Chapter One
Aria
Twelve years ago
I slip through the woods on silent feet, my heartbeat louder than the cicadas buzzing and clicking in the trees.
It’s almost too dark to see the trail, I don’t have a flashlight, and being out of my cabin after lights out and on my way to meet a boy are both major camp handbook violations. If I’m caught, I’ll be kicked out. My mom and dad are on the Arts Council board, but not even that will spare me the ultimate punishment.
The staff here are really intense about following the rules.
And staying in bed after lights out.
And not kissing boys.
Or girls.
They frown—hard—at all varieties of kissing and displays of affection.
I should turn around. I really, really should.
I don’t want to be sent home. My friends are here, camp means another four weeks away from my bratty little sisters, Lark and Melody, and I’m having the time of my life sketching and painting and experimenting with new mediums during our five hours of daily art classes.
I love camp Arts Under the Elms. I love it like I love deep fried Twinkies at the fair and staying in my pajamas all weekend, and I wouldn’t put my future here at risk for anything.
Anything except him.
Nash Geary.
Just thinking his name is enough to make my blood fizzy. He is by far the most delicious boy I’ve ever met—taller than the other boys at camp by at least five inches, built like a contestant of an ancient Olympiad, with moody green eyes a shade lighter than mine and a silky Georgia drawl I can feel whispering over my skin like warm summer rain.
He is flat out, no holds barred, drop dead drool-worthy.
Every girl at camp had her eye on him the first day, but by the time we walked through the dinner line to pick up our burgers and hot dogs, Nash had made it clear he only had eyes for me. Me, the girl with the messy hair and skinny legs.
Not that I’m a complete wallflower.
I’ve dated my fair share of boys—especially considering I’m not allowed to go on car dates until I’m sixteen—but I’ve never been with someone as close to a full-grown man as Nash. I mean, I’m no dog—my skin is pale, but clear, and my hair finally darkened to auburn after a decade of impersonating an orange construction cone—but no matter how much I eat, I stay scrawny. And, shame of all my shames, I barely fill out an A cup.
Meanwhile, Nash is six foot four, muscled all over, with hands big enough to wrap all the way around my waist, and an air about him that practically screams “I know my way around vaginas.” I would bet my snow cone hut voucher tickets for the entire summer that he’s gone all the way with at least one girl, maybe more.
At first, I sort of wondered what he saw in me, a girl who still looks like a twelve-year old if I make the mistake of forgetting to slip the padding into my two-piece swimsuit.
But then we started talking and things just…clicked.
Within a few hours, we were cracking jokes like old friends, making each other laugh so hard we snorted Coke out of our noses, all over a watercolor I wasn’t even sad to lose because being with Nash was so much fun. By the third day, we were taking long walks during our free time after dinner—chatting about our lives back home and school and the bands we like and which paintings make our brains tingle. And by the fifth day we were stealing kisses behind the mess hall dumpsters before lights out.
And what kisses they were…
Just thinking about them makes my nerve endings hum and my feet move faster along the path, already anticipating the tingle inducing kiss waiting for me in the clearing where Nash is meeting me tonight.
Kissing Nash is heaven and hell all tangled up together, enough to make my soul light up with joy and my body ache with a hunger that’s almost painful.
But…deliciously painful.
Until now, I’ve only really been into kissing. It’s hard to get interested in much more in the back row of a movie theater or under the bleachers after school, and it’s not like any of the guys I’ve locked lips with were all that great at it.
But now…
Now I want Nash’s big hands to slide beneath my tee-shirt. I want to explore every inch of his skin with my fingertips, until I’ve memorized him so well I can sculpt him in ceramics class. And I want him to do the same. I want him to touch me wherever he wants, do whatever he wants, because I know anything I do with Nash will feel amazing, and so, so right.
It’s only been three weeks, but I’m ready for him to be my first. I can feel how much he cares about me, and I’ve never been so completely gone on a guy. In my secret thoughts, I used to imagine growing up to have a string of gorgeous lovers, each one more dashing and dangerous than the last. But now a part of me wonders what it would be like to find “the one” the first time around.
To spend my life with only one man…
When the man in question is Nash, the possibility doesn’t seem boring. Not in the slightest.
I shiver as I reach the edge of the clearing and a large shadow separates from the darkness. A beat later, Nash’s voice rumbles through the trees, “Hey. There you are.”
“Here I am.” I grin, skipping the last few steps off the path and into his arms. He picks me up with a happy moan that vibrates through my bones, and then he kisses me, long and deep, until my breath is coming faster and that delicious hunger rises inside me again.
“I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind,” he whispers against my mouth as his hands wander down to cup my bottom through my shorts.
An electric jolt surges through me in response.
God, he makes me crazy, so wonderfully, crazily crazy. “No,” I say, clinging tighter to his shoulders. “I just had to wait until Molly fell asleep. She was reading in her bunk forever.”
“I’m so glad you’re here. I missed you, and I’ve been dying to be alone with you.”
“Me, too,” I breathe, threading my fingers into his soft brown hair. “So much.”
We kiss for another long minute, or maybe a hundred minutes. All I know is that soon my head is spinning and my chest is aching and I feel like I’ll die if I don’t get more of him.
All of him.
I pull away, sucking in a ragged breath. “Did you bring something?”
“Something?” he echoes, his breath coming faster, too.
“Something…just in case.”
“In case…”
“In case we want to do more than kiss,” I whisper, my nerve endings buzzing.
I can’t tell if I’m nervous or excited or both, but I’ll feel better once I know we’re protected. I’m ready to be with Nash, but I’m not ready to be a mom. Not for a decade. Or more. Or maybe ever. There are so many adventures to be had and most of them don’t pair well with caring for an infant.
“Yes ma’am,” Nash drawls in that silky voice of his. “I brought a blanket from the storage room. It’s over here.” He takes my hand, drawing me deeper into the shadows.
As my eyes adjust, I make out the rectangular shape of a dark gray camp blanket spread out on the grass. Nash sits, guiding me down onto the blanket beside him and rolling me beneath him with a calm assurance that makes my blood pressure spike.