Page 23 of Falling for Him (Honey Leaf Lodge #3)
Fifi
I was floating, not just on the water, but in that hazy, golden in-between where reality felt like a dream dipped in summer sun and something dangerously close to falling.
Ben was in the lake with me, shirtless, glistening, and infuriatingly attractive with that half-smile he wore like a badge of emotional disrepair.
We’d been splashing and swimming, but now…
now the space between us was smaller than it should’ve been.
His hands brushed against my waist in the water, and my pulse tripped over itself.
He looked at me like he wanted to do more than just float around.
And I? I was dangerously close to wrapping my legs around him like a human pool noodle.
It wasn’t even about lust anymore—okay, fine, it was a little…a lot about lust. The way the sunlight hit his shoulders? The way his hair curled slightly from the water? The low, rough chuckle when I teased him about lifeguard duty?
Yeah. I wanted to drown in that man.
He drifted closer, water swirling between us. His hands, underwater, found my hips, and he tugged gently, bringing me toward him until our legs brushed. I shivered, despite the warmth.
“Cold?” he asked, voice low and delicious.
“Not even remotely.”
His mouth curved like he knew exactly what kind of chaos he was causing.
We were right there. That sweet, breathless edge where kissing was inevitable. My heart thumped so loudly I was sure it was echoing across the lake.
I leaned in—
And that’s when I saw it.
Something moving in the water behind him. Fast. Determined. Furry.
My eyes widened. “Um… Ben?”
He dopily blinked. “Yeah?”
“Don’t panic.”
“Why would I panic?”
“Because there’s an angry-looking beaver swimming right toward us.”
He froze and panicked. “A what now? ”
I pointed behind him.
He turned just in time to see a beady-eyed aquatic menace cutting through the lake like a torpedo of vengeance.
The beaver made a weird chittering sound that sounded suspiciously like curse words in rodent language.
Ben’s eyes went wide. “What the hell?”
“It looks mad.”
“Why is it mad?”
“Maybe it’s territorial?” I offered. “Or maybe we’re in its morning commute lane.”
We both started paddling backward as the beaver kept advancing like we owed it money.
And that’s when it hit me.
My shirt.
I’d taken it off earlier and tossed it onto a pile of sticks near the water’s edge.
A pile of sticks that was clearly not just a random pile of sticks.
“Oh no,” I breathed. “Oh no no no no—”
“What?” Ben said, still glancing back like he was preparing to go full Navy SEAL if needed.
“I think I used its construction project as a laundry line.”
He stopped mid-paddle. “You what? ”
“I didn’t know it was a beaver lodge!” I cried. “It just looked like a sun-warmed spot for my shirt!”
The beaver let out another squeak, flapping its tail on the surface dramatically, like it was personally offended by my fashion choices.
“Oh my God,” Ben said, laughing now. “You vandalized a beaver's home.”
“I did not ! I accessorized it!”
“You accessorized it with cotton blend! ”
We were both laughing, now fully back in the shallows, water dripping off us in rivulets, and the beaver, thankfully, seemed satisfied with our retreat. It climbed onto the lodge, sniffed the shirt, and promptly dragged it inside like it was claiming it as payment.
“Did it just steal my shirt?” I asked, gaping.
Ben was bent over, hands on his knees, cracking up. “I think you just got mugged by a rodent.”
“Well, this feels personal.”
He looked at me, eyes shining with laughter and something softer. “You have a gift.”
“For attracting chaos?”
“For making my day better than it has any right to be.”
I opened my mouth and promptly forgot what words were.
Because the way he looked at me, shirtless, dripping, completely undone by laughter, was doing very prohibited things to my insides.
I reached out and flicked water at him. “You’re not getting out of carrying things just because I committed an accidental beaver faux pas.”
“Fine,” he said, still smirking. “But I’m not walking back shirtless unless you agree to carry a sign that says This Was Her Idea when we get back to the lodge . ”
“Oh, I’ll make the sign myself.”
He stepped closer, water lapping around our knees. “You sure you’re not cold now?”
I was soaking wet, missing a shirt, and a very smug rodent had stolen my pride, but I looked at him and said, “Nope. I’m good.”
And somehow, I meant it.
The sun filtered through the trees as we made our way back up the rocky slope toward our makeshift picnic camp.
My legs were still dripping, my shirt was likely in a beaver’s living room, and Ben Jensen walked beside me like temptation personified, barefoot, wet, and all carved jawline and smug charm.
And he knew it.
Of course he did.
He had that look again. The one that said he was still amused by the great beaver heist of the hour, but also deeply aware of how close our bodies had gotten in the lake. How close they still wanted to be.
My pulse hadn’t returned to normal since we climbed out of the water.
And the way his hand brushed against mine every few steps wasn’t helping.
“I can’t believe you got kicked out of a rodent’s home,” he said, glancing sideways at me with that crooked smile of his.
“I didn’t get kicked out, ” I huffed. “I withdrew voluntarily in the interest of wildlife conservation and wardrobe preservation.”
“That beaver is probably wearing your shirt like a silk robe right now.”
“Bold of you to assume it’s her taste.”
“Oh?” He raised a brow.
I gave him a dramatic look.
We reached the clearing, and the two sleeping bags lay out on the flattest patch of rock like we were about to stargaze in a REI ad, except it was the middle of the day.
I bent to unzip the pack that had our food, but before I could even brush the zipper, a warm hand slid around my waist.
“Hey—” I started, straightening, but his arms caught me, pulling me back against his bare chest before I could protest.
My breath caught as he lowered his mouth next to my ear.
“You know,” he murmured, his voice like gravel wrapped in velvet, “we never actually finished what we started earlier.”
I turned my head slightly. “We got very distracted.”
“You distracted me.”
“You kissed me.”
He hummed. “You kissed me back.”
Before I could fire off a response, his lips brushed the back of my shoulder, bare now, thanks to the lack of beaver-approved outerwear, and I melted so fast I was basically a human marshmallow.
His hand slid to my hip, pulling me gently until I turned toward him.
And then?
He kissed me again.
Hot. Focused. Deep.
Like he’d been waiting since the canyon wall to get his hands on me again and now he was going to make every second count.
His hands found the small of my back and mine found the curve of his shoulders, and I gave in, completely. There was no point in pretending I didn’t want him, that I wasn’t starving for more of him. Every inch of skin that touched his felt like it lit up from the inside out.
When his chest brushed mine, bare and warm and real, I gasped against his mouth. It was a kiss that blurred the edges. The kind that made you forget you were standing on dry land and not falling headlong into something you wouldn’t be able to take back.
But then, just as suddenly, he pulled away.
Like he’d flipped some internal switch.
He stepped back, hands falling away, eyes dark and unreadable, but mouth curved with something that was absolutely smug.
I blinked, breathless, trying to remember my name. “What the hell was that?”
“A kiss.”
“That was not just a kiss.”
He shrugged, all casual-like, which made it worse. “Maybe I wanted to test a theory.”
My hands were still halfway in the air like I didn’t know what to do with them. “A theory?”
“That you taste amazing anywhere you are.”
I stared at him, jaw slack.
He lifted his brows and grinned.
Then I shook my head, a laugh escaping before I could stop it. “Do you enjoy taunting me?”
“Deeply.”
He crouched to open the food baggie like we hadn’t just shared a kiss that cracked open the sky.
I stood there, slightly trembling, entirely annoyed that one man could leave me this undone and smugly fish out deli meat like he was doing me a favor.
“You’re infuriating,” I muttered, plopping onto the nearest sleeping bag and stealing a sandwich from the stack.
“You’re welcome,” he said, tossing me a bottle of water.
I caught it one-handed and gave him a pointed look. “I’m not going to survive this trip, am I?”
He didn’t answer, but he sat beside me, close enough to touch, and bumped my knee with his.
And when I glanced sideways at him, he wasn’t smirking anymore.
He was just looking.
At me.
And God help me, I never wanted him to stop.
I watched him take a bite of his sandwich, lips curving faintly at the corners, and it hit me like a rock to the chest. I didn’t want him to leave.
Not just in the I’ll miss those shoulders walking around the lodge kind of way, but in a deeper, quieter ache I hadn’t felt in years. Not since before the last guy I let in slammed the door on everything soft in me.
But this? Sitting here with Ben, shoeless, shirtless, sun-damp, freshly kissed, and currently chewing with a surprising amount of charm, I felt something new. Or maybe something old, something I hadn’t let myself want in a long time.
It was terrifying.
And then, just as quickly, reality swooped in with its big boots and louder voice.
He’s leaving.
Two weeks. That’s all this was.
Actually, it was worse than that. He’d already been here for several days, so he’d be flying back in a week and a half or less. I didn’t do the math.
I took a sip of water to hide the flicker of emotion, keeping my tone light. “So, Ben of the Smoldering Lakeside Kisses, what exactly do you do back in Florida when you’re not fending off innkeepers?”
He glanced at me sideways, almost smiling again. “I work in law.”
“Legal secretary? Paralegal? Judge?”
He snorted. “Attorney.”
I let that sink in. “So, you’re the guy who’s always buried by books and papers?”
“Something like that,” he said, amused.
I raised a brow. “So you’re helping people.”
He looked down at the sandwich in his lap. “Yeah. I guess so. Sometimes.”
A moment of quiet slipped between us, and I ventured, “Big family?”
The shift in him was almost imperceptible, but it was there.
His jaw tightened slightly. His gaze flicked up, then down. “Not really.”
I waited, gently, but he didn’t elaborate.
Instead, he reached over and unzipped his pack, pulling out his phone.
No bars.
Not even one faint ghost of a signal.
He frowned.
I tried to lighten the mood. “Of course there’s no service. We’re basically off the grid. You’re lucky the beaver doesn’t have property rights.”
He didn’t laugh.
In fact, the tension that had eased over the last hour started to creep back into his shoulders. He shoved the phone back in the bag without a word.
And just like that, I was left wondering, was it the signal drop that soured his mood or the fact that I’d asked about his family?
Either way, something had shifted.
And I didn’t know how to reach him through it.
Yet.
But I wanted to try.
I really did.