His Counterfeit Campfire Bride by Gwen Hayes
He was laying it on thick—but she liked it. “How about you two?”
“Oh, we love it here,” Brad answered. “Especially the skinny dipping. You two been out yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Join us tonight,” Layla said. “Meet us at eleven.”
Sera would have assumed Layla was coming on to Miguel, except that she wasn’t talking to Miguel. She was talking to Sera. And smiling like she’d just offered her a stick of gum and not just asked her to get naked with her and her husband.
“Hello everyone!” the dance instructor said from the stage, saving Sera from having to respond to the skinny dipping invitation. “Those of you who have seen Dirty Dancing will recognize some of the dance you will learn over the next few days. We’ll be doing the Mambo, Johnny Castle-style.”
Oh God. Too much cheese.
She shrank inside and looked for the exit.
Miguel rounded in front of her, making himself a barrier to a quick escape, but also a curiously safe buffer from the world. “You okay, Sera?”
“This just isn’t my thing. It’s silly.”
“I thought all women loved Dirty Dancing.”
“I like the movie. But this feels weird. Forced.”
Cheesy.
“What, you didn’t have slumber parties and watch it over and over and dream about the bad boy with a heart of gold and doing the lift?”
“What? No.” She’d never been to a slumber party. Maybe if she’d been allowed to be a normal kid, this wouldn’t feel so weird. But she was out of her depth right now. “Why aren’t you more upset about this? And how do you know about the lift?”
He shrugged in answer and then they watched the instructor and another woman show them the first steps.
When it was their turn, Miguel got into position. “We got this.”
“Oh really?’
He dropped his hold and smoothed his hands to her hips. “Look at me.” As if she had a choice. “I need you to do two things. First, you have to trust me. If this is going to work, you need to let me lead once in a while, okay? This is one of those times. I know it goes against everything you think you stand for, but you have to trust me or it won’t work. I don’t want to lead all the time. I won’t take you somewhere you don’t want to go. I won’t let you down. But you have to trust me to do it once in a while. Can you?”
Was she that much of a control freak that he thought she couldn’t let him lead on the dance floor? Okay, probably she was. “I don’t know. What’s the other thing?”
“Huh?”
“You said there were two things. I can’t promise one without knowing the other first.”
He laughed and put them back in starting position, his hands strong and sure. “The other thing is don’t step on the one.”
She didn’t have time to question him further as the instructor counted out the four beats slowly—and not stepping on the “one” was harder than it sounded even after a semester of dance class. After several minutes, the music started and Miguel led her expertly into the routine—even past what they’d been instructed to do. She knew the steps, but how did he? She started to tense up when the other couples moved to the side to make a ring around the dance floor with her smack dab in the middle of it.
She was not in control and people were watching her. It was like her worst nightmare come to life.
“Trust me,” he reminded her. His mambo got a little looser, a little more off the cuff and improvised.
Improvising was not her favorite thing. Obviously.
She’d taken only one semester of ballroom dancing her senior year when the other electives she’d wanted were full, but she didn’t know exactly what he was doing—only that he was doing it well. What if she couldn’t follow? What if...
I won’t let you down.
She had to trust him. She had to let go a little or she would humiliate them both.
So she did something outside of her comfort zone.
She relaxed.
Miguel was a natural dancer and he knew it. Normally, his confidence annoyed her. But on the dance floor, with all his attention focused on her, it made her feel...safe of all things. His gaze smoldered, his hips did things Elvis would be proud of, and she realized she was being seduced to the count of four.
And she wanted him to seduce her. Wanted the things he promised when he took the lead. Wanted his attention and his hands and those damn hips. He brought her closer and the dance became less a show and more an embrace. One that should be done in private, but he was staking a claim and she let him.
He danced her all the way to the door and when it closed behind them, they heard the muted claps of the rest of the class they were leaving behind.
Miguel pressed her against the wall, his strong, lean body holding her up where she would have fallen without him. He was staring at her mouth, still focused completely on her.
“Where did you learn to dance like that?” she asked, trying and failing to break the spell.
“My mom teaches dance at a community center. I think she used to teach classes with me still on her hip. There was always dancing at my house.”
“You’re very good. You actually made me look coordinated.”
“Thank you.” His hands squeezed her hips, adjusting her off the ground so they were at eye level to each other and she wrapped her legs around his hips. “You’re not uncoordinated. You just have a hard time letting go.”
She didn’t want to let go now, that was for sure. They were still pressed against the wall so tightly a piece of paper couldn’t have slid between them. Every hard, lean edge of him pushed into her. He was turned on—as much as she was—and it was empowering to know she’d done that. She had zero control of him she knew, but she hadn’t realized she’d enjoy inciting chaos even more.
The throb in her core certainly welcomed the friction of his erection against her shorts and she shifted her hips just a bit to get a better angle.
“You’re going to kill me, Sera.”
Her world narrowed to him. Just him. His scent surrounded her. His body supported her. His gaze burned her.
“You’re no good to me dead, Castillo.”
The smile broke across his face, revealing those laugh lines and that dimple. It was beautiful and dangerous, that smile. Though her body was in no danger of falling, thanks to his strong hold, nothing was propping up her heart. Her foolish, unprotected heart started an uncontrolled roll and it was too late. She’d been stupid to forget that her heart was weak. That even minor negligence on her part would leave it unprotected and defenseless. She’d spent her life safeguarding the damn thing, shielding it, building its defenses. And it wasn’t a missed dose of medicine or high cholesterol or any of the myriad of pollutants she’d strived to control.
It was a smile that would do her in.
Not even twenty-four hours ago, he’d challenged her. Said one of them would break first. She really hadn’t thought it would be her.
She licked her lips and he groaned, anticipating the kiss they both knew was coming.
“Heads,” someone yelled from far away. And a Frisbee thunked next to her head against the planks of the boathouse.
And it was enough to remind her that she was asking for trouble. That she deserved to get hit on the head for thinking this was a good idea.
“We should get ready for dinner.”
Miguel stepped back from the wall and let her slide down his body slowly. “It’s gonna happen, sweetheart.”
“It shouldn’t.”
He kissed the top of her head.
“Agreed.”
MIGUEL’S BRIDE COULD NOT ROAST a marshmallow to save her life.
Her control freak tendencies ought to mean perfect, golden brown crusty marshmallows with just the right amount of goo on the inside, and yet all she’d accomplished so far were charred balls of lava.
“What am I doing wrong?” she asked.
Nothing as far as he could tell. But she kept distracting him wh
Tonight, the flannel shirt she wore was his. It was too big on her—the one she brought would have been more practical—but he’d asked her to wear it. He didn’t know why. Seeing his clothes on her filled him with a primal need he hadn’t known he had. He half expected his knuckles to drag on the ground on the way from their cabin to the fire pit.
“I’m going to grab a beer from the keg. Can I get you anything?” Not because he wanted a beer. What he wanted was a distraction from the distraction of his wife.
“If you see a copy of Roasting Marshmallows for Dummies, grab me one.”
It was too much. She wasn’t supposed to be funny. Or cute. Or completely fuckable wearing his clothes. Not for the first time since coming to camp, he discovered he was kissing Sera before he made a conscious decision to kiss her. Call it instinct. Call it a compulsion. Call it losing the line between reality and the story they’d made up, but he couldn’t not kiss her.
Her lips were sweet and a little sticky and he would never eat another marshmallow without thinking of this night. Miguel pulled back and found her a little dazed, her eyes not focusing, and even that sent another zing into his groin. His umussable Sera Worth got googly-eyed when he kissed her. He didn’t know he had that kind of sway—but he was glad it wasn’t just him stuck in this strange mire of attraction.
“Be back in a few,” he said so that he wouldn’t say all the crazy things he was thinking.
He was standing in a short line at the keg when he heard his name.
“I thought that was you,” the man said, holding out his hand for a handshake. “Michael Tully. We interned together at my father’s company one summer.”
As soon as he heard the name, Miguel recognized him. “Wow. Now I feel old. How are you, man? What’s it been? Fifteen years?”
“Give or take. You having a good time? My wife and I own the camp.”
Miguel knew his incredulous face gave him away. Last he’d heard, Tully was running his old man’s multi-million-dollar company. “That’s a big...”
“Change?” Michael grinned. “Yeah. The corporate world got a little stale. But camp is always fun. Heather and I met here as kids. When it came up for sale, she bought it outright and we’ve been building it back up. It’s really her show.”
Ah, yes, Heather from the X-rated Arts and Crafts cabin. He remembered Michael had a girlfriend named Heather when they interned together all those years ago. Looks like they were the sticking kind.
Michael filled him in about camp. If they’d have come next week, Michael would have been leading the corporate training sessions. The camp Miguel’s boss thought he’d sent them to. Instead, Miguel had to lie to his friend and point out his wife across the way who’d been commandeered by Layla again. It seemed Layla and Brad were not only their biggest competition this week—their PDAs were more than just a little excessive, but the couple was also everywhere. Every time he looked up, there they were.
He gave Michael an abbreviated version of their love story and then Michael got called away by an employee with some sort of karaoke crisis.
It was time to rescue his wife from Layla anyway. They’d already agreed they didn’t want to go skinny dipping last night but had decided they needed to be as diplomatic as possible about declining the invitation—which had been issued again for tonight. They still weren’t sure what they had to do to win the prize at the end of the week. If it was a popularity vote, they couldn’t afford to hurt anyone’s feelings—even if it was sort of inappropriate to invite people you barely knew to get naked and go swimming with you.
But alliances were important. If there really was a Best in Show, he kinda thought it belonged to Neil and Steve. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t trying to win it.
Layla was a toucher after a few drinks, as advertised by the way she was interacting with Sera as he made his way back around the fire. The whole time she talked, she was holding on to Sera’s arm or squeezing a shoulder, an elbow—whatever she could reach. When she put her arm around her as he arrived at the log they were sitting on, she sent Miguel a knowing look and licked her lips.
He stepped back like she’d just threatened to shank him and looked for Layla’s husband, only to find Brad on the other side of the fire, watching the ladies intently.
Something was...not quite right about the whole situation. Right now, Layla was looking at him like she wanted to devour him whole but touching his bride like she didn’t want to leave her out. Paired with Brad standing twenty feet away and staring like a creeper, it was starting to look a lot like summer camp was way more grown up than he remembered it being.
“So, we’ll see you in about an hour?” Layla asked Sera as he arrived on scene.
Sera’s deer in the headlights expression was all he needed to go into protection mode. And then she started counting. Not out loud, but he could tell she was doing it. He’d seen it enough. “Probably not tonight,” Miguel interrupted. “We have plans.”
“Shame,” Layla said, brushing her hand to Sera’s knee. “We’ll miss you. Sera, at least come to the bathroom with me. I don’t want to go alone.”
“Um...okay.”
Without words, she communicated to Miguel that she could handle the field trip to the latrine, but she wished she didn’t have to. He hoped she saw that he wished he could rescue her. Because he really wanted to. Rescue her. Which was strange since he’d been trying to throw her under a bus for most of the year.
Less than a week ago, he didn’t like her. Other than mutual dislike for each other, they hadn’t agreed on anything for months. And before the promotion, he might have even said he hated her. And Miguel hadn’t hated anyone since Ricky Price told everyone he still wet the bed in second grade.
So, yeah, he and Sera hadn’t been much better than second graders.
But he didn’t hate her anymore. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have to say he liked her.
It was the circumstances though, right? They were thrown together in a strange land with a shared goal: to make it out alive. Forced proximity created the appearance of a relationship.
But that didn’t feel right. Maybe it was more like forced proximity had stripped away all the non-essentials and at the core of it, he genuinely liked her. He’d always respected her—even when the fighting was dirty, she’d been a worthy opponent. But maybe the respect went further than that.
He knew for damn sure he was more than just attracted to her. He couldn’t blame the pencil skirt for it any longer. He wanted her. Badly.
How bad would it really be if they just...gave in? They could get the inconvenient lust out of their systems. They were adults. It was obvious they would never be able to date once they got back to the city. Neither one of them would want to. He wasn’t her type. Birk was her type.
But if they didn’t give in now, they might always wonder. And that couldn’t be good for their working relationship, right? The sexual tension would get in the way of work. So really, having sex at summer camp would be the best thing they could do for their company. He’d be doing Mr. Martin a favor.
Yeah. They’d be doing it for their company.
“We’re lucky bastards, eh Miguel?”
Miguel turned to find Brad standing next to him now and watching the backsides of the women as they walked away.
Alliance, he reminded himself. Punching the guy would not be conducive to his goal. But he really wanted to. “Yeah. Being married is great.”
“Layla convince Sera to join us later yet?”
Miguel tensed. “No. We have plans.” Plans that do not include you ogling
“She’s shy then?” Brad interrupted Miguel’s thoughts. “Maybe a few more drinks. Know what I mean?”
It took Miguel a minute to figure out where the conversation had gone while he’d been mentally undressing Sera. Was Brad suggesting he get his wife drunk so she’d agree to skinny dipping? His protective urges were brought to the surface. He wasn’t brought up to take advantage of women that way. “No, man. We’re just...”
“What do you think of Layla?” Brad interrupted. “She’s hot right?”
What kind of question was that? Was there a proper way to answer it? Because Miguel didn’t think so. Yeah, your wife is hot didn’t sound right. Neither did, No not really. Mostly, he didn’t have any interest in Brad’s wife aside from maybe her vote for best couple. If there even was a vote. He really hated not knowing the parameters of the competition. “Layla is very nice.”
After a long, measured look, Brad took another drink. “She’s a little wild sometimes. When we go on vacation, she likes to let off some steam.”
Play dumb, Castillo.
“She’s a good wife. I don’t mind her having a good time. You can’t keep a wild bird in a cage, know what I mean?”
“I don’t think I do, Brad. And I think I’m okay with that.”
Brad smiled. “You ever wonder what it would be like to see your wife with another—”
“Here they come.” Something was happening inside him. He wasn’t sure he liked it. It was one thing to have a fun romp with Sera. It was another to have all these caveman feelings. But there they were, bubbling up inside his blood. Sera was his woman. His. And if Brad didn’t shut the hell up, Miguel was going to charge him like a buck in spring. “Like I said, we have plans tonight, but you guys have a good time. Catch you later, bro.” Miguel trotted up the trail to meet the women. “Babe, we need to get going. Have a good night, Layla.”