My legs were weak from the effort it took to paddle the boat against the wind back to the dock, but I was well aware Sam did most of the work. As he collected his deposit at the kiosk, he wasn’t even winded—he probably could have taken off and run twenty miles if I asked him to.
We bought two more crepes and found a spot on the grass, in dappled shade beneath a maple tree. I had the strange sense of being precariously suspended above a canyon, almost like the way I feel in a dream when I’m floating and look down and realize that I’m actually falling. This felt like the start of something new, something scary but glorious. It felt like I was deciding more than just whether or not I would kiss this man, but whether or not I would chase every other dirty thought I had, too.
He let out a satisfied moan when he finished the last bite of his food and fell back on the lawn with a grin aimed at the sky. “Damn, I could fall asleep right here.”
Out of instinct, I pulled my phone from my bag and sent Nana a quick text to let her know I was okay. She brought Mom’s BlackBerry; she despised all manner of mobile phone, but Mom insisted.
Nana replied shortly with, {tm}I’m at Libby’s for the next few hours. Meet me in the lobby at five, please.
I stared at my phone and felt something weightless inside me expand. It was only eleven in the morning, and I had an entire day of freedom.
I turned to find Sam already watching me. “What?”
He smiled and rolled onto his side, propping his head on his elbow. “We seem to spend most of our time together on lawns.”
The words burst free: “And horizontal.”
“And horizontal,” he agreed through a grin.
“At least it’s daylight.” And looking at him in the light—in a way I hadn’t been able to when we were out together during the day with Luther and Nana—was like chugging down a glass of cold water. His skin was smooth and clear, eyes like glass surrounded by generous lashes. He couldn’t have inherited anything from Luther genetically, but he sure did have the same wide smile.
He seemed to be taking me in just as carefully. His eyes swept over the long waves of my hair, across my cheeks, to my mouth—where they lingered. And then he met my gaze and grinned, pulling a small dimple into his left cheek. “You have amazing eyes.”
With a tremble in my stomach, I rolled to my side too, stacking our empty paper plates and moving them out of the way. “What do you feel like doing today?”
His pupils swelled, turning his eyes nearly black, and in the brief reaction I read the forbidden thoughts there. I wondered whether they mirrored my own: Sam’s mouth on mine, the heat of his palm beneath my shirt, the way he would block out the sun if he hovered over me.
“I mean,” I clarified, pushing through the embarrassment, “things I’m not sure we could do in a park.”
His brows shot up, and a laugh burst out of his mouth. “Tate, holy shit.”
“Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it too. I could see it all over your face.”
He looked at my mouth again, and a lazy grin settled on his. “You always this honest?”
I was already shaking my head. “Absolutely not.”
Sam’s brows pulled closer together. “Why with me?”
“I don’t know.” He just seemed to pull everything out of me: my truth magnet. Maybe it was because he already knew my secret; there was nothing else about me that I’d ever have to hide. “I just feel safe with you.”
“I could ask you anything, and you’d tell me?” he asked.
He was so close, maybe only six inches away, and my heart was a jackhammer. I could lean forward and press my lips to his. I was 99.8 percent sure he’d let me.
“You can try,” I said.
I watched his tongue dart out, wet his lips. “Hmm.”
“I could ask you anything, too,” I ventured.
“Sure.”
But all my thoughts were more . . . physical. I was wiped clean of any other thought. Maybe he could see it too, because he smiled a little wider and reached out to pull a strand of hair from where it was stuck to my lip. “So you’ve had one boyfriend?”
“Yeah. But we didn’t have sex.”
His hand fell away leisurely, his breathing slowed, and he let my words settle between us. I felt everything come to a stop inside me, immediately wanting to swallow back what I’d said, wanting to stand up and walk away and dive under the covers back at the hotel room.
“I don’t know why I just said that,” I admitted.
“Because you’re thinking about it.”
If my heart was racing before, it was torpedoing now, a wild metronome inside me that couldn’t keep pace with this song.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said quietly. “I am too.”
“You’ve done it before?” I wanted to shove my fist in my mouth over how naive I sounded.
He let out a sweet laugh, a gentle, “Yeah.”
At first, I thought I was only imagining that he moved closer, but then his mouth was on mine, just once: a long, pressing, lingering strawberry kiss.
“That okay?” he asked, his words whispered against my lips. He pulled back, taking me in. His breath was warm on my skin.
“I’ve been kissed before.”
With another quiet laugh, he leaned in again, and this time he brought one hand up, cupping the side of my face, before sliding it into my hair. His mouth opened, warm and careful, and he tasted me, pulling back again with a smile. “Now you taste like strawberries.”
I may have tasted sweet, but I’d become a monster, a shark given a whiff of blood. With a hand on his neck, I pulled him back, urging him partway over me so his chest covered mine. He came readily, groaning, and was careful not to crush me, putting his weight on an elbow, propping his other hand beside my ribs.
I couldn’t get enough, couldn’t kiss him deep enough or press my mouth hard enough against his. I wanted him so intensely; it had been building only for days but it felt like months, and it made me ache in this agonizing, impatient way.
He pulled away a little, breathless as he kissed my chin, my neck, and then pressed his forehead to my shoulder. “Easy, Tate. I still have to walk out of here.”
His ear was so close to my heart, I was sure he could hear the way it flipped around inside me. “Nana’s gone for the next few hours,” I said.
Slowly, Sam lifted his head and studied me. “You wanna go back to the hotel?”
When I spoke, I sounded like I’d been running all morning: “Yeah. Hotel.”
six
MY HAND SHOOK AS I slid the key card into the slot in the door. I was distracted and rushed by the sensation of Sam’s fingers bracketing my hips, his mouth moving up the side of my neck to my ear. I didn’t know what I was doing—this was crazy—but the hunger was greater than the trepidation that loomed like an anxious shadow in the back of my thoughts. Housekeeping had already been through, and the beds were immaculate, surfaces shining.
We closed the door, hooked the safety lock in place, and then stood, staring at each other.
“We don’t have to do this,” he said.
Before nerves could get the best of me, I turned and walk over to my bed, scooting toward the headboard. Sam climbed after me onto the mattress, kicking off his shoes.
It was so quiet I could hear a taxi driver on the street yelling to someone on the sidewalk. I could hear the even ticking of the alarm clock on the bedside table. I could hear the uneven pulls of Sam’s breath.
“This is crazy,” he said, finally moving closer and punctuating every sentence with a kiss to my jaw, my cheek, my ear: “Change your mind anytime. I mean. We just met. Your grandmother could come back. Tell me to stop.”
I couldn’t seem to pull enough breath into my lungs, and my words came out as a gasp. “She won’t. And I don’t want to stop.”
I imagined we had at least a couple hours, but still, it felt like we threw our clothes onto the floor in a frenzy, teeth and chins knocking in sloppy, undressing kisses. He asked me again, and again—while we kissed, and touched, and explored—whether I was sure.
I’d never been naked with someone before, and I’d also never been more sure about anything.
He kissed down my body, loving my breasts, kissing between my legs until I was crying out into a pillow and holding him there by a fist in his hair. And then he was over me, massive and bare, asking me one more time.
“You trust me?”
It was strange, but this question drew the moment to a quiet standstill. I could tell by his expression that I could take my time to answer, that I could say no and we would put ourselves back together and go out to the garden, or down the street for lunch. He wasn’t just asking if I trusted him to be careful with my body, but whether I trusted him to be careful with me.
With a nod, I pulled him back down over me, closing my legs around his hips. I felt him press against me, warm and inflexible, but he moved away before I could react, jogging toward the bathroom. I was unable to look away from the architecture of him, the sheer bulk of muscle and height. When he reappeared, my eyes dropped below his navel . . . and then over to the towel in his hand.
“Just in case,” he said.
He tucked the towel beneath me, kissing my chest, my neck, my mouth so sweetly, and he returned over me, climbing between my legs and kissing up my neck.
The sheets beneath me were so soft, so perfectly white. Sun slanted into the room, trapezoiding across our naked skin.
“You okay?” he asked one last time.
“Yeah.” I ran a hand up from his stomach to his collarbone. “Are you?”
“I’m nervous,” he admitted. “But yeah. I’m good.”
“You’ve done this before, though.”
“I’ve never done it with you.”
I was shaking. I could feel it, and I knew he could, too. But he just kissed me over and over, like he did at the park, until I was hot, and squirming, until I’d forgotten the pleasure he’d already gifted me and was demanding more, for the press of him, that instinctive desire to feel him inside.