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Casey had no idea what time they’d finally collapsed in a heap, exhausted, but the light still woke her early. It was a gray morning but she was hopeful that the low fog would burn off to make for a clear night of fireworks. The birds were starting to twitter. Ben’s arm was heavy around her, holding her close.
She wriggled out of his grasp and climbed out of bed. Had all that really happened? She looked over at his sleeping form. His hair hung in his eyes and his dark-brown stubble had filled in since the previous night. He was even more gorgeous as he slept, his face soft and untroubled. It made him look younger, although the beginnings of a beard added a few years, with the rough, grizzled touch of the backcountry that turned her on so much.
The thought of his stubble made her recall the tantalizing scratch of his cheek against her thighs and she shivered, putting on her robe. Yes, that had really happened. She wanted to jump around the cabin. She wanted to shriek with delight. She wanted to wake him up and do it all over again.
She padded over to the bed and climbed in, straddling Ben. He stirred in his sleep as she rubbed her hands over his shoulders and chest. Then she bent down and softly kissed the nape of his neck and tousled his hair.
He shifted groggily, slowly coming awake. He looked around, confused about where he was, and then saw her looking down at him and smiled.
“Mmmph,” he grunted, trying to roll over. But Casey kept him pinned in place.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.”
“What time is it?”
“Time for a swim,” she whispered in his ear.
His eyes shot open. “Nuh uh.” He shook his head under her. “No freaking way.”
“Yes, way.” She shrugged off the bathrobe and stretched out over him. He wrapped his arms around her and she felt the delicious press of their bodies lying together, hers soft and supple, his growing ever more rigid as they touched.
“I have other ideas,” Ben said, kissing her and sliding his hands up to cup her breasts.
But Casey wriggled away. “Later, tiger,” she said, leaping up again and grabbing him by the wrists to yank him out of bed.
Ben saw the gray mist outside and dragged his heels. “No way,” he said again. “You go do whatever you want, but I’m staying right here. In bed. Dry and warm.”
“Not a chance.” Casey shook her head. “It’s the rules of the cabin. He who spends the night shall swim the next morning.”
“I didn’t know that was the price for getting away from my roommates,” he complained.
“Ah, so that’s why you came up,” she teased.
He grabbed her and pulled her toward him.
“Mmm, the only reason,” he murmured, his need pressing against her again. It was tempting, but... The outside was calling her, fresh and still cool in the early dawn, and she wanted to take this good feeling out to the lake and share the morning with him.
She pulled away and wrapped a towel around her, tossing him another one.
“Too late to reconsider.” She grinned and threw open the door. Seizing his hand, she pulled him outside and led him running barefoot down to the lake, squealing from the morning chill. “Be glad it’s July.”
“This is crazy,” Ben kept saying with every step.
“Don’t stop, just jump in,” she said as they approached the shore.
“I can’t,” he gasped even before he’d touched the water. Quickly she grabbed his arm and dragged him onward. They hit the water together, splashing and shouting, falling into the cold. She dove under and swam, the water singing through her body as she took long strokes before coming up for air. She resurfaced and he shouted for her to come back.
“It’s supposed to be summer! What the hell is this?” he cried, standing in the water and hitting the surface with his palms as though it had personally insulted him.
“Swim out to me,” she called. “It’ll keep you warm.”
“I’m too cold to move!” But he thrust out into the water and flailed his way toward her, grabbing her around the waist when he finally reached her, pulling them both under. They came up gasping for air and kissed, treading water, reaching for each other and trying to stay afloat, laughing and breathless from the cold.
“It’s beautiful out here,” he admitted, looking up at the mountain from an angle no one else could appreciate unless they were out in this part of the lake in the chill morning air. Mist was curling up its sides, the rounded peak visible only in patches. Around the lake a cool blue fog hung in the air, the sun working to push through.
Casey draped her arms around Ben’s shoulders and held him from behind, wrapping her legs around his waist as he carried her back toward the shore. Her heart was pounding, her whole body electric with the flow of blood and the singing in her heart.
“The water doesn’t really warm up until August,” she admitted.
“I don’t really trust your definition of warm.”
She pushed off him and dove back into the water, letting her hair cascade around her.
“You’ll have to try again in the afternoon, once the sun has a chance to warm everything up,” she said when she came back up for air.
“Again, I’m not sure that really counts as warm.” Ben was already rushing out of the water and heading straight for his towel. Casey laughed at him standing there shivering in the gray light, the tint of his blue lips visible from afar. His teeth were chattering and he was getting to that point beyond shivering where he was starting to shake.
“Okay, I’m coming,” she conceded as she ran out of the water to the open towel he had waiting for her. “But it’s summer, you can’t be that much of a wimp.” Goosebumps danced across her flesh, but unlike Ben, she relished the chill. Also, she knew they’d be warm soon enough. They only had today to spend together. She wanted to savor every sensation before he packed up and left her again.
She went to pull his towel off to wrap hers around him so they would both be together in the towel, skin against skin. But Ben stepped away quickly, a look crossing his eyes.
“No way,” he grimaced. “You’ll never want to come near me again.”
“What are you talking about?” Casey paused, confused.
“The cold,” he said, shooting her a knowing look.
Casey laughed and ripped of his towel with one hard tug, but his hands flew straight to his crotch.
“I’m shriveled up like a sack of dimes! Tinier than a fingerling potato!” he cried as he leapt naked up to the cabin, his adorable butt a moon of white bounding over the path.
Casey’s sides hurt she was laughing so hard, bundling herself in the towels and following him in.
“I’m so cold.” He was chattering in the doorway, saying over and over again. “So cold! Help! Casey! I’m so cold!”
“Quick!” She put a towel down to wipe their feet and then ran to the bathroom, turning the shower as hot as it would go. Ben stood dripping on the tile, his blue fingertips still modestly covering himself with such earnestness that Casey couldn’t stop a new wave of giggles from erupting every time she looked over at him.
Finally the water was warm and she pushed him in, following after. He stood under the stream, muttering about how he would never be warm again, until gradually the color returned to his face—even if his lips were still blue enough to look bruised.
“You’re a monster,” he muttered. “A witch. An evil temptress of the woods.”
He pulled her into his arms, now that he had stopped trembling. “An enchantress.” He kissed her forehead. “Torturer.” He kissed one eyelid. “Bully.” He kissed the other. “With no nerve endings to sense cold.” He kissed her mouth.
“Oh, I have nerve endings,” Casey whispered, guiding his hands to the warmest part of her, slick with wet.
Ben groaned and nuzzled his lips along her neck, stroking the opening she had offered him. The water poured over them, piping hot, and the bathroom filled with steam. Casey leaned her head back against the shower stall as Ben worked his way down her body, kissing her from sternum to belly while holding her waist in his hands.
“That’s why I don’t get cold,” Casey joked as he ran his cheek over her stomach, but he shook his head
“You don’t get cold because you’re not like us mere mortals,” he said, looking up at her with his large brown eyes. Still keeping his eyes locked on hers, he opened his mouth to catch the rivulets of water running off her skin. Then he trailed his tongue down her stomach until he was fully kneeling before her. He paused, her hands gripping his head.
“I take it back. Turns out I like swimming in the morning,” he murmured, and plunged his tongue into her.
The water poured over her breasts, onto his head, down his back, and she bent her knees and spread her legs wider, fingers digging into his hair, holding on. It wasn’t long before she was panting breathlessly, groping along the tile for the spigot. She turned off the water and he looked up at her, eyes pleading, begging to know why she’d spoiled his fun.
“Come,” she said, tugging on him to get up.
“Oh, I fully plan on it,” he said, glossy lips curled in a grin.
“I meant to bed,” she said.
“Wherever you want,” he maintained.
She led him across the cabin, naked and fully erect, both of them dripping water on floor. They burrowed under the covers to get warm and, once he grabbed another condom, she was pulling him inside her before he’d even arranged the pillows under her head. Last night had been about exploring each other, but this morning was about need. Now it was fast and relentless, each of them goading the other on to push harder and deeper until they were crying out together, not sure what had overtaken them, only that they never wanted it to end.
When they at last lay exhausted, warm and sweaty under the covers and wondering how they’d ever been so cold that morning, Casey again slipped out of Ben’s grasp and reached for her bathrobe.
“Not the lake again,” he groaned, one hand flung over his forehead to shield his eyes from the light spreading through the cabin as the morning gray started to lift.
“Coffee.” She grinned, and he immediately bolted upright.
“That is the one and only thing you’re allowed to get up out of this bed for,” he said.
“Not even the fact that I have to go to work in an hour?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Nope.” He shook his head. “Not even that.”
He reached for the robe to hold her back, grabbing a fistful in his hand. Casey eluded him, though, by wriggling out of the robe, so that all he was pulling toward him was empty cloth.
Now she was naked, though, and he seemed to like that even better.
“I can live with this,” he said appraisingly as he watched her cross the cabin, a gleam in his eye.
Casey pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt and eyed him skeptically. “You’re crazy if you think this is good to look at,” she said, wrinkling her nose. Now that she wasn’t getting him up to run into the lake, she was reminded of how much she didn’t look like she had eight years ago, when she was Ben’s age.
Who was she kidding. She’d never been a taut, perfect specimen, even when she was his age.
He grinned. “What I like about you, among other things, is that you have no idea how unbelievably sexy you are.” He threw the robe across the room and Casey caught it, hanging it on a chair. He rooted around the floor for his clothes and pulled on his boxers and his pants, which had made their way under the bed.
“You clearly have no idea what sexy actually is then,” Casey retorted, trying not to wonder how many girls he’d been with before her, and what they’d looked like, and whether they’d all been the kinds of tiny young college things she’d never managed to be. Part of her immediately hated them all, not even knowing who they were. Part of her felt bad for them if they’d lain there while he pumped away at them.
In the end, she’d decided that she liked Ben’s little instances of fumbling around—it told her he couldn’t have gotten too much action. Not to mention that he’d proven himself eminently teachable.
And it wasn’t the fault of the tiny young things that they were so tiny and young. Comparing was pointless, and a waste of her time. Besides, Ben was here with her. In her cabin, still shirtless, wrapping his strong arms around her.
“Trust me,” he said, gathering her wet hair around his wrist and pulling it to the side to expose the sensitive side of her neck. “I know what sexy is, and I know when it’s mine.”
Mmm, she could live with that. She made him walk with her to the kitchen, his arms still tight around her.
“I wanted to sleep with you as soon as you made me that first cup of coffee,” he said as she heated the kettle and measured the beans.
“What?”
He grinned sheepishly. “I mean it. Anyone with that kind of attention to detail, that kind of—I don’t even know, sensory awareness, I guess you’d call it.” He looked her in the eye. “It had to mean something.”
“And?” Casey raised an eyebrow. “Did it eventually pan out as you’d hoped?”
Ben couldn’t hold back his smile. “Everything and then some.”
She swatted him away as she ran the grinder, then poured the boiling water into the press. When they sat at the table with their mugs, inhaling the warm, rich steam—Ben’s black, Casey’s with a hint of cream—it seemed hard to imagine that there was another world out there beyond these cabin walls and the bend in the lake, and that they would soon have to step out and join it.
She didn’t have much breakfast to offer, but that’s when he pulled out the pastry box he’d brought the night before. They hadn’t even touched the wine he’d surprised her with before heading straight to bed.
“Mmm, what’s this?” she asked, untying the ribbon. “I love your apology cooking.”
Ben colored and murmured again how sorry he was that he’d made them wait so long to have a night together, but she cut him off.
“I didn’t mean to make a dig. Bad joke. I’m glad you’re here now.” She pulled out the pastries from the heavy box, stacking them on a plate. Danishes glazed with apricot, scones with currants and oats, individual-sized loaves of banana bread, and of course, a cranberry-walnut muffin just for her.
“No croissants,” Ben said regretfully. “I haven’t had time to work on the recipe and I sort of had to sneak into the ovens when they weren’t being used.”
“I can live with this selection.” Casey laughed, eagerly sampling nibbles of each before settling on a scone. Ben took a loaf of banana bread, promising to leave the muffin for her.
“This is ridiculous,” she declared, taking another bite. “People would pay fifty bucks for a single one of these scones.”
“Oh come on,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “You’d actually pay for that?”
“I don’t have to, I get it for free.” She smirked.
“Not totally free.” He leaned over to kiss her.
“I think I can afford it,” she murmured, letting him draw her into his lap, their breakfast already forgotten.
* * * * *
IT WAS TURNING INTO the perfect day. But Casey couldn’t help it. Ben’s happiness gave her pause.
It was the way he looked at her. The things he said. It wasn’t that she disliked how he how he smiled at her, or how his eyes lit up when he laughed. But did he mean it? Did he even know if he meant what he said?
He hadn’t known what he wanted enough to stick around the first time, so how could she ask any more of him now? He was going to finish culinary school and get on with his life, presumably to work at an Italian restaurant and then open up his own place. He would always be eight years younger than she was, and their lives would always be different. When the afternoon wore on and she finished up her work at the campsite, she knew it was time to say goodbye to a wonderful twenty-four hours and let him go.
It would be sad, obviously. But she’d keep going, because she always kept going. If there was one thing she’d learned from Nick, it was that. No matter how her heart ached, she’d always go on.
“Can you stay for fireworks?” she asked as he skimmed a rock across the lake. She’d come back from checking on the campsites and they were standing by the water, gazing out at the view as the shadows began to take on that deep, long intensity that signaled the end of the day.
Ben shook his head ruefully. “I wish, but I’ve got to get back tonight. I have an early start tomorrow morning and shouldn’t be up too late.”
She nodded, trying not to let her face betray her disappointment. She’d been hoping he could take off more time, but the reality was that for all the fun they’d had the night before, there was no future here and no way this was going to last.
Of course, it was more than fun. It was spectacular in every way. But it had an end date and that date was now.
“But I could try to come back.” He glanced sideways at her, like he was trying to read her expression. Like she wasn’t the only one wondering whether this could be more than a one-time thing.
The offer took her by surprise, but she couldn’t help smiling. “I’d like that,” she said, no longer trying to hide her feelings. “I’d like that a lot.”
“Good.” he smiled back as he skipped another pebble across the water and then reached for her hand, his fingers damp with lake water, lacing so easily with hers.
“I could come down and see you, you know,” she added, bolder now, but he shook his head.
“Things are so busy, there’d seriously be nothing for you to do except wait around while I’m in class. Besides, I know you’re needed here. Let me find a time when I can come back, and I promise that this time, I’ll call in advance.”
“You’d better call me, period,” she said, and he laughed.
“If you know you want something, you just have to go for it, right?”
“Right,” she affirmed, and slid her hands around his waist and into his back pockets. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her with all the assurance she needed. He wasn’t going anywhere again.
Casey pressed her head into the crook of his neck, where she so perfectly fit. They held each other for a long time. Too long—it was well past time to get going. But still she held on. When she looked up at him, she was certain of her heart. It still managed to surprise her, even after all this time.
Maybe there was someone out there who, above all, could give her what she wanted. Maybe it was this boy, for all his surprises, who would wind up being even more than he seemed.
“You should go,” she finally whispered, leaning up to kiss his cheek.
His stubble was rough on his face as he kissed her goodbye. “I’ll call you. As soon as I can come.”
He called her cell so she’d have his number and then she walked him up the path to his SUV. And just like that, he was gone.
This time, though, his absence filled her with a longing that had nothing to do with pain. She and Lee drank the wine he’d brought as they watched the fireworks ignite across the water, as bright as Casey’s heart. She flushed with excitement at every sparkle, hardly believing how quickly everything had changed.
She didn’t kid herself that there was more happening with Ben than he had promised, and she knew Lee was still wary after how much Casey had been hurt. But when he texted her from Hyde Park letting her know that he’d made it home and already missed her, she hugged herself closer under the exploding lights overhead. He was coming back, she reminded herself. This time, she was certain that he would.