Page 32 of Down and Dirty Celebrity Edition

Chapter Nineteen

If this was what falling in love felt like, well then Amy had gotten it all wrong. She’d written about butterflies in stomachs and sparks beneath fingertips, about kisses that made her characters forget where they were and hearts that beat so hard you could physically hear them. She’d written about longing and lust and the breathless, dizzying moment when two people stopped pretending they didn’t want each other.

Frankly, Amy had always assumed she’d captured love perfectly for her readers, done every sunset kiss and romantic moonlight stroll justice. Turned out she’d never understood that real, actual love was more than that. It was the things she hadn’t thought to write down. It was the ridiculous urge to tell Savannah everything, to save little stories in her head because maybe Savannah would want to hear them. It was spending every waking moment aware of where Savannah was, wanting to be closer to her, reaching for her hand without thinking, wishing they could be alone together. It was giggling like an idiot at a total disaster.

“I can’t believe you don’t remember which tree you hid the bag behind,” Amy said, laughter bubbling up despite herself. That bag had the one thing that could get them to the final vote, and it was more lost than the set of spare keys to Amy’s apartment.

“It’s not that I don’t remember,” Savannah said from right behind her. She was walking with both hands on Amy’s hips while Amy led her through the darkness. “It’s that I can’t see anything at all, and if I can’t see, I can’t show you which tree it is.”

“I thought I told you to hide it behind the tree with the moon-shaped scar on it.”

“Well, apparently we have different opinions about what crescent moons look like, because I saw at least ten trees with dark marks on them and none of those were shaped like moons,” Savannah snapped, but her snap was more of a breathless, giggling sob. Her fingers squeezed into Amy’s waist as she stumbled over a root. But Amy didn’t mind because every squeeze reminded her that she wasn’t dreaming. It reminded her that Savannah Rigsby was, in fact, lovingly holding onto her love handles. Was Savannah feeling this way too? Like her heart was about to explode?

Amy laughed. “Can you at least remember what the tree looked like?”

“It was big,” Savannah said. “And brown.”

Amy rolled her eyes, then turned her head back. She’d planned to jab out something snarky, something funny, maybe even something witty, but instead she came cheek to cheek with Savannah. Amy hadn’t even realized Savannah was standing so close, but in that moment, she couldn’t imagine her anywhere else. The heat of Savannah’s skin against her own snatched the breath from her lungs. But only for a moment.

“Have you thought about what things with us will look like after the game?” Amy asked softly, almost carefully. This was the type of thing that ruined tender moments, yet her brain had sent the words to her mouth before she had even approved it.

“No,” Savannah said a little too abruptly.

“Neither have I,” Amy lied just as quickly. If this were a scene in Amy’s book, the dialogue would be followed by a beat of silence where both characters realized they were terrible liars. And to bring angst to the story, the silence would continue while the readers shouted, Just tell her how you feel.

But instead of silence, there were only their ragged breaths.

Savannah didn’t pull back. Neither did Amy. Instead, she spun herself around until she faced Savannah. Her body couldn’t get any closer, yet somehow it could. Savannah’s fingers snared in the fabric of Amy’s shirt and pulled her in. “Liar,” she whispered.

Then she closed the distance between their mouths, and that was it. All thought of the bag was gone. Who cared about a silly advantage when Savannah’s plump lips brushed against hers? Who cared if they could literally turn the game on its head? They didn’t need the advantage. They needed each other. They needed to get naked.

Amy slipped her hands beneath Savannah’s shirt and slid them slowly up her ribs until her thumbs brushed the underside of her breasts. Goosebumps rose across Savannah’s skin. Amy stroked her thumbs gently back and forth, smiling at the faint shiver that ran through Savannah’s body.

“Fine,” she muttered softly, moving her hand further up. “I have thought about it. A lot.” Then, before any more dialogue continued, Amy pinched Savannah’s nipple between her fingers.

The sound that escaped Savannah’s throat caught somewhere between a gasp and a growl.

She let out another moan when Amy rolled her nipple, then she bit Amy’s lip in such a way that whatever Amy wanted to add was lost in the darkness.

A second later, Savannah was lifting Amy’s top over her head, and then Amy was doing the same for Savannah. Then that feeling of naked bodies flush against each other brought a low grumble out of Amy’s chest. “I love feeling you against me,” Amy muttered, pressing Savannah even closer. “And I want to keep feeling you against me when the game ends.”

“Is that your way of saying that you like me, Sandler?” Savannah asked softly against her ear. “That you want to keep seeing me after all of this?”

Was it? Amy thought. Yes! The answer was yes.

But instead of being forthcoming, she returned the question with another question. “Do you?”

Savannah didn’t answer. Her hand slipped down Amy’s front, beneath the waistband of her cotton shorts, beneath the elastic of her underwear, and then a finger curled into her folds, and who cared that Savannah hadn’t replied immediately. The touch felt like enough of an answer for now.

Amy felt her knees buckle as Savannah added a second finger. Then she moaned softly against Savannah’s mouth. The world was so quiet, she could literally hear her wetness. How fucking hot was that? Amy was just about to tilt her head back to glance up at the sky and ask the Universe how she’d gotten this lucky when Savannah suddenly stepped back. Then, before Amy could ask what Savannah was doing, Savannah bent her knees.

Half a second later, Savannah’s mouth found Amy’s breast. She kissed beside one nipple, then trailed her lips slowly between Amy’s breasts and across the underside of the other. When she reached the nipple, she drew it into her mouth.

Amy literally bit down on her tongue to keep herself from screaming. But there was no way she could keep it up. Not with Savannah and that delicious mouth of hers moving lower.

“You can’t make me scream,” Amy muttered. “We’re too close to camp.”

If Savannah heard her, she gave no indication. She tugged down Amy’s shorts and underwear as she went. Then her hands landed on the outside of Amy’s thighs, and Amy kicked off her shorts that had pooled at her feet before she spread her legs wider. The anticipation for what was to come made her so wet.