I stared.
Thinking only one thing:
I am so screwed.
Because this?
This wasn’t a hookup.
This wasn’t a summer fling.
This was the kind of night you remember when you’re eighty.
The kind that changes everything.
The harbor swallowed the city noise the farther we drifted.
Just water.
Wind.
Lights blinking gold across the surface like fallen stars.
She floated onto her back, laughing—not posing, not trying to be sexy, just purely, wildly happy. Hair fanning out around her like dark silk, moonlight spilling over her skin. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone look so alive.
“Cold?” I called.
“Never,” she shot back, splashing me.
Salt stung my lips. I lunged. She shrieked and dove, cutting through the water like it was hers. I chased, caught her around the waist. She twisted, laughing so hard she could barely breathe, and the sound of it—gut-deep, kid-wild—rippedsomething open inside me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed like that either.
Salt life. Midnight harbor. Nothing but skin and stars.
She swam back to me slowly this time. No games. Arms sliding around my waist beneath the water, warm and certain. Then she leaned back, floating, pulling me with her until her legs wrapped tight around my hips, locking us together. My hands settled at her waist to steady us, but steady was impossible—every current rocked her against me, soft heat pressing through wet fabric.
We drifted, Boston glowing behind us, stars overhead. Her breath fanned hot across my chest. The wildness quieted into something deeper, heavier. Intimate.
Moonlight traced every curve of her. Water beaded and slid down the swell of her breasts, barely contained by the soaked lace of her bra. They rose and fell with each breath, inches from my mouth, begging.
I couldn’t look away this time.
She tilted her head, exposing the long line of her throat, pulse fluttering beneath delicate skin. I leaned in, lips brushing just below her ear. Slow. Warm. Salt and her.
She inhaled sharply—a tiny, needy sound that shot straight through me.
My mouth traced lower, open kisses down her throat, tasting salt, tasting her. She shivered hard in my arms.
“Cold?” I asked again, lips still against her skin.
“No,” she whispered, voice ragged. “I’m burning up.”
The words undid me.
My hands slid up her sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. She arched into the touch with a soft moan—“Ethan…”—pleading, trying to pull me closer, needing more.
I dragged my mouth down the column of her neck, over her collarbone, into the wet valley between her breasts. Lace clungto her, soaked and sheer, the full, round globes straining against it. I pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss there, tongue tracing the edge of the fabric, tasting salt and warm skin.
Another breathless moan. “Ethan…”
