“Oh,” I answer in a small voice, feeling disappointed and slightly stupid.

“What’s wrong?”

“I kinda got excited about helping you with your fly,” I answer.

As a smile forms on his face, his eyes dance with wickedness. He drops whatever he’s holding, takes one giant step to reach me, and suddenly I’m enveloped in his arms before he kisses me. And it’s some kind of kiss. Rough, demanding, and completely unlike gentle Drew. He manages to unzip the tent without letting me go. We crouch down, and crawl inside.

“Now you can help me with my fly all you want.”

My hands fumble with his zipper as I go to work on his jeans and I feel his hands doing the same on mine. A question pops into my head.

“Is anyone around us?”

“I don’t know, nor do I care.”

“Can they see through this tent?”

“No, but they can hear.”

Good to know. I finally get his pants pulled down enough for his cock to make an appearance, and all I want to do is lick it. So I do. He tastes so good and feels like velvet on my tongue.

“Cate. That’s so fucking good.” He strokes my hair in sync with my mouth. The faster I move, the faster his hand moves. Then he stops my movement. “I want inside of you.”

I rise up and he roughly tugs off my jeans, freeing my legs. He grabs a condom out of his pocket and puts it on. “Ride me, Cate. I love to see you on me.” I love to ride him as well, so I oblige us both. I sink down onto pleasure I’ve only known with Drew. There isn’t anything sweet about what we do. It’s hard and relentless as we lose control with one another. When our mouths slam together in a searing kiss, our hands join, and the brief slowness turns quick and rough as we soar to our peaks. His kiss swallows my groans and we both climax, Drew right after me.

“Jesus, what the hell was that?” I ask, when I can form a coherent sentence again. I’m still on his lap as we stare at each other.

“Damn awesome, that’s what.” He runs his nose along my neck and plants a dozen kisses there. “Every time with you is …” He slowly shakes his head as if to form words. “You never disappoint, Cate.”

I can’t stop the wide grin. It feels empowering that I can move a man the way it seems I’ve moved him. “Can I just say that so far, camping is pretty cool?”

His body rumbles with laughter. “I’ll have to remember that line about the fly. That was priceless.”

My grin turns into a megawatt smile. “Okay. The truth is I’d been checking out your ass. I can’t help that you have such a fine ass.”

“My ass? You’re joking?”

I shake my head. “Why would I joke about your ass?”

“My ass, huh?” He shrugs.

“It’s a damn fine ass.”

He bellows a laugh. “I guess we should finish setting up camp.”

“Probably.” I don’t object, because he’s doing most of the work and I love watching him.

The day is filled with hiking to a gorgeous waterfall. By the time we make it back to camp, it’s time to get dinner going.

That night he cooks salmon in a cast iron skillet that he puts on the grate the camp provides, over the wood fire. He tosses a couple of potatoes wrapped in foil into the fire beforehand, and has premade a salad.

“I can’t believe this. It’s restaurant worthy. I figured we’d be eating hotdogs or burgers on the high end. But this salmon … it has that smoky flavor from the fire.”

“Yeah, it came out pretty good.”

“So you’ve been camping your whole life?”

“Uh, Eagle Scout here.” He gives me the salute.

“Eagle Scout? I’m impressed. You never cease to amaze me. But they didn’t teach you how to cook salmon in Eagle Scouts.”

He’s laughing now. “No, this is my own invention. Every summer a group of us go camping and fishing and we try to out do each other in the cooking arena. This is actually a test dish for me. I’ve never done it before but I figured it had to be good.”

He starts putting the graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate out for the s’mores. My mouth waters. “You ready?”

Licking my lips, I say, “Yeah.”

He hands me a stick and a marshmallow. I load it up and start the roasting.

The fire crackles and our marshmallows are finished. We assemble our dessert and I take a bite. Marshmallow gushes out and smears all over my chin. Drew looks at me and shakes his head.

“These things tastes so good, but they are a mess.” Then he leans over and licks the gooey stuff off my chin. “Mmm, I think you taste better than the marshmallow.”

When he pulls back after not kissing me, his eyes crinkle at my confusion and longing. Then I realize he’s teasing me and we laugh.

“How come you didn’t get any on your chin?” I ask.

He shoots me sly look and waggles his eyebrows. “Cate, I’m an Eagle Scout, remember?”

I almost spit out my mouthful of s’mores. Then he stands, stokes the fire, and puts another log on it. I love to watch him take care of this stuff. It’s so … manly. And sexy.

“Um, Drew?”

“Yeah?”

“I have to pee.”

“Okay. You have a couple of options. The camp has restrooms. They are a fair walk from here, or you can pee in the woods.”

“Pee in the woods? Aren’t there critters in there?”

“Yeah, they have to have a home, Cate.”

“So, like pee in the woods. What if I’m peeing in the woods, and a snake jumps up and bites Louise?”

He clamps his lips together and it’s so obvious he’s trying his best not to laugh. I let him know. “Don’t you laugh at me, Drew McKnight. I’m scared to pee in the woods and I hate snakes. Louise does too.”

“Louise loves my snake, Cate.”

I punch him in the arm. “That’s not fair. This is real. I have to pee and I’m afraid.”

“Right. I’ll go with you and ward off any wayward snakes that might be thinking of jumping up and biting Louise. How’s that?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What about other varmints, like rats and ’possum?”

He slowly inhales and clamps his lips again. Then he stands, holds out his hand, rifles through a bag, and pulls out a roll of toilet paper. He turns on a flashlight and leads the way into the woods.

When he finds the perfect spot, he says, “Here.” And turns his back while I squat to pee. But in my haste, I do something really stupid. I yank my jeans down and leave on my unders, so I pee my pants. “OH NO!”

“What?” he spins to face me.

“I just peed my pants!”

“How’d you do that?”

I explain and he drops the flashlight as he doubles over laughing. Now we have to hunt the flashlight and I’m stumbling around trying to get my jeans off without getting my pee on them.

“So you peed on your ‘unders’? I’m not sure what’s funnier. You peeing on yourself or the fact that you call them unders.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s what my mom calls them so I just sort of inherited the term.”

“I see. So, unders then.”

“Yeah. Shit! Did you find the flashlight?”

Laughing, he says, “Yeah.”

I get straightened out and decide to walk back to the tent bare-assed so I can clean myself up appropriately. Drew laughs all the way back and I can’t blame him.

“Can anyone see me like this?”

“I don’t think so. Besides, the water spigot is behind the tent so it blocks the view. Here’s some soap and a washcloth if you want to clean off.”

“Thank you for being so prepared.”

“Eagle Scout.”

I grumble and become the speedy cleaner-upper and am back in my jeans in no time.

“I cannot believe I did something so dumb.”

“Uh, I’d have to agree.”

Sometime in the middle of the night, I wake to hear all kinds of noises—growling, scratching, and other creature sounds.

“Drew! Something’s trying to tear up our tent!”

“Huh?” a sleepy Drew asks.

“There’s something outside of the tent trying to get us! Wake up!”

“It’s nothing. Probably a raccoon. Go back to sleep.”

He conks back out, leaving me to fret, awake. Of course, the giant, man-eating animals threatening to shred our tent and eat us alive resume their activities. I know there are dozens of them right outside of that flimsy piece of fabric that affords me zero protection from the monstrous beasts. I pull the sleeping bag over my head, as if that will help. But the noises grow even louder.