Lost (Captive Heart #1) by Carrie Aarons Page A

…” He breathes against my lips with his forehead resting against mine, the lids lowered over those coffee-colored eyes.
    “Hmm?” I don’t even know what universe I’m in.
    “I forgot what it feels like to be with you. The way you overwhelm me, the epicness of it …”
    His words float back to me, and even though I’d love for them to pass through the space between my ears and keep moving, they lodge there.
    What it feels like to be with you.
    We’ve already been together. And I remember every gory detail. I’ve replayed those moments on a loop in my head for eight years.
    And he hasn’t.
    Tucker’s lips are on my neck, that brilliant, talented mouth about to send me into a lust coma.
    “I can’t.” I push at his chest and he stops laying kisses on my skin, but keeps his hands around my waist.
    We wait. Me for him to move, and him for me to tell him to continue.
    “Let go of me, Tucker.” I speak softly, wanting to move. To run back to my cabin and pretend I didn’t allow him to kiss me. That I didn’t feel the world tip on its axis.
    He breathes; it’s a soft growl or a sigh. I’m not sure.
    He’s still standing toe-to-toe with me, even though no part of our bodies are touching.
    “Char, please.”
    It might be a question, but I don’t want to ask.
    “Don’t. We’re not doing this. Especially here. Like this.”
    I walk with shaky feet back to my cabin, that invisible power line of tension and built-up lust and unsaid words roping even thicker between our two wooded sheds.

22
Charlotte
    W hen you’re a man , you can up and go at the drop of a hat. No need for products or more underwear or bras or medicine.
    It’s why boys always did so much better when I was at camp. They didn’t have to worry about wrinkling their favorite tank top for the Annual Thursday Night Dance, or set their alarm an extra thirty minutes early in the morning to pop any pimples, apply minimal makeup and make sure they’d look fresh and cute for the rest of the day. It was all so easy for them.
    I’m reminded of this a month into our little “vacation” when I wake up to full force period cramps like I’ve never felt before.
    “Shit.” I know what I’m going to see when I drag myself to the tiny cabin bathroom.
    I’ve been on birth control since I was seventeen, thanks to a paranoid mother who wasn’t going to have the birds and the bees talk with her daughter. Instead, she just dragged me to the gynecologist, let a strange woman poke, prod and talk to me about vaginal intercourse. And then I walked out with a cylinder of tiny blue pills and a prescription for more.
    So for close to nine years, I’ve had my period constantly regulated for me, the pill dulling the effects of a full-on menstrual cycle. Sure, I still got cramps, but they were just achy, and they went away after less than half a day.
    But now, since I haven’t taken my pill in more than three weeks, my body has decided to give me the middle finger and bring the entire wrath of my period down over my head. As if I wasn’t experiencing enough pain being here with Tucker.
    A couple days ago I finally found another option for underwear, considering the one thong I’d been wearing and constantly washing for the last two and a half weeks was threadbare. Along with the supply of clothing in the mess hall, I trekked to the counselor cabin a ways up the hill and found a dresser full of random clothing that must have been left by counselors past. After thoroughly washing and disinfecting it all, I’ve taken to wearing a couple of the sets of boxers in there.
    And now, there is a pool of blood in said boxers that is more than I’ve probably ever had in four days of my period.
    “Great.” I sigh to myself. I’ve gotten lucky with the clothing so far, but there are probably no tampons or pads to be found in this camp.
    After disposing of the ruined boxers, and checking to make sure my makeshift bed isn’t covered in my Red Sea, I wad up several balls