Then she collapsed beneath him, weak and satisfied. “Oh, Calder,” she finally said. “That was amazing.”

He chuckled and ran a knuckle over her cheek, giving her bruised lips little pecks.

“Did we rock the tent?” she asked.

“Who cares? I don’t care. I’d be happy to rock this camper all night, entertain the neighbors.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t stay all night. The bed is too small, for one thing.”

“You can stay a little while, till I get a second wind. I’m not like some people, on a hair trigger and able to throw out an orgasm a minute. That’s a very neat trick, by the way. I bet I enjoyed that as much as you did.”

“Highly doubtful,” she said. She rubbed her hands over his shoulders. “You’re very good at that, like a man with tons of practice. Lucky for you I have to stay right here until my bones grow back.”

“We came together like old pros,” he pointed out. “Like lovers with a routine. I love that. It’s kind of kismet, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” she muttered. She ran her hands over his chest. “You’re so smooth. I never saw this coming...”

“You didn’t?” he asked. “The second I saw you I knew we’d end up like this. Waiting for you was hard.” He moved a little inside her. “It’s hard again...”

“You don’t have to wait now, Caleb,” she said.

Every man has a property in his own person.
This nobody has a right to but himself.

—John Locke

Chapter 6

Maggie had no idea how long Sully had been up when she finally rolled out of bed at seven thirty....on about four hours of sleep. She stumbled to the bathroom and purposely didn’t look in the mirror, a little afraid she’d see Cal’s brand on her. She started the shower and got in while it was still cold.

Holy mother of pearl, what a night that was. He was an amazing lover. But also, he was such a sweet, smart, funny man. Of course he had to be some strange duck who was taking six months off to do odd jobs and camp. He couldn’t be some ordinary, stable, reliable person, like a truck driver or forest ranger. But then, what type of man did she think she could have a comfortable fit with? Sergei, the Ukrainian artist, had been a disaster. Andrew, the doctor, should’ve worked—they had so many things in common—and it had been a worse disaster.

Even running her own hands over her body as she sudsed up in the shower brought delicious tinglings from the night before, little shudders of aftershocks.

When she was out of the shower she braved it, looked in the mirror. Her cheeks were either flushed or chafed from Cal’s beard. Her lips were rosy from hours of kissing, sometimes so wildly she could hardly catch her breath. She lost control more times than she could count and she was pretty sure she bit him once. His fault, really. He could drive her so far into ecstasy she lost her bearings and became nothing more than a writhing body responding to a powerful force and lost all sense. She wondered if she just rocked and wailed in that little pop-up all the damn night. For all she knew the other campers brought their folding chairs over to Cal’s site and created an audience. At least it had been Sunday night, the weekend warriors gone, the population down.

She put lotion on her face and some lip gloss, blew out her hair and got dressed. She was going to have to think of what to say to Sully. She’d never faced that before—worry over explaining to her father. She’d had a fling or six at the crossing, and there was Andrew—she’d never explained him. She had just said they were seeing each other and they’d be staying in one of the cabins. Something about this was different. It was probably because he’d had a heart attack, she thought. Or it could be because she hardly knew Calvert, the handsome, good-natured bum and princess molester. Better go easy on Sully.