“Yeah, I guess he is.” Victoria wasn’t ready to give up physical closeness—his fingers enfolding hers, his arm around her shoulder, his chest beneath her cheek—but everyone else was up and getting ready to sleep.
He stood first, drawing her to her feet. “You’ve got chocolate on your lip.”
“I do?”
He ducked down, licked it away, his lips touching hers for the briefest kiss, the contact making her want more. But this wasn’t the time or the place.
She took a step back. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
She helped get the food packed away, then brushed her teeth and made a quick trip to the restroom facility with Lexi and Britta. Moths danced around the fluorescent lights, the brightness making Vic squint.
“I’m sleeping in the SUV.” Britta disappeared into the one and only stall.
“My sister is the Princess on the Pea.”
“I just don’t like sleeping on the ground,” Britta said from inside the stall.
Lexi rolled her eyes at her sister. “You’re not on the ground. You’re zipped in a tent, away from the bugs on a foam pad inside a sleeping bag.”
But Britta wasn’t persuaded. “I’m sleeping in the SUV.”
Ten minutes later, Vic found herself alone in a tent, eyes wide in the darkness. It wasn’t Chaska’s stories that kept her awake, but the vile words of the man who’d grabbed her at the gas station.
Chapter 10
Eric lay on his back, arm bent beneath his head, staring through the tiny square of mesh on the top of his tent at the stars. He couldn’t sleep, his head filled with images of her. Victoria kissing him on the riverbank, her dark hair wet. Victoria looking terrified when that asshole grabbed her arm. Victoria making s’mores and listening wide-eyed to Taylor and Belcourt’s stories.
He needed to get her out of his mind. She’d be leaving Sunday, going back to Chicago, and he’d be staying here. Sunday. That was five days from now. Five days. God only knew when he’d see her again.
Shit.
Hewasfalling for her. Taylor had been right.
There was only one way to deal with that. He needed to put some distance between them, clear his head. He would finish working on the video, and that would be it, becauseno waywas he getting tangled up with her.
From outside, he heard footsteps, a shadow crouching near his door.
“Eric?” Victoria whispered. “Are you awake?”
He sat up, unzipped his tent fly, found her crouching there, sleeping bag and foam pad wadded up in her arms, day pack on one shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t sleep. Can I stay with you?”
But this wasn’t a booty call.
Even in the darkness, he could see fear on her pretty face. “Sure.”
What did you just say about creating distance, dumbshit?
Yeah, well, that would have to wait. He couldn’t leave Lexi’s best friend terrified and alone. Besides, the idea of spending the night beside her …
Can you hear yourself, buddy?
He shoved those thoughts aside and took her gear. “I got it.”
She crawled in, kneeling by the entrance while he took her sleeping pad and bag and spread them out next to his. “Sorry to bother you. I keep thinking of that guy …”