Page 25 of Goode Vibrations

“’Kay?”

“So, you know, you’re safe.”

I huffed a laugh. “Honestly, it never crossed my mind that I wasn’t.”

“Good. Because you are.”

“Thank you, Errol.”

And holy moly, did that notion set my brain to whirling.

It literally did not for a single second cross my mind that I might be unsafe, sleeping outside in the middle of nowhere with a total stranger.

Because…he was just…safe.

I was safe with him.

A total stranger.

A man five years older than me, who very obviously felt a serious amount of lust for me.

I was absolutely safe with him, as safe as if I’d been at home in my apartment in New York. Safer, maybe.

Fuckingweird.

I stared up at the stars for a long, long time. I’d never seen such a sight, a countless billion, trillion points of light twinkling and scintillating like diamonds lit from within, scattered across the sky in washes and sprays. I picked out the few constellations I knew—the Big Dipper, and…well, that was about it, actually. But just lying there, watching the stars turn overhead, I did, as Errol had predicted, feel strangely alive, a frisson of wild energy surging through me, as if rising up from the earth and into me.

And all the while, I was hyperaware of Errol, snoring gently and softly beside me. Close, but not too close.

Safe.

What a weird thing to feel with a stranger.

6

Errol

Iwoke up abruptly, and totally. Dead asleep to fully awake in a split second, but unsure what had woken me. It was predawn, between dark and graying to light, the air chilled and still and dew-laden.

Then I heard it, a snuffling, shuffling.Errrrrrfff. Rrrrrrowwwwfff. Chuff chuff.

A bear.

I saw it, less than six feet away, ambling opposite us and the van toward the pond. Huge, black, shaggy head swiveling, paws padding quietly.

“Mmm.” Poppy, sensing something, stirring. Not trained to wake up quickly and immediately like I was.

I wiggled closer to her, leaned over her, placed my palm over her mouth and hissed her name. “Poppy.”

Her eyes flew open and her hand latched onto my hand, twisting against the joint with a vicious yank that spoke of self-defense classes.

“Poppy,” I hissed again. “It’s me.” I kept my palm over her mouth, used my other hand to point at the bear.

Her eyes widened, and her defensive grip slackened. I shushed her again, and she nodded, so I let go. She twisted in the blanket, watching as the bear prowled lazily down to the water and drank, pausing to look around and listen, and then drink again. A few rounds of drink-pause-drink, and then it continued on around the pond, vanishing into the forest. As soon as it was out of sight, it was so quiet there was no indication that it had been there at all. A bird whistled, another answered, and then the forest was alive with the song of dawn.

I was still leaning over her, pressed against her thigh to chest, the thick squish of her breasts flattened against my chest. With an utterly natural gesture, she rested her palm against the outside of my bicep, her eyes on mine. The sliver of air between her face and mine blazed and crackled with chemical energy, the reactive pulse of mutual desire. A centimeter of space between her face and mine.

Her lips and mine.