His eyes slide up to mine, and he winks. “It might help with shifting my priorities.” He turns to Eve. “Thoughts on eatingtwo?”
“That depends.” Her lips press in a thoughtful line. “Do you enjoy mild hallucinations?”
“Ooh, I do!” Graham takes a second while the rest of us stop at one.
“Okay, enough screwing around. Time to suit up, Doctor!” Eve slaps Julian on the ass, rather hard judging by how high he jumps, then throws her arms in the air. “We’re in Wildwood, baby!”
Wildwood, New Jersey—best boardwalk on the Jersey Shore, fight me. Two and a half glorious miles of fudge shops and crass T-shirt stands, broken up by three piers filled with water rides, coasters, and a massive Ferris wheel that lords over the beach, glowing rainbow all night. It smells perpetually of fresh French fries and salty ocean, and I love it. There’s nothing more quintessentiallysummerto me than the cold sweet of Polish water ice on my tongue as I stroll down the boardwalk on a hot, humid night.
Our first stop is a pool party at one of the retro beach motels just off the boardwalk. The mid-century pop-art aesthetic is strong here, with smiling, bubbly-eyed cartoon heads emblazoned on its sign, along with stylized beach balls bouncing across its squat, cream-colored stucco. Julian takes everything in with parted lips, and when he strips off his shirt and throws it on a lounge chair, baring the trim stack of abs, broad chest, and the dips, lines, and mounds of shoulders trained to be strong, it’s all I can do to keep myownmouth from hanging open. With all that Italian heritage, Julian’s meant to be sun-bronzed and glowing, but his olive-toned skin is unnaturally pale from too many summers spent indoors serving those different priorities. He’s about to jump in the pool when I call his name with zero chill.
“Yes?” His eyes are slightly alarmed. Mine probably are, too, as I limply hold up the long tube of sunscreen with an uneasy smile.
A minute later, he’s sitting between my legs on the lounge chair, the long expanse of his back presented to me, waiting for my touch.
Oh, Jesus. What have Idone?
“Thanks for reminding me,” he offers casually, as though I’m not back here completely winded from the proximity of his ass. “Skin cancer is serious.”
I squirt a line of cool sunscreen across his hot shoulders. He shivers, his back arching into my space, and a giddy, cloying kick of lust pulses low in my belly. I stare at the ludicrous stripe of cream. It’sobscene.
“Yes, very serious.” I repeat stupidly. My hands hover over his back.Touch him, I command myself.You’re making this weird!
With a burst of resolve, I press both palms into the cream, then deliberately smear it across his skin. Fucking outrageous, the way it gathers in the dimples of muscle, how eagerly his skin sips in the moisture from my hands, leaving him coated in a dewy, coconut-scented glow.
“Soserious,” he murmurs. “That—skin. Cancer.”
God help me, but I’m losing myself in this sunscreen’s application. It feels so intimate, touching him like this. It makes the myth ofJulian, this beautiful, difficult, admittedly brilliant man, more human and more vulnerable, seeing the freckles dotting his shoulders. A small scar on the back of one arm. When I push my thumbs experimentally into the tense ridge of muscles flanking his spine, a small, plaintive sound sighs out between his lips, and my thighs involuntarily clench. My fingertips trail down his sun-warmed skin, resting lightly against the waistband of his swim trunks. I want to dip my fingers within, continue this exploration with my palms flat against him, cupping his ass before grabbing his hips and grinding myself against him.
Eve’s wordsjust have funecho in my brain. We don’t have to date. We can have fun, right? Is it that easy?
He eyes me over his shoulder and swallows, throat bobbing, his eyes wonderfully electric. “Your turn.”
I almost whimper. He stands quickly, then settles behind me on the long lip of the lounge chair. “Is this okay?” He murmurs into my ear, his chin’s fresh stubble grazing my shoulder.
I vigorously bob my agreement. He sucks a sharp breath in, then the cool kiss of sunscreen licks down my hot back.
“Pornographic,” he utters under his breath, then both of his hands land heavily, possessively there. My taut shoulders relax under his touch, and with the high THC, high CBD sativa blend singing through my system, my nerves buzz alive with every liquid pass of his hands over my body.
After what feels like a third comprehensive pass over my back, shoulders, and arms, he clears his throat roughly, sending warm breath prickling against my neck. “Um, is that enough?”
“Yes,” I breathe, even though it’s an outright lie because I wantmore. It’s a steamy eighty-five degrees, but the tops of my breasts are covered in goose bumps from the nearness of his palms, my nipples so tight, they ache. His careful, life-saving hands feel like they could end mine with a simple slip of his finger beneath the warm cuff of spandex encircling my thigh, finding where I burn for him, dipping within, stroking me until I come nestled in the warm confines of his chest.
Jesus, this got out of controlfast. We’re barely five hours into this weekend, and I’m ready to screamPUMPKIN!and drag him by the hair back to the cottage. But haven’t I been aching for him since he carried me to Patient Room #2 and stepped between my legs, cheeks blushing, and pressed the flat of his hand against me,hard? Haven’t I wanted him even longer than that, when he drew me nervously into his arms in the back of the debate team van our senior year and pressed a dozen fervent kisses into my hair, my neck, my mouth? We were so young, but the chemistry ofusreacted just as violently then as it does now. It may kill me to admit it, but I’ve always been drawn to this tense, difficult man who feels everything so furiously, even, and especially, his desire for me.
Before I can turn and straddle his lap with God and this motel pool’s intoxicated revelers as our witness, I bolt upright, shuck off my sandals,and launch myself into the biting cold water. Julian splashes next to me an instant later, and our slick limbs slide against each other’s as we tread in place. When I try and fail to unseat Graham from his unicorn float, Julian turns and offers his back to me.
“Here, ride me instead.”
Eve crows, and I pelt her with a beach ball right in her face. From Julian’s back, of course. I’m not passing up an opportunity to attach myself to him like a horny koala. This devolves into an all-out game of pool dodgeball, with everyone sloshing for cover and laughing wildly. Julian’s cutthroat tendencies serve us well, but I’d be lying if I pretended to care more about destroying Eve and Graham than relishing every bounce, every slow grind and smooth slide of our pool-chilled bodies against each other.
When the Jell-O shots run out and the sun’s sunk low in the horizon, the party breaks off into clumps, with us trailing behind Eve and Graham and their friends toward Surfside Pier. The pots de créme have hit in full glory, their effects buoyed further by the spiked water ice we drank, staining our lips and tongues a bright cherry red. The evening breeze ruffles the hem of my sundress, tickling the backs of my thighs, as we lose our friends to various rides and snack lines, and in Eve’s case, the Whack-a-mole game.
“She’ll be there until she earns enough tickets to buy whatever stuffed animal’s the biggest.”
Julian shakes his head in admiration. “Eve’s my hero.”
The pale-blue palette of his eyes reflects the reds, oranges, and golds of the pier’s blinking lights, his black curls never wilder and more alive than in the ocean’s humid, salty breeze. His face is open and relaxed and, best of all,curious, which I’ve come to realize is Julian’s most natural, purest state of being.
