We Are Made of Stardust - Peaches Monroe #1 (25 page)

A chill passed over me, giving me goosebumps as we moved through the shadow of the trees, bumping as trespassers along the narrow dirt road.

We passed a sign that read:
You’re not lost. You’re trespassing. Turn around now and go back the way you came.

Dalton found the sign rather amusing, even slowing to snap a photo of it with his phone.

“You got your souvenir photo,” I said. “Now let’s turn around and do something legal. Do you like five-pin bowling? It’s like ten-pin bowling, but not as good. You know, bowling is funny. I think people enjoy the idea of bowling a lot more than actually doing it. Have you ever turned around and looked at all the faces of people in a bowling alley? Except for maybe one table of extremely smashed guys, who could be just as happy in the drunk tank, everyone has this serious look on their faces. And they’re always shaking their head, saying, ‘You got robbed. Robbed. That pin must be glued there. Oh, the humanity.’"

Dalton slammed on the brakes, put the car in reverse, then took a quick left turn, onto what looked like anything but a road.

I squealed and held on tight to the dashboard as the car bounced and rocked over the rutted terrain.

“Your poor car!” I warbled, my voice broken up by the bouncing.

“I suppose my four-wheel-drive truck might have been a better option.”

“You have a truck?”

“For towing the trailer.”

“Of course.” I looked back over my shoulder at the path through which we’d come. If you really looked, you could just barely make out what could be mistaken for a road.

“Almost there,” he said.

“How would you know? This path is completely overgrown. Nobody’s driven this way in months.”

“Easy. I saw the hot spring from the helicopter.”

“How? Was it with one of the Westons?”

“Nope. I don’t know them.”

“Shit! You aren’t friends with the Westons? We really are trespassing?” I’d been hoping he had permission and was just pulling a prank on me.

He turned and gave me a mischievous look. “Trespassing? Hmm. I’m certainly no lawyer, so I couldn’t say exactly what we’re doing. Maybe we’re lost. I don’t see any signs along here telling us otherwise.”

I looked around. He was right about there being no more of the threatening signs. And that probably meant we were heading straight for the hot spring, and the lack of signs was their attempt to thwart trespassers.

Trespassers!

This was exactly the kind of thing my boy cousins would want to do when we were all kids, and me being me, I’d cross my arms and stomp my foot and tell them we weren’t allowed.

Now I was older, and apparently I did things like cowgirl-style sex with a handsome actor, with the lights on.

We bumped along for a few more minutes through the bushes, low-hanging branches whacking the windshield. I worried for the car’s suspension, but it just kept on going.

“Hmm,” Dalton said as we lurched to a stop.

“Did we blow a tire?”

“Don’t be a worry wart.”

“Too late. I am what I am. Dalton, I might have a big mouth and way more attitude than necessary, but I’m not a law breaker. I’m not a trespasser.”

“Bulldoodles.”

I laughed, hard. “Bulldoodles? You crack me up.”

He winked. “Something my mother used to say.”

I stared at his gorgeous profile, wondering for a moment what his parents looked like. They likely had dark hair like him, and surely his father was handsome, but I couldn’t imagine a mother.

“What does your mother look like? You don’t talk about your family much.”

He turned off the engine and opened the car door.

“All shall be revealed once we locate the hot spring.”

I stayed seated in the car. “We should probably turn around and go back to town. I’ll take you to Chloe’s Pie Shack for a Lemon Meringue Mile-High. My treat.”

Standing next to the car, he stretched his perfect arms over his head, then whipped off his shirt. He stretched again, his muscles rippling in the dappled light come through the trees.

Think what you want about your own willpower, but mine is in limited supply, and a good portion is expended daily resisting cupcakes. If you were in my shoes, you’d see why he broke my resolve. When a man that hot and charming
ripples
for you, you fucking go with him.

I muttered some choice words under my breath as I got out of the car. Dalton Deangelo’s job was to appear shirtless and boost ratings. No sense trying to deny the desires of my flesh. He was like the Pied Piper of modern day, his voice the enchanting music that lured the youth away from the small village, and his flute was… well… sort of flute-shaped, depending on how you looked at it.

Ugh. I needed to stop thinking about his flute, and start using my head.
Eyes open, Peaches. Eyes wide open.

When I caught up to him, he slipped one bare arm around my shoulder. My arm went to his waist, and I tucked my hand into the back pocket of his jeans.

“This is nice,” he said, and he kissed my forehead as we kept walking, moving now through a narrow path.

We walked for a while, enjoying the woodsy sounds of birds around us. I was about to suggest we turn around when I noticed a change in the air. Moisture. I checked the sky for signs of rainclouds, but it was all blue showing between the leaves.

We stepped into a clearing dotted with a few boulders. Up ahead, near a rock outcropping, was a plume of steam.

“Holy fuckchops, the hot springs are real,” I said as I ran toward the pool of water. I would have screamed, but we
were
trespassing, after all.

Dalton raced ahead of me. He pulled off his shoes and jeans, then stood near the edge of the water on the rocks, his socks getting wet. Or, I assume his socks were getting wet. I was looking at his perfect ass, filling out his boxer shorts so nicely.

“Be careful,” I called out. “Check the temperature that it isn’t boiling hot.”

He pulled off his socks, yanked down his boxer shorts, and slapped one of his butt cheeks. “Check this temperature, cutie.” And then he just jumped in.

His naked body and dark hair disappeared beneath the water line, and I was all alone in the silence. The songbirds in the nearby branches sang their tattle-tale songs. Trespassers! Naughty, naked trespassers! Playing the meat flute!

Dalton shot up from the water like a majestic merman, tossing his head back in a spray of water.

“You look pink,” I said. “Is it boiling hot?”

“Jump in and find out!”

I sat near the edge and took off my shoes and socks, then dipped a few toes in cautiously.

He dipped down for a mouthful of water, then spat it at me in an arc.

I stepped back. “Don’t drink that filth. Isn’t warm water basically party town for bacteria? Like a petri dish?”

Dalton wiped water from his grinning face. “I wasn’t so great at science, but this isn’t agar.”

“Agar!” I stepped back closer to kick water at his face. “Sounds like you know plenty about science.”

“I’m not as dumb as I look.”

“Who said you look dumb?”

He fixed me with a serious gaze, his dark green eyes never looking more enticing than now, surrounded by wild grasses and flowers in a natural hot spring.

“Take off your clothes and get in here with me,” he commanded.

“Pass.” Something flitted at the edge of my vision, and I turned around expecting to see Old Man Weston with a shotgun.

Only it wasn’t him. Or any human.

A deer stepped quietly out of the trees and walked around me, to the river of water running away from the pool. With her big eyes watching me warily, she lowered her head and took a tentative drink. And then, just as calmly as she’d arrived, she gave a flick of her tail and disappeared back into the woods.

“That was a sign,” Dalton said. “From the universe, straight to Peaches Monroe. Now take off your clothes and get in here with me before I climb out of here like an angry sea monster and drag you in.”

I pulled the gray sweatshirt off over my head.

“Nice T-shirt. Is that Disco Duck?”

“Don’t watch,” I said, but of course that only made him watch me more intently.

There was certainly no changing room out here. If this was
my
hot spring, a cute little cabana would be the first thing I’d add.

I could feel the heat of his gaze on me.

“Dalton! Stop watching.”

He whistled. “Take it off!”

I undid my brown cords and shimmied them down, still facing him rather than offering a side or back view.

“Careful,” I said. “You should avert your eyes or you’ll be blinded by the sun reflecting off all my pale flesh.”

He waded to the near side of the rocky pool and rested his elbows on the edge, his chin in his hands.

“I could watch you undress all day. All those curves are so much fun to ogle. Hey, there’s a great word.
Ogle
. I’m ogling you like an ogre.”

I pulled off my T-shirt and stood for a moment in my underwear, debating leaving my bra and panties on.

He held up his hands with his thumbs and fingers forming a square between us.

“I’m framing you,” he said. “For future reference.”

Bathed in his generous praise, I found the courage to unfasten my boulder-holder and drop it to the ground along with my panties.

Ladies, you’ll never feel as naked as when you’re trespassing on private property and standing in front of a handsome guy, without so much as a g-string along your crack.

I hurried around to one side of the steaming pool, where it had some stone steps leading down. The water was surprisingly hot, about as warm as a freshly-drawn bath (assuming your hot water tank is bigger than the one in my house and you don’t have to supplement with the boiling tea kettle).

Once I was all the way in, I found that I could stand at one side with the water just above my waist. At the deeper side, the rocky bottom could just barely be grazed by my toes while I held my head about the water.

“How can this be?” I asked. “How is this pond so perfect?”

“How are
you
so perfect?” He drew me in for a kiss, his lips warm and wet from the water.

I pulled away, distracted by the mysterious stones all around us—not too rough and not too smooth. The pond was kidney-shaped, and big enough to fit ten people comfortably. There was even a stone bench along one side.

“Is this real?” I asked.

He dipped down and drank some water. “Tastes real.”

“But the hot spring didn’t just form in this perfect shape, did it? Someone must have moved around the rocks and improved upon nature.”

Dalton seemed annoyed by my questions. “If it’s good, isn’t that enough for you? Does it matter how real it is?”

I looked down at my peaches, which looked really good floating in the warm, pristine water.

“But why is the water so clear? Shouldn’t it be a little muddy?”

Dalton sighed. “This spring has likely been here thousands of years. Millennia, even. All the mud washed away long ago, before Beaverdale even existed. Maybe there was a time dinosaurs came here to take a little skinny dip.”

“Millennia.” I would have shivered, if I wasn’t so warm.

“Enjoy it while you can. These hot springs open up and can disappear after earthquakes. They’re not forever.”

“Nothing is forever,” I said.

He pulled me back into his arms, locking his hands together against my lower back.

“Stardust is forever,” he said. “The form changes, that’s all.”

I gazed up into his gentle green eyes. “Don’t talk like that. You make me feel serious, and I don’t like being serious.”

He took a gasp of breath and submerged, his dark hair disappearing under the water. Strong hands grabbed my legs and pulled them apart, and an instant later, his mouth was on me, deep below the water line. As his tongue darted between my twin pillows of flesh, a plume of bubbles rose from below, tickling as they fought their way up and between my breasts.

He rose for a quick breath and disappeared again. Tongue and fingers and bubbles. Tongue. Fingers. Bubbles.

When he came up for air again, he was surprised to find me gasping as well.

“That feels crazy good,” I said, then I took a deep breath and went down myself. I’ve always been comfortable in water, though I would never have done something like this in a real hot tub, not with all the chlorine in the water.

This natural spring, though, was heaven. My eyes didn’t sting at all when I opened them to get my bearings.

I found the sea cucumber, no problem, but sucking it while holding my breath was a challenge. I could do the task, somewhat, but suspected by the degree of
bonership
that I wasn’t doing a great job.

Surfacing, I sputtered, “Lemme try again.”

He kissed me tenderly, then hopped up out of the water and took a seat at the edge of the pool, his legs still in the water from the lower knee down.

“Look at you bobbing around. You’re a true mermaid,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to know the pleasure of a mermaid.”

I rolled back on the water, taking a deep breath for buoyancy and floating on my back for him. He grabbed my hand as I swirled by and tugged me toward him.

Upright again with my toes on the stony floor, I waded toward him and nestled between his legs.

He gazed down with a big grin as I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed the tops of his buttocks. His sea cucumber filled up quickly, straining to reach my lips. With a nod down, I had the head in my mouth, and I pulsed down on the shaft with a quick swirl of my tongue.

On the third bob, he caught my head in his hands.

“Slow down,” he said, panting. “Not so fast, baby.”

I pulled away, apologizing.

He caught me under the chin with his fingers and tilted my head up to face his. With the sun high overhead and nothing but trees above him, he was so beautiful, he took my breath away.

“No need to apologize,” he said. “I’m the one who can’t control himself when I’m around you. Your mouth feels so good. So does your pussy. I’m addicted to all your pink bits.”

I covered my face with one hand, feeling shy.

He laughed. “It’s just you and me and the trees. Let’s enjoy ourselves.”