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"Years, maybe."
He didn't think, just plucked her glass from her fingers and put it next to his on the rail of the porch. "Let's go."
She laughed that beautiful laugh he loved hearing so much. "Maybe next summer when it's warm again."
"No." He took her hand in his. "Right now."
He had her halfway down the stairs to the beach before she could protest and say it was too cold to be doing this, that they had reservations and they were going to get all sandy. He took her partway down the beach, away from the eyes of the people inside the restaurant. "The water will probably feel better with your shoes off," he noted.
"You were always full of ideas."
"You forgot to add the word good."
"No, I didn't."
God, he loved this--teasing her, her teasing him back, hearing the laughter in her voice.
"If you're really going to make me go through with this," she finally said, "I'll need to roll up my jeans."
"No one could ever make you do anything you didn't want to do, Sarah."
He felt her hand tense in his a split second before she said, "You're going to have to let go of my hand so I can take care of my pants."
He grinned in the dark, glad that she was going along with his impromptu change in her plans for the night, glad that she was embracing adventure again. Even a small one like walking into a freezing cold lake.
After they had both kicked off their shoes and socks and rolled up their pants, she looked out at the water. "It's going to be cold."
He held out his hand for hers. "We'll get cold together."
Together they walked into the lake, and she sucked in a loud breath at the icy water. "Refreshing."
He laughed. "That's definitely one way of putting it."
"Do you remember, we all used to dive into the lake after football games? We were crazy."
"The kids still do it, you know."
It was so dark he could barely see the white flash of her smile as she said, "You're kidding. Do you ever go in with them?"
"After every game." He could swear there was something vibrating through her hand to his, an unspoken desire to go even deeper than their shared memories. "Come to the game this Friday. Jump into the lake with us."
"No way."
"Chicken?"
"More like old enough to know better. In fact--" She tried to pull him back out of the water. "--my feet are knowing better right now."
But instead of getting out, he pulled her in deeper and she gasped. "Calvin! What are you doing?"
He would have told her if he knew, if he had a clue just what he was trying to get himself into, but before he could respond, fat drops of water started to fall on them. Moments later, the sky opened up, Noah's ark style.
"I saw a boathouse over there," he said, pulling her down the beach.
"Shouldn't we head back to the restaurant?"
"The boathouse is closer."
Sixty seconds later, they were out of the storm, taking shelter in the small covered boathouse with one faint light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Rain was lashing out across the dark lake, and the wind had kicked in.
She wiped her hair away from her eyes. "Oh my God, we're soaked." Her clothes were plastered to her, her thin, wet sweater and form-fitting jeans leaving very little to the imagination. Too little for his peace of mind. "This wasn't at all what I had planned for the rest of the night."
"It's been good, Sarah. Real good." She shivered, and he scanned the boathouse, finding what he was looking for in the corner. "Here," he said, wrapping the towel around her back.
"Thanks. Is there another one?"
"Nope."
"This one is big enough for us to share."
There was nothing he wanted more than to get in there with her under the towel, pressed up against her, her heart beating against his. "That's probably not a good idea."
"You're wet. The wind is blowing. It's a good idea."
No, it wasn't. But there was no denying her.
Or himself.
He moved closer, and she held open the corners of the towel to let him in. He barely stifled a groan as her arms came around him, closing the towel around both of them. She was tall, but he was taller, and her head fit against his shoulder. Just like it always had.
"Better?"
He could feel her breath against his skin, was burning up from the heat of her warm body against his. He almost couldn't get the word out, the word that was both complete truth and a complete lie all at the same time. "Better."
And then she looked up at him, and the desire sliding across her features, along with a deep, elemental yearning he saw in her eyes, had him damning the consequences.
"Do you have any idea how badly I want to kiss you?" he asked. "Right here. Right now. Just one kiss so I can finally know if you taste as sweet as you used to. So sweet I've never been able to find anything else like it. Like you."
It was the only out he could give her, the chance to get the hell out of this boathouse and back to the safety of her mother's big house on the lake. But instead of running, she dropped her gaze to his mouth, the pulse in her throat beating a wild rhythm.
"Just one kiss," she echoed in a breathless whisper.
Only, before he could kiss her, her hands were in his hair and her mouth was slanting across his. Soft. Warm. Sweet.
Perfect.
All these years he'd kept away from alcohol, not wanting to risk falling into the trap his father had--but Sarah's mouth was a million times more addictive than anything he'd ever known.
She's the biggest risk of all was the only sane thought left in his head, but this wasn't about sanity. This was about taking everything he'd wanted, everything he'd needed for so long, from the only woman who had ever mattered to him.
He cupped her jaw in his hands and made love to her mouth, nipping at her full lower lip, tasting the corners where her lips came together with the tip of his tongue. Moving his mouth temporarily away from her sweet lips, he ran kisses across her jawline, then down into the hollow of her neck to taste the pulse point that beat so wildly for him.
She gasped with pleasure, her chest rising and falling against his, and more than a decade of self-control shattered inside Calvin as he kissed her.
"Sarah, sweetheart," he whispered against her skin. "We need to get out of here. Need to go somewhere no one can burst in on us."
"Calvin?" His name was a soft question on her lips, but when he reached out to brush the hair back from her face and her eyes locked with his, instead of desire, he saw panic move in. "Oh no." She inched away from him, but they were tangled up so tightly against each other beneath the towel that she couldn't make any headway. "I shouldn't have--we shouldn't have done this."
