I exhale through my teeth and give myself a shake.
My fingers are making patterns down her back and I bend to nuzzle her long, silky hair. Our bare bodies are meshed together skin-to-skin and it’s perfect. Fucking perfect. She’s got one knee crooked over my hip so that my cock is nestled in between her warm thighs and I have no words to describe how good it feels.
“What did you think of me when you first saw me?” She asks quietly and I almost laugh because it’s such a girl thing to ask.
“Aside from the fact that you were gorgeous?” I feel her smile against my chest and I want to high-five myself like an asshole because she likes my answer. “I wanted to know more about you. I wanted to know your thoughts on teacher shortages and mandatory drug sentencing laws. I wanted to ask you how you got this scar,” I lightly trace the thin pink line down her neck and she gasps. “I wanted to climb inside your bright blue eyes and never come out of them.”
I sound like a complete pussy and I don’t fucking care.
Aimee needles one finger into my side. She’s laughing. Apparently she likes me acting like a pussy. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Flattery?” I rotate my leg and push up with my hips, flipping her over onto her back in one smooth motion. “That’s not flattery, Aimee. It’s the truth. And I’d get used to it if I were you because I plan to show you a lot of truths.”
She reaches up and touches my face with the tips of her fingers. There’s so much that I want to ask her. So much that I want to know. I grip her shoulders and bury my face in her neck.
“Cole,” she whispers my name like a prayer. My heart accelerates. I kiss her deeply. Then I draw her earlobe into my mouth and suck it between my teeth. She moans and her knees fall to the sides inviting me in, and I feel like a god. A Titan. An immortal. This is better than winning races. This is better than just about anything.
I capture her hands and bring them up over our heads. It’s new but I think it’s safe to say that I love this—her pinned beneath me, our bodies slowly rocking in unison. My tongue glides across the ridge of her collarbone. Down. I take one of her soft pink nipples into my mouth.
“Oh God!” She rolls her chest and pulls up against my hands. I squeeze her wrists and push them farther into the mattress to let her know that I’m not going to make this easy on her.
“Tell me,” I say in a conversational tone as my mouth skims the bumps of her ribs and moves farther down her body. “What did you think of me when you first saw me?”
Aimee pants and her body tenses beneath mine. “You mean aside from the part where I thought you were gorgeous?”
I chuckle against her warm skin. “Yeah. Aside from the obvious.” My wet tongue dips into her bellybutton and I hear her suck in a sharp breath. I lift my head and rest my chin on her stomach. “What else, Aimee?”
“I—I thought…” Fuck. Her breathing is crazy hard and it’s such a turn on. I’m not sure that I’ll make it through my little game. “I don’t know. I g-guess that I was a little scared.”
I stiffen. That’s not the answer that I was looking for. “Why would you be scared of me?”
Aimee tilts her head and her eyes meet mine. They are desperate—nailing me in place. “Because I knew that you could change everything.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cole
On Sunday afternoon I tell Aimee to get her bathing suit on because I’m taking her to the beach.
The truck windows are down and the air is rushing in all around us. She leans her head toward the open window and her loose hair whirls in over her face. Once, when she comes closer, I get whipped in the eye by a long dark tendril but I don’t ask her to put it up because I like it. I like her. I like her this way—smiling and all sunlit and relaxed like she’s something other than sad.
I follow her through a canopy of palm trees to an open stretch of white sand. She drops her bag and kicks off her flip-flops and shorts and I stand back and appreciate the sight. She’s so incredibly hot in a dark green bikini and I can tell that she doesn’t even know it.
After opening up both towels, she braids her hair to one side and asks me if I want lotion. I don’t really give a shit about getting burned but I like the idea of her hands on my body so I say yes. And when she’s rubbing circles in my skin, her slender fingers sliding over my shoulders and down my arms, I start wishing that we were alone. I close my eyes and lean my back against her front so that I can feel the perky mounds of her breasts. She stills. In those few quiet seconds the world blurs and comes back into focus. Then Aimee sighs and wraps her arms across my chest and she kisses my neck. I feel her eyelashes flutter against my jawline. Fuck me.