: Chapter 22

I CAN’T REMEMBER THE LAST time I slept for more than a few hours. The closed curtains are blocking out any indication of what time it is, but I know I slept heavily last night; I can feel it.

I’d reach for something to tell me the time, but Aurora is asleep on the arm curled around her and the other is resting against the soft skin of her stomach. As I peck a kiss against her shoulder she stirs slightly and wriggles against me, her ass brushing against my dick, making me groan.

She does it again, this time clearly more intentional, although she’s pretending to be asleep. I push my hips forward deliberately, leaning forward to whisper into her ear. “I know you’re awake, Rory.”

She laughs, and it’s my second favorite noise in the world. The first being her moaning my name, obviously. “What a way to wake me up,” she says through a yawn.

I’d wake her up however she wanted if it meant she slept next to me at night.

Reaching behind, her hand brushes my knee, then my thigh, slowly climbing higher and higher, pausing to gauge my reaction occasionally, until her arm is folded behind her back and her fingers gently brush past my balls and along my dick.

“Is this okay?” she says, wrapping her hand around me and doing a testing stroke.

“Yeah,” I manage to choke out, moving my hips in time with her hand to make things easier for her. “You’re so good at that, sweetheart.”

She suddenly stops and I immediately panic, thinking I’ve done something wrong, but then she rolls over to face me. She’s still sleepy, her wet hair now dried into waves, and she’s looking at me in a way that makes my heart fall out of rhythm. I wish I could save this moment; bottle it and protect it from whatever outside forces are going to try and ruin it.

Aurora leans over and kisses me, and I immediately don’t care about anything else but right now. She breaks away, then kisses my collarbone, my chest, slowly moving lower and lower, until I’m holding my breath with anticipation and that sleepy look on her face has been replaced with one that’s a lot more mischievous.

She kisses the inside of my thighs, my hip bone, everywhere except the place I want her to. I tuck her hair behind her ear, nudge her chin so she’s looking at me. “Are you trying to make me beg, Aurora?”

Those green eyes are staring up at me so fucking innocently, like she doesn’t have my cock next to her lips. She kisses the base, keeping her eyes on me. “Nope.” Another kiss slightly higher. “You don’t need to beg me to do something I’ve been desperate to do for weeks.”

Joining my fingers on top of my head, I pull on my hair as my stomach flexes, my breathing fighting to stay steady. “This is going to be the best seven seconds of my life.”

“Don’t make me laugh when I’m trying to seduce you,” she groans through her laughter.

“You don’t need to try, you’ve achieved it. Consider me seduced. Obsessed. Consu—” Her lips wrap around the end of my dick and I forget how to speak. I was joking about the seven-seconds thing, but now I’m not so sure it was a joke. “You’re unreal, fuck.”

Her hair falls around her face as she lowers and takes more of me; I brush it away, collecting it into a ponytail in my fist. She likes that; she lets me know as she moans happily, taking me to the back of her throat.

I like it, too.

I’m scared to blink in case I miss one moment of it. The nails of her free hand gently scrape against my abs while her other works in coordination with her mouth to tip me over the edge. My hand tightens in her hair, muscles tense, and the red-hot feeling starts to build.

She watches me from the spot between my legs, eyes green and dewy and so fucking focused on me right now. “I’m almost there.”

My words spur her on; a little bit more and I’ll be right there, and that’s when the cabin door opens and Xander strolls in from his night duty with the dogs, killing any chance of me ever getting hard again.

“Fuck!” we both scream, him reaching to shield his eyes, me reaching to cover Rory’s naked body with a blanket.

“Sorry, sorry,” Xander yells, backing out of the cabin quicker than I’ve ever seen him move. “Do people not put a sock on the door these days? Jesus Christ.”

Horrified is the only word to describe how I feel right now.

Looking to Aurora, I expect to find the same mortified expression, but of course I don’t, because it’s Aurora. Her hand is pressed to her mouth as she tries her best to stop a laugh from bursting out. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m not laughing, I swear. Are you okay?”

The blanket I haphazardly threw on her is partially draped over her head and she’s kneeling naked between my legs, while my dick is definitely no longer hard. Dragging a hand down my face, I burst out laughing, which gives her the permission she needed. Tugging her to me, I kiss her forehead as she snuggles closer. “We didn’t even last six hours before getting caught.”

“We’ll be smarter next time,” she says, dragging her finger across my skin. “I need to get back to my cabin before someone realizes I’m not there. Sorry you didn’t get to finish.”

Aurora says “next time” so casually that I don’t really know how to answer it. I don’t want to have to give her up, but I also don’t want to get fired if we get caught. But I really don’t want to have to give her up. She’s the one thing in my life that hasn’t been ruined in some way by all the other things. She makes me hopeful, and I’m not ready to say good-bye to that feeling yet.

“We will be more careful,” I say, kissing her forehead again.

Climbing over me, she starts to get dressed, frowning when she picks up her still-damp clothes from the floor. “You didn’t fold my clothes, Callaghan,” she says. “I’m proud of you.”

Tugging on my boxers and shorts, I sit on the edge of the bed and watch her grimace, pulling her still damp sweatshirt over her head. She’s putting on her sneakers when I pull her toward me, making her stand between my legs. Her hands settle on either side of my face and she smiles down at me while I rub my hands up and down the backs of her thighs.

There’s a knock on the door, followed immediately by it creeping open. “Not to spoil this beautiful union, but I’m here because I really need to take a shit. So if you two can wrap this up so I don’t have to go in the woods like a fucking bear, that’d be swell.”

Aurora looks over her shoulder toward the gap, not taking her hands off my face. “You know there are other bathrooms, right? Your next option isn’t the woods?”

“Is a man not allowed to have a preferred place to poop these days? Is that where we’re at as a society?”

“I’m leaving, drama queen,” she shouts back before kissing me good-bye.

I want to drag her back to bed and lock the door, but it’s probably a good thing we were disturbed; I had no idea what time it is and I doubt I could have found the motivation to care anyway.

The dogs come rushing in as soon as Rory opens the door and Xander tries to high-five her as she passes him, but he stops when she jabs him in the ribs playfully. “I stole from you, sorry. Bye.”

“It’s always the rich girls!” he calls after her. The grin on his face is unmissable as he comes in and closes the door behind him and I can’t help but grin like a fool, too. “I’m gonna crap and then we’re going to talk about what the fuck happened.”

I occupy myself with the dogs while he’s gone, and when he comes back, the same—no doubt goofy—grin is still on my face. Neither Xander nor I are working today—the second of my days off and his first after switching with Aurora yesterday—but without even talking about it, I know we’re going to be hanging out with everyone all day helping out.

Don’t get me wrong, the kids can be exhausting, but it’s a good kind of exhausting. It keeps my mind busy and I enjoy helping them find their confidence. In a weird way, when I was younger, I kind of put the wealthy kids on a pedestal because I believed that I would never have any problems if my family was rich. That didn’t change much as I got older, especially when I started at a college where it felt like everyone around me was more financially privileged.

Working here is starting to heal that inner child, I think. I see these kids with the same insecurities and worries as I had and I realize how silly I was all those years ago.

And yeah, maybe a tiny part of my motivation to help out today is to see Rory.

Xander throws himself onto his bed, narrowly missing Trout, who is chewing on one of his socks. “Can I guess what Miss Sticky Fingers stole? Was it a condom by any chance?” I nod and his grin widens. “I’m glad you kids are being safe and I don’t have to give you the birds and the bees talk.”

I’d rather be attacked by birds and bees than have that conversation with Xander. “You know we’re the same age, right?”

“Kids these days…” He avoids the shoe I throw at him. “Reflexes of a cat, my guy. But seriously, I’m happy for you. I’m jealous as fuck, but I’m happy. You get to do the whole summer love thing. You’re living the dream.”

“Thanks, man. What’re you doing today?” I ask, changing the subject before he asks me to share too much.

Old habits die hard.

“First thing I’m doing is going back to sleep. Jax decided to tell horror stories before bed, the douche bag. And I know it’s not cool to call a ten-year-old a douche bag, but he really is a bit of a dick. Loads of tears and drama, all very annoying. I won’t ask what you’re doing because I know the answer is hanging around your girl and pretending it’s because you care about team sports.”

I want to correct him and say she’s not my girl, but I like how it sounds. “Pretty much.”

He yawns, tugging the blanket over him and Trout, who immediately begins to chew it. “Your secret is safe with me, man.”

BY THE TIME I’M SHOWERED and heading for breakfast, last night’s rain has disappeared. I’m halfway to the food hall when I hear a “wait up” from behind me.

Freshly showered and now sporting her Brown Bears T-shirt, Aurora smiles as she jogs to catch up to me. Her hand gently brushes past mine, not lingering long enough to be suspicious if anyone was to spot us, but long enough for goose bumps to spread up my arm. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she repeats awkwardly. “I just wanted to say… Well, I’ve been thinking, and, well, I know I made you break the rules last night and I promised I wou—”

“Rory,” I say softly, interrupting her. I stop, moving from her side to in front of her. I’m not used to the look of doubt on her face, or the lack of confidence in her voice. Even when she’s rambling to fill the silence, there’s an air of confidence to it, but right now, she looks like a woman grappling with uncertainty. “You didn’t make me do anything. I went to your cabin, too, remember?”

“I know, but this job is important to you and it’s important to me, I love it here, but I also have the impulse control of a hungry raccoon. I don’t want you to think that the things that are important to you aren’t important to me, when I know they’re important to you. Does that make sense?”

“I think so. I don’t regret it.” Fuck, I want to kiss her. “I promise. I’m trying to relax a little, not be so worried about everything.”

“It would be good for you if you could do that. I think you’ll be happier.”

“So…”

How do I say this?

“So…” she repeats.

“I like you. Aurora. A lot. I’m really happy last night happened.”

Her mouth opens and closes, then opens again a little, much like a goldfish. She clears her throat and nods, forcing out a croaky “Me, too.” She clears her throat. “I really like you, too.”

“So…”

“So… we should get breakfast before they send a search party for us,” she says, breaking the odd silence hanging in the air. “I went to explain why I was going to miss flag raising and be late for breakfast before I went for a shower, and for some reason Orla was there. I had to lie and say my alarm didn’t go off because the power went out and didn’t charge my phone and I’d be as quick as I could.”

We start walking toward the hall again and I nod with approval. “That’s smart.”

She scoffs. “It wasn’t. Turns out, it came back on two minutes after I left to find you and it had nothing to do with the storm. It was the guy trying to stop the leaky roof issue turning off the wrong switch somewhere.”

“Well, they can’t prove you’re lying.”

“Emilia can, she definitely already knows. She gave me the look.” She sighs heavily as we approach the doors, stopping and turning to me. “I’m sorry, I haven’t had someone tell me they really like me before and it means more than they just like having sex with me. It threw me for a minute. I don’t want to go back to college and not see you every day, Russ. Seeing you is the best part of my day. And if you’re happy to wait and be patient while I work out what that means, then maybe we can have something special.”

Now I’m the one who’s thrown. It feels too easy, too natural to be real life, but it is my real life. “I’d wait forever for you, Aurora.”