Wait With Me (Wait With Me, #1)(45)
I giggle at that reply and touch his arm in appreciation. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
I waggle my eyebrows suggestively, and he volleys back, “Oh, believe me, I know you will.” He pulls back and shakes his head, clearly needing some space to get his mind out of the gutter. “Okay then, I’ll pick you up Friday morning at eight.”
“Eight sounds great!” I squeal and turn on my heel to leave. I head down the alley toward the employee entrance and can’t help but notice the way his eyes drink in my bare legs. “I’d better get going…I’m suddenly feeling very inspired.”
I turn to run and nearly smack into Miles’s friend Sam, who’s just come around the corner at the same moment.
“Sorry,” I mumble with a shy, embarrassed smile and hustle my ass down my usual path toward the place that started me on this crazy fucking ride.
Driving down the highway with Mercedes in my truck and her smiling bigger than I’ve ever seen isn’t a bad way to spend a day of my hard-earned vacation. I didn’t know girls could be this excited about camping. Although, in all fairness, my experience with women is pretty limited. Jocelyn wasn’t into the great outdoors at all, and my sister, Megan, absolutely dreaded our family camping trips growing up. So I guess this will be a new experience for both of us.
After a little over an hour’s drive, we pull into Rainbow Lakes, and I’m excited to see we’re the first ones to arrive. There are about twenty “first come, first serve” campsites for tents and campers. Sam and I try to grab one particular site every time we come because it has the best view of the small lake with huge mountains in the distance. Plus, the spot offers a bit of seclusion from the other campers, and that’s always a good thing.
It’s not that I hate people, but I just like my space. It’s why I ended up buying a house outside of Boulder. Everything in town seemed too crowded. I didn’t choose Colorado for a city life.
We drive down a worn dirt path through some big trees and up onto the small hilltop of our site. Mercedes gasps when the view comes into her sight line. “Oh, Miles, this is perfect!” she exclaims, clamoring out of the car as soon as I put it in park.
She heads to the front of the truck to take in the view, and I have to fight the urge to yank her back inside and fuck the shit out of her right here and now. She looks so fucking cute in her short khaki shorts, white Chucks, and red and white flannel shirt. Her red hair is tied into two braids down over her breasts, and she’s wearing a Yankees baseball cap pulled down low. I gave her some serious shit about that as soon as I saw her this morning. Seriously, how do you grow up in Colorado and not be a Rockies fan?
I get out to go stand beside her, sliding my hands in my pockets and take in a deep, cleansing breath. The air is fresh, the morning sun is warm, and I honestly can’t think of a place I’d rather be right now. “This place is pretty perfect,” I reply, seeing everything with new eyes. I point to an area off to the right. “There’s a path here that leads right down to the water.”
“Oh, that’s convenient,” she says, eyes bright, smile permanent.
“Yeah, you can swim in this lake too. The water is crystal clear.”
She looks at me with accusing eyes. “You didn’t tell me to bring my suit!”
My brows waggle. “I know.”
She rolls her eyes and hits me in the arm. With a laugh, I grab her hand and pull her back toward the truck. “Come on, we have work to do.”
We go about setting up our campsite. First, I lay out the tarp on the ground where we’ll be staking down the tent. Then I have her help me push the tent poles through the slots and stake it down with a hammer. My tent is a nice-sized, two-room tent, which works well for Sam and me. But for Mercedes and me, one side will be for our bags, and the other side will be for us.
“This is brand new,” Mercedes says from outside the tent.
Hunched over inside, I pop my head out through the door and see her holding the mattress pad I bought yesterday. I take it from her hands. “Yeah, I’ve never used it before.”
“Why not?” she asks, bending over and coming in behind me.
I squat down to open the box. “I just do a sleeping bag usually.”
“So you bought this for me?” she asks, brows furrowed.
I shrug. “It’s not only for you. If I’m fucking your brains out tonight like I plan to be, this will save my knees big time.”
She laughs and shoves me on the shoulders, nearly knocking me backward onto my ass. “You are such a horny bastard sometimes, you know that?”
“Says the smut writer,” I repeat my burn from our earlier texts. Her jaw drops as I add, “Seriously, how do you have any street cred in the romance community if you’re this much of a prude?”
“You fucker!” she squeals and jumps on top of me, easily knocking me backward this time as she falls down on top of me.
I laugh and groan as my back hits a lump on the ground. “Ow!” I cry, my hand flying out to shove myself away from the apparent boulder below us. “See? This wouldn’t have hurt if you could have kept your hands off me long enough to get the new mattress pad laid out.”
“You are such a dick!” She giggles and digs her fingers into my sides to try to tickle me.