Page 85 of Trip Me Up

“No, Niall. I—I never dreamed the tour would be like this. You’ve made it magical.” I never used words likemagical,but it seemed right around Niall. “But it has to end next week. Can’t we just enjoy this until then?”

His jaw hardened. “You can’t stop me from trying to change your mind.”

“I don’t suppose I can.” Though I couldn’t let him.

He put one hand behind my head, and the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back, Niall looming over me. He kissed my nose, his lips warm on the cold tip. He dragged his lips down my cheek and nosed aside my scarf to place sucking kisses on my neck. Molten heat pooled between my legs.

“Anything off limits in this game?” he asked, his voice rough.

“What—game?” He’d moved to my ear, tracing the lobe in a way that made me shiver inside the down coat.

“The one where I try to convince you never to let me go.”

“No. Nothing off-limits.” Except my heart.

He crashed his lips onto mine angrily, pillaging, taking. When I kissed him, I forgot all the reasons I could never live with him on the farm: the lack of wifi, the distance from any university with a sizable computer science department, CASE and all the lies I’d told. Instead, I let myself roll around in the moment the way Bilbo Baggins had done in the forest.

His icy hands slid under my coat, under my T-shirt. My heated skin welcomed his touch. He wedged a knee between my legs, right where I needed him, and I rocked against him. Under the quilt, we weren’t writers or programmers or frauds. We were just Sam and Niall, and while we pressed together, too many layers of fabric between us, I could almost imagine it didn’t have to end.

He tugged away and cradled my face in his hands. “As much as I love nature and—and doing this with you outdoors, maybe we should go back inside.”

“To your perfectly serviceable bed?”

“Where it’s warm, and we don’t have to worry about frostbite. Where I can see you. All of you.” Niall’s voice was deep. “I’ll light some candles.”

“I’m not afraid of your candles. Or your bed. You won’t win.”

“We’ll see.”

We returned to the house, hand in hand. We creaked up the steps, and he lit the candles like he’d promised. The flickering light outlined him in ruby and gold like one of Mother’s necklaces.

His bed squeaked as I straddled him and buried my hands in the rose-gold hair on his freckled chest. As I rose and fell, riding him like the waves of the ocean. As I spiraled up again and again until I flopped against his chest, exhausted.

The bed groaned as he turned us, as he drove into me like he could break me open and spill out all my secrets. When he moved a hand between us and sparked me again, I would have told him every secret I had, if I’d had the power of speech. But the only word I could form was his name, over and over, like the creaks of the spring peepers.

Like the Spring Peeper Princess, I took everything he offered.

After, he wrapped me in his arms while we breathed together. I shut my eyes, refusing to look out the window at the new constellations that had risen to remind me that the world kept turning around us.

That we’d have to get up, say our good-byes to his family, and fly to Dallas.

That the tour would end on Thursday back home in San Francisco.

That, if I didn’t stop them, Heidi and Martell would announce that CASE had written the book.

That, whether or not I managed to hide the truth, Niall could never be mine.

Fucking feelings. I hadn’t wanted them. And here they were, wrapping me up like ivy around one of the trees in the forest.

When his breathing evened out, slow and deep, I untangled myself from his arms, left the candlelit enchantment of his bed, and returned to my cold, dark room. But the ache in my heart followed me.

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