LOST WITH YOU - Lisa Ann Verge Page 0,24
soggy sleeping bags later.”
“Yeah.”
He cleared his throat and dragged his pack closer before swiveling to turn his back to her. After peeling off his own dripping shirt, he used it to mop up the moisture on his chest and abdomen. Clothing rustled behind him. He tried not to imagine her T-shirt discarded, the ties of her bikini coming loose. He tried not to envision a glimpse of side boob, or the furrow of her spine all the way down to that heart-shaped backside. He tried not to dream of the lift of that tight ass as she dragged the bikini bottoms down her long, sleek legs.
He pulled a dry T-shirt over his head, willing his cock down, hoping she wasn’t reading his mind right now. He mopped up the puddles around him and then gripped the waistband of his trunks. Would she sneak a glimpse of his ass as he shoved the shorts off? If only they were disrobing for a far more interesting reason than to put on dry clothing. Tossing the soaked clothes in a pile in a corner, he buried his head in the towel on the excuse of drying his hair until he was sure she was completely dressed.
He said over his shoulder, “You good?”
“I’m good.”
He swiveled around. Her oversized T-shirt sported a huge image of a cartoon mouse. She leaned back, head propped on her rolled sleeping bag, sucking on an end of her wet hair with her nose already buried in a book.
His chest moved. Casey was the most fetching thing he’d ever seen, looking rumpled and cozy and so damn close.
Then she sighed and dropped the book to her stomach. “Do you know any good ghost stories?”
She slid him a look from under those thick lashes, a look that acknowledged that this was going to be a difficult afternoon.
“I wish I did.” He dragged his sleeping bag to his side of the tent. “I haven’t done the Boy Scout thing for a while. Were you a Scout?”
“More of a soccer-and-track girl.”
At least she hadn’t twitched at the personal question. Progress. “Are you hungry? I could start lunch.”
“I feel like we just ate breakfast. You do make big breakfasts.”
“Guilty.”
Thunder cracked, following a jagged flash of lightning. The pounding of the rain intensified on the tent.
“What would you do in this tent,” she said into the thickening intimacy, “if you were stuck here with Garrick instead of me?”
“Garrick wouldn’t stay in the tent,” he said. “He’d run outside, stark naked, with a bar of soap. He considers storms like this the next best thing to a multi-jet shower.”
She laughed with a glimpse of teeth. “He sounds like a character.”
“The best kind.” Whenever he thought about Garrick, he thought about Logan, too, and that inevitably led to him thinking about the college reunion they’d attended last fall. “I’ve been planning this trip for years, but it was really Garrick and another friend who convinced me not to put it off any longer.”
She turned her head on the pillow of her sleeping bag, interest brightening her face. “I was under the impression it was because of…”
“Because why?” he prompted as she faltered, sucking her lower lip between her teeth in a way that made his sack tighten.
“I thought it was for Pops.” The skin between her eyebrows pinched. “I couldn’t help but notice that he’s…forgetful.”
“Alzheimer’s.” The word stabbed deep. “He was diagnosed about eighteen months ago.”
Her eyes went dewy. “That sucks, Dylan.”
“Yeah, it does.” He glanced up at the roof of the tent, listening to the rain for a minute. Why the hell was he telling her all this? “We’re all going to miss Pops when he’s gone. He leaves us a little more every week.”
“That’s why you were so determined to get this expedition going, yes? That’s why you would have partnered with any willing body that came to your cabin that day.”
Willing body.
If only.
“Pops is the reason I dreamed it up,” Dylan acknowledged. “But I might never have done it if I hadn’t met up with my buddies last fall.” He flexed his hand, wished he had a whiskey in his hand as he had then. “They know Pops well. They stayed at the cabin a lot when we were in college. We all went on a few fishing trips.” He didn’t want to talk about this, spilling his guts. “I’m boring you—”
“This goes to the heart of the expedition, doesn’t it?”
It did. But it was deeply personal. He wasn’t sure it was such a