Chapter 23 Sadie
“Sadie?”
Thorn’s quiet voice cuts through the predawn half-light and the dark, dreamless sleep I must have eventually settled into.
I shift under his arm, which is still draped over me, and turn to face him. I feel instantly compelled to touch the scruff of his jaw, to plant a trail of kisses down his neck and see how the contrast of skin and stubble feels under my mouth.
“Yeah?” I reply instead, just as quietly.
“Still want to go see the sunrise through the waterfall?” he asks. “No worries if you need more sleep.”
I do need more sleep.
I doubt I’d be able to sleep again, though. And I really, really want to see Thorn’s secret cave.
“Let’s do it,” I say.
I use my toes to fish my pajamas out from the bottom of my sleeping bag and shimmy into them without so much as a nip slip. Thorn and I make our way over to the waterfall pool—
And realize the flaw in our plan at the exact same moment.
“How are we supposed to get to the cave?” I ask, eyeing the pool of water and the cascading falls at its far side.
Clearly, the answer is that we’ll need to swim across fully clothed.
It’s already warming up, thankfully, but I don’t exactly care to know what the breeze feels like while soaking wet.
Thorn’s gaze shifts across the landscape. The waterfall pool spills out into a winding creek—while there’s dry ground on the other side of it, I don’t see any way to get there without getting wet.
“It’s not terribly deep, I don’t think,” Thorn finally says. “Maybe waist-high? It’s calm today, at least, pretty good conditions. There’s a crossing farther down the creek, but if we backtrack, we’ll miss the sunrise.”
He glances at the horizon behind us—the sunrise is imminent, from what I can tell—and then back to me.
I must have a strong please don’t subject me to an ice bath vibe at the moment, because his features shift from perplexed to determined as he makes a snap decision.
“Okay,” he says, kneeling down. “How about this?”
“You’re going to pray for a Red Sea situation?” I ask, imagining the waters parting down the middle, because the only other thing I can think of that he’d be doing in that position is proposing—and it’s definitely not that.
“Or,” he replies, grinning, “you could get on my shoulders?”
Oh. Right.
He’s so tall, and I’m so not, that he has to crouch over just a little more so I can climb on. I settle onto his shoulders and tuck my feet behind his lower back to make sure I’m locked in; he wraps his arms around my legs to help me feel extra secure.
Thorn’s skin prickles with goosebumps as soon as we’re in the water.
As soon as he’s in the water, anyway. It comes up to his hips, a fraction of an inch below my toes. He takes steady, confident steps; I feel his core stabilizing as we make our way across.
“A little looser?” he grits out.
Only now do I realize my thighs are clamping his neck like a vise.
I ease up, but my butt shifts in the process—and for a single, slow-motion moment I fear I’ve altered his center of gravity in a way that’s going to leave us both submerged right here in the middle of the pool.
With one quick flex of his shoulders, though, we’re back on track. He edges us just to the side of the waterfall—it’s so loud, this close—and bends down so I can step off him and onto the rocky ledge.
It’s a clumsy dismount in which he gets a face full of my pajama shorts, possibly even a glimpse at the strawberry-print underwear I have on just underneath. My cheeks are on fire, as is the rest of me.
“I—um. Sorry about that,” I manage.
His hair is disheveled, entirely my fault, and there’s something new in his eyes: a hunger I haven’t seen in him before.
He hoists himself onto the ledge and then holds out his hand for me.
I take it, winding my fingers with his, and follow his lead.
His shoes leave wet footprints all along the rock as we slip behind the waterfall. Sure enough, as promised, there’s a small cave, a semicircle no more than six feet deep. The waterfall crashes, its cascade like warped glass separating us from the outside world.
We don’t waste a single second.
Thorn’s hands are in my hair in a heartbeat, his mouth on mine, making up for everything we couldn’t do last night now that we’re tucked away in private. His kiss is hot and hungry, an electric surge lighting me up all over; his touch is a fire that I can’t get enough of.
His hands make their way down to my hips, and in one effortless motion he’s lifting me, my legs curling around him.
I pull him in as close as we can get, only my pajamas and his wet clothes between us.
It’s that day in the lake all over again, except now he backs me up against the smooth rock of the cave wall—
And I can’t get enough: of him, of his body against mine.
His mouth moves from my lips down to the curve of my neck. I bury my hands in his hair, watch as the first rays of morning sunlight turn the cascading waterfall into the most incredible kaleidoscope of sunbeams dancing all over the cave floor.
It’s so beautiful, everything about this moment.
It feels like waking up after sleepwalking for months.
It feels like stumbling out of darkness into a cathedral made entirely of stained glass.
I must gasp, or sigh, or something—Thorn pulls away, looks right at me. “Everything okay?”
“More than okay,” I tell him. I can still feel him on my skin, his soft lips and rough stubble. I nod to the light; it feels like something I shouldn’t keep to myself. “Look how pretty it is.”
When he turns, his whole face is bathed in sunshine.
But then he looks back at me, gaze skimming from my lashes to my lips and back up again, and says, “Very pretty.”
My cheeks heat up. I’m just about to lean in for another kiss—but the sound of voices, so close they could be just outside the cave, brings both of us back to reality in an instant.
“We should probably—” I say at the same time he says, “Is that Zoe?”
I uncurl from around him, set my feet back on solid ground. If anyone were to walk in on us right now, they’d know immediately what we were just doing—it’s written all over our faces.
Now the question is, how do we get out of the cave without advertising to everyone that we were in here, just the two of us, alone together?
“I didn’t think anyone would be over here this early,” Thorn says quietly.
Something snags my memory. “Did Zoe say she wanted to do sunrise yoga?”
Even if she didn’t mention it, she’s been incredibly dedicated to her daily practice.
“Guess we’re going to yoga,” Thorn says with a grimace. “And if anyone asks…we just wanted to do a little ‘exploring’ this morning?”
I slip out of the cave first, and sure enough, Zoe and Trey and Emma are all present.
Trey and Emma are distracted with each other, splashing around near the waterfall—flirtatiously, I might add—and Zoe is preoccupied with how they’re delaying what she clearly thought would be a punctual start time.
Watching them, it occurs to me that I’m still suspiciously dry—and not only that, but I’m not going to be able to ride on Thorn’s shoulders to get back across.
I dip a toe in the water.
It’s definitely on the cooler end, so I ease myself in only as far as I have to. Emma and Trey are so wrapped up in each other they don’t even glance my way.
Zoe notices, though. I can see her trying to work it out—where I came from, how I managed to slip past her—when her gaze darts to a spot behind me.
I turn to look, and there’s Thorn, standing directly under the waterfall, arms skyward and eyes closed as it cascades over and around him. A moment later, he steps out from underneath it, running one hand through his hair to shake off the excess water.
In my very objective opinion, he’s never looked hotter. I can’t stop staring.
“Anyone else see the cave back there?” he says. “It’s pretty cool if you want to take a look.”
This, finally, snaps Emma and Trey out of their little flirt bubble. I can read their heart eyes from here: they seem intrigued, probably for the exact same reasons Thorn and I made a point to “explore” it.
“Later, people!” Zoe calls out, arms crossed. “Yoga first—caves some other time.” She trains a pointed look on me, then Thorn. “Sadie? Thorn? You’re here for yoga, too?”
Oh, Thorn is going to love this.
And I am genuinely going to love watching him go through it for the second time.
“Of course,” Thorn says, doing an impressive job at sounding at least a little enthusiastic. “Why else would we be here?”
He meets my eye the second Zoe’s back is turned, and I bite down on a laugh. Whatever torture she’s about to put us through—and I suspect said torture will be significant—this morning was entirely worth it.