Let’s call it Capture the Underwear. My bra and your boxers.”
“Really?”
“Sure.” She reached inside the sleeves of her shirt, unhooked her bra and pulled it out through the sleeve opening.
“I could never figure out how you did that,” he said.
“You were always too busy watching my boobs to notice my technique.”
“It’s a guy thing.” He tried not to stare at her softly swaying breasts as she waved her bra in front of his face. It was black and lacy and she was laughing at him.
But when he undid his belt, the laughter died on her lips and she sucked in a breath. “Uh, I’ll...” She spun her finger to signify turning, then made the move.
He smiled. She wasn’t managing her sexual responses any better than he was.
Dylan took off his boxers, grateful they weren’t threadbare, then put his pants back on.
They tied their unmentionables to two sticks.
Tara shook her bra flag at him. “Take a good look. You won’t see this again until after I’ve snatched yours.”
But he was distracted by the shape of her nipples through the soft fabric. He wanted to touch them, watch her eyes burn in response, hear her breathing hitch, her body tremble.
She snapped her fingers. “You in there, Dylan? I just said I’d own you.”
“Uh, yeah.” He cleared his throat—and his mind. “We’ll see about that.”
They set distance boundaries, planted their flags and began the battle, chasing each other back and forth across the narrow bend of the river, hopping rocks, voices echoing against the hills on either side as they yelled, shrieked, and howled, shot and missed, ducking behind boulders, lunging around tree trunks, slipping into the river with sharp gasps at the cold.
He felt eighteen again. Tara’s face, when he caught glimpses of it, was totally intent, totally delighted, animated and happy and so young.
Half an hour into the game, he spotted her flag, but stayed clear until he heard her yell that she’d found his. She emerged from some trees waving his underwear in triumph. “You’re mine!” she called to him.
He just smiled. She was blotched with paint and splashed with river water so that her shirt clung to her shape. He was grateful when she crossed her arms to rub them for warmth, blocking his view.
“Let’s get some dry clothes,” he said, thinking the roomy sweats would hide her curves well, though Tara could make a garbage bag with leg holes look sexy.
They dressed back to back.
“That was really fun,” she said, turning to smile at him.
He noticed a gray streak in her hair. “You’ve got some paint here.” He wiped it with a towel, standing close, smelling her perfume, feeling her eyes on him, tugged again into her magnetic field.
“I’m starved,” she said shakily, stepping back to break the hold they had on each other. “You said there was a picnic?”
“I did.”
“Let’s eat up on the ridge.” She headed up the path toward the tables near the caves. He grabbed the ice chest and the Mexican blanket he planned to use as a tablecloth and followed, catching up with her in the second cave. “This is the one, isn’t it?” she said in a breathless voice. “From that storm?”
“Yeah.” They’d made love here one August during a monsoon. The memory hit him hard. Maybe he should have picked a more neutral spot, but then he couldn’t think of a place that didn’t hold memories for them.
“There was lightning and that great smell of rain and creosote and the river.”
“I remember.”
“The light was rust and gold—almost supernatural. I felt like we were Adam and Eve in the garden.”
Making love with the storm all around, naked, sheltered in the cave and in each other’s arms, it had been almost mystical.
“Let’s eat in here,” she said.
“Sure.” He could hardly say no, it makes me think of you naked. He set the ice chest on the smooth stone floor and together they shook out the blanket, then sat on it.
As he opened the cooler, she said, “I remember you tasted like German chocolate cake and vinegar chips.” Grinning, he held out the bag of vinegar chips and a plastic-lidded bakery box of German chocolate cupcakes.
“You didn’t! You are so sentimental.”
“I remembered that you liked them,” he said, but their gazes locked, and he realized it had more to do with the memory of that time. What the hell did he think he was doing? They were alone in the cave and he could almost hear the rumble of thunder.