Page 116 of Every Summer Since
He splashed water at me. I dodged sideways and splashed him back. We ended up in the same water fight we always ended up in, both of us laughing. He got me around the waist. I grabbedhis arms and we went under together, surfacing in a tangle, sputtering and laughing.
“Truce,” I managed.
“Truce,” he agreed.
We paddled back out and spent the next hour on the water without any agenda. He was getting better. The pop-up was still a half second too slow and his back foot placement was off, but he was reading the waves with more instinct than I remembered from years ago.
The question was sitting right there at the back of my throat, the same place it had been sitting since the bonfire. I was desperate to ask him if he’d made a decision. But I didn’t. I had told him he had time. I turned my head and looked at him. His profile was so familiar. The line of his jaw. I’d spent so many hours looking at him over the years that I could have drawn him from memory in the dark.
It terrified me to think I might have to rely on my memories of him because I wasn’t going to get the real thing.
CHAPTER 40
COLT
The sun was on its way down. The soft glow cast everything in yellow and orange. The swell had settled down to almost nothing. Long, slow rollers that barely made a sound when they broke. We’d been on the water for a couple of hours. I watched her paddle ahead of me, her silhouette dark against the fading light. Her hair was wet and hanging down her back. She moved through the water without thinking about it. I followed her.
She angled north, away from the main stretch of beach. I knew without asking where she was going. I’d seen her look in that direction a few times while we were out on the water. A glance that held a second too long.
Her favorite spot. We’d already floated pretty far and were closer to the alcove than we were to our houses. We moved around a gentle curve of the shoreline. The opening faced south and caught the last of the light. A different world from the open beach. Quieter. The kind of place that felt like a secret.
She paddled in without hesitating. I came in behind her. The boards scraped sand almost immediately. The water was barely knee deep here at the shoreline. She slid off her board and pulled it up onto the narrow strip of beach. I did the same. It was darker in the private alcove with the tall grass shielding the area.
She turned around and looked at me. I didn’t say anything. Neither did she. There wasn’t anything that needed saying right then. I crossed the few feet of sand between us. She tilted her head up toward me. Her lashes were still wet. The freckles across the bridge of her nose were more prominent after a full day in the sun. I’d never seen a more beautiful sight.
I put my hands on her face, my thumbs brushing the salt from her skin. She leaned into it the way she always did. Like she was giving herself to me. I kissed her. Her arms moved up and wrapped around my neck. Her wet top pressed against my bare chest.
I pulled back just enough to look at her. Her lips were parted. Her eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the near dark. She looked up at me with that expression that undid me completely. She smiled at me. That was the kind of smile that made my heart swell.
She stepped in closer and pressed her forehead to my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in. Her arms went around my waist, her cheek against my sternum. I could feel her breathing. Slow and even.
We’d been dancing around each other all afternoon and I didn’t think I could restrain myself any longer. “Summer?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I want you.”
She laughed softly. “I noticed.”
“I don’t have a condom.”
“I’m on birth control and I haven’t been with anyone in a long time. Just you.”
I flinched. Was she actually saying what I thought she was saying? There had only been one other time we had sex without a condom. That had been a drunken night and I felt like an asshole about it. But now she was offering herself to me without a barrier.
Fuck. How am I supposed to reject that?
I pulled back to look at her. The last of the light caught her face, her lips still parted from the kiss, her eyes dark and waiting.
“You’re sure?” My voice sounded like I’d been gargling glass.
“Yes.”
That was all I needed.
I kissed her again, my hands sliding from her face into her wet hair. She moaned against my mouth. I swallowed it. I walked her backward until we were in the grass and hidden from anyone that might happen to float by on the water. She gasped when the blades brushed her skin. I used the moment to drag my mouth down her throat, tasting salt and sun on her skin.
I grabbed the bikini top she was wearing and peeled it up her body and over her head. I stepped back just far enough to look at her. Her chest rose and fell quickly, her skin flushed from the sun and from me.
