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I adjust my tent on my back, and we all get into single file, Kincaid at the lead and carrying a rifle for protection, Hernandez bringing up the rear, our bear bells jingling from our packs. I’m glad Hernandez is here since I wouldn’t have felt very comfortable with Nick, but even so I wonder what lab work Nick is staying behind to do.

I try not to think about it. I’ll only get myself into a tizzy.

Instead, I concentrate on my senses to put me firmly in the present. The sound of whisky jacks calling from the trees, no longer cedar but mountain hemlock and balsam fir, and the crunch of the ground beneath our feet. The smell of the crushed needles, the sharp mountain air, and flowing streams. The feel of the sun as it penetrates the canopy above, warming my skin despite the temperature getting cooler. The taste of the water on my tongue, and the sight of all of us students in a line, walking toward something, even if we don’t know what it is.

I feel a pang of camaraderie for my cohort. I really have gotten to know and like all of them.

Except for Clayton. Though at the end there, I wasn’t really afraid of him anymore. I felt like he was trying to tell me something, as if he was looking out for me. He was just so strange and abrasive about it, it was hard to decipher.

I really hope that Kincaid told me the truth. That Clayton was put on a plane and sent back home. I hope he was trying to prevent something disastrous from happening, that he wasn’t just looking out for me in an overly protective manner. As sweetand romantic as the gesture was, it puts a lot of pressure on me. I can handle myself and I could have handled Clayton. Girls become experts at dealing with creeps after a while, even if it exhausts us to do so, even though we shouldn’thave todo so.

We hike for a couple of hours until we have our first break. I’m tired and lightheaded, not used to this much exercise, nor this little sleep. Kincaid keeps staring at me, and I can tell he’s mentally checking in on how I’m doing. I give him a tepid smile from time to time. It isn’t until lunch is over, simple ham and cheese sandwiches that Hernandez passes out, that I perk up a little and we continue walking.

The trail is rough and hard to follow in places, even as we enter the provincial park. I can tell that no one ever comes here except those at Madrona. Every now and then as the trail switchbacks through open rock and scree, we see a foreboding forested mountain in the distance, and the jagged shape reminds me of a jawbone.

“That’s Mount Doom,” Kincaid says.

Of course it is.

“Technically Doom Mountain,” he goes on, “but, you know, doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

We keep going, down again and into the thick forest.

Kincaid keeps talking, doing an impressive job at throwing his voice back at the twelve of us, Hernandez included, but I don’t catch much except that the peninsula was only first explored by botanists in 1975. Before then, no one knew what a treasure trove of fungi, moss, lichen, and plants were here.

We finally stop at our place to camp for the night—a grassy clearing scattered with tiny white and pink flowers, surrounded by lodgepole pine and hemlock. My feet are burning and I’m so tired I want to crawl right into my tent and go to sleep, but I have to put together my tent first.

I stare at it dumbly, not moving, until Kincaid comes over and helps me out.

After he’s done setting it up like a pro and in record time, another incredibly sexy thing about him, he leans in close. “Want to take a walk?”

My stomach flips. “Right now?” I whisper. I look around. Everyone is busy struggling with their tents, but no one is paying us any attention.

He nods and then walks off toward the edge of the field.

I try to play it cool. I skirt the edges of the clearing and then duck into the forest. Kincaid is quite far up ahead so I move as fast as I can so that I don’t lose him, and suddenly we’re in the dark woods. The air is cool and damp here, soft as a kiss on my skin, and the sounds of a babbling brook comes through the bowed trees.

Kincaid stands under the branches, lifting off his shirt.

“There’s a stream we can clean off in,” he says, nodding further down into the forest. “Cold as hell but it will make us feel like new again after that hike.”

But I’m barely paying attention to him because all I can do is stare blatantly at his body. Yes, I saw it last night, more than this, but now it’s the early evening and the light is bright and he looks like a forest god with his taut muscles, his smooth, slightly tan skin, the raven tattoo on his arm.

I feel like if there was a male Dryad in ancient Greece, that Wes Kincaid would be one of them.

I waste no time in stepping out of my clothes, stripping for him until it’s all scattered around me. Standing in a forest totally naked makes me feel like a fairy nymph too.

And I know I’m not built like a fairy, either. I have cellulite on my thick thighs, I have a belly despite the weight I’d lost early on. But standing in front of Kincaid like this, watching as his cock hardens against his jeans, the lust building in his gaze as helets it roam over my body, my skin shivering as if being licked by flames, I feel like a mythical creature.

“The stream can wait,” Kincaid says before he strides toward me, grabbing me by the small of my waist. He pulls me in for a kiss, hungry and fast. Like a feral animal he starts kissing down my neck, nipping at my collarbone, then to my breasts, licking and sucking until I’m crying out.

Just when I think my knees will buckle, he puts his arms around me and lowers me down until I’m nestled in the soft moss and the cushiony foliage of pink alpine azalea. His hands are rough, moving fast as they part my thighs, leaving myself open for him as the dappled sunshine slides in through the branches above.

I watch, enraptured, as he lowers his head between my legs, his arms wrapped around my thighs, securing me in place while holding me open. He admires my pussy for a moment, then glances up at me through his lashes, his smile crooked and devious.

Then he plunges his head down, attacking me like a starving man, his lips, mouth, and tongue wet, strong and forceful.

A gasp is caught in my throat and I throw my head back. The trees seem to crowd over me as if protecting us, and I’m starting to feel both delicious and light-headed. Dizzy in the best way, like the air is shimmering and melting.