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“Clearly,” he smirked, gesturing around us, “that’s not a problem.”

“I—”

Lucas came out of the water to me, and I was spellbound. It was a bit like watching one of those perfume commercials that played in black and white, the perfect man walking out of the crashing sea while epic music played and close-ups cut in. There was nothing that cut away from Lucas, and my breath was suddenly short. Not because I was afraid, but because he took my breath away.

He stood before me, and Aspen wound around our feet, tail wagging crazily. “What’s going on?”

After everything he knew and what I’d told him, I couldn’t lie. And I also knew that he wouldn’t judge or care about my scars. “It’s different. Out here.”

“What is?”

I wrapped my arms around myself, and his eyes fell on my long sleeves. Understanding infused his gaze. He stepped in close to me. “Do you like it here?”

The mountains towered next to us in perfect crispness, the shadows already lengthening as it grew later in the afternoon. The air was cool and sweet, and flowers dotted the ground under the shade of the pines. Across the lake were several giant boulders I could imagine lying on after a swim to soak up the sun.

It was beautiful. It was paradise.

“Yes,” I said honestly.

“We’re alone here like when we’re in our bedroom. And I promise that when we come here in the future—and we will—it will always just be you and me. Nothing else is allowed here. No fear. Nothing from either of our pasts. Just us.” His hands slid down my shoulders and over my arms.

“That doesn’t make it go away.”

He nodded. “It doesn’t. But we can try for a bit, right?”

That look again. The one that told me that I was everything. For that look, I could try. “Okay.”

Lucas smiled. “Okay.”

He undressed me, tossing my clothes next to his on the shore, and when that was done, he swept me up into his arms and carried me into the water.

“Oh my God, that’s cold,” I said, clinging to him harder.

“I warned you.”

“I wasn’t imagining it quite like this.”

Lucas’s lips warmed my temple. “It’s refreshing.”

“Masochist,” I whispered under my breath.

With a laugh, he dropped my legs into the water and I squealed, the sound echoing off the mountains. “Lucas!”

He wrapped his arms around me and turned me to face the mountains. His body molded to my back—the part of me that made me sick and anxious. Now it was pressed against him. He was the only one who knew, even though we were alone.

And nothing happened.

The mountains didn’t crumble down, and I didn’t fall apart. I took one breath, and then another, the tension easing out of me until I could lean my head back onto his chest and look at the sky.

Lucas kissed my shoulder. The simple gesture made my stomach drop. We were alone. I felt that, and I didn’t doubt it. But all the same, I couldn’t stop the thoughts. Not once when I had been with Nathan—before he’d shown me who he really was—not once would he have done something as simple as kiss my shoulder.

Looking back on the things that I had thought were sweet and signs of love... weren’t. They were the bare bones of it interpreted by someone young and infatuated. I didn’t blame the girl that I’d been. I couldn’t take anything back. But now this feeling—I would never mistake it again.

I wasn’t ready for the thoughts that followed. I pushed them back, instead turning to Lucas and exposing my scars to the air. I didn’t feel cold anymore. “We get to come here again?”

“Of course,” he said. “I’m going to make sure you’re safe. And after we do, we can come here as much as you like.”

I smiled. “I like that idea.”