“You are. Amazing.” I reached for her shoulders and pulled her towards me. She was as light as a feather in this water and came to me so easily. She rested her hands on my forearms as I swayed her from side to side in the water in front of me.
“I mean it, though, Ash. You are amazing. What you’ve achieved, who you’ve become, justyou.”
She looked away, immediately disengaging from this. I didn’t know whether it was because she was uncomfortable with compliments, or uncomfortable that they were coming from me. She pointed to an island a little way away. It was made of big, grey boulders and had huge green trees growing out of them. “How’s your swimming?” she asked.
“Good. Yours?”
“Then let’s go.” She started swimming and I followed behind her. After a few minutes, we reached the island and both dragged ourselves out of the water and onto the rock, breathing heavily.
“My swimming is not quite what it used to be,” she said, lying back on a grey boulder.
“Mine too. We used to swim a lot in summer. God, we were always in the pool.”
“Playing Marco Polo—I remember that. Although you broke the rules a lot, if I’m not mistaken.” She turned her head to me. She looked magnificent lying on her back on the boulder, wet, red-cheeked from the exercise and looking more relaxed than I’d seen her in days.
“So I used to creep up and kiss you when your eyes were closed. So what?” I smiled at her, pushing my wet hair out of my face.
“It’s a breach of the rules.” She reached out and poked my knee playfully, but I grabbed her finger before she had time to pull it away.
“Since when did you become so obsessed with rules, little Miss Smuggling A Bottle Of Your Dad’s Vodka To Carry’s Party? Not to mention making out with me in the library at break behind the shelf of geography books.” I pulled her finger towards me, forcing her to come with it.
“I liked reading about Papua New Guinea,” she said quickly, and then laughed.
“Nope, I think you’re lying, because you also let me get some under-shirt action behind the science section too.”
“Under-shirt action.” She laughed again. I loved seeing her like this. “God, I was a little naughty, wasn’t I. Do you remember the time Sarah and I stole weed from her older brother’s stash and we all smoked it in the woods behind your house?”
“How can I forget—we got so stoned that night!”
“I thought the trees were coming to life.” She grinned. “I mean, I can laugh now, but at the time it was fucking terrifying.”
“I remember. I carried you home and sat up with you all night, reassuring you that the trees would not be coming alive anytime soon.”
She propped herself up and looked at me seriously. “You always took such good care of me.”
“You took care of me too. Remember when I had to get my wisdom teeth out and you fed me jelly and soup with a spoon?”
“You were soooo cute. You went all puffy and swollen.” She laughed and smiled and my heart exploded with love for her right there and then on a rock in the middle of Lake Malawi.
I brought her finger up to my lips and kissed it. Her smile faded. I put it between my lips and kissed it longer, then pulled it into my mouth and sucked it. Her smile was totally gone now. Her eyes had widened and her jaw slackened. I moved closer, pulled her off the boulder and brought her onto my lap.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking straight at me.
“This.” I took her face between my hands and kissed her softly. I kept my lips there, just dragging them back and forth, savoring the moment. Savoring the taste and smell and feel of her. I pulled her further onto my lap, not for any other reason than to have her as close to me as possible. I let her face go, wrapped my arms around her and deepened the kiss. She took my face between her hands and pulled me even deeper. I traced my hands up and down her back as I kissed her slowly, not ever wanting this moment to end. My cock was rock hard, but it almost didn’t matter right now. He would have his chance later; right now it was just about her lips, and her tongue.
I stroked her face gently as I kissed her, slipped my thumb between her lips and traced them, and then ran it over her tongue, dipping it into her mouth and using it to pull her closer. She pulled my thumb into her mouth and sucked on it like she’d sucked on my cock last night.
“It’s not even evening yet,” she said. Her nipples were hard, her pupils dilated and she was just as turned on as I was. I ran the back of my hand over her nipple. One, then two. Her body gave two small jerks, the kind I loved.
“Is there a rule that says we only have to start when the sun goes down?” I put my hand under her ass and then stood up, hoisting her onto me. She wrapped her legs round my hips and her arms round my neck.
“Here?” She looked around.
I shook my head. “Definitely not here.”
I walked us back towards the water’s edge and climbed in, with her still round my waist.
“Race you back.”
