercilessly, impatiently.
Clay tasted delicious, a faint hint of campfire, chocolate, mint from his toothpaste. And as my hands roamed up the hard planes of his chest and wrapped over his shoulders, I felt my heart contract in my chest. Blood rushed hot through my veins.
This was the side of Clay I’d wondered about all these years and never had the temerity to believe I could have. Not that I really had him. This was pure lust and opportunity. Of course I knew that.
But it didn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy every minute of it.
Until Clay abruptly pulled away, looking a little surprised. Almost like he’d forgotten I was there with him.
“I’m sorry. I . . . shouldn’t have done that.”
“You didn’t. We did. I’m here too.” I wanted to be clear on that because that kiss was very consensual.
He looked at me, and I watched his eyes trace the contours of my face, warming my cheeks as his gaze rippled across them, making my lips ache to be touched when his stare finally landed on them. Hot, wanting. “So you don’t feel cornered?”
I’d been so certain he and I were on the exact same page, his words downright baffled me. “Cornered? No. Not at all.”
“You’re sure?”
“Clay, stop being so polite.”
“Ally...” His voice was low, gruff, aggravated mostly with himself. He shook his head slowly. “If you knew the things I crave when it comes to you, you’d never accuse me of being polite.”
“Try me.” It was a challenge, and his eyes grew darker, molten.
The next kiss was more intense, slower, dragged out as Clay’s tongue tasted every part of my mouth. His teeth came down on my bottom lip, and I let out a quiet moan. He soothed the skin with his tongue.
His forehead tipped against mine and we both steadied our breath. My cheeks felt flushed, and I left my eyes closed briefly to soak in the lingering imprint of Clay’s lips. When I blinked my eyes open, I saw softness in Clay’s eyes coupled with firm resignation in his jaw.
“We can’t do this. Not here.”
“I know.”
It was crossing every line of proper chaperoning, and my thoughts immediately turned to our responsibilities. I backed away from Clay until I was pressed up against the nylon of the tent. It felt damp from the chilly evening air, but I needed to cool myself down.
“But...we’re only here til Sunday.” The gruff insinuation of what might happen after Sunday sent a zing of awareness through my body.
“Sunday.”
Clay nodded and reached for the hiking boots he’d stashed in the corner of the tent. Roughly shoving his feet in, he unzipped the tent and pushed both feet outside. The brisk air hit me, bringing me back to my senses.
“I’m going to check on Jayne, make sure the Tylenol is working to keep her fever down.”
“Good idea.”
He zipped the tent closed, and I exhaled the remaining air from my lungs. My fingers went to my lips, tracing them and recalling the feel of Clay’s mouth over mine.
When Clay returned a while later, I’d rearranged our sleeping bags head to foot and was slithered down in mine, my back to the wall of the tent. Plenty of room between us. No chance of accidentally touching him.
“All okay?” I asked.
“She’s good. Try to get some sleep,” he said, shucking off his boots once more and zipping the tent shut.
“Will do. G’night, Clay.”
“Sleep tight, Ally.” Clay shoved his feet into his sleeping bag and zipped himself in. Then he settled in and stopped moving. After a while, his breathing evened out and I imagined he’d fallen asleep. I spent another good hour reveling in the proximity of him, even if I knew nothing could happen between us on this trip. Just the feel of him kept me awake, delighting in how it felt to kiss him. Until I dissolved into dreams of the same thing.