I shake my head. “Unreal. If it’s any consolation, I had zero idea. You came off completely calm and collected by the time you showed up at my trailer.”

He shakes his head. “You’re just remembering the good parts.”

I bite my lip. I know I need to take this slow. I don’t want to freak him out, but also, how can I? I’ve been waiting possibly my whole life for this man to get a clue. “I remember all the parts.”

He clears his throat. “Me, too.”

I finish my cone and let go of his hand to throw the wrapper in a trash bin. “I still think of all the parts,” I say, over my shoulder.

He freezes momentarily before following and throwing his wrapper away.

“So.” His voice cracks in an adorably familiar way. “There’s a recycled barn-wood vendor in the next aisle I wanted to check out.”

“Lead on.”

He grabs my hand again, hiding his grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

Cam drops me off at my B&B room door hours later. We were notified a second room opened up this afternoon and I (graciously) offered to keep the twin beds and allow him the queen in the opposite suite.

Let the record show, I deserve a Presidential Medal of Restraint and Second Virginity for letting him walk away.

Especially after he wrapped my body in the cocoon of his strong arms and his delicious smell and his thoughtful gaze. For a full minute. And then he whispered that he “had a good time today.” And then, when he tightened his embrace, I felt him press against me everywhere but especially right there, and he didn’t shy away but let me feel it all the way in my bone marrow and—holy hell can you come to completion from a hug?

(Maybe we could call it dry humping? Maybe that would be somehow less pathetic?)

(Is dry humping less pathetic, though? In what universe?)

I close my door and immediately start an ice-cold shower before giving it up for lost, turning the nozzle to hot and closing my eyes, imagining his tongue.

Before I fall asleep that night, he texts me a single line orchestrated to ensure I never sleep again.

CAMERON: I still think of all the parts, too.