“Please don’t tell me we’re lost,” I said, looking around. We’d walked through a small town earlier and then into a park that had dog-walking paths and bike trails. But it seemed that we’d suddenly found ourselves in a stretch of woods that I’d hoped would let out onto a main road, but as of yet, had not. I put my hand on my forehead. “Oh my God, you got us lost.”

Tuck turned toward me, jaw tight. “Emily, do you want to lead the way? Maybe you could do a better job.”

“Maybe I could,” I bit back. I was hungry and thirsty, and I just wanted to lie down in a cozy bed again and instead I was tromping through some muddy woods. And I’d woken up pressed against Tuck and wanting him to kiss me so badly I still ached with it. And he hadn’t spared me more than a few words over the course of an entire day. And to add insult to injury, now he’d gotten us lost. Wonderful.

He turned, focusing his full attention on me. “Yes, you probably could,” he said. “Hell, if you don’t need me anymore, then maybe we should part ways.”

“It’s probably for the best,” I shot back, even if the very idea of parting from Tuck practically turned my insides to water. We came together, the heat of our sudden fight drawing me, and seeming to do the same to him.

He turned his head slightly, shutting one eye as though in consideration. “Then again, you have something I want and so I’m not going to let you go quite yet.”

Our breath mingled, bodies so close I could feel his heat. I wanted to be tangled with him again. I wanted to feel his hardness pressed against my stomach. And I wanted him to want me with the same white-hot intensity.

“I do?” I asked breathily.

He brought his face close to mine and then leaned toward my ear. “I want that almond you saved in your pocket.” He drew back and then his face blossomed in a grin, and though I was hyped up on anger and sexual frustration, I couldn’t help bursting out in laughter.

I pushed him away and dug the almond from my pocket. “Never,” I said, beginning to bring it to my mouth, my tongue extended. But he caught my wrist, and I let out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a scream as he spun me around, fake fighting for the singular almond.

“Give it here,” he said, and I laughed again, tripping over something on the forest floor and flailing backward, landing on the soft backpack I was wearing and wheezing out another laugh.