“Yeah, pretty fucking bad, actually.”
It’s not embarrassment pulling my head back this time. It’s his words. The idea of it. The idea of him all over me that rolls down my spine, brushes across my thighs, and makes my stomach clench. I start to shake my head. “I’m not—I haven’t—I’d be ... rusty.”
He flashes me a half-hearted smile that seems so much more like a line of sad resignation, one brow lifting with his fingers off his thigh again. “Wanna practice?”
A hand carves through his hair, a muscle ticks in his cheek, and he sits there, staring at me, chest heaving with barely restrained breathing. So wonderful and beautiful and he’s got no idea. Miller Colson-Burke, the man who likes pretty girls. Who, for some reason, might like me. And I think, if I was going to practice anything with anyone for the rest of my life, I’d like it to be with him.
I look up, swallowing through a whisper. “Yes.”
Miller
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
The word rings endlessly against my eardrums and down into my bones and across my ribs that might as well be the framing of that house she built and probably across the whole lake.
My skin feels too hot, like she lit a match with a three-letter word, and I shift in the leather seat, giving my head a jerky shake. “Uh, sorry—what?”
“Yes,” Ren repeats, her shoulders rolling back as she lifts her chin, but she shoves her hands underneath her thighs.
“Yes?” My throat dries out.
“Yes?” The word turns up at the end, and she starts blinking, before her eyes go wide, full lips bowing down. “Are you—rescinding your offer?”
“No. No. Not a fucking chance.” I shake my head, exhaling into a closed fist. “Just, uh, can’t believe my luck, actually.”
Her lips tug into a flat line, and a singular brow flicks up her forehead. “Your luck? Oh, yes, how lucky for you to be having pity sex with a thirty-two-year-old woman!”
“It’s not pity sex.” I clench my jaw hard enough I think I might crack a tooth. It might be one of the worst things I’ve seen out here on this water, actually. Her—beautiful, smart, shining her—sitting there and tearing herself down so resolutely because some loser told her she should. “You know how you tell me all the time not to talk down to myself? Not to call myself dumb?”
“Yes,” she says, softer this time.
“Great. This is the same thing.” I nod, pushing to stand. I’m across the boat in no time, hand reaching for hers. Her lips flutter with a breath, and she looks up at me from underneath lashes that kiss her skin. Her fingers find mine, warm. The swell of her chest brushes against mine when I pull her from her seat. My other hand cups her cheek, fingers twining into the still-damp hair at the back of her neck. “Stop acting like this couldn’t be something I’ve wanted really, really bad. Long before you ever put it on some list. That you aren’t someone worth dreaming about. That you aren’t worth someone waking up for, too.”
Her eyelashes flutter again with her blinks, the smattering of freckles across her nose look like stars, and she nods, soft. “Okay.”
“Great,” I say again, swallowing down a ragged breath. “Can I kiss you?”
“Please.”
My mouth is halfway to hers before she finishes the word.
It’s better and worse than when the corner of her lips touched mine, and everything and horrible and wonderful and more horrifying than anything that’s ever happened all at the same time. Better, everything, wonderful—because she’s her and I don’t think a kiss in the history of the entire world has ever felt like this for anyone, and I feel sorry for them.
Worse and horrible and horrifying because I don’t think I’m ever going to be the same.
But an asteroid could hit like it did all those years ago, and maybe it’s nuclear winter and maybe dust is trying to eclipse the sun, but it never could because it’s her, she’s the sun, and I don’t think I could stop kissing her even if I tried.
Her tongue sweeps against my bottom lip, and I’m groaning into her mouth, tugging her backwards towards my seat.
The backs of my knees hit the leather and I drop down, one hand around her neck, the other still interlaced with hers.
She follows, straddling my lap like she was always meant to be there.
“Can I?” I roll the tie of her bathing suit top between my fingers.
