As he stoked the flames of her desire.
A fire that could destroy.
A fire that could heal.
He moved one hand between her legs, traced a pattern of pleasure over her slick folds. She gasped, and he moved his thumb in a circle over that sensitized bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs, pushed a finger inside of her as he continued to tease and torment her. As he sucked her nipple deep into his mouth. He felt her explode around his fingers, pleasure rolling through her body like a wave. Then he kissed her. Deep, long and endless, and he could have just kissed her like that forever. With the water lapping gently against them, with her body shaking and shivering from the orgasm she just had. With the sun in the sky as a witness, and the blessed silence of the wilderness enveloping them in all its velvet glory.
But then he carried her up out of the water, all limp and boneless, and was thankful for the blanket they brought with them. He spread it out on the ground, and brought her up against him, kissing her, kissing her like the answers to everything might be found there.
Even though his mind was blank of questions. Void of absolutely everything, which made touch all the more heightened. The cool temperature of the surface of her skin giving way to heat beneath. The water droplets there. Smooth flesh, puckered nipples, that slick, sweet spot between her legs. Lips like a rose petal. Hair like silk.
She grabbed hold of his face, kissing him hard, deep, her intensity increasing as she rocked against his body. She met his gaze, and didn’t turn away. And he maneuvered them so that he was between her thighs, testing the entrance to her body with the blunt head of his arousal. She gave, easily, much more so than last night, than that first time where breaching her had been a marked event. This time it was a slow glide into heaven as she opened to receive him. As she let her head fall back, her eyes fluttered closed, but only briefly as she let out a low moan of pleasure.
And then she opened those beautiful eyes again. Green and gold—more than brown, he’d decided—shot through with strands of the sun, and it was like he heard that color. Echoing in his heart. He began to move, the sounds of their pleasure the new soundtrack to the forest. And when he found his pleasure, she did too, her nails digging into his shoulders, the plaintive cry on her lips balm for his soul. And they lay there together like that, on the blanket, beneath the sun. He moved his hand down her arm, laced his fingers together with hers.
That had been more than one perfect moment.
Far more.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IRIS KNEW THAT she had to leave the mountain. She’d been up there for more than twenty-four hours, and she could not spend another night. She didn’t have cell service up here, and it was inevitable that her family would be concerned. Plus, she had everything with the bakery to get back to and a whole host of other things.
It was difficult to leave, though.
“I’ll be back, with food.”
“Yeah,” Griffin said, running his hand over his hair. She had wanted to reach up and follow that same trail. Brush his hair off his forehead, let her fingertips drift down his face and linger at his beard. Instead, she just kissed him briefly, and told herself that her eyes were just stinging from allergies. Because there was a whole host of things in bloom, and that was the problem.
Why she felt strange, and her chest tightened. And her throat felt scratchy.
She started the drive down the mountain, and realized that she was shaking. She had just spent a day naked, mostly in the sun, making love with a man. And she tried to remember the woman she’d been when she drove up the mountain with that plate of cookies, unsure of what she was facing when it came to Griffin. A woman who had been so frustrated with the stagnant nature of her life, and who was looking to make some changes. And she just felt like...
That woman was silly.
Because she’d wanted changes, not knowing what it would mean. Not even having a clue that it wasn’t as simple as before and after. That it wasn’t as simple as not understanding sex and then understanding it.
She felt more mystified by the