I want it too much. I wanthim, and I grip the back of his neck without caring anyone can walk up on us and I won’t notice. Thathewon’t notice either—because this heat, this fucking hunger, is stronger than us both.
Mal kisses me like he’s stealing a part of my soul and he’ll never give it back.
I let him.
I tear at him too, and I realise the water is saving us. If we were on dry land, we’d be naked already and then what? We’d fuck on the river bank? Go back to our lives after and pretend it never happened?
Mal’s low groan rattles me.
Dizzies me.
I bite his bottom lip, mauling it like I own it. He groans again, louder than we’d dare at home, and it’s laced with the same helpless desperation I’m starting to feel.
His grip on me loosens.
He pulls away and dunks himself under the water, leaving me reeling, my lungs like broken glass.
I heave myself onto the bank and move to where he dumped my bag. Inside, I find the towel I stashed with Mal’s meds before we left. Water. Snacks. Who do I think I am today?
A fucking idiot, that’s who.
I take the bag and slip through the undergrowth to another hidden spot—a sun trap beside a waterfall just big enough to be the perfect shower. I wash the lagoon from my body, aware of Mal a hot beat before his hands raze my skin, chasing water down my spine.
His mouth claims me again and I don’t fight it. We fall headlong into another wild kiss, but it’s tempered this time. As if he’s holding back, and he retreats again, pressing his forehead to mine. “Sorry. I’ll behave when we get home, I promise.”
I don’t want him to behave. I want everything he has, right here, right now, and again when we get home. But what I want and real life aren’t following the same trajectory.
We need to stop, before we can’t.
The waterfall seems to simmer down with our blood.
I take Mal’s hand and tug him away from it and back to where my bag lies abandoned in the sun. I pass him the towel. Mal takes it and draws it over my skin, my hair, my face.
It’s cute. And from him, unexpected. I return the favour, stealing one last kiss—just one—before I toss the towel on the ground and sink down onto it, awareness I’m fuckingshookcreeping over me.
Mal doesn’t seem much better off.
I blame the cold water, discounting the blazing sun, and pass him one of the trail mix bags we keep in the kitchen for Oscar. They’re a lot more interesting than what I brought for myself, but we are who we are. Mal doesn’t comment as I shove down two vanilla protein bars.
Then he does. “You suck dick like that?”
I chuck the wrappers in his face and push him, hard.
He laughs and flops onto his back, and I think I might love him for the levity he’s forcing on me. Thelife. It’s so easy to lie down beside him. Easier, even, than it was to coax him onto my bed. The sun beats down on us, drying our wet clothes. Mal curls his fingers around mine and the quiet we share heals wounds I’ve almost forgotten about.
It’s a while before he speaks for the first time in what feels like hours.
“I’m sorry about the other day.”
Fuck. Did I fall asleep? I don’t know. And I’m drowsy enough that I have no clue what he’s talking about either. “For what?”
“For pushing food on you. I shouldn’t have done it.”
I turn my head. “Why did you?”
“I wanted to know you better. And I’m a twat.”
I don’t argue with him there. And the rest of it isn’t a surprise. I’ve been here before with other people—with everyone, if I think about it long enough, which isn’t happening. Not today. “It’s not a secret, how I am. You could’ve asked someone else.”