“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here.”
I angle my head, not sure where she’s going with this. “About what?”
“Us. What’s between us is just a fling. A fun summer adventure. I’m not looking for anything that resembles a relationship. I know you’re passing through, and I’m okay with that. What we have here,” she says, her voice so sure and steady, my muscles tense and my heart retreats. “It’s all I want.”
I swallow past a tight throat, and struggle to ignore the heavy ache in my chest. “Yeah, me too,” I say, at the sobering reminder of what this is and what it isn’t.
Shit, I have a hockey career to get back to, and she has a grandmother to take care of. It’s not like I’ve been thinking about a future together, or wondering if we could somehow make it work. I scoff. Shit, I’m not about to ask her if we could figure out a way to make it work.
Not now anyway.
“I got one,” she says, her eyes wide as she refocuses on fishing. I stand back, work to ignore the lump in my stomach as I watch in speechless fascination as she pulls the line, the fish fighting the whole way. “Can you grab me the net?”
I trudge through the water and come back with the net for her, and she scoops the fish up.
“What a beauty,” she says and holds the net out for me to see a good twelve-inch speckled trout.
I rub my stomach. “Good eating tonight.”
“I thought we were doing catch and release,” she teases and pretends she’s going to release him back into the water.
“Oh, hell no,” I say and take the net from her.
“Want me to teach you how to clean it?”
“Nope, I know how.” I take the fish to the shore, and grab the knife from her tackle box. I make quick work of cleaning it, and don’t hear her coming up behind me. Her fingers brush over my hair, and I glance at her, note the sudden shift in her mood. Her fingers move to my face, and she leans into me, like she needs the connection. Her heat reaches out to me, and eyes that are soft, full of desire meet mine. As I soak in her warmth, I take a breath, and stand. My mouth finds hers, and a shudder races through her.
“Do you think that’s enough for dinner?” she asks and gestures toward the fish. “Or do you want to stay longer, until you catch one.” She steps closer until her body is flush with mine.
“If I’d known fly fishing turned you on, I would have asked you to take me here earlier.”
She chuckles. “That’s not what’s turning me on.” She puts her hand over my heart and it beats rapidly against her palm. “I thought we’d go home, and get naked and I could be your catch of the day.”
I drop everything. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”
14
Alyssa
As Alek negotiates my truck though the downtown core, my gaze wanders to his big hands, hands that have touched me all over with passion and care, and are soon going to be on my body again, inside and out. Warmth threads through me, shimmering over all my erogenous zones.
He casts me a glance, and I grin, sensing the anticipation in him. I have to say, I loved fishing with him this afternoon. I loved teaching him all the tricks, and I loved the enthusiasm, strength and confidence that poured from his every pore, as he followed my careful instructions. He’s athletic and energetic, a real natural at everything he does. But what I loved the most about fishing with him was the way his steady eyes stared at me, taking pleasure in the mere sight of me enjoying my favorite pastime—at least, it used to be my favorite until I met Alek.
And therein lies the problem. Being with him, talking, touching, or just hanging out, has quickly become my favorite thing to do. Which is why I straight up told him that I didn’t want more. It was a lie, yes, a big, fat bold-faced lie to be exact, but after talking about my past, I didn’t want him to think he was following in the footsteps of the people who came and went from my life, disappearing without so much as a backward glance.
We both knew what we were getting into here. He told me he was only here for a short time, and no way do I want him to feel any sort of obligation to me because we’ve been spending every possible moment together, enjoying one another, and having out-of-this-world sex. I just want us to both see, and appreciate this for what it is—and for what it isn’t. My broken heart is my responsibility, not his.
“You’re quiet,” he says softly, and reaches across the cab and takes my hand.
“Just sleepy,” I say. Why wouldn’t I be? We’ve been falling into bed together every night, lost in each other for hours, but I wouldn’t change a thing, even if his impending absence is going to gut me in much the same manner he gutted that fish.
“Thanks again for teaching me how to fly fish,” he says. “That was fun, and I think I was getting the hang of it.”
“We can do it again,” I say. “Practice makes perfect.” My heart quivers in my chest as I take in his strong profile. “Maybe you can teach me to play hockey.” His brow instantly furrows, and he tugs at the collar of his T-shirt, like it’s suddenly choking him. “You did say that was what you liked to do, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” he says. “That’s something we could do.”
“I once read an article that says sharing hobbies makes relationships hotter. Not that we’re in a relationship, and not that things between us could get hotter,” I add with a small laugh. “But you know what I mean.” As the muscles on his jaw ripple, I ask, “What position do you like?”