And then he spun her around, and thatalmostdisappeared.
The noise that came out of her was rich and full bodied. It sounded like the sort of thing other people did, at fairgrounds while holding hands in Taylor Swift videos. She even threw her head back the way they did, and clung to his big arms tightly. It was only afterward that she thought about where his hand was: directly underneath her barely covered breasts.
Or how something very bare and low skimmed something equally bare and low on him, as he spun her.
Before he set her down, and pushed away.
“Okay, now it’s your turn. You find me,” he said, voice just a touch breathless.
Though she was sure it was just the effort of lifting her. That was probably why he seemed like he was struggling to contain it—he didn’t want to offend her.
“Oh god, Tate, I’m terrible about this. I couldn’t even hear your voice getting closer.”
“I’ll talk louder this time. Come on, give it a shot. It’s a pretty small pool and I’m a pretty big guy.”
Still, she hesitated before calling out to him.
And when she finally tried, her efforts were halting. Wavery, as though he’d poked a finger into all the places that were sure and steady and sent ripples darting through them.
“Marco.”
“Polo.”
His voice came from somewhere to her left, she knew. And when he replied a second time, she guessed correctly that he was only a few steps away. Yet for some reason, she didn’t go in that direction. She went the other way, arms out in front of her as though she was really trying. If he could see her, somehow, he would never suspect she was avoiding him.
“I don’t think you’re playing the game right, Letty.”
“It isbeyonddark in here. How do you even know that?”
“I know it because I’m basically an inch from you and you’re disappearing over there.”
“Maybe I just want to build the suspense. Keep you guessing, and then,blammo.”
“Or maybe you just want to avoid touching me.”
“That’s not even remotely true, Tate.”
“Give me your hands, then.”
“What?”
She made a scrunched-up, incredulous face to back the word up.
But she didn’t know why. He couldn’t see it.
“Let me help you grab.”
“Oh no that—” she started, but never got to finish. The words snapped shut the moment he took hold of her hands. Just the way he went about it was enough to silence her—fingers like thick bracelets around her wrists, his grip sure and warm but not insistent.
And then he placed her hands on his body.
She had no idea where. It could have been his chest or his stomach or his right thigh for all she knew, though in truth it barely mattered. It was the darkness and the silence and the idea of what he was doing that really set her heart off. He was making her touch him, and not in an obviously innocent way. This wasn’t like resting her head on his shoulder—that had been as platonic as you can get.
She could have been a kid there.
Here everything was very adult. He slid her hands over him, so slowly she could make out almost every bump and groove. She felt the scar she had seen him get when Brian Wannamaker snapped one of his ribs through his skin; the oddly feminine-feeling curve of his waist; the braid of his abdominal muscles that always looked so brutal from across a field or a gym. They bulged, in her memory. They did vicious, violent things. But in the quiet darkness, everything was different
Hewas different. He could have been anyone standing there. Just some faceless hunk, gently persuading her to explore and uncover all the things she would never really get to again. She would never touch him like this in the daylight. And no other man like this was ever going to want her to. This was it, and for one delirious moment it made her eager. She came close to squeezing when he passed her fingers over his chest, and actually did when he got to his biceps.
