I couldn’t help my smile. “Oh, really? Well, you’ve shown great restraint, then.”
“I’d say so.” He tugged a little, throwing me off balance so that I landed on his chest, my boobs pressed against him and my hand pinned between us. “Now, this is even better.”
“What’re you doing, Flynn?” I swallowed, wondering if he could feel my heart pounding against him.
“I’m holding you. I’m enjoying feeling you against me. You might even say I’m canoodling with you. Isn’t that what people do on picnics, after they eat? They canoodle?”
I shifted, bringing my head back just far enough that I could see him better. “I don’t know. Is that what’s traditional?”
He rubbed his hand in slow circles, up and down my back. “I remember being on a picnic with you, at another spot on this very river. Just the two of us. And after we ate, I undressed you. And kissed you. And touched you here.” He slid his hand to cover one of my breasts. “And touched you here.” The same hand shimmied lower, to cup me between my legs. “And I made you come for the first time. Do you remember that?”
My breath was coming in shallow gasps. “Of course I do.”
Flynn lifted his head to whisper in my ear. “If we were alone right now, I’d do it again. I’d make you come, over and over, until all you could remember was my name and all you could feel were my fingers and my lips.”
“Mommy? What’re you doing?”
I jerked away from Flynn, trying to sit up, but he had a grip on my arm. “Mommy’s fine, honeybunch. She’s just canoodling with me.” He grinned, and I was pretty sure my whole body was about to burst into flames.
“What’s canoodling?” Bridget crossed her arms over her chest, one eyebrow raised in skepticism.
“It’s what two people—two grown-up people—do when they like each other very much. And I like your mother very much.”
My daughter shifted her stare to me. “Do you like Daddy very much, too?”
I licked my lips, and Flynn rubbed his hand on my hip. Like I needed another distraction. “I—yes, Bridget. I like your daddy very much.”
She nodded. “Okay, I guess that’s all right. Is it time for cookies yet?”
Flynn pushed himself to sit up, holding onto my hand all the while. “I think we can make that happen.” As he reached for the basket, he lowered his voice so that only I could hear him. “Funny, I was just wishing for the taste of something . . . sweet.”
I swatted his arm. “Flynn Evans, you’re incorrigible.”
Laughing, he brought my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “Oh, I try, sweetheart. I do try.”
The week after our picnic, the nightly telephone calls between Flynn and me took on a decidedly sensual tone. His game of do-you-remember tended toward very private moments we’d shared.
“Do you remember the first time you let me touch your boobs? I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. And the first time I got your bra off? I could hardly walk for a week after.”
I giggled, which was something I was doing a lot lately on these calls. “Why couldn’t you walk?”
“Because every time I saw you in school, if you were passing me in the hall or worse, if we were in class together, all I could see was you lying next to me, with no shirt or bra on. Instant hard-on.”
I stuffed my pillow over my mouth to muffle my laughter. The last thing I needed was to explain to Sam or Bridget what was making me laugh. “Oh, God, Flynn, really?”
“Yeah, really.” He sighed, long. “You have no idea how tough life is for teenaged boys.”
Another night, another phone call: “Do you remember the first timeyoutouchedme?And the first time you went down on me? Oh, my God.”
I smiled. “What I loved was that you and I were so open about everything. Remember? When we wanted to try something new, we talked about it. We discussed it before we did it.”
“Yeah. I used to hear other guys talking about how things were with their girlfriends. No one was like us. I never said anything about you or our sex life, because I knew they’d be so jealous, they’d try to win you away from me.”
“It wouldn’t have worked.” I brushed the hair out of my eyes. “I never wanted anyone but you, Flynn. From our first day of freshman year until . . . until graduation. There was no one else who existed for me but you.”
“It was the same for me.” The silence that followed was comfortable, filled with promise instead of regret. “Ali, this weekend, when Bridget’s in Savannah with Sam and Meghan . . . would you have dinner with me?”
I had been hoping he would ask but telling myself not to expect it. I hugged my arms around my middle. “I would. But why don’t you come here, and let me cook for you?”
