Hawaii
I leaned back, resting on my elbows in the warm sand. Closing my eyes, I let the sun seep into my skin.
Nope, that wasn’t working. My arm muscles were barely holding me up at this point. I sat back up and brushed some of the sand off.
Niklas probably wouldn’t quit anytime soon. I scanned the break for his long, white board. Only a few guys were still out. The tide had ebbed enough so that the waves were dying. The real surfers had probably headed for another beach, but I wasn’t sure I had the energy to lift my board again, let alone paddle out into new waves.
Instead, I looked out at the stretch of green water in front of me. The narrow beach we had found curved around a reef, creating a hidden surf break only accessible on foot. The beach itself was empty aside from I. Everyone else in sight sat on a surfboard, waiting as the next set of waves rolled in.
Niklas turned his board toward the beach. He lay down, his long, toned body stretching along the surfboard, his shoulders and arms flexing with each movement. I knew those muscles, those hard, smooth planes under my fingers. He began to paddle toward shore, picking up speed quickly. My heart thumped as I watched the power behind each stroke. Even after spending the whole summer together, I still couldn’t look away.
What he lacked in surfing experience, he made up for in strength and agility. The incoming wave pushed his board faster. He hung back for an extra second and then pushed up onto his feet, turning the board along the face. The wave curved behind him and broke as he rode. He made it most of the way to the beach before tipping over and crashing into the water. He came up and wiped off his face with his large hand, laughing.
“Nice,” I called as he guided his board through the water and up onto shore.
He pulled the leash off his ankle and walked over to kneel down in front of me, glistening in the sun. Slowly, he crawled up my body, leaving a trail of water along my sun-warmed skin. I rested on my elbows, and he dragged his wet, warm body over mine, pressing me into the sand.
“Hey, I just dried off,” I protested.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. Or maybe it was the hints of Swedish mixed into his English that made it hard to tell.
He shook his hair a little, dropping salty water onto my face. I closed my eyes, and he licked a drop off the tip of my nose.
“You were great out there,” he whispered, his lips brushing against mine.
“I was just getting in the way. I’m sure those other guys were annoyed with me for taking our waves and then falling off.”
“Yeah, right.” He chuckled. “They all looked really irritated when you stood up in your bikini.”
I frowned. “Remind me never to wear a bikini surfing again. I almost lost my suit bottom when I crashed on that last wave.”
Niklas smiled. “We all noticed. I’m pretty sure you would’ve had a few volunteers to help find it. Or give you mouth-to-mouth, just in case.”
I threaded my fingers through his salty hair, stiff and almost white from the sun. His skin had turned to a golden brown over the summer, but after these last days in the water, his nose was decidedly pink. My own skin had turned a few shades darker, too. If I visited my father’s family in Mexico now, maybe I’d come a little closer to fitting in.
I traced his strong jawbone down to cup his chin. He smiled, and his look turned hungrier. I smiled back up at him.
“And now I’m contemplating mouth-to-all-sorts-of-places,” he said, dipping his head to lick the water off my ear.
I laughed, shaking my head at his exaggerated tone, teetering between comical and sensual. His mood shifted from playful to something more determined as his lips moved to my neck. And I knew what that meant. The last time we had been in this position, we got a little carried away. That time, the beach had been dark and deserted. This time, it was neither.
“I think we’d better stop,” I said, glancing back out toward the last surfers.
“They won’t mind,” he said, kissing my shoulder. “And you taste so salty. So good.”
He moved down a little, nudging my bikini top over to kiss the rise of my breast.
“Enough, Niklas,” I said, sounding a lot less firm than I would have liked.
I pried him off me, and he rolled over onto the sand, laughing. He sat up and pulled me next to him, my shoulders brushing the warm wetness of his side. This man was mine, with his sun-kissed skin and deep blue eyes. The waves lapped onto the shore, and we watched one of the last two surfers ride in. I slid my hand up his thigh and leaned into him, pressing my cheek against his arm muscles. He certainly didn’t take it easy on vacation. But then again, I never would have explored half the places on this trip if Niklas hadn’t been along, map in hand, pointing somewhere “just a little further. I promise it will be worth it.”
The Fates, or whoever controlled the course of my life, had flung us together for a summer that touched at wants I hadn’t known I had. The man who sat beside me now found those wants, buried deep inside of me, and brought them out in the long, tantalizing weeks of our trip.
But this window of happiness was about to close. In a few more days, we would each return to our separate continents. Just that idea had the power to cut through the balmy Hawaiian breeze and send a chill through me. One more stop in San Francisco, and then we’d arrive in Detroit. The end. He could draw his stay in Detroit out to a week at most before hockey practices started back in Sweden. Would I beg Niklas to give up his career and stay with me? Or would I throw away my own, budding career to chase a man across the world? I didn’t want either of these options. I looked up at Niklas, searching for something to say to push back the tide of worries that had flooded in.
“You look surprisingly steady out there,” I said.
“Surprisingly?” he asked, grinning. “Not sure that’s a compliment.”
