Tristyn knew that she could walk all the way back to Charisma and not walk off her frustration with Josh. So she went only as far as the end of the lane before she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She knew that she could count on either of her sisters to commiserate with her, and dialed Jordyn’s number because she was first in her alphabetical list of contacts.
“The man is driving me insane,” she said without preamble when her sister had connected the call.
“Hold on a sec,” Jordyn said. “Lauryn’s here, so I’m going to put you on speakerphone so we both know what’s happening.”
She heard a click, then her oldest sister’s voice. “Hi, Tris. What’s happening?”
“He’s driving me crazy.”
“Josh?”
She huffed out a breath. “Of course, Josh.”
“What’s he done now?”
“Nothing new, really,” she admitted. “He’s just being his usual arrogant, annoying self.”
“Something must have happened to prompt this call,” Lauryn remarked.
“Yeah—he got back from Loudon and started criticizing how I spent my time with his nieces while he was away.”
“He was probably upset that Ren crashed with only five laps left,” Jordyn said, revealing that she’d watched the race, too—or at least the highlights.
“There’s no excuse for being a jerk,” Tristyn said.
“I’m guessing his behavior is a sign that you haven’t gotten naked with him yet,” Lauryn mused.
“What? Of course not.”
“It’s not completely outside the realm of possibility,” Jordyn noted.
“I’m not going to get naked with Josh,” she said firmly. But, because she had no secrets from her sisters, she confided, “He did kiss me, though.”
“Finally,” Lauryn said.
“And then?” Jordyn prompted.
Tristyn frowned. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Not if it was a good kiss,” Jordyn said.
“And Josh Slater looks like a man who would know how to kiss,” Lauryn chimed in.
“He does know how to kiss,” she acknowledged.
“And then?” Jordyn said again.
“And then I remembered what happened the last time I let myself fall under the spell of Josh Slater.”
“That was twelve years ago,” Lauryn reminded her. “Neither of you are the same people now.”
“I know I’m not the same naive girl I was then, but I’m not sure Josh has changed at all.” She sighed. “I never should have agreed to this road trip. There’s no way I can spend another six weeks in that RV with him without killing him.”
“You could try jumping his bones instead,” Jordyn suggested.
Tristyn choked on a laugh. “I guess that is another possibility—except that I’m not giving him another chance to push me away.”
“He’s not going to push you away,” Lauryn assured her.
“How do you know?”
“Because we’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one else is looking,” Jordyn said.
“Well, it’s not likely I’d have an opportunity to jump his bones with three kids around, anyway.”
“I have two babies at home, but I can assure you, I jump Marco’s bones every chance I get.”
“Please,” Lauryn interrupted. “Even between sisters, there’s such a thing as too much information.”
“As if you’re not riding Ryder every night.”
“La-la-la,” Tristyn sang, attempting to drown them out as she’d done when they were kids and she didn’t want to hear what they were saying.
“My point,” Jordyn said, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the singing, “is that the bedroom door has a lock.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Tristyn suggested, because the more she talked about the possibility of getting naked with Josh, the more tempted she was—despite the fact that he was acting like an idiot.
“Uh uh,” Jordyn said. “You called to talk about Josh, so that’s what we’re doing.”
“I called so that you could agree he’s being an idiot.”
“He’s being an idiot,” Lauryn said loyally.
“Probably because the memory of that kiss is keeping him up at night—and I don’t just mean awake,” Jordyn added.
“Not helpful,” Tristyn said.
“Okay, let’s forget about what Josh wants for a minute,” Lauryn said.
“Thank you.”
But her sister’s next words made her realize that her expression of gratitude was premature.
“What do you want?” Lauryn asked gently. “Honestly. Because if you’re really unhappy or uncomfortable with the situation, you can leave. You don’t owe Josh any favors.”
She thought about her sister’s question for a moment before responding, “I want to not have the feelings I’m feeling.”
“Will those feelings go away if you come home?” Lauryn asked.
She sighed. “Probably not.”
“Then try to forgive him for being an idiot, enjoy being with him and see what happens.”
* * *
Talking to her sisters helped a little; walking around the campground helped some more. When she got back to the RV, Josh was on the phone with Daniel, giving what sounded like a play-by-play of every adjustment made to Ren’s car for the previous day’s race. The girls were anxious to do something, so she got out the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, then enlisted their help with the measuring and mixing.
She’d planned to make a pot of chili for dinner, but she’d forgotten to pick up chili powder at the grocery store and decided on meat loaf instead. When she served it up, Emily eyed the slice on her plate skeptically.
“What is it?”
“Meat loaf,” Josh answered.
His niece poked it with her fork. “What kind of meat?”
“Ground beef.”
“That’s cow,” Charlotte informed her sister. “Moooo!”
“Charlotte,” her uncle said, a warning in his tone.
“I don’t like ground beef,” Emily announced.
“It’s the same kind of meat we had the other night in the form of a hamburger,” Tristyn told her.
“So this is like a hamburger?” Emily asked skeptically.
“Sort of,” she agreed.
“Can I have it on a bun?”
“It’s like a hamburger but it’s not a hamburger,” Josh tried to explain. “It’s meat loaf, and you eat it with a fork.”
“I wanna eat it on a bun,” Emily insisted.
Josh looked at Tristyn.
She shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter how she eats it as long as she eats it.”
He found the leftover bag of buns and opened one up, then put the slice of meat from Emily’s plate on it.
“I wanna bun, too,” Hanna decided. “An’ ketchup.”
He looked at Charlotte, who was nibbling tentatively on a tiny piece of meat. She nodded.
So the girls ate their meat loaf as if it was a hamburger. Emily even put her mashed potatoes and corn on top of the meat, as if the vegetables were condiments.
“Well, I think we can take meat loaf off the menu for next week,” Tristyn decided, as the girls cleared their plates from the table.
“I thought it was delicious,” he told her.
“Your nieces weren’t exactly thrilled with it.”
“You’ve read the book,” he reminded her. “According to Lucy, they eat what’s put in front of them or they don’t eat.”
“Still, if I’m going to cook, I’d rather cook something that’s going to be eaten—and enjoyed—by everyone.”
“Well, the chocolate chip cookies were a hit.”
“Who doesn’t love chocolate chip cookies?”
“I like brownies, too,” he said, nudging her away from the sink. “But I guess there were none of those left.”
“You guessed right,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“Dishes. That’s my job,” he reminded her.
“Can we go to the playground?” Charlotte asked.
Tristyn glanced at the clock. “I guess we can go for an hour, and then it will be time for your showers and pajamas.”
Although it was undoubtedly convenient to have a bathroom in the RV, the narrowness of the shower stall and the limited capacity of the hot water tank made it awkward to get the girls cleaned up and ready for bed. After scoping out the public facilities, Tristyn had decided that they should shower and get ready for bed there. The first night, Charlotte had been embarrassed to walk across the campground in her pajamas—until she saw several other kids, some even older than her, doing the same thing. Now they were all accustomed to the bedtime routine, which was much more efficient than taking turns in the trailer.
By the time they returned, Josh had the dishes washed, dried and put away, and was watching a baseball game on TV.
“It’s sto-wee time, Unca Josh,” Hanna announced, as soon as she stepped into the RV.
Josh didn’t know how or why he’d become the resident storyteller, but he found he enjoyed the time with Hanna before she went to bed at night. And although Charlotte and Emily could both read age-appropriate books, they sometimes listened in to story time with their little sister, too.
He muted the sound on the television. “Okay, go pick out a book to read.”
When he came back to the living area after story time, Tristyn was sitting on one end of the sofa with her iPad in hand. “Are the girls tucked in?”
He nodded and lowered himself onto the sofa, facing her instead of the television.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
“Yes, you do,” she agreed.
“I was in a lousy mood earlier and I took it out on you.”
“That’s an explanation, not an apology.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She nodded, her attention still on the iPad screen. “I accept your apology.”
“That’s it? You’re not going to make me grovel?”
She sent him a sideways glance. “Would you?”
“Probably,” he admitted.
“Well, I appreciate the thought,” she said, her gaze back on the article she was reading, “but it’s really not necessary.”
He took the iPad from her, closed the cover and set it aside. “We need to talk about this.”
She frowned. “I thought we just did.”
“Not about what happened earlier,” he said.
“About what?” she asked warily.
“The fact that you make me crazy.”
“I make you crazy?” she said incredulously.
He nodded. “You were right—Paris was at Loudon, and she invited me to spend the night with her. And I wasn’t the least bit tempted, because even when I was more than nine hundred miles away from you, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I couldn’t stop wanting you.”
He kissed her then—a kiss full of frustration and need. And she kissed him back, because she was just as frustrated and needy as he. And because this was Josh, and she’d wanted him for too long to deny herself now. His tongue swept along the seam of her lips, parting them so that he could deepen the kiss. She hooked her hands over his shoulders, holding on to him as the world spun around her.
It was just a kiss, and not even their first. But that kiss had been a tentative exploration. Now, she was more than ready to surrender to the passion that pulsed in her veins.
Except that he pulled back and raked a hand through his hair, already disheveled from her fingers. “See what you—”
She silenced him with her lips.
If Josh was surprised by her initiative, he didn’t show it. He certainly didn’t protest. And while his mouth was busy with hers, he slid his hands beneath the hem of her T-shirt. His fingertips glided over her stomach and his thumbs traced the underside of her breasts through the lace of her bra.
It was barely a graze, but her body immediately responded. Her nipples grew taut as heat pulsed in her veins. His hands shifted a little higher, and his thumbs brushed the peaks of her nipples this time. She gasped softly.
“Yes?” He whispered the question against her mouth.
She could say no.
She should say no.
This was her chance to put on the brakes, to take a step back. But she didn’t want to put on the brakes. She didn’t want to step back. She wanted Josh.
After an almost imperceptible hesitation, she replied, “Yes.”
He unhooked the front fastening of her bra and pushed the cups aside. Then his hands were on her breasts, cradling their weight in his palms as his thumbs continued to trace and tease her nipples. It had been a long time since she’d had a man’s hands on her, and the exquisite sensation of Josh’s hands on her now nearly made her whimper.
Desperate to touch him, too, she tugged his T-shirt out of his shorts and slid her hands beneath the hem to explore the rippling muscles of his abdomen and chest. He pushed her shirt up and lowered his head to capture one turgid nipple in his mouth, suckling deeply. She gasped again as arrows of sensation shot toward her center.
He eased her back on the sofa and settled himself between her thighs. Even through her shorts and his, she could feel the rigid length of his erection. She instinctively lifted her pelvis to rub provocatively against him.
He grasped her hips in his hands. “You’re killing me, Tris.”
“I warned you that might happen if I came on this trip with you.”
He chuckled softly. “Do you have any—”
She put a hand to his lips. “Shh.”
He immediately stilled.
“I thought I heard something,” she whispered to him.
“What?”
“A click. Like the latch of a door.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the toilet flushed—a definite and timely reminder that they weren’t alone.
She pushed him away and scrambled up off the sofa. She fumbled in her efforts to refasten her bra with unsteady hands, but finally got it done. She tugged her shirt back into place while the bathroom taps turned on, then off again. Her breathing was unsteady; her knees were trembling. Thankfully, it was almost dark now, so he probably couldn’t see the hot color that filled her cheeks.
The bathroom door opened, then Charlotte turned back to her bedroom, giving no indication that she’d seen or heard anything.
Tristyn exhaled a shaky sigh.
“Tristyn—”
She shook her head. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t say anything.”
“All I was going to say is that I’m sorry we’re not alone,” he told her.
She was sorry, too.
And grateful.
And unbearably aroused and incredibly confused.
She wanted him—she could no longer deny that simple fact.
But she didn’t want to want him.
She especially didn’t want to end up nursing a broken heart, and she knew that getting involved with Josh could only end in heartache.
She’d been so certain that she was in control of her emotions. That she could spend the better part of the summer with Josh and not be affected by his proximity. She’d managed to hold out for all of ten days.
She lifted her hands to her face, appalled by her own wanton behavior. If she hadn’t heard Charlotte go into the bathroom—if they hadn’t been reminded that they weren’t alone—how far would they have gone?
She was ashamed to admit that she didn’t know. That she couldn’t be sure she would have put on the brakes. She’d been so incredibly aroused by his kiss and his touch, almost desperate for more.
“On the other hand, your bedroom door has a lock,” he noted.
She shook her head. “You just want to sleep in my bed,” she said lightly, attempting to shift the conversation back to safer ground.
He was silent for a moment, then he nodded, taking her cue. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
* * *
Josh went to bed alone.
After Tristyn retreated into her room, he pulled open the sofa bed and stretched out on top of the mattress. He tried to focus his thoughts on anything but Tristyn, but his efforts were futile. He didn’t need to wonder about what might have happened if Charlotte hadn’t woken up to go to the bathroom. There was no mistaking the fact that Tristyn had been as hot for him as he was for her. And if they hadn’t been disturbed, they would have stripped their clothes away and finally given in to the passion that had burned between them for so long.
He didn’t know whether to be grateful or annoyed that they’d been interrupted before that could happen. He did know that he was still aroused—rock hard and aching for her. Only her.
It took him a long time to fall asleep, and it seemed like only moments later that he felt something jab into his shoulder. And then again.
He opened one eye to find Hanna standing beside his bed, her favorite teddy bear clutched in one hand. “I had a bad dweam, Unca Josh.”
He sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face, resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to get much sleep at all tonight. “What was your bad dream about?”
“I don’t ’member,” she told him.
“Then how do you know it was a bad dream?”
“’Cuz I woke up wif my tummy hurtin’.”
“Do you need a drink?”
She shook her head.
“Do you want me to tuck you back into your bed?”
She shook her head again.
“What do you want?” he asked, unable to think of any other options.
“I wanna s’eep wif you.”
“With me?”
She nodded. “P’ease.”
He shifted over so Hanna had room to climb up. She was asleep again within two minutes—on his pillow.
Women, he mused, settling back on the edge of the mattress with his hands clasped behind his head and trying not to think about the woman who was sleeping on the other side of a very thin wall.
The only woman he wanted.