me back down on my feet; the other two Weres were rolling their eyes, but I didn’t care—“I’m not letting anything get in the way of our afternoon together.”
Chapter 9
At my pleading look, Chaz dismissed Simon and Dillon. The two breathed very obvious sighs of relief and rushed off, not giving Chaz a chance to change his mind. Though I could tell he was annoyed, he quickly lost track of his irritation once I slid my arm around his waist and pressed up against his side.
“So, what did you have in mind for this afternoon?” I asked.
He soon replaced the irritation with playfulness, grinning down at me while his fingers toyed with the bra strap peeking out of my shirt collar. “It’s a surprise.”
My eyebrows arched at that, as I worked my hand under his shirt to rub against the smooth plane of hard muscle on his back. My smile grew wider when he flexed, responding so readily to my touch. He urged me to move, and it was with a mixture of disappointment and curiosity that I noted he wasn’t leading me to our cabin—we were headed somewhere into the woods.
“Where are we going?”
“No questions yet. You’ll see,” he said.
I kept my mouth shut, but both of us explored the bounds of our self-imposed chastity by letting our hands wander and pressing against each other as we walked. The trees were soon close around us, limbs lightly slapping against our arms and legs as we walked, giving us that much greater an excuse to hold each other close as we followed some half-formed path through the underbrush. I barely noticed. He laughed when I stumbled over a root in the mulch, tightening his grip on me in a way I didn’t mind at all.
I’m not sure how long we walked. I was too distracted to notice where we were going until Chaz halted, and the sound of running water drew my attention to my surroundings.
It looked like something out of a fairy tale. The path led to a stream fed by a small waterfall trickling down over mossy rocks. Birds occasionally darted out to snap up a bug and bullfrogs sang their rough songs from the pool at the base of the falls. Someone had long ago dragged a stone bench out here and set it in a grassy clearing looking over the water; the wilds no doubt would have reclaimed it save that someone had cut back the worst of the brush, leaving the bench barely visible in the field of waving green stalks. The trail curved to follow the stream, and I could see where it picked up on the other side, just beyond some large stepping stones cutting a path through the water.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed, settling back against Chaz’s chest as he wrapped his arms around me.
We stayed like that for a while, him holding me while I drank in the beauty of the place. The heavy scent of pine wasn’t as thick here; instead, there was an odd smell, reminiscent of parsnips, which Chaz told me was the scent of the huge hemlock growing near the base of the waterfall.
Hand in hand, we waded through the thick grass to the edge of the water, avoiding the wavering hemlock clusters that would bloom with white or green flowers come springtime. I pulled a cattail that still had the brown, densely packed seeds on the top, using it to stir the water near the edge. We settled down in the grass, laughing and grabbing at each other for balance as the cold water soaked through our jeans.
He helped me take off my shoes and roll up my pants to my knees, then I set aside my cattail and did the same for him. We stuck our bare feet in the water, and he chuckled at my gasp of shock. We scooted closer on the shore, twining our legs together as we wiggled our toes against the chill. He held me against him, and we watched the frogs and salamanders and fish gradually build up the courage to return to this invaded slice of their haven.
“Shia?”
“Yes?”
“You’ve never talked to me about what happened while you were with Royce.”
Startled, I withdrew. “Chaz—”
“No, Shia,” he said, tightening his grip on me so I couldn’t pull away. I glanced up, afraid of what emotions I’d see reflected in his eyes, but he was staring across the water instead of at me. A muscle in his jaw was