Page 43 of Catch and Release Groom

And hit Easton in the face with it instead.

“Sorry.” She winced, bracing for annoyance or anger and having a flashback of the bickering from their first excursion. But he was already stepping back, readjusting the net and snaring the silvery green, speckled fish with ease.

“It’s a crappie. A nice-sized one, too.” He lifted his head, and the world turned hazy at the edges as he flashed herthesmile. The one that escalated his attractiveness to dangerous, incinerating levels.

Sure enough, her panties, her senses, and every thought in her head went up in flames, and desire whipped through her like a destructive, needy tornado.

“See, sugar plum. I knew you could do it.” Easton chucked her on the shoulder, a soundindicatorthey were on different pages—in different books and genres. “Good thing, too. I would’ve had to leave you here until nightfall if the only thing you’d managed to snag from the river was your own cell phone.”

“Hey,” she protested. “Not that I’m scared you’ll actually leave me. You have that whole mantra about helping people.”

“Well, detoxing from your phone is something you need, so…”

“Ah!Now I’m glad that I accidentally slapped you with my fish.”

“Oh, so now it’s your fish, is it?” He swung the twitching net toward her. “Have at it, then. Just slip the hook out of the mouth and release it into the stream. Unless you want to eat it. Sushi-style or campfire?”

“As hungry as I am, I’m going to have to pass.” Imogen took a second look at the crappie—an utterly unsuitable name for such a shimmering creature—and frowned. “It’s not that I don’t want to touch it, but I’m not sure I want to touch it.”

Easton laughed, full-out, and so many unsanctioned emotions were stirring. He lifted the wiggling fish out of the net and removed the fake fly from its mouth. “You do,” he said, holding out the crappie expectantly.

Weirder still, she complied, running a finger along its scales. “Ooh, he’s silkier than I imagined.”

“And I’m more jealous than I imagined,” Easton said, and her gaze shot to his.

Time ground to a halt for a glorious second or two, the scattered beats of her heart echoing through her limbs—everything above the knees, anyway, as standing in the water had left her lower extremities numb. Given the exquisite ache throbbing to life between her thighs, she should sit and let the water drift over her head and cool her racy thoughts.

One of which involved him taking her right here and now.

Easton shifted so they were both facing downstream and nestled the fish into her open palms, not yet letting go, as if giving her a chance to change her mind. “Want to do the honors?”

Before she could fall into old habits and think her way out of it, she nodded.

Then the slimy creature’s life was wholly in her hands. “Shoot, I forgot to get a picture.” She popped her hip, pocket of her shorts aimed at Easton. “Can you snag my phone for me?”

Was he seriously crossing his arms? “Or you could live in the moment. Just you, me, the river and the fish. You’ll remember the details.”

Easton swayed closer, and sure enough, additional details imprinted themselves on her brain. His substantive height and how he towered over her in a way that felt protective, not looming. Eye-crinkles made more noticeable by the widening of his grin.

At one point, he’d twisted his hat around so the bill wouldn’t keep bumping the crown of her head. It’d given him a slightly boyish look, but with the noonday sun directly above them, highlighting rugged features covered with coarse, dark hair, he was all man.

Drunk on the heady cocktail of lust and adoration, Imogen’s heart fluttered as wildly as the fish in her hands. Which reminded herthere was a real live fish in her hands.

Then Easton slipped his thumb beneath the hem of her shirt, distracting her all over again with the tingly, arcing trail he traced across her abdomen.

Again and again, until her pulse set its beats to the motion. “I’ll pull your phone out of your pocket and take the picture if you insist,” he said, drawling out the offer and adding another swipe of heat to her skin, “but in my opinion, nothing’s as breathtaking through the filter of a screen.”

As she contemplated her reply, it also occurred to her that for the first time in a long time, she felt certain she could voice a contrary viewpoint without getting blasted with condescension. For so long, she’d sorted everything into two categories: logical, and…not even impractical, but absurd—or even worse—worthless.

Pain twinged and radiated through her chest, delivering fresh hurt to old scars.

On principle, she considered arguing. So what if her phone was bloated with thousands of pictures she’d never looked at twice—if even once? There were also hundreds of cherished memories that meant the world to her.

But Easton wasn’t pushing her into agreeing but intoexperiencing.

And so she acted, bending at the waist and lowering the fish into the river. No room for second-guessing, just letting go. “Goodbye, Mr. Crappie,” she whispered as he swam as fast as his fins and the current could carry him.

Away from her, similar to how she’d be flying away in three short days, and then her and Easton’s paths were unlikely to cross again.

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