I cleared my throat and whispered, “I think it’s been fifteen minutes.”

When I pulled away he let me go. Cold water hit my lower back and thighs, replacing the warmth and protection of Duane’s body. Hugging myself I turned toward the forest and forced my stiff legs to move. This did not go well. I stumbled, slipped on a rock, and crashed sideways into the water.

The wind was knocked out of me as I hit the lake, forced from my lungs by the shock of cold. Immediately my legs straightened, pushing my head up and out. Just as I was gathering a greedy gulp of air, I felt Duane’s hands reach around my side and lift me off my feet and out of the water, cradling my front to him and carrying me with an arm around my torso and under my legs.

When I found my voice I said through chattering teeth, “Put me down.”

He didn’t respond, just continued trudging to the embankment.

“Duane Winston, put me down.” I felt breathless, confused, dizzy. Pressed together like we were, and without the chilly water keeping me sober, my body was warming to his. Our skin was slippery, my breasts against his chiseled chest, his strong arms around me. I was too exhausted to be aroused, but it felt improper.

Improper? Really? Now you’re feeling improper? I’d traded lunacy for sense.

“I’ll put you down, but I don’t want you running off throwing my pants in a tree.”

“You deserved that.” I knew to which adolescent encounter he referred and I couldn’t help a very little smile at the memory.

“Yes, I did.” He nodded then hoisted me a few inches in the air like I was a sack of potatoes, readjusting his grip when I came down.

We were out of the water now, some feet into the forest, and I was just about to complain again when he set me down gently, but wrapped a big paw around my upper arm.

“My clothes are back there.” I tugged halfheartedly away, my body too cold and tired to put up much of a fight. Goosebumps had broken out everywhere and I was shaking violently.

Duane bent to retrieve something. In one smooth motion he released my arm, shook out what I realized was a large blanket, and tossed it over his shoulders. He then yanked me forward and wrapped me in the soft fabric and his embrace.

“You need to dry off, warm up first,” he said, rubbing my bare back. It was then that I realized how cold he was, that he too was shaking.

Without consideration or caution, I snuggled closer, instinctively wanting to give and share warmth. I hugged him, rubbed the broad muscles of his back, and buried my face in his neck. Yes, we were naked. But first and foremost we were near-frozen, heat-seeking bodies.

Practicality won out over the lunacy of prudishness.

The blanket must’ve been huge because it covered us from his neck and the tips of my ears, and pooled around our feet, giving the impression of a cocoon. I was grateful he’d planned ahead. Whereas I’d just run off into the woods, relying on my anger and inexplicable jealousy to keep me warm.

The memory of and the reason for my earlier ire reared its ugly head: a flash of an image, Duane’s expert kisses shared with his ex. He was still clutching the blanket around us, holding me close, rubbing feeling into my arms and back. His hands were big and divine, strong and skillful. His heart beat against my cheek. His smooth skin, his granite stomach and shoulders under my fingertips made me feel greedy and muddled.

He was muddling me and I began to hear my brain soundtrack, this time it was Touch Me, by The Doors.

Suddenly I was warm, we both were, and it was much faster then I’d anticipated. As true physiological numbness receded, his hands on my body ignited something else. Soon the shared heat changed from necessary for survival to something evocative and abruptly ripe with decadent tension. His hands slowed and I realized belatedly that my breath had quickened. I wasn’t aroused, it wasn’t like before. I was…caught. This time my heart was involved, not the crazy part of my brain.

I glanced up at him, found him watching me. His eyes reflected the stars and I was close enough to see they were on my lips.

“Jessica,” he whispered, swallowed, his hands now motionless on my waist.

I shook my head slightly; really, the small movement was me telling myself to cease feeling. Duane was all around me, and he felt intoxicatingly good. I need to end this, whatever it was.

So I blurted, “I’m not kissing you.”

His eyes lifted to mine, his expression unreadable, but I felt him tense. “Why not?”

I huffed. “Because you lied to me, you pretended to be your brother—”

He cut me off, yanked his head back. “And you want Beau.” His tone was cold, unfathomably resentful.

I gripped his biceps to keep him from moving away. “No, no—that’s not it. It’s the lie, and my sexy bee cousin.”

“Your sexy bee cousin?”

“Yes. Tina Patterson, my dad’s sister’s daughter. Remember her? You kissed her. You kissed her right after you and I...” I couldn’t finish because I was confusing myself. I used to kiss boys all the time and it never meant anything. Yet I couldn’t finish my sentence because I was beginning to think Duane’s earlier kiss—even shrouded in a veil of deceit—had meant something to me.

He licked his lips before he asked, as though reading my mind, “Did our kiss mean something to you? Not,” he shook his head and glanced around the darkness, “not when you thought I was my brother, but after, when you found out it was me.”

I answered honestly, my words pouring out of me. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. And I don’t get why you’re pushing this so hard now. I feel like I don’t know you at all. One minute you’re the Duane Winston who throws rocks at my cat, kissing another girl, making me feel like I have heartburn, arguing about the color of the sky, and the next minute you’re telling me we’re suited for each other. I don’t trust you.”

“Jessica, we’re standing in the forest naked. You trust me a little.”

I pushed against his chest lightly, shaking my head, feeling sleepy and exasperated and not ready to let him go. It was the strangest of combinations.

“Of course I trust you that way. I know you’d never murder me or take advantage—well, not take too much advantage. I mean, you did get a penis stroke out of me earlier and did really fantastic things to my nipples.” A little shiver raced through me at the memory. “But now that I think about it, you stopped me before I could—”

“Jessica, please stop talking.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re making everything…really hard.”

We stood motionless for a long moment as understanding dawned; his words held a delicious double meaning and, even in the inky darkness, I could tell he was struggling. I wavered back and forth between wanting him to do something, and hoping he wouldn’t. Our breath mingled. His fingers dug into my hips.

Then his eyes closed and he set me away. He didn’t let the blanket slip. Instead he pulled it from his shoulders, stepping out of our little oven, and wrapped it firmly around my shoulders, tucking it under my chin. I was mummified in our residual warmth.

Duane left and quickly located his pants. I watched his outline pull them on then move to the tree where I’d discarded my clothes. He brought them back and held them out.

“Here,” he said.

Once I had the folded pile I sensed him turn away.

I stared at the back of his neck for a beat, just the dim outline visible to me, then slowly began the process of getting dressed.

I rewound through the evening and our time together; all of my actions. I was too honest. He made me feel naïve and mindless. I wasn’t used to the disorientation brought on by excellent quality physical intimacy. Plus he and I knew each other. We had history.

Maybe my immature, fantasy-based feelings for Beau had dispelled so abruptly because I’d been given a taste of reality, of an actual adult liaison. The way Duane touched me felt like a brand.