My subconscious registered the monotonous high-pitched chirping that echoed over and over, but my foggy brain did nothing to stop it.
“Ugh, what’s that noise?” Amy groggily asked into my chest.
It took a full minute for logic to kick in and for me to respond, “My alarm.”
“Please make it stop.” We were under a thick blanket, wrapped around one another, and naked as the day we were born. We were also hungover as fuck from polishing off three bottles of wine. “Nate,” she whined. “My head is killing me.”
In slow motion, I fumbled for my pants, found the cell, and silenced the annoying thing before repositioning her in my arms.
Jesus, what a night.
After she rode me in the Jaguar, we compromised. I tried the whole fishing thing and had to admit that what she’d caught and cooked wasn’t half-bad. But it needed to be said: the decent food that I’d bought came in handy, since the fish was no bigger than a guppy.
On her end, Amy agreed to sleep in the car. We creatively shifted the front seats forward, and with some persistent shoving, we managed to get the mattress into the back. Surprisingly, it was very comfortable, a cocoon of sorts. And even more important, I felt safe. But then Amy had to go and ruin it by mentioning the possibility that a bear could still come sniffing around and would feel bad if it scratched up my car.
That was when I cracked open the wine.
Remembering us laughing our asses off caused me to smile. Remembering fooling around most of the time caused me to harden.
“Hey, as long as we’re up”—I twisted, using my cock as an enabler—“we should fuck again.” I shamelessly humped her thigh while sucking on her neck. I wasn’t worried about being seen by any ambitious hikers who might saunter by, since we’d successfully fogged up all the windows. Of course, the Jag rocking back and forth as it had last night would be a dead giveaway.
“Mmm… but I have to pee first,” she said, making no motion to move.
“Outside?”
“Um… yeah.”
“What if Yogi came back?” I reached above my head and wiped away some of the condensation before craning my neck to see if the coast was clear. “I don’t want you mauled to death.”
“I really don’t have a choice. It’s not like I can crack the front door and pee out of it while my scaredy-cat ass remains safe inside the car.”
“Jealous much? Besides, I’d rather be a scaredy-cat than have a bear feasting on my junk.” And I planned to do it that way again, although we eventually would have to get out of the car. My backup alarm sounding meant it was now 5:00 a.m.
“Jesus, you get up this early every day?”
“Yep. First, I work out at Max’s gym, and then I head to the office. Speaking of, I need to call. Not showing up today would have my assistant phoning the FBI.” When I lifted my cell, intending to leave her a message, there was no signal while the ominous low-battery icon blinked. “Shit. Where’s your phone?”
“In my bag.” She yawned loudly but then went still.
Smacking her ass, I nudged, “Jersey. Come on. I need your phone.” Another groan came before she moved at a snail’s pace and reached across me into the front seat. Her tits pressed into my chest, her bare ass poked out from beneath the quilt, and my cock grew even harder. “Christ, you’re killing me.”
Having no sympathy at all, she shoved her phone into my chest. “Here.”
When I pushed on the side button, the screen lit, but although she did have battery life, it was the lack of a signal that stopped my call. “Shit. We need to get out of here.” I powered off her phone to save what was left of her battery until we got on the road, where I’d be able to charge mine and get cell service.
This wasn’t how I imagined our day to begin, or for it to start so early. But I came, I camped, I impressed… somewhat. “Change of plans. We’ll spend the rest of the day at my place.”
However, her head swaying back and forth meant otherwise. “We need to break down the campsite first.”
The thought of packing all that equipment up without a carafe of black coffee to get me through it made me want to die in that car. “Can’t we leave it for someone else?” I had no problem taking the monetary loss.
That caught her attention. “No, we can’t leave it for someone else. You’ll be fined.”
“How much is the fine?” She looked up at me as though I’d lost my mind. “What?” Hell, I’d pay as much as I paid for her date to not have to deal with it.
“You’re a spoiled brat. Come on. The quicker we do this, the quicker we can find a greasy diner and get much-needed coffee.”
But when she began pulling on underwear, I griped, “Wait… so does that mean we’re not fucking?”
It had taken us less than an hour to pack up the car. We then had a quickie in the front seat, because he absolutely refused to do it outside, before hightailing it out of there. Nate was worried that we were pushing our luck with bear karma. Personally, I would’ve loved to have seen one, but all we ended up seeing on our way out of Panther Lake Campgrounds were a few squirrels and a stray cat.
We hit the main road, and Nate immediately plugged in his phone to call his office. I then checked mine and powered it back up to be sure no one had tried calling me. My phone began pinging with text notifications and a missed call from last night, all from Janis. It was too early to call her now, and I wasn’t in the mood.
In search of food and coffee, after no more than five minutes on the road we came across a roadside diner.
“The Dirty Dish… how bad can it be?” Nate asked.
“You may end up getting salmonella after all,” I responded with a casual shrug.
He threw me a frown before pulling into a parking spot and cutting the engine. “Well, I’m starving, so we’re taking our chances. Don’t move.” When he got out of the car, thinking he was going to run in and scope out the joint, he instead came to my door and opened it for me.
I grabbed my purse and took his outstretched hand. While internally swooning, I couldn’t resist teasing him. “What’s this about?”
“My mother raised me right,” he countered with a wink, and the swooning morphed into spinning. In fact, since waking up, all I’ve been doing was spinning. And it had nothing to do with the hangover plaguing me. No, it was all him.
As we walked hand in hand toward the entrance, round and round I went. I’d been stuck in a vortex of emotions because of a man who’d barreled into my life and messed me up. By planning this little getaway, one he clearly had no experience for, he’d managed to heighten the confusing emotions to epic levels. As flummoxed as I was, at least I’d been able to externally maintain control… or so I thought. But now, as he fed my doubts no different from a category four hurricane traveling over warm seas, I struggled to not lean into him and whisper those three little words.
Instead of that being a revelation, it felt more like a curse. Because just as I had expected, it no longer mattered when we would end; the damage to my heart was now irreversible, and no bandage could patch it.
What was it, two weeks, maybe three, since I had recognized the precipice of no return? I was right there, with my toes kissing the edge of the cliff. While looking down, I knew once I moved one more inch, I’d be gone. So what did I do? I moved that inch like a lovesick idiot.