Chapter 3
Savannah
There was little to be done. Despite Darcy’s assurances that we’d be sharing a tent and Jesse would stay with Knightly, my red and black six-person sleeper was a-rocking when I arrived back from the campground’s communal bathroom, my toothbrush still in my mouth.
Thin nylon was a terrible sound barrier, and there was no mistaking the noises that were coming from inside.
I hoped they’d left my sleeping bag rolled up in the corner at least. That thing was a bitch to dry clean.
I had two choices: sleep on the ground, not a rare thing at The Gorge Amphitheatre campsite but also not comfortable, or I could ask Knightly if I could squeeze in with him.
Strictly speaking, I was single, but nothing would happen anyway.
It had been two months since Bryce and I had broken up.
What he would have called amicable, I would have called inevitable.
I had been on two dates since then that had gone nowhere, and I’d made out with a guy at the bar after last call.
Climbing into the tent with Knightly didn’t have to mean anything.
Since the day we’d met, all I’d gotten from him was the same harmless flirting he did with every woman aged twenty to forty-five.
I wasn’t special, and I wasn’t at risk with him. Knightly was my friend. We had been close for almost two years and we had never crossed that line. It was fine. Totally and completely platonic.
No preamble, I unzipped his tent, catching him flat on his back with his phone in hand. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and my eyes caught on his bare chest before snapping back up to his face.
“Bana? What are you doing?” Resting back on his elbows, he quirked a brow at me, ever the flirt. “Come to keep me warm, finally?”
“Your sister and Jesse are, um—” I grimaced, waving my hand in the air. His eyes widened and he sat up straight, the sleeping bag falling into his lap. He was either only wearing his underwear or his pants were very low slung.
“Oh, oh.” He stuck out his tongue and fake gagged. “That’s disgusting.”
“Can I crash here? I don’t want to sleep on the ground, and I don’t know how long they’ll be.”
I didn’t want to mention that in the almost two years since Darcy and Jesse had started dating, I’d become very familiar with their noises and knew that they fell asleep naked after round three.
Something I could have gone my whole life without knowing, but thin walls made for close roommates, I supposed.
“Yeah, come in. Here, take my air mattress. I can crash on Jesse’s sleeping pad.” Together, we glanced at the sad excuse for a cushion that Jesse had brought. By the looks of it, it was an old yoga mat.
I settled into his sleeping bag, still warm from his body heat.
In the dark, I could barely make out the shadow of him on the other side of the tent, tossing and fumbling to get set up.
After five minutes of him grunting and letting out dramatic huffs, I squinched my eyes shut, already regretting the words about to leave my mouth.
“Get over here. There’s room for two, and it doesn’t feel right to take your air mattress and leave you with—” I motioned in the inky darkness. “Whatever that sad excuse for padding is.”
Not having to be told twice, Knightly crawled over, pulling the blanket down and climbing in beside me.
I had slept beside men before; I’d had a boyfriend for years, a summer fling with an older boy between junior and senior year of high school, and a whopping two one-night stands.
But this was wholly new. Waves of heat were coming off him as he shifted beside me.
The mattress and the blanket were big enough that we didn’t need to touch.
This was fine. I was fine. I couldn’t smell his shampoo at all or sense the way his long leg sent sparks into my core when it brushed against mine.
Totally fine.
Outside the tent, the parties were winding down. The show had ended at eleven, but revelers still made their way into the adjoining campground to funnel cheap beer and sing the songs of the concert.
“I can’t believe Darcy kicked you out. Of the two of us, who knew I’d be the honorable one?”
“I’m sure if I knocked, she would stop, but, you know, then there’s the knowledge of what I interrupted and the smell and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I don’t need a painting of the situation. It’s bad enough knowing it happens.”
Horns were honking in the distance as the line of cars leaving the amphitheater slowly crept toward the town of George, Washington. Someone turned on hip-hop from my middle-school days. A breeze blew through the open mesh window, and I tensed before pulling the blanket up higher.
“Come here.” Knightly wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me into his body. “It’s warmer this way.”
“It’s eastern Washington in July. It’s warm enough.” Still, I wriggled closer, my butt resting on his thigh as I ducked my head into his other arm laced under my neck. “Are you sure this is okay? I can find another tent if—”
His face fell into my hair, and I was sure this time that he was inhaling my scent. Or breathing. He might be a loud breather. “No, you’re warm and you’re here already—”
“And you’re delirious.”
“Drunk off the scent of you, Bana,” he whispered next to my ear, and I rolled my eyes in the dark of the tent.
When I woke the next morning, I felt the long lines of Knightly’s body pressing against me. His arm was slung low over my hip and his face was buried in my hair.
Had he moved once during the night?
Oh, my god.
We had slept beside each other all night
Turning slightly, I studied his face in the yellow-green light filtering through the tent. Dark stubble adorned his jaw, the sun catching the little bits of red on the spot near his ear. He looked peaceful.
His scent was all around me, on the pillows, the shared sleeping bag, in the early morning air.
Clean and woodsy, the same notes that had lingered on his skin every day of the past two years of our friendship.
Even after a long day of outdoor concerts and camping, it was still as potent as when I would snoop through the shower at his apartment.
I had shared a bed with Darcy, with my friends from high school. In camp. But those had been girls. And despite how attractive I found the actress Ivy Halloway, sleeping beside my friends had never left me with this sensation.
No, the way his hand rested possessively on my hip, the comfort of his breath on my skin — those were for lovers.
I had woken like this countless times with Bryce, but something about the way Knightly held onto me felt heavier.
More. It was something sweet and dense and complicated, and I couldn’t quite unravel the knot growing tighter in my belly as he slumbered beside me.
In the silence, I could take him in. The long, lean shape of his limbs, the strength of his touch. The thick bones of his wrist and the dark mole above his veins. Idly, I traced my fingertips over his hand, the little scars from his summers working construction.
They were just hands; I had seen plenty over the years, nothing special or unique about them, but still.
They were powerful, and now they rested on my skin.
As my finger brushed over his knuckle, he inhaled loudly, a ragged sound.
I shifted slightly and rolled over onto my side to face away from him.
I didn’t want to be caught ogling him in his sleep.
How embarrassing would that be? As I moved, his arm tightened around me and he let out a low, sleepy sigh, the deep vibration of it sending little sparks between my legs.
Allowing my eyes to close, I wiggled slightly against him, trying to find a comfortable spot.
A huff of warm air tickled my cheek as he nestled his nose into the crook of my neck.
At my back, his chest was rising and falling at an even pace.
He was still asleep and none the wiser to the way we had tangled together in the night.
I really should pull away; a minute of half-awake spooning was one thing, but I certainly wasn’t sleeping now. If I let this go on any longer, I’d start to want his hand on my bare skin, and then where would those thoughts lead—on my breasts, down my underwear, using his fingers on...
Oh, that was not a figment of my imagination. My eyes flew open. A large something was stiffening against my ass as he held me, hard and warm.
The smart thing to do, the right thing, would be to pull away discreetly. There was no need for both of us to be embarrassed by what was natural when a man woke up. This wasn’t in reaction to me, I was sure. It was friction and hormones and whatever men had racing through them to cause this.
I wanted to be disgusted. That would be rational. He was my friend, one of my best friends, really, so why was I thinking about his dick in such explicit terms?
Yes, one more minute and I’d get up, and I wouldn’t mention how right he felt nestled behind me and how warmth was spreading from my core through my body into the top of my toes, a sizzling sensation under my skin.
Two more minutes, and then I could claim plausible deniability. If I just held still, he might think I was still asleep.
Only, my hip was a little tweaked out, so I needed to stretch a bit, and yeah, maybe that had me rubbing my ass against him for a moment, arching my back to ease the twinge.
It was for comfort. Nothing else. The way we were pressed together meant that my movement was infinitesimal; it would hardly be noticed.
But then Knightly, still breathing softly, pressed forward. And I was flooded with a sense of longing that ripped the air from me.
My body seemed to be completely disengaged from my mind. I moved against him, grinding myself slightly on his now fully erect cock. A thin layer of our clothes separated us, not enough to stop any sensation.
Gently, I rocked into him once, twice. Knightley’s breath stuttered briefly and his arm tightened again, keeping me still as his hips canted upward, dragging that bulge against me.
Oh, what that cock might feel like with nothing between us. If those strong hands pulled my pants down just enough, if those fingers cupped me in the place that was pulsing with emptiness... I didn’t need to turn around and see it to know it would fill me in a way no other man could.
Knightly’s breath grew heavier, his erection harder.
His warm hand stole underneath my shirt and splayed across my stomach.
The drag of his fingers over my bare skin was rough and right.
We were both undeniably moving against one another now, but slowly, dreamlike.
Plausible deniability still in place if we didn’t face each other.
Then, his hand tensed against my skin. A deep inhale and then a ragged exhale fluttered through my riot of curls. A long, filtered silence stretched as his fingers dug into my soft flesh before relaxing slowly. I missed his touch before he had a chance to pull away.
“Fuck.” His voice was sleep-coated and gravelly, so quiet I felt it more than heard it. The push of warm air heated my neck as he mumbled slightly louder, “Sorry.”
Knightly’s arm slid off my waist as he rolled over, the phantom of his presence raising goose bumps on my skin. I fought the urge to grab his hand to keep him there. To touch me. Want me. Keep me.
Instead, I rolled over on my back, wiggled away, and, after sucking in the dry desert air, was able to shoot him a wry smile. “I guess we forgot who the other one was while asleep.”
His hair was ruffled, a section of those dark, thick strands standing straight up.
It wasn’t fair that he was so handsome after sleeping on the ground.
I was sure I looked like a gremlin that had been electrocuted.
That warm brown gaze shifted over my hair, my eyes, my nose, my lips, and for a second down at my chest, where my tank top strap had fallen from my shoulder.
Then he blinked a few times as if to clear the sleep away and gave me that careless smile. “Yeah, something like that.”