Walker makes a low sound. Almost a laugh. “He's got about thirty seconds of patience on a good day. You know.”
His thumb moves. The smallest possible arc, back and forth, just above my hip.
And I feel it like a match strike.
He's not even trying yet. That's the thing that's making ithard to breathe. This is Walker barely trying. One hand, one thumb, one unhurried stroke. And my entire nervous system has gone haywire.
The words he said in the pool replay in my head. About taking his time. About learning me. About his hands on me. His mouth. All the things he’d do to me if he let himself.
I think about the fact that he's been holding all of that back.
All of it, this whole summer, keeping himself tightly reined.
“We should probably go back outside,” he says. His voice has dropped.
“Probably,” I agree.
But he doesn’t get up. Instead, his palm lands on my bare thigh and I forget how to breathe. His hand is so warm. All those callouses, all those years of guitar strings and handling rope and hard physical work. Yet the way he's touching me right now is so gentle. As if I'm precious. As if he's afraid of breaking me.
I lean back against his chest.
“Sadie.” His fingers flex on my thigh. “I’m trying to be good here.”
“I know,” I say. “I wish you'd stop.”
He exhales against the back of my neck. Long and a little unsteady. His thumb traces one slow stroke along the inside of my knee and my thighs part a little, of their own accord.
Standing up would be the safe move.
But I've played it safe my whole life. Safe enough that I'm twenty four years old and still a virgin and that's never felt like something I was in a hurry to change.
Not until this man.
Not until this summer, wanting him more every single day, the pull of it getting stronger instead of weaker, like current dragging me under the harder I swim against it.
I turn my head.
Enough that if he turned his head the same amount, our lips would touch.
We stay like that, a breath apart, the whole world reduced to this. The heat of his hand on my thigh, the sound of our breathing, the inch of charged air between our lips that neither of us is closing and neither of us is walking away from.
His nose skims my cheek. Barely. Like he's allowing himself that much and no more.
I can feel him fighting it. Feel the tension running through every muscle of the body wrapped around mine. This man who is so determined to do the right thing.
And losing the battle.
“You always smell so good,” he murmurs against my skin.
His lips brush the curve of my neck.
Not a kiss. Just a graze of his mouth against my skin, so light it could almost be accidental.
I feel it travel the length of my entire body. Down my spine, all the way to my toes that curl inside my boots.
He does it again. Slower this time. His nose skimming up toward my ear, his mouth following, and I have goosebumps everywhere. Arms, thighs, the back of my neck. Despite the fact that it's a warm night and a warm room and he’s very, very warm.
“Tell me to stop,” he rasps against my skin.
