“Me, too,” I say, smiling so wide it makes my cheeks hurt.
Nash and I haven’t talked about anything long term, but I’ve had all my fingers and toes crossed this would happen. Sure, we go to different schools and live on opposite sides of town—me in a cookie cutter subdivision, Nash out in the country—but that doesn’t mean we can’t make a relationship work.
“I don’t have a lot of time during the week,” he says, a smile in his voice that makes me grin even harder. “I have football most afternoons and help out with my brothers and sisters at night, but I could come to Bliss River every Sunday.”
“And I could come out and help you babysit when I don’t have art class after school,” I say, catching his excitement for our future. “I’ve got my permit and Dad said I could borrow the truck once I turn sixteen.”
“I’d like that,” he says, before adding in a voice that completely melts my heart, “I’d like as much of you as I can get.”
“How about all of me?” I ask, wondering if this is what love feels like. If it isn’t, then love must be some insanely serious stuff.
Because this…
This is…magic.
“I’m not scared.” I cup his cheek in my hand. “I care about you so much, and I know what I want.”
Nash’s breath hitches in a way that makes me feel beautiful and powerful and so drunk with needing him I vow to beg him to get naked with me, if that’s what it takes.
“On one condition,” he finally says. “We’re a couple. Exclusive. It’s official. You’re my girl.”
“Yes,” I whisper, suddenly feeling shy.
I’ve never had a boyfriend like this before, one who made it clear being a couple meant something to him, that this was a commitment more serious than most casual, high school connections.
Hearing Nash call me “his girl,” is intimate, possessive, and completely irresistible.
“And you’re my man,” I say.
His husky sound of approval sends a thrill rushing through me, giving me the courage to whisper, “Now, will you make love to me?”
He doesn’t say a word, but the next second he’s kissing me so hard and deep that, soon, his breath is my breath and I swear I can feel his heartbeat echoing in my chest.
A beat later, his hand slides beneath my shirt, making every cell in my body zing. Not long after my shirt is off and he’s kissing me in places no boy has ever kissed me before and it is…mind-blowing.
Life changing. More pure, sweet magic.
My head spins and my fingers fist in Nash’s hair as he kisses and licks and, God, the things he does to me. The way it makes me feel. It’s more incredible, more intoxicating than I’ve ever imagined.
Soon, his hand dips beneath the waistband of my gym shorts, down until he finds the place where I want him so badly. And then his fingers begin to move, building the tension inside of me until I’m panting, moaning, my every muscle going tense as he trails hot kisses down my neck. I’m so close, so desperately close that my eyes are squeezed tight.
So tight that I don’t see the flashlights coming through the woods until it’s too late.
Too late to cover up or run or do anything else to avoid being caught in a very compromising position.
Chapter Two
Aria
After scrambling back into our clothes in front of the camp directors—by far the most mortifying, scarring experience of my entire fifteen and three-quarters years on earth—we’re taken to the office and forced to sit silently on opposite sides of the room to wait for our parents to arrive.
Nash’s face is bright pink with embarrassment, but I’m sure I look way worse. A glance in the mirror near the door confirms that I’m flushed redder than a baboon’s backside, but I know better than to ask to go to the bathroom to splash water on my flaming, redheaded face.
Phil and Bea, the co-directors, made it clear the only place Nash and I are going is home—immediately. We won’t even have a chance to say goodbye to our friends.
Or each other, I’m afraid.
Every time our eyes meet, Nash telegraphs an apology my way. I try to telegraph, “It’s okay, it’s not your fault, we can’t let this tear us apart,” but I’d feel so much better if I had the chance to say all of that with actual words.
So he knows I don’t blame him for anything.
And that I still desperately want to be his girl.
In what seems like forever and also no time at all, Nash’s mom is at the office door, stepping through onto the faded brown carpet.
She isn’t at all what I was expecting. She’s tiny, for one thing—only coming up to the middle of Nash’s chest—and wearing bleached blue jeans that haven’t been fashionable in decades and a faded Bliss River Blues Fest tee shirt. Her thin brown hair is pulled into a ponytail and her face is so pale I can make out the pathways of her veins around her sunken eyes. She looks exhausted, the kind of tired you know runs deeper than the fact that she’s been awakened in the middle of the night.