Even his body language was more relaxed. He helped me into the Jeep, then lingered at my side for a slow, maddening kiss.

The drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park was breathtaking. As we neared the mountains, the road wound alongside gushing rivers, sheer walls of rock, and towering stone formations that looked like faces.

Matt asked about my first day of work. He was smiling and curious, not gruff and paranoid. Thank god.

I had barely considered my first whirlwind workday as Pam's secretary; I'd been too worried about Matt. It was a relief to describe the work and make Matt laugh with anecdotes about Pam.

"But I love the job," I told him. "I wish I could describe the feeling that came over me as I read manuscripts. It was like... I was meant for this. Like I was finally doing a job I could see myself making into a career."

When I looked at Matt, he was glowing.

He was surprisingly chaste on the drive up to the park. Sometimes he took my hand, and once he ran his fingers from my knee to the top of my thigh.

We stopped in Estes Park, a quaint town on the front range, and waded through crowds of tourists for a lunch of the best fudge I ever tasted.

Matt made me try each flavor he bought—vanilla, maple, amaretto, chocolate cream. That I had never been to the park flabbergasted him. He dragged me into the shops and bought me a beaded bracelet, a little bird figurine, and a tiny bronze padlock on a chain.

"I'll get it engraved," he said, fastening the chain behind my neck.

Engraved with what? I smiled and touched the lock. HM, I thought. Hannah & Matt. Maybe I would surprise him and get the engraving done myself.

It was near two when we finally drove into the park proper.

We left everything in the car and hiked out to a glacial lake. I took pictures of Matt when he wasn't looking. His athletic body was beautiful in motion, and his dark shirt and shorts emphasized the gold tone of his skin and the natural highlights in his hair.

The air was thin and cool and smelled of pine. I felt giddy.

"Exhilarating, right?" Matt caught my hand as we looked across a vista.

"God, I feel like Wordsworth in the Alps!" I laughed.

Evening's shadows fall suddenly in the mountains. One minute Matt and I were sweating on the trail, the next I was shivering and squished to his side.

"I packed an extra fleece," he told me as we headed back to the Jeep.

The hike and altitude sapped me. My sugar rush was crashing. Still, as we set out on the trail toward our campsite, I began to feel a very different kind of energy—the rising anticipation of Matt's touch.

Our site was a secluded clearing surrounded by pines. I heard water rushing in the distance. Matt built a fire in the metal ring and hurried through pitching the tent. We spread foam mats under our sleeping bags.

I don't know if I could have felt less sexy. I was sticky with sweat and bug spray and wearing old sneakers, a pair of jeans, and a t-shirt—and now an oversized black fleece.

I perched on a rock by the fire pit. Matt stood nearby, staring into the woods. In the half-light, he looked wild—an animal that would melt into the shadows if I snapped a twig.

Sparks whirled upward. Beyond the light of our fire, the night was cool and silent.

"I brought food," Matt murmured. He turned his gaze down at me. His dark, hungry eyes flashed with reflected flames. "Are you hungry?"

I shook my head.

I didn't want to speak. I didn't want to shatter the magic of the night. My eyes traveled down Matt's body. I knew he was watching me and I looked boldly at his groin.

"Yeah?" he whispered. He stepped closer and reached for my hair, winding my ponytail around his hand. "Suck on me, Hannah."

I undid Matt's shorts and slid his semi-erect cock from his boxers. It swelled in my hands. I began to lick and suckle at it, taking as much as I could. I fondled Matt's balls as I sucked.

"Oh, Hannah... baby."

Matt was fully hard in moments. He pulled me to my feet and we undressed one another. Talk about exhilarating; standing naked in the woods with Matt made my heart rush and skip.

The heat of the fire baked my legs. The chill of the evening hardened my nipples.

I knew we were alone, and yet I felt like we were on a stage. I felt as if the impenetrable darkness were filled with eyes.

Matt kissed me, trapping his cock between us. I stroked his muscled body and rocked into the hard organ, making him moan.

"Hannah," he sighed. "Hannah..."

I loved the way he said my name. I loved the hundreds of flavors of his voice.

I hooked my hands over his shoulders and climbed onto him. He lifted me easily, gripping my thighs. He lowered me onto his cock.

We locked eyes as he penetrated me. The pleasure of the invasion made me wriggle against his body. God, he was letting me down so slowly. I felt each inch stretching me open.

"Tell me about my cock," Matt whispered.

As always, I felt disturbingly eager to please him.

"Matt..." I wet my lips. "It... it fills me. It almost hurts, but I always want it. The whole thing. I want it inside of me."

Matt lowered me another inch and I gasped. He had all the power in this position. I had no leverage to force myself onto his shaft.

"Go on," he said, his voice low in deference to the night.

"I love the taste of it," I whispered, "and the taste of your cum. When you ride me hard, I—" I moaned as Matt let me down all the way, his cock pressed up into me deeply. "Ah, god... Matt, god, I lose my mind."

"Tell me, Hannah. Do you like it deep?"

"Yes." I rolled my head back. I felt secure clinging to Matt. He would never let me fall.

I wished suddenly, desperately, to be both myself and a spectator. I wanted to see Matt holding me in the firelight, his feet planted firmly on the earth, his strong thighs and buttocks tensed. And myself, wound around him, our bodies locked together intimately.

We were night and day. Gold-skinned and pale. Fair-haired and dark. Tall and short. Lean and lush. And Matt was so ample between his legs, where I was so small.

"You almost hurt me, too," Matt whispered. "So tight, Hannah. But you get so wet and let me in. My body—"

Matt lifted and lowered me minutely and bucked his hips as he did, bouncing me on an inch of his cock. I groaned and bit his shoulder. He breathed raggedly into my hair.

"T-tell me," I stammered.

"My body... craves your body." Matt bounced me again and we moaned together. "It f-feels the distance... when we're apart. Hannah, I can't be apart from you."

"You never have to be," I said.

I shifted to get a look at Matt. Each motion of my thighs and spine made the muscles of my sex clamp at Matt's shaft. Pleasure trilled through me. God, I could come like this, but I needed Matt to see my sincerity.

Matt caught my gaze and searched it.

"Hannah, god," he whispered. He began to bounce me steadily on his cock, his fingers digging into my bottom. He thrust from deep to deeper, again and again, and my clit ground into his pubic bone. My breasts rubbed along his chest. My hard nipples bent against his skin.

When I came, I gasped in shock and pleasure. My sex pulled and pressed and Matt growled in my ear.

"There's my little slut," he hissed. "Come on me, come on my cock."

Oh, and there was the dirty boy I loved.

Matt lifted me off his cock and set me on my feet. My legs felt watery. Moisture trickled down my inner thigh.

He led me into the tent and I stretched out on my back. Matt climbed over me. He dragged his wet tip along my belly and smirked.

"Still hard," he murmured. "Now you have to help me, Hannah."

I thought Matt was moving toward my mouth, but he stopped with his shaft between my breasts. I knew what he wanted then. I clasped my breasts and forced them together, sandwiching Matt's throbbing member. God, he was huge. I glanced down to see his head squeezed out of my cleavage. Matt moaned.

"Mm, that's it baby, keep looking. You're going to make me come hard. Oh—fuck, you're going to lick it all up when I'm done."

Matt thrust through the seal of my breasts, his sex slick with my desire. The moans falling from his lips made me tremble. I watched his abs flexing. God, he moved beautifully. When his head plunged toward my neck, I licked and sucked at it.

"Hannah!" His cry filled my ears.

He grasped his shaft and hot spurts hit my breasts. I licked at the milky fluid while Matt watched. I brought my nipples to my mouth and sucked them clean.

When I glanced up, Matt was smiling cagily at me.

"Perfect," he whispered.

Matt clambered out of the tent to douse the fire and fetch our clothes.

We fell asleep on top of our sleeping bags.

I awoke freezing in the night and climbed into my bag, but Matt remained slumbering on his stomach, sprawled out beside me. I inched closer to him and he chuckled in his sleep. He threw an arm over my cocooned body.

Through my sleeping bag, I could feel the weight of his arm and the incredible heat of it. I peered at him in the darkness.

Half awake, halfway in the land of dreams, I imagined Matt was a tiger in a man's skin. He must have been extraordinary, though I knew so little about him. Some wild heat—some extravagance, some consuming ambition—must have kept him burning in the cold night.

CHAPTER 19

Matt

I WOKE TOO early on Monday. I didn't need to look at my clock to know it was early. The light coming through the window was pale and depressive.

No Hannah.

I didn't know how to be apart from Hannah anymore. I didn't know how to wake up without her. When I was with her, I felt right and the world felt full of possibility.

We'd spent all of Sunday driving and hiking around the park. We drove back late last night. When I dropped Hannah off and pulled away, a familiar desperation came over me.

Why the desperation, still?

Why did every small separation still seem to echo a future goodbye?

I had broken up with Bethany. I called her the same day I tried to meet Hannah for lunch. In vague terms, I told Bethany that I could no longer be with her. I apologized for the timing, the phone call, everything.

Bethany sobbed and swore. She was by turns accepting, then venomous and threatening. She demanded to know if I was seeing someone else.

"There's no one," I lied.

I would protect Hannah no matter what. I wouldn't drag her deeper into my mess.

"I don't believe you!" Bethany's voice was shrill. "You lying cheating fuck!"

"Bethany, please—"

"Don't say my name! You fucking asshole. I've always been able to do better. Like I need you and your ridiculous antisocial neurotic bullshit. Good riddance. You don't give a fuck about anyone or anything but your fucking writing."

I didn't hang up on Bethany. I smoked and let her rip into me; I watched the city darken and thought of Hannah. When this was over, I could really be with her.

Finally, Bethany wound down to tearful hiccups.

She said she couldn't wait to tell her father that he was right about me, that I was no good after all. He was right, I thought.

She said she would get her things when she returned and stay with a friend, and could I please not be around when she packed.

"Of course," I said, lighting my third cigarette. "I'll go out. I can gather up your things, if you want..."