Marcus
The day before Poppy leaves, there’s a staff party, and she comes with me.
“By the time we get to Jake’s wedding, we’ll be counting our dates well into the twenties at this rate,” she teases as we arrive at the picnic area.
“I should be so lucky. Besides, you may be so busy between now and then that I might not see you. I need to cram in all the goodness now.”
“I can get creative on the phone,” she whispers before kissing me on the cheek and hopping out of my truck.
I know she can. I grin and follow her.
She holds my hand as I introduce to everyone. When I get to Brianne Fischer—my young staff member who is actually responsible for the rogue Twitter account Poppy suspected me of being behind—Poppy acts like this is the first time she’s heard Brianne’s name. Bri turns pink.
My girlfriend could teach her some lessons in playing things cool. If Brianne is ever outed for real, I’m going to have to hide her on the top of a mountain to protect her.
After making the rounds for introductions, we settle into camp chairs near the grill and Poppy gets a front-row seat for sharing time, when we all confess the weirdest things we saw from park visitors over the last week or so. There are the usual wild animal encounters, but after a few of those stories, one of the other junior rangers nudges Brianne.
“Tell them,” he says. “About…” And he waggles his eyebrows.
I groan. There’s no way this is a story any supervisor should hear.
Brianne looks at me, and I clear my throat. “Should I go and grab a beer while you tell the group?”
“Umm… Okay, well… I may have interrupted a threesome.”
Sex in the park is kind of a regular thing, but more than two people is less common. “Oh?”
She gives more graphic details about a threesome she interrupted halfway up one of our most popular hiking trail, and the tall tale they tried to spin about having a permit for recreational activities. “I told them I was pretty sure under the same area of the park service regulations was a sub-regulation about taking their picture and posting it to Facebook.”
I swear under my breath. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“So you’re in a better than average mood, but your sense of humor is still stuck to bone-dry?” she asks innocently.
“There’s nothing wrong with my sense of humor.”
Beside me, Poppy is giggling uncontrollably.
I look at her.
“What?” She grins. “Clearly she was kidding.” She looks at Brianne. “Right?”
“Sure.” Brianne winks.
Poppy laughs harder, and I go to get that beer after all.
When I get back, Brianne is sitting in my chair, and everyone else has moved into the pavilion, setting up for dinner.
I stop beside Poppy’s chair as she says, “If you ever want to talk, off the record, you know where to find me. I promise I don’t want to out you.”
Brianne looks over at me.
Poppy shakes her head. “Oh, I wanted to out him. He’s a story. You’re part of the process. My interest in you would be strictly limited to reaching people higher up the food chain than you.”
“Hey,” I protest.
“Past tense,” she says, winking up at me.
“Don’t past tense me. I know what that means.”
“Stay nimble, Ranger Boy,” she whispers as I lean in to kiss her. “You never know when I’m going to get you.”
Oh, she’s got me all right. She’s got me good.
“She’s not exactly I pictured,” Poppy says as we’re driving home.
“Who? Brianne?”
“Yep. She’s sweet. And young. She’s really a rogue tweeter?”
“She’s tougher than she looks.” I pick up Poppy’s hand and kiss her knuckles. “A lot like you.”
“I look tough,” she protests.
I grin. “Of course.”
“You thought you could eat me alive, and you didn’t.”
“I sort of did.” A lazy, pleased smile spreads across my face and her cheeks pink up.
“That’s filthy,” she whispers.
We’re both thinking of my tongue between her legs. I want to go down on her again right fucking now. Slow and deliberate and hungry.
“I’m filthy,” I murmur instead. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“I know.” The hitch in her voice is my undoing.
I step on the gas. “Ten minutes to my place, Poppy.”
“Is that a promise or a threat?”
I throw my head back and laugh. This woman is everything. “Both.”
But when we get home, I find myself wanting to confess something other than dirty thoughts.
She gets to the door first. I catch her around the waist and squeeze her tight as I kiss her neck. “So…just in case you were ever in the neighborhood…” I trail my fingers down her arm and circle them around her wrist. “I was thinking you might want to be able to get into my house even if I weren’t here.”
“In case I was in the neighborhood?” She twists her head to look at me with a smile on her face.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” She laughs gently as I lift her arm and press it to the security scanner. “Like this?”
“Twenty-first-century version of giving you a key.”
“Most people still just do the key thing.”
“I’m not most people. Hold still.”
I log in to my security system on my phone and add her as a user, then tell it to scan her hand to record the print.
“This is a complicated way to get my fingerprints,” she whispers. “You could have taken them while I was sleeping.”
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
She laughs harder and her hand shifts.
“Hold. Still. Now I need to scan it again.”
“When am I going to be here when you aren’t?”
“Whenever you want.”
She gives me another curious look. “Really?”
The system beeps, accepting her handprint, and the door unlocks. I gesture toward it. “After you.”
“Well, that’s really nice,” she says as she opens the door. “And I didn’t get you anything.”
“You came to visit me for a week and a half. That was pretty awesome.”
She wiggles her fingers. “And now I can come back whenever I want.”
“Exactly.” I prowl after her as she moves restlessly through the house. This is our last night together for a while, and it’s put us both a little on edge.
She stops in my bedroom door, spinning around just as I catch her again.
The look we share is hot enough to incinerate all of Rifle, but I’m not ready to get naked and fuck her just yet. There’s something else I want to say.
“From the first second I saw you, I wanted you,” I tell her hoarsely. “I wanted you when you were digging into my life, I wanted you when you were yelling at me. That first day in the truck, when I thought you were seducing me for a story, I wanted to give in. You can have me however, whenever you want. I’m yours.”
“That scares me a little, in a good way,” she whispers. “I didn’t see you coming. I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Yeah.” I kiss her temple. “I know the feeling.”
“I’m yours, too,” she admits. “In every way. I know it’s crazy to say that, but…”
“I’m falling in love with you.” There. I said it.
She blinks at me.
I clear my throat. “Too soon?”
She bursts into tears. “No. God, I’m going to miss you so much.”
I pull her into my arms. “Good?”
She nods into my chest and mumbles something I can’t make out. I kiss the top of her head and she mumbles again.
“Baby, I can’t hear you.”
“I’m leaving my heart here with you,” she says, lifting her face again. “Just so, you know, you can finish that whole falling in love thing while I’m gone.”
I pick her up and she twists her arms around my neck as I kiss her. Her mouth tastes like lemonade and happiness, and I lose myself in her.
I may have her heart here, but she’s taking mine with her, too.
God damn it. We should have seen this coming, but even if we did, I don’t think either of us would want it any other way.