Page 63 of That Summer Feeling

“Remember, Stevie, not winning isn’t the same as losing,” I teased.

Flat on my back, my arms went up so she could lift my sweatshirt over my head. She worked her hands up my sides, letting goose bumps pinprick every inch of skin she covered on her way to taking the fabric off my body.

“Since youdon’t know anything, mind if I teach you?” she asked.

I lay there in my bikini, shivering. The pinprick chill made my nipples peak against the fabric of my swimsuit. “Teach me,” I breathed.

Stevie moved the fabric of my swimsuit and cupped her mouth over my nipple. Every nerve ending sparked against the wet heat of her lips and tongue. “First things first, we take our time around here.”

I put my hands in her hair, holding her close to me.

Her tongue moved to lick the space in the center of my chest, drawing a line up the hollow of my throat and then lifting to my mouth. Then she dragged her lips along my cheek until she reached my ear. “No one has ever made me finish that fast,” she said, nipping at the tip of my lobe.

“Good.” I liked being someone significant to her.

“I told you I wanted to touch every inch of you,” she reminded me. “You won’t be finishing fast.”

I shuddered at her words. My legs contracted around her body, pinning her in place. Testing my limits, she slid her hand down the space between us, and the shock of her fingers beneath my swimsuit made me gasp.

“Guess I’ll have to stay up here a while,” she said, feeling my wetness. She kissed at my neck and along my collarbone, not even granting me her lips atop my own.

“Stevie,” I panted out, agonized by the distance.

“Not now.” She pinched my nipple between her fingers. “I’m busy.”

“Stevie,” I panted again.

Exactly as promised, she moved her mouth across the surface of my skin. I surrendered myself to her as she mapped me out with her hands and lips, learning every inch. She found parts of me I didn’t even know were tender. My ribs. The outsides of my hips. The crook of my elbow.

She circled around my bikini bottoms, making a point to keep away, because every time she got close to the pulse between my legs, my body clenched around her, trying to pull her in. When her fingersfinallythreaded through the fabric ofmy bikini bottoms and she tugged them down, I started to tremble.

“Please,” I managed to say.

She looked up at me from her spot between my legs, grinning. “Finally, you use your manners.” She pulled the fabric down until every inch of me was bare. “Beautiful,” she said. “My Garland.”

I’d never been so locked into the moment. No shame. No worries. Just sensations.

When her mouth found its place between my legs, she licked and sucked with a tenderness that clenched every muscle inside me. She was sunshine to the blaze of pleasure coursing through my blood. She lit me up from the inside out.

I cried her name into the hollow silence.

Stevie.

28

Naked, Stevie scooted in closer to me until she had her nose pressed to my cheek again. We were lying side by side on the rug, wrapped up in each other.

“Are you trying to show me how unworried you are again?” I asked. “Trust me, after what just happened, I definitely believe you.”

She blushed through her smile. “Actually, I’m trying to climb inside your brain,” she told me.

I laughed. “Oh, casual. How’s that going for you?”

“Not great.”

Putting my palms on her shoulders, I backed her up until we were a slightly more normal distance from each other. “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you.”

She stilled in my arms the same way she had in the water. I was capable of helping her, I realized. All the time I’d been thinking I didn’t contribute anything meaningful, butsomething about my presence quieted her in a way I could never do for anyone else.