“Do you like it here?” he asked, aware that the answer actually really mattered to him. He’d hate to think that she was going to skip out of town in a couple of months.
“I do,” she said thoughtfully. “More than I thought I would. I like the people and the slower pace. I like the trees.” She stumbled on the rough trail and grinned. “Well, I like looking at the green trees from afar and I like the idea of a tree in the yard of a pretty little house. I’m not sure how I feel about the forest here swallowing me whole. The verdict is still out on that one.”
“If you’re going to stay, you should get a better car.” Imogen’s car downright offended him, and she wasn’t safe driving around in that rattletrap.
She smiled. “Maybe. I hadn’t intended to stay here more than eighteen months.”
That meant she would possibly be leaving after Christmas, then, and he didn’t like the thought of that at all. Hell, they’d just gotten started on this whatever it was they were doing. He wanted to follow it and see where it could go.
“Charlotte’s a nice town,” he said, instead of saying anything he really wanted to, because it was too damn soon in their relationship and he would look like a total jackass if he let her know that he was already thinking beyond another night together. That he was thinking maybe they could try on dating, for real.
“Yes, it is,” she said simply.
He let it drop, knowing he would say the wrong thing if he continued the conversation.
After ten minutes of silence, Imogen was starting to huff and puff a little as they walked down the path, their boots crunching on the sticks and other debris. Ty felt a little guilty for the long hike, but then without warning, she stopped walking and just looked around her. She turned in a complete circle, gazing up at the sky, before closing her eyes and breathing deeply.
When she reopened her eyes, she was smiling in wonderment. “God, Ty, it really is beautiful, isn’t it? Everything is so verdant and alive, the sky so crisp and blue, the smells so unusual and fresh. Even the air feels different. Damp. Earthy. Thank you for suggesting this.”
She was beautiful. She was verdant and alive, unusual and fresh. Damn, if he wasn’t struck a bit dumb by the sight of her standing there glowing with curiosity and appreciation for the world around her. “It’s a pleasure to share it with you,” he said. “And if I wasn’t hauling twenty pounds on my back, I’d show you how much more pleasurable it could be.”
Imogen laughed, and the sound sent birds scattering from the red maple behind her. The sunlight that streamed in between the canopy of leaves danced across her face, and her eyes sparkled.
Ty had no words to describe how she looked, how he was feeling.
And suddenly the meaning of the quote he had memorized from Much Ado About Nothing became clear.
So he said to her, “‘Silence is the perfectest herald of joy.’ ”
Imogen’s laughter died out and her hand curled into a fist on her chest. “What did you say?”
“‘Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.’ ”
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Act Two, Scene One. Claudio describing his joy in being with Hero.”
“It definitely suits how Ty feels about being with Emma Jean right now,” Ty said, shrugging off his heavy camping backpack and dumping it on the ground. The hell with it. They’d get to the site eventually.
Her eyes widened and she made a sound in the back of her throat. “That . . . that. Oh, my. You . . .”
It seemed he wasn’t the only one having trouble finding words. Ty closed the distance between them, took the cooler out of her hand, and set it on the ground. Then he pulled her into his arms with more passion than finesse and took her mouth beneath his.
“I’ve been thinking about your lips all weekend,” he told her, kissing her over and over, hauling her as tightly up against him as he could manage.
Her response was to grip his shoulders and kiss him back, dipping her tongue inside his mouth to flirt with his. They were plain old making out, fast and furious, and Ty wanted to feel more of her, all of her, wanted to bury himself inside her right there on the trail.
He loved that sound, the moment when her breathing shifted, when it went ragged and hot and desperate, the sound that told him he could take and she would give. Glancing around, Ty eyed the nearest tree with a large, wide trunk.
“Turn around,” he told her urgently, popping the button on her jeans and unzipping them. “Walk to that tree.”
“What? Why?” she asked, but she did it, wiping her moist lips and swiveling her hips in a seductive invitation.
Ty followed her, hell, stalking her, and when she reached the tree and started to turn back toward him, her mouth open to question, Ty just took her and pushed her back against the tree trunk, his hand slipping down into her unzipped jeans at the same time he claimed her lips again. He closed his eyes on a rush of lust, the feeling hot and wet in his mouth, just the way she felt beneath his finger when he slid inside her. Her moan sighed softly past his ear, and Ty started tugging her jeans down.
“What are you doing? You can’t be serious,” she said, even as her hands lifted over her head and braced against the bark. She was still wearing her backpack, and it caused her chest to arch out toward him, a temptation too great to pass up.
Ty sucked her nipple through her shirt as he finished shoving her jeans and panties down to her knees.
“Wow, you are serious, aren’t you?” she asked, sounding completely scandalized, yet oh, so turned on.
Raising his head, he said, “Yes, I’m serious.” He used one hand to unzip his own pants and release his erection, and the other to stroke her slick inner thighs.
“Oh, Ty, yes.”
Yes was right. She felt so good wrapping around his fingers, he wanted his c**k in there. “Spread your legs for me.”
He loved that Imogen didn’t protest or demur or act like she didn’t want it just as much as he did. She just turned her knees out and dug her nails into his shoulders and waited for him to fill her.
Which he did.
They groaned in mutual pleasure. Ty paused for a split second, to torture himself, then he stroked in and out of her, hard, fast, pounding at her, in her. He felt out of control, desperate, consumed by the need to take her, to make her scream his name in the woods.