“After tomorrow, we’ll be extraordinarily awesome.” He dots a quick kiss on my forehead. “In fact our awesomeness will be impossible to contain. The entire mountain might quake just having us both on it at the same time.”
“Sounds epic.”
“It will be.”
The curve of his bicep twitches as he maneuvers me over toward his cabin. I run my finger up the thick cords of his neck, over his jawline, and up through the ridge of his nose.
“I wish I were an artist,” I whisper. “I’d sketch you—mold a bust of your beautiful face just so I could take you with me wherever I go.”
“You have a way with words. I’d say you’re more of a poet.”
“I don’t know. I’m terrible at rhyming.”
Ace lands me on my feet just shy of his car and swings the door open for me.
“Not all poems need to rhyme. Just write from your heart.” He lands a careful kiss over my lips. “Like a letter with a little more feeling.”
“A letter with a little more feeling.” I blink back instant tears. “That’s exactly what my mother wrote me. Poems.”
Ace tilts into me with a sad smile. He takes my cheeks up in his hands and draws me toward him. “Sometimes, Reese”—he brushes his lips over mine just enough to make me ache for him—“you can write a poem with a kiss.”
And that’s just what we do.
The boathouse is quiet, still, as if we’ve just stepped into our own private universe. There’s so much peace here without any of the drama that Warren affords or the stress of trying to maintain an image my father might approve of. Here, I’m able to shed them both like dead skin. My entire being feels invigorated escaping reality this way with the boy who stole my heart.
Ace starts a fire in the potbelly stove even though it’s still pretty warm out.
“We can just start taking off our clothes if it gets too hot,” I tease while bouncing on the bed.
“The candles alone won’t be enough light for what we’re about to do.” He smolders into me with those glowing eyes. “The overhead light would blind us. I thought the fire might be a happy compromise.” He opens the windows off the back, and a nice breeze flows in making the gauze curtains flutter like a pair of ghosts. I can’t help but note the romantic implications of it all. Whether Ace is aware of it or not he’s a born romantic.
He comes over and sits beside me on the bed.
“For what we’re about to do?” I tease, running my hand up his shirt. “I like the sound of that.” But more specifically I like the way he blisters over the palm of my hand, the smooth ridges of his abs that lie hard as concrete under his skin.
“I’m glad you like the sound of that.” He plucks my hand out and kisses it sweetly over the top. A smile tugs at his lips. “Get on the floor.”
“Yes, master.” God knows I’m up for Ace barking out orders tonight and me complying. I’d do anything Ace wanted as long as we could be together, as long as I ended tonight and every other night in his arms.
I kneel down on the center of the rug and he takes a seat on the floor, opposite of me, pulling something out from under the bed.
“What’s that?” I slide next to him, observing the familiar jar in his hand. “I remember those.” It’s filled to the brim with colorful marbles, mostly clear ones with swirls of blue and red in the center. It may as well be filled to the brim with my childhood. I wish I could open the lid and fall back into those haze filled days when my mother was still alive, baking special treats for my father and me in the kitchen.
“I thought we’d take it slow today. Go old school.” He wraps his arm around my waist and his cologne intoxicates me. He spills out the tiny glass spheres between us, and picks up the oversized navy beauty, clear as midnight. It’s the exact color of his gorgeous eyes. “This is the shooter.” He spreads the marbles out with his hand. “Any marble you shoot outside this ring is yours.” He traces the outer edges of the braided rug, about a three-foot circumference. “The one with the most marbles wins.”
“That’s it?” I’ve never played marbles before, and certainly it always seemed to have something more to it, but I’m all for easy. “That sounds easy enough. I like the simple things in life.” I take the shooter from him and roll it in my hands.
“You like the simple things?” He tilts in observing me as if he learned something entirely new.
“Yeah, I do. I guess you could say I’m the anti-Kennedy. She needs designer labels just to breathe, and I couldn’t care less as long as I have sunshine on my back—peace in my heart.” I reach up and run my fingers through his hair. It’s still damp from the shower and slick. “She needs security. I need love.” I swallow hard, reverting my gaze to the carpet. “So who goes first?”
His eyes are still pressing into me, heating the entire right side of my body like an inferno I’ve accidently gotten too close to. But I can’t seem to face him. I let the L word fly from my lips, and now it’s fluttering around the room like a bat getting ready to tangle itself in our hearts, things are bound to get messy, and we’ll have to cut it out—cut each other out of one another’s lives as collateral damage.
Ace picks up my hand and intertwines our fingers, soft, without pretense. “I think you deserve love, Reese. That’s exactly what I told you that first night in the lake. I want you to have it.”
Ace didn’t mention that he’d like to be the one to give it to me, so I guess love is outside the realm of possibility for us.
My eyes skirt the braided rug that sparkles with the remnants of our childhood. I lean in and shoot the oversized navy eye across the floor and take three marbles out of the ring.
