Page 32 of Sweet Surrender
“That’s a bummer,” Allie said, though her sympathy was minimal. She never understood how anyone could pay to hike up a mountain. Surely the risks outweighed the benefits.
“I went to Machu Picchu, but I actually have no idea what it looks like,” Elodie muttered. “It is a bummer.”
Anna pulled her knees to her chest. “I got caught in a storm in Greece. It was right after I won my season and decided to treat myself to a solo holiday,” she said. “I was on a ferry. The waves were so bad that they shut down half the coast after we got to shore. Everyone was throwing up except me. Including a woman with whom I was flirting. She was from Iceland and had never heard ofOutlast Her. I was explaining to her that I’d won. The next minute, she was doubled over and her chewed-up lunch was on the floor.”
Allie turned to Barra and caught her eye. She deserved a shiny gold medal for not bursting out laughing. Wasn’t that exactly what had happened between them, give or take a few details? Barra bit at her bottom lip as if she were holding in her laugh too. Then she winked, and Allie felt her stomach swoop round and round.
“That’s horrible,” Tilly said flatly. “Worse than Elodie’s Machu Picchu story.”
“How is that worse?” Elodie asked, frowning so deeply her pink eyebrows nearly touched in the middle. “The only picture I got after four days of hiking was of a cloud of mist. It’s definitely worse.”
“It shows that you’ve never had anyone vomit in your lap,” Allie pointed out, feeling oddly brazen. Was it weird that the talk of vomit brought back memories of Big Sur? Or that Allie suddenly felt an urge to sneak off in the rain to kiss Barra. To have herNotebookmoment.
Elodie turned to her. “And you have?”
“I’ve lived a full life,” Allie replied with a straight face.
There was a pause, then a ripple of laughter shot through the shelter like a cannon. Then, as if a tap had been turned down, the sheets of water raining down thinned into a drizzle. The sky rightabove their heads turned from charcoal to a light grey, and some clouds even dragged themselves apart. Allie felt like she could finally hear herself think now that the rain wasn’t hammering down on the shelter. What was she thinking?
Allie leaned over just a smidge until her shoulder bumped into Barra’s shoulder. When she was certain she had Barra’s attention, she said, “I think I’m going to take this gap and head to Moon Pit before it starts pelting again. The last thing I need is to...” She cut herself off. Too much explanation was a dead giveaway that she was up to no good. And yes, she most certainly planned to be up to no good in a few minutes.
“You’re going to have to be quick,” Tilly said, frowning up at the sky. “The last gap lasted two minutes. I don’t think this one will be any longer.”
Judging by the way the clouds were already beginning to regroup, Allie suspected Tilly was right. But she also suspected she didn’t care. Rain wouldn’t bother her all that much when she had Barra’s mouth on her lips, or maybe even somewhere else. Then, before anyone could offer any more of their opinions, she ducked out of the shelter.
ALLIE WALKED TOWARDMoon Pit with a purpose. She passed the roots of a giant buttress tree and then veered left around a cluster of trees with pale, peeling trunks and tangled aerial roots that hung down like loose threads over the small clearing. When she got to the flat slab of stone near the base of a walking palm, just before you entered Moon Pit, Allie stopped. Barra had hidden the brownies there, tucked so far back no one would ever find them, even if they were desperately looking for them. Mostly because everyone who visited Moon Pit came with a deeply functional purpose and no desire to linger for longerthan necessary. Which made it, according to Barra’s logic, the safest possible place around camp.
Allie had initially found the idea questionable, but even she had to admit it was genius.
“Tell me the truth, Allie.”
Barra’s voice slipped in behind her like an unexpected hand at her back, which was funny because Allie had expected her. She hadn’t doubted for a second that Barra would follow. She only wondered how long it would take. Not long at all, apparently.
Allie turned and smiled.
Barra’s hair was damp and pulled back in a slightly unraveling bun. Her skin was rain-slick and dewy, and her smile was so bright it made up for the missing sun.
“And what truth is that?” Allie asked, knowing full well this was a tease. A little foreplay to what was coming, and Allie was more than willing to play along. She liked this version of Barra. The voice, the slightly strict tone... it did something to Allie. She even imagined Barra in a white button-down and fitted black dress slacks, hair pulled back tight, brandishing one of those leather whips you saw only in headmistress fantasies. Wait. Was Allie having a headmistress fantasy moment? Ha, yes. It appeared she was.
“Did you ask me here so that you could eat more brownies?” Barra asked, raising one eyebrow sternly, the other flattening out. “Or is there another reason?”
Allie didn’t answer. Something pounded between her hips. It was a buzzing feeling only fingers could ease. She stepped forward, grabbed the front of Barra’s damp T-shirt, and pulled her close enough to press their mouths together. “I hope this answers your question,” she muttered against Barra’s lips.
Chapter Seventeen
Barra was chuffed that she’d had the foresight to bring along her extra hoodie. She planned to spread it out across the jungle floor into a makeshift picnic blanket, but first she needed the rest of their clothes to finish the patchwork she had in mind.
Thank goodness it wasn’t raining, but at the same time, Barra was grateful it had bucketed down earlier. The camera crew was still stranded on the beach under a sagging tarp strung between two palms, and Landon, the one with the waterproof camera, had apparently come down with the sniffles and had taken the camera with him to the hotel last night. No one had followed her toward Moon Pit. She knew because she’d checked. If they had, she wouldn’t be peeling Allie’s shirt over her shoulder and laying it on the ground beside the rest of their clothes.
She’d chosen the driest spot she could find. It was a small clearing beneath the thick, overlapping leaves of a palm, where the ground was more damp than soaked.
“What about snakes?” Allie asked, wearing nothing but silk panties and a matching black lacy bra that belonged everywhere but in this jungle. Barra had hardly paid Allie’s panties any attention before today. She’d always been far more interested in what came after they were gone. But she couldn’t help but appreciate them today. “Shouldn’t we be worried about snakes or spiders?”
“The rain would’ve scared away the snakes,” Barra said, snatching her eyes away from Allie’s chest and toward the growing blanket. She wasn’t even sure if what she said was thetruth. Were snakes even scared of rain? If they were, surely they wouldn’t survive out here.
Allie didn’t ask a follow-up question, though Barra had a feeling she wouldn’t. Her eyes were hungry as they swept across Barra’s body. Then again, Barra was just as hungry. She couldn’t arrange the makeshift blanket fast enough.
When it was as ready as it could get, she closed the gap between them and kissed Allie so hard she could feel Allie’s pulse beneath her fingertips. One thumb moved to the crook of her neck, the other to the strap of her bra, which she flicked loose as easily as she’d flicked change into a fountain. Then, when Allie’s panties landed on the same pile as her bra, Barra stepped in even closer and groaned at the skin-to-skin contact. She bent her knees slightly, slipping down Allie like a drop of rain until she could lick a strip between Allie’s breasts. A second later, Barra shifted her head a few inches left, because seriously, she wouldn’t dream of doing anything other than wrapping her mouth around Allie’s hardened nipple. Not when they taunted her like that.
