“Don’t start.” He nudged her shoulder. Must have caught her by surprise, because she almost toppled over in response, saved only by his hand on her arm.
“An attack!” she cried, all dramatic as if they were in a film.
“It’s not my fault your balance sucks.” He pulled her up again. Actually, he sort of . . . picked her up a bit, and settled her between his legs. Now his thighs bracketed hers, her back resting against his chest. She was close enough that he could smell the floral stuff she put in her hair over the smoky sweetness of toasted marshmallows, close enough that her body heat seared into him like a brand.
Perfect.
“All right,” he said, trying to sound authoritative. “Now, you start.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Were you teased at school about your name? And, you know, your hair and everything?”
“Yeah.” He wrapped his arms around her like he was a fucking koala and she was his forever tree. “I got some shit at school—who didn’t?—but it never bothered me. My mum gave me this name. She told me it’s a good one. And her hair’s a hell of a lot redder than mine, but I always thought she was the prettiest lady in the world, so I didn’t care what people said about the color.”
The crackling of the fire and the rustles of the forest reigned for a second; they even heard someone whooping in the distance. Then Chloe said with a smile in her voice, “Well, that’s incredibly sweet. I mean, I already knew you were a mama’s boy—”
“Whoa, now. I’m a what?”
“Red,” she said patiently, “you have the word MUM tattooed on your hand.”
He grinned and ran that hand through his hair. “Yeah, well. You don’t have any questionable tattoos? No, of course you don’t.”
“I don’t like pain, remember?”
“And you don’t make fucked-up decisions like me.” When she twisted her head to frown up at him, he winked and kissed her cheek.
It didn’t change the frown. “You don’t make messed-up decisions,” she told him sternly.
“Chlo, we just went over this.” He waggled his tattooed fingers and raised his eyebrows. When she laughed, the sudden tightness in his chest faded. He was all light again. “Okay, now it’s my turn. What do I want to ask?” he murmured thoughtfully, as if he wasn’t fucking bursting with questions about this woman. As if he couldn’t spend hours lost in a Chloe rabbit hole of wondering. “Since we’re talking about awkward childhood moments . . . when was your first kiss?”
She laughed. “Who says I was a child? Maybe my first kiss was at twenty.”
“Was it?”
“No.” Her voice was bright and glittering now. He could hear her smile even if he couldn’t see it, his gaze too busy alternating between marshmallow watch and the electric-soft texture of her hair. Then her head dropped back against his shoulder, and he got a front-seat view of her carefree smile and the sparkle in her eyes. Everything turned Button-pink like Cupid had just shot him in the arse. “I was sixteen, at a house party with one of my friends. We played truth or dare and someone was dared to kiss me. It went quite well, I suppose, because I spent the rest of the night with my tongue down his throat.”
“See, this is where I’m going wrong. I’ve got you answering questions when I should’ve been offering dares.”
She slapped his thigh. “You don’t need to dare me to kiss you.”
“Well, in that case,” he murmured. He put his hand on her belly for no reason other than he liked its warmth and its curve and the fact that it was Chloe. He bent his head, brushed his lips over her cheek, and the feel of her was like the sweetest possible punch to the gut. This was all it took; one taste, and his hard-on was probably jabbing her lower back. But she didn’t seem to mind, because she tangled her fingers in his hair, yanked him closer, and pressed her lips to his. For precious, perfect seconds, her tongue slid, tentative but demanding, into his mouth. Everything was as intense as her midnight eyes, delicious as her thighs, urgent as the way he needed her.
Then she pulled away, and said, “My turn.”
Slightly dazed, he murmured, “Uh. Right. Yeah.”
“Do you like your website?”
He blinked, then burst out laughing. “What do you mean, do I like it? Didn’t you see my seventy fucking texts?”
She’d sent him a link to preview the current design just yesterday, during their day-long virtual conversation. And, even though there was apparently still technical shit for her to do, he thought everything looked perfect. Just . . . perfect. So much so that if he thought about it for too long, his chest got tight and all his hope and gratitude made a lump of not-so-impossible dreams in his throat.
“There weren’t seventy texts,” she said. “More like five. But I know you’d hate to hurt my feelings, and texts are easy to lie over, so—”
“Hey.” He held her tight, gathering her closer against his chest, nudging her chin until she met his gaze. “I don’t lie to you. Okay? I just don’t.”
She rolled her lips inward, but that couldn’t hide her smile. “Okay.”
“I love it.”
“Okay. Can I ask another question?”
He arched an eyebrow. “I thought we were taking turns?”
Her expression turned pensive. “Maybe this question isn’t part of the game. I wanted to know . . .” She seemed to gather up her courage in a single breath. “I wanted to know what happened to you in London. What happened to your career.”
Ah. He looked up at the canopy of trees and the night being born above them, stars glowing into view like a thousand bright-white candles.
“Marshmallow’s burning,” she said softly.
“Oh, shit.” He came back down to earth, yanked the latest marshmallow out of the fire and stared at the smoldering blob. “Uh—”
“It’s fine. I’ll still eat it. Will you answer me? You don’t have to.”
But he would, because he loved her.
The thought froze him for a second before he sank into it like a feather bed. Before it became the comfort that helped him figure out how to speak. He loved Chloe. He loved Chloe like a blank canvas and a finished piece and all the exhilarating, painful, stop-and-start moments in between. He loved Chloe like tearing through the night on his Triumph, feeling alive in motion when he couldn’t feel alive inside. He loved Chloe like every glare she shot him was a kiss and every kiss she gave him was a breadcrumb-sized piece of her heart in his hands.
He pushed the length of her braid aside and kissed the back of her neck, soft and vulnerable. The last time he’d put his mouth on her, all of five minutes ago, he hadn’t known he was in love. He wondered if she’d feel the difference. Probably not. Because he had a feeling he’d been kissing her with love for a while, even if he hadn’t noticed until now.
“Red,” she murmured, regret chiming sharp, because she thought she’d hurt him.