“Stop it,” she said now, reading the hunger in his expression.
“Sorry.” He squeezed his eyes closed, tilting his chin toward camp. “Let’s—let’s head back.”
But she didn’t move. “Why do you always look at me like that?”
Leo didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how he was looking at her, but obviously he couldn’t keep the infatuation from his eyes. He was falling in love again. Had never fallen out of it. Leo broke his gaze from hers. “I’m sorry.”
He froze when she reached up and dragged the pad of her thumb across his lower lip, staring at his mouth like she wanted to eat it. Longing corkscrewed through him, but then she blinked, clearing the heat from her gaze.
“No,” she said quietly, and then, with more force: “I am not doing this.”
He was frozen, his heart scaling the length of his windpipe. “Lil,” he said. “What am I supposed to do right now?”
She tilted her face to the sky, exhaling a devastatingly broken “Fuck. I don’t know.”
He reached forward, pulling a strand of hair away from her lip. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
If she wouldn’t lead them to camp, he would. But as soon as he turned, she caught him around the wrist, pulling him back, and in a blaze of movement, captured his face in her hands and took his mouth with hers.
An explosion detonated in his blood, propelling him forward, forcing a gust of air to escape her throat when her back collided with the rock face. Her kiss was hot and angry, but when she sucked in a breath, it pulled cool air across his lips and tongue, and the sensation was like a whip cracking, tripling his desire. He couldn’t get enough. Her softness, the sound she made at the back of her throat, her taste. His entire life he’d wanted nothing the way he wanted her, and the feel of her wild kiss dissolved any restraint he had. They were drinking rainwater from skin, kissing so deeply he could feel her moan vibrate through him.
Her hands formed fists in his shirt, holding him captive for the savage scrape of her teeth across his bottom lip, the hungry stroke of her tongue. He groaned, giving her all of him, his lips and chin and neck, to bite and suck; her hands slid down his front, digging up inside his shirt. He must have felt like a fever come to life against her cold palms. She gasped, nails dragging down his chest, over his nipples; the sensation like becoming a tuning fork, struck. His frantic hands moved over her cheeks, neck, and down, cupping the gentle curves of her breasts. He licked the water that fell from her skin, sucked her jaw and throat, releasing fragments of his hectic thoughts about wanting her, missing her, losing himself in the way she gripped his collar like she’d punish him if he stopped.
Leo worked free the buttons on her shirt, spreading the cotton open and kissing the soft skin he exposed inch by wet inch, neck and collarbone and sternum and down, curling a finger around the strap of her bra and easing it off her shoulder to bare her breast to him. With his sanity pooling in the water at their feet, his palm came over her, feeling, remembering; his fingers closed around the peak in a teasing pinch.
Lily’s sounds cut through the storm, her body responding helplessly, nails digging into his shoulders, urging his mouth to where she wanted his kiss and jerking in pleasure as the heat of it closed around her nipple. He switched to the other side, frantic, lost in the taste of her, thinking he’d drown in this rain before he’d move his lips away from her skin. With a cry, Lily pulled him up, fists in his hair, claiming him again with a fevered, gasping mouth, her lips and tongue cooled from the rain.
The kisses slowed, languid and deep, and he cupped her face in his hands, nipping gently at her lower lip before coming back for—
Lily jerked her head abruptly to the side.
“Shit.” She squeezed her eyes closed in a hard wince and pressed her palms to his chest, shoving him away. “Shit.”
The air cooled, and his stomach sank. She reached for her shirt, closing it in a shaking fist.
“Lily—”
Without another word, she turned, jogging past him and back to camp.
Chapter Seventeen
THE RAIN WAS there and gone again just as quickly, but when Lily climbed out of her tent the next morning, everything was a mess—herself included. The fire was out, her boots were wet, and she’d kissed Leo. Hungrily. Aggressively. Unabashedly.
And she was dreading seeing him today.
Slipping into a pair of dry boots, she surveyed the damage around camp. The dirt was baked hard by the sun and unable to readily absorb much rain. They’d pitched the tents on high enough ground that the bulk of the water had run off and collected in slippery depressions or rushed to lower elevations, but their gear was wet, and nearly everything was slick with red mud. A morning that was supposed to be quick and orderly would be twice as much work.