Page 68 of Tangled Up In You

His flirty smile slowly straightened as he searched her eyes. “When what?”

“You said when, not if.”

“Sunshine, I’m okay with if, too. We can do as much, or as little as you want. But we won’t do any of it drunk.”

She nodded and pushed up on her toes to kiss him again. They started to walk, but the sights disappeared around her, the tourists banished by the whirlwind of her thoughts. She wanted more with Edward. If she was being honest with herself, she wanted to explore it all. But when? Nashville was the final dot on the map for him, but she still had one more stop. Would things be the same when they got back to Spokane? Or would he go back to being Just Fitz, even with her?

And she’d been so wrapped up in the excitement of the trip and the heat simmering between her and Edward that she hadn’t thought—really thought—about what the next phase of her journey looked like. Suddenly, the idea of leaving him today and heading into the foggy unknown of family secrets felt so overwhelming, Ren got dizzy.

With a flush of panic, she came to a stop, tugging his hand. “I don’t want to go to Atlanta today.”

With a look of confusion, he turned to face her. “You want to stay another night? In Nashville?”

“Yes, but…” she began, suddenly aware that she might be imposing, that she had no idea what he had scheduled here. “Of course I don’t want to mess with whatever your plans are.”

“I, uh…” He trailed off, swallowing. “I have a thing on Thursday. I had some other stuff I was going to do in town, but Thursday is the only thing I can’t miss.”

A thing? Some other stuff? Frustration simmered in her belly. They could kiss and sleep wound around each other, but he was always so vague. Maybe this was how it worked, though. Maybe sexual intimacy came first. It felt so backward.

“Then yes,” she said. “I need to be on a bus back to Spokane by Wednesday, probably. But I want to stay another night.”

One more day with Edward sounded like not nearly enough, but she’d take whatever she could get. She had bigger things to think about, but she’d never felt like this before. She wanted to stay in it a little longer, to savor it. Especially today.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” she said, confident again, and stepped forward, tilting her chin to look up at him. “Nothing sounds worse than getting on a bus, hungover, on my birthday.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

REN

Ren kicked off her shoes and looked over at him. “Turn around.”

Brow sweaty, breaths ragged, Edward slowly lowered his water bottle and gazed at her with concern. “Turn around why?”

Gesturing out to the lake ahead of them, Ren communicated the answer in her expression: Isn’t it obvious? After making all the unnecessary noises of someone who unknowingly missed a birthday, Edward had asked what she wanted to do. She’d admitted she’d never really celebrated her birthday before, not in a way that mattered, so she had no idea. Sitting at a sidewalk café, they’d searched his phone for local options: Centennial Park, the Country Music Hall of Fame, a distillery visit, the Grand Ole Opry, or even a tractor tour. But when a series of stunning photos for Harpeth River State Park popped up in the browser, Ren was sold.

It took some work to get there, but after a winding hike over a deserted trail, the trees had finally parted, revealing a wide blue lake. Apparently, it was once a quarry but in the 1930s the bottom was sealed, the water filtered, and the area became a resort. But at the beginning of World War II, it closed, the buildings left to decay without human interference. Now, the swimming hole was completely secluded, closed in by steep rock walls and leggy trees that blocked the view from anyone standing on the ledge above.

To Ren, it was the perfect spot for a swim.

“But we don’t have suits,” he said slowly.

“Do we need them?”

“Generally, people who aren’t routinely naked together wear suits when swimming, yes.”

She smiled at him. “We have underwear, you know. We can swim in that.”

“To be clear,” he said, turning his back to her with a lingering grin, “I wasn’t complaining.”

Relief washed over her; it was unseasonably warm, in the low eighties, and after the steep hike where she’d had a near-constant view of the flexing and bunching of Edward’s muscular thighs, she felt overheated and jittery. Thankfully they’d brought enough drinking water, and they’d just devoured the lunch of sandwiches and chips they’d picked up at a deli on the drive over, but the idea of diving into the calm, deep blue water made her feel like she’d had another two glasses of champagne.

Quickly, she unbuttoned her shorts and kicked them off. Her top was next. She folded them both and set them on a rock at the edge, then looked down at herself, dressed in only her simple bra and panties. They covered as much as her swimsuit, so that was fine, but she didn’t have anything to change into, and she didn’t relish the idea of driving back in wet underwear or walking through the busy hotel lobby braless.

She glanced at Edward’s back. “I’m taking my undies off, too,” she told him.

His spine stiffened. “Oh, so we’re doing the full monty.”