Silvertip Mountain worn pathways

She didn't answer at first, but suddenly a smile flashed across her muzzle and she was coming swiftly towards him. His muscles tensed even though he knew she would do him no harm. There was nothing violent about her actions, just sudden unexplained joy and enthusiasm.

In seconds, she'd closed all distance between them, and just as those Spring-painted eyes were mere inches from his, she touched his cheek and kissed him. Summer heard her as though on the other end of a tunnel, butterflies bursting in a flurry within his chest. His breath caught in his throat, and then he watched her bounding away, laughing and casting a backwards glance over her shoulder.

He stood there for a moment, totally dumbfounded. It was as though she'd just wacked him over the head with a hammer, sending him flying back in time to the nervous little boy bringing a pretty stranger a pinecone in hopes of making her smile, if only for a second. Now she was there, smiling and laughing, no pinecone in sight. She was happy just because of him - no tricks, no presents, no nothing. It was effortless, so vastly different than with Ty whom he worked and worked for and yet made no progress with at all. Summer was suddenly intoxicated by her, and honestly would have been even without all of those other deep reasons simply because he was a boy and she was a girl and she'd totally just given him his first kiss.

And hot damn did he want more.

A laugh erupted from his throat and he shook his head. "Hey, slow down!" he called after her, grinning. Mere seconds had passed in which his inner monologue had written a novel before his legs were carrying him swiftly forward in her wake, eager to start writing the next chapter.