“I’ve heard that sound before,” he whispers against the back of my ear. “And I know it means I’m doing something right.”
“You do everything right,” I sigh back. “You’re a unicorn.”
You’re my unicorn,I think, and it should scare me, but then he hits a knot right between my shoulder blades and digs in, and all I can feel is sweet relief. I moan again.
17
Griffin
Ididn’t think I would be making out with her on a beach at sunset, but I’m definitely not complaining. Everything between Sadie and me is unpredictable. Not just that, but if you were to make a list of all the dos and don’ts of a successful new relationship, we’d probably tick every item in the don’t column—but again, I have no complaints.
She’s a fucking fantastic kisser. She holds nothing back. Her lips are needy, her tongue is greedy, and there’s this untamed wildness to everything about her when she’s kissing me that wakes up parts of me I thought were hibernating for good. She makes me hungry for her touch, for her skin, her lips, her everything, which is why we’re still making out long after the sun is gone.
Except for the dim, flickering light of a far-off street lamp, the glow of the moon off the rolling waves, and her cell phone screen occasionally lighting up where she dropped it on the blanket, we’re in darkness. I desperately want to take her home and finish what we started more than a week ago.
“If we don’t leave here soon, we’re going to get slapped with a public nudity charge,” she warns me breathlessly. “Because I’m going to take your dick out of your pants and put it in my mouth. Again.”
Jesus…this girl’s mouth. It alone makes me hard.
“If it’s in your mouth, it’s not public nudity,” I reply cheekily and kiss her again, biting her bottom lip gently.
“You should take me home,” Sadie whispers against my cheek, her hand slipping down from my shoulder and to my lap. She purposely presses her palm into my hard-on. Electricity shoots up my spine in a delicious way. “Because this will get out of control if we stay.”
I stand up, taking both her hands in mine. I pull her up a little roughly on purpose so she bumps up against me. I reach around and steady her with a hand on her perfect ass. I pull her against me. “Everything about us seems to always be out of control,” I tell her.
In the pale light I see her lips part in a guilty smile. “I know. I don’t know why. And I feel like we should figure that out but…I just like you.”
“I like you too, Sadie Braddock,” I confess, and it feels so trite but I swear I have never been so giddy to say something or felt it so genuinely as I do right now. “I feel like myself again with you.”
“Me too.”
Suddenly we’re drowning in bright white light. Headlights. Someone parked in the lot facing the beach not only turned on their headlights but their high beams. We both are instantly blinded as we turn and squint toward the source. I shield my eyes with my hand. “Fuck, buddy.”
The driver must realize their mistake because the lights dim to normal and then go out altogether, but then the van peels from the parking lot much more quickly than it should, especially without any lights on now. It drives away so quickly, before my eyes can adjust, and I can’t make out anything more than the shape of it and a color—silver.
“That was weird,” Sadie remarks, her brow furrowed as she blinks. I nod, grab the blanket off the sand, handing her her cell phone, and then take her hand in mine as we walk back to the car.
I’ve never been a big hand-holder, but with her it’s different. I like to touch her, even innocently; I just like the feel of her. I have this primal instinct when I’m around her to touch her and soothe her. She’s a confident, blunt, bold woman who clearly can take care of herself—and others. But yet something in me, something deep, longs to take care of her. It’s unnecessary, but it’s there, and it’s not going away. Every time I see her, my affection for her, my need for her, my urge to soothe her grows stronger.
She’s quiet as we get in the car, staring at her phone screen, and the look on her face is changing into something much less relaxed. I reach across the console and cup the side of her face, turning her blue eyes to mine instead of her screen. “What’s wrong? And don’t say nothing because I can see it’s something.”
“Jude texted me to say Winnie and Ty fought the whole way home.” I sigh. “God, I wish she would just call time of death on it and save us all more heartache.”
“As enjoyable as this unexpected make-out session was, I am happy driving you home and picking up where we left off tomorrow,” I volunteer.
“It’s not that I don’t want to keep this going, because I do,” Sadie explains, her expression earnest. “I just know that the thing with Winnie and Ty is probably still blowing up. Those two can fight for hours if no one plays referee, and I don’t want that person to be my mom. She’s dealing with enough. And she’s the only one home with them.”
“No explanations necessary,” I promise, and I mean it. “Where do you live? I know it’s not the place I picked you up at for our first date.”
She looks shocked, but she gives me the address.
As I drive I can still sense something is bothering her. I keep glancing over at her, but she’s not looking back. Her eyes are on her hands in her lap. I want to coax her into talking again, but for a second I realize this might be a reality check. Maybe I am the only one running too fast here. Maybe she doesn’t feel the connection I do and isn’t drawn to me as intensely as I am drawn to her.
But then, as I turn into her family’s affluent neighborhood, she speaks. It’s so soft I have to turn down the radio to hear her. “I’m betting when you decided to jump back into the dating world, you didn’t expect to find a woman who still lives at home.”
“If you didn’t live with your parents here, I wouldn’t have met you, because you’d still be in Toronto,” I reply. “Also, like you so aptly pointed out, I’m wise enough to know the difference between a woman who still lives at home because she’s got valid extenuating circumstances and one who lives at home because she can’t stand on her own two feet.”
“My extenuating circumstances, valid or not, are kind of a lot to handle,” Sadie says, just as softly as before. “Which is why I don’t expect anyone to handle it. You can see how well Ty is handling it.”
