Page 195 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

Mia groans. “I’m stuffed.”

“How is that possible?” I lean back on the red-checked blanket spread out on the grass. “You barely ate anything.”

“Not true. For the record, I devoured the surprise strawberries, the almonds, the Gouda cheese, the yummy crackers, and the olives. Everything but the turkey jerky.”

“You do realize you just rattled off snacks. That’s all you ate. Snacks. Not a meal.”

“Now you have something against snack food. Are you a snack-ist?”

“Quite the opposite. I happen to think snacks are among the greatest joys in life.”

She rests on her elbows, her legs stretched in front of her, crossed at the ankles, and turns her gaze to me. “And what are the others?”

I meet her eyes straight on. “Sex.”

Her expression is blank at first, then a laugh bursts from her lips. “Well, yeah. But what else?”

My eyes bug out. “That’s not enough for you?”

“You said ‘joys,’ as in plural. I was waiting to hear the others.”

“Ah, simple misunderstanding,” I say, nodding. “See, the answer was plural because with me, the sex is so good it’s multiplied.” Then I wiggle my eyebrows.

Once more her face is a tabula rasa, and then her entire body shudders. We’re talking head-to-toe laughter. “You sound like the dirty kangaroo meme now. You know him?”

“Oddly enough, I’m not familiar with the filthy marsupial.”

“He’s a douchey marsupial,” she corrects. “Anyway, he’s this weirdly muscular kangaroo, lying down, looking like a ’70s porn star, all suave and cocky as he says things like, ‘Hey girl, ever been down under?’”

I scratch my chin. “So what you’re saying is I’m a douchey kangaroo, and you don’t like sex multiplied. Fair enough.”

She fixes me with a you’ve got to be kidding stare as she sits up to swat my elbow.

“That was for saying something ridiculous. Obviously, I like multiplication. It’s my favorite form of arithmetic,” she says, giving me a very naughty wink that sets off a new round of lust in me, as I picture how she’d look after two times two orgasms.

The answer? That’s what a perfect day looks like.

Flopping back down, she takes a deep breath and raises her face to the sky as if she’s soaking in the sun’s rays. She sticks out her flat belly and adds to the look by ballooning her cheeks. “But maybe no plurals or multiplication for me when I have a snack baby growing.”

I raise an eyebrow. Her belly is a board. A sensual, alluring board I want to kiss all over. Yeah, that’s what Mia does to me. Gets me aroused thinking of kissing her board belly. “You can’t even make your belly look full.”

“Yes, I can,” she says, huffing and puffing and trying hard to make her midsection round. “Just feel it. You can feel the snacks growing inside me.”

I stretch an arm across to pat her tight, trim belly, wishing for a second I was feeling it under different circumstances. But even I’m not enough of a pervert to be turned on by her pretend belly. Her goofball side? That’s another matter entirely. It’s endearing and, admittedly, enticing.

I wish it weren’t.

“Do you have a turkey jerky baby in you?” she asks, her tone intensely serious.

I pat my abs. “Definitely.”

“Do you think Zeus has a tuna baby in his furry belly?”

“Absolutely,” I say, glancing at Zeus, lolling in a tuna coma. I pick up the empty can of fish from his side and place it in the trash bag.

“Anyway,” Mia begins, her tone shifting, “can I be serious for a moment?”

I point my thumb over my shoulder as if gesturing to the past. “You weren’t serious just then?”

“Ha ha. But what I wanted to say is thank you. I was a stress case about work, and even though I didn’t work today, the time I spent here cleared my mind.

I feel like I can go back and tackle the problems. And while we were hiking, I came up with several possibilities for new suppliers based in the area. ”

That piece of intel pricks my ears. “Think you’ll be spending more time in New York, then?”

An I wish laugh falls from her lips. “Most of my work on the deals can be done remotely. Give me a screen, and I’m good to go.

But I’m grateful you encouraged me to play hooky today.

I needed it, and I can only imagine how beneficial this is for when you lead corporate groups. They must get so much out of it.”

“I’d like to think they do. After the trust falls, of course.”

She presses her hands together in prayer. “Please tell me you don’t do trust falls.”

“Any guide who works for my company signs two agreements—don’t sleep with the customers, and never ever do a trust fall.”

“You do need to have standards.”

“And thank you, Mia,” I say, stripping the teasing from my voice as the sun shines high above us now, warming my skin, bathing us in its afternoon glow.

I’m fortunate that my corporate retreat business has grown in the last few years.

A lot of companies use us for day trips for their employees, for rafting expeditions, and for weekend canoeing retreats.

It’s kind of cool to watch employees come together.

“The reports back from that side of the business have been great. They say the trips foster bonding, improve morale, and help the employees adjust better to changes in their companies. I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but I think sometimes we forget that our bodies were designed to be active.

We think best when we walk, or run, or stretch, or bend. ”

Mia flashes me a big smile that shows off her dimples, those adorable dimples that nail me in the heart every single time I see them. “I love that you’ve turned your passion into this huge success.”

“Well, Zeus helped,” I say, giving credit where it’s due.

Mia sits up, stretching to pet him as he basks in the sun. “I feel like he has the right idea. Can we take a catnap?” As if to emphasize her point, her mouth opens into the hugest yawn I’ve ever seen.

“Catnaps are always a good idea. I only have one rule. We need to nap in a tent.”

“You have a tent?”

I blink. “Sorry, what did you say? Do I have a tent? Do takeout containers unfold into plates? Does the word bed look like a bed ?”

She squints. “Holy cow. Bed does look like a bed.” She furrows her brow. “But when did takeout containers start unfolding?”

“Evidently, they always have. But they work better folded as far as I’m concerned.”

“They work really well folded. So well that I don’t know why anyone would unfold the container. But about your tent . . .”

I smirk because I can’t resist the innuendo. My eyes stray to my crotch, and she blushes for a second.

“ Your tent. The one you brought with you. You really have a tent in your pack?”

“Mia, I was a Boy Scout and then an Eagle Scout. You never know when you might need a tent, and I don’t advise snoozing out in the open on public trails. Even if we’re mostly alone.” I gesture to the wildflower-filled meadow we’ve claimed as our own.

I reach into my pack, grab a pop-up beach tent, and unfold it, setting it up in less than three minutes.

With avid interest, Mia watches the whole time, and even though I’m not doing something strapping like building a house or fixing a tire, I still like that she seems to dig that I’m handy.

That I’m prepared. And that I have everything she’s asked for.

I tug on the end of the blanket, and she stands and hands it to me. I spread it on the floor of the tent.

“Ladies first.” I gesture for her to go in.

“Such a gentleman.”

As she lies down, all I can think is that she doesn’t know the half of how gentlemanly I am being right now.

Because what I really want is to do ungentlemanly things to her as she curls up next to me in a tiny nap tent.