Page 49 of Only in Your Dreams

He’s not the last person who touched me. I’m still desirable. Sex can still be fun without him. He might have spent the past six years messing with me, breaking me and rearranging me at his will without my noticing, but he didn’t ruin me. I can be fine without him.

Thank God.

Summer was right. This is exactly what I needed.

Beside me, Zac releases a long breath. “You have no idea how long I’ve needed to do that.”

His voice is the kind of light I haven’t heard from him in years, certainly not through the course of the weekend. He’s staring up at the trees without a speck of leftover tension. He looks content. Maybe from the orgasm. Maybe he’s feeling the same kind of relief as I am.

Did someone break his heart too, since I last saw him?

I lift onto my elbows to get a better look at us. We’re a wet, muddy mess. “I think this probably calls for another lake bath.”

He cracks a smile so familiar my entire body throbs with recognition. “Together this time? I owe you a clean-up, after all that. Maybe another round.”

“Nice try,” I scoff, sitting up. “File this away undernever happening again.”

His smile fades. “What do you mean?”

I frown. Why does he suddenly look so… confused?

I’m about to ask. But I cut off my own words, because I swear, I just heard—

Our eyes clash, mine as wide as his.

Over the sounds of leaves shaking in the breeze, lake water flowing, and wildlife scurrying, I hear it. The distinct, miraculous sound of tires cutting through gravel. From somewhere nearby, and sounding closer by the second.

I look around us. “Do you hear—”

“Melody, what does this mean?”

I scramble to my feet. “Did you just hear—”

“Melody,” Zac says urgently. He stands, then nudges my chin until I focus on him again. He’s staring at me almost frantically. “What does this mean?”

My brows furrow. A car engine roars somewhere to my right. “What are you talking about?”

“This,” he says and looks between us before fixing his eyes on me again. “The kissing. Everything after. What does it mean?”

My mouth forms around a word as I hear the renewed sounds of tires. Zac shoves the hair off his face, smearing more mud in the process.

“I… It was nothing,” I stutter.

“Nothing?”

Now I’m confused. “Weren’t we… We’ve had this flirting thing going all weekend. We were just giving in for a minute. Isn’t that all it was?”

Zac deflates.

Almost immediately he shakes his head, as though waking himself up. “No. That’s not at all what I thought it was. I wasn’tgiving in for a minute, whatever the hell that even means.”

“Then—”

The sounds of tires come closer.

“You asked me for a do-over. That’s what I thought we were doing,” he says hurriedly. I turn, trying to find the source of our rescue, but he cups my cheek and forces my gaze back on him. “Melody, I’m trying to tell you something.”

At last, I properly take in the pleading look on his face, the tension in his shoulders. The determination in his eyes. He looks like he’s on the verge of a confession that’s weighed heavy on him, and he’s finally ready to let it out.

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