Chapter 16
chapter
sixteen
DAISY
I’m laughing. A big, full laugh that I can’t stop.
Which feels inappropriate given the fact that approximately twenty seconds ago I was pressed against a tree in the dark with Miles Adler’s dick inside me and his mouth on my throat.
But I do.
It started as a small, breathless sound that slipped out of me, well, as he slipped out of me.
He sets me down, and I lean against the tree and just lose it.
He looks at me, dark eyes wide—in awe or disbelief, I can’t tell.
His hair is mussed, glasses slightly crooked and fogged up, face still flushed in a way that shouldn’t make my stomach dip as violently as it does.
He doesn’t laugh with me at first, but then a corner of his mouth turns up, spreading across his face. And then we’re both laughing.
Miles’s pants are still around his ankles, and my leggings are nowhere to be found at the moment.
He finds them behind the tree. Still laughing, we both get dressed.
I’m pulling my leggings up when I notice Miles staring at me, not laughing anymore.
His stare is deep, like he wants to say something. My eyes meet his and he smiles again.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
My eyes narrow. “That was not nothing.” I bite my lip, which is a terrible idea because his gaze drops there like he can’t help himself.
His mouth opens. Closes.
Then he laughs too, soft and disbelieving, dragging one hand down his face. “Okay, that was kind of….”
“Earth shattering? Life altering? Something you didn’t think would actually happen?” I finish for him.
He cocks his head at me, like he didn’t expect me to say that. “Um, yes, exactly that.”
“Great, so we’re in agreement?” I pick my recorder up off the ground and start walking back along the path.
He laughs again, louder this time, and the sound moves through me with a startling little tug. Like my body has already memorized its wavelength. Like it wants to lean closer every time he gives me something real.
As intoxicating as it feels, it’s also deeply inconvenient.
When I asked him to go out for an interview, I told myself the objective was to burn off tension.
Not whatever this is, walking through the dark beside him with my shirt half tucked in wrong, my knees still unsteady, and his hand brushing mine every few steps as if gravity keeps forgetting we’re not supposed to touch.
With my background—and, okay, my own very enthusiastic participation—in the world of sex, I've explored just about everything except a few hard limits. I've never been shy about talking about what I like, what turns me on, or the psychology behind it.
But now I'm rethinking all of it. Because whatever happened between Miles and me wasn't about roleplay or performance. It wasn't pretending to be anything we weren't. It was something much simpler. More instinctive.
I think there's a piece of primal play I've been brushing up against without ever recognizing it.
It was about finally shutting off the part of my brain that's always narrating, analyzing, and wondering whether I'm doing it right or whether the other person is enjoying themselves enough.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn't performing or overthinking.
Whatever felt good, whatever felt natural, I just… went with it. Without question.
Now that I've experienced it, I don't just want great sex.
I want that feeling again—that complete surrender to the moment, where my body knows what it wants before my brain has a chance to get in the way.
It’s quiet as we walk, both of us processing in our own ways.
My mind is spinning, half replaying sex therapist interviews I’ve done over the years and half avoiding thinking too hard about how he smells like home.
Like home home, before my mom passed. Like laundry and cedar and warmth.
I don’t want those memories resurfaced, and I especially don’t want this man linked to them.
Attraction? Fine.
Lust? Been there.
Some emotionally destabilizing chemistry in the woods? Manageable.
But comfort? And feeling comfortable enough to let my guard down? To be in the moment and just feel it?
Comfort is precarious. Allowing myself to feel that comfort or safety feels like the least safe thing I could do.
Especially when that comfort arrives in the form of a six-foot-something conspiracy theorist with pretty brown eyes and an alarming tendency to say earnest things at full emotional intensity.
As we walk, I sneak a look over at Miles.
His hair is still messy from my fingers.
Glasses slightly crooked. Neck blotchy—there might even be a small amount of blood from a scratch or two.
His mouth is pink and ruined-looking in a way I refuse to unpack right now.
He looks over at me, then looks away as if I caught him.
A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth anyway.
Not cocky or smug, like most men I know would look, but almost shy.
Which feels ridiculous considering everything we just did to each other.
As we walk, the night settles around us, cool and quiet, the path silvered by moonlight. Our knuckles brush as if by accident. Except neither of us moves away right away.
The second brush happens a few steps later.
Longer this time. His hand warm against mine.
I glance over again. He’s staring straight ahead with the concentration of a man attempting advanced mathematics.
Jaw tight. Expression carefully neutral.
Like touching my hand requires active emotional regulation.
The realization makes something embarrassingly soft unfurl low in my chest.
“So,” He glances over finally, cheeks pinker than before. “I’m trying very hard to act normal, and I’m realizing I no longer remember what normal feels like.”
I laugh harder, a helpless sound that echoes a little through the trees.
“I have no idea what you mean,” I say, feigning innocence with a laugh. His shoulder brushes mine.
Accident or not, I feel it everywhere.
Then, like he’s testing something fragile, his fingers brush mine again. Pause. Then his hand turns slightly. An offering, as if he’s asking. My heart trips over itself. God, this is stupid. This is risky. This is warm.
I let my hand slide into his. His shoulders loosen so subtly I almost miss it. A tiny exhale escapes him. Relief. Like despite everything, he still wasn’t sure.
And for some reason, that gets me. His thumb shifts once against my hand, tentative and absentminded all at once.
“You know,” I say carefully, “for someone who hunts mythical creatures…”
His mouth twitches.
“Yep?”
“You seem weirdly nervous.”
This time, when he smiles, it reaches all the way into his eyes.
“I am nervous.”
“Why?”
He glances down at our hands.
Then back at me.
And suddenly this thirty-something man looks younger somehow. Like there’s nowhere for him to hide.
“Because,” he says softly, “I really liked tonight. Maybe too much?”
Something warm blooms through me before I can stop it. Those simple words are more vulnerable than anything that happened back in the woods.
“I really liked tonight, too,” I say quietly.
His smile goes soft. So soft it almost hurts to look at.
For a second, neither of us says anything.
We just walk. The night presses close. Crickets sing somewhere in the brush.
A low breeze drags through the pines, cool against the overheated skin at the back of my neck.
Hands tangled together like maybe neither of us quite knows what to do with this yet. But neither of us is ready to let go.
As the trailhead opens up, the RV comes into view through the trees, a soft block of shadow and faint yellow light. It’s silent and hulking, monitors dark now, the whole camp tucked into that strange suspended quiet that comes after everyone has finally stopped performing competence for the day.
Miles slows before we reach the clearing.
I slow with him.
For a second, neither of us says anything.
Then Miles turns to me, and all the laughter fades into something softer.
“Come sleep with me.”
My heart does something stupid. Not a little flutter. A full, dramatic, romance-heroine collapse against the nearest fainting couch.
I blink at him. “Excuse me?”
His eyes widen. “Sleep. I meant actual sleep. I mean, obviously if you wanted not to sleep, I’d be extremely enthusiastic about that option too, but I was trying to be normal.”
“You were trying to be normal by inviting me into your twin-sized bunk three feet below mine?”
“Yes.”
“The bunk in the RV with the six-inch foam mattress?”
“Yes.”
“The bunk that’s literally surrounded by the coworkers we need to keep this—” I gesture between us—“a secret from?”
His mouth twitches. “Okay, when you say it that way…” His smile softens. “Come on. It’s late. Everyone’s asleep. We’ll wake up before them anyway.”
I glance toward the RV.
Toward the narrow windows. The dim outline of curtains. The people inside who have no idea that the team lead and the podcast girl just crossed a line so thoroughly there is no uncrossing it.
My chest tightens.
“Miles.”
“I know.” His voice is quieter now.
I look back at him. “Let’s keep this between us.”
His jaw shifts once. “I know.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
“I can’t become the girl who slept with her source, especially on her first big project outside of the studio,” I say.
He presses a hand to one of his temples. “And if anyone thinks I’m making calls based on you instead of evidence, the whole thing falls apart.”
“And I don’t want anyone thinking I’m here just because of you.”
Something flickers across his face—understanding, maybe. Or guilt. Or that careful, tender thing he does when he’s trying not to make me feel handled.
“You’re here because you’re good, Daisy. And because you ask the right questions.” He pauses, then chuckles. “And because I trust that you won’t make me out to be another redneck in cargo pants.”
I narrow my eyes. “The cargo pants are an issue.”
“I wore them one time. They have pockets.”
“So does a backpack.”
“I need field pockets.”