I am undone. My mouth opens and closes, then clamps shut before I say something stupid again.
She shakes her head, but she’s grinning. “Now move away. I need to show you up.”
I hug the dock and she arches that perfect, delicious body and slices into the water.
She comes up still smiling, tipping her face to the moonlight, while we tread in silence. She drifts closer, and my pulse hiccups. “Thank you, Tristan.”
“Thank you for what?” I try for levity, but I feel hot and unsettled, even in the cool water.
She treads closer. “Thank you for seeing me and liking me anyway.”
I nod and swallow.
“I’m going to hug you now. I’m not great at it, so hold still, okay?”
She moves silently through the water, then loops her arms around my neck and presses her breasts to my chest.
I am utterly overwhelmed. Katie’s lemon shampoo scent is mixed with saltwater, and under that, the scent of her skin. Her fucking skin. So intimate. So unexpected. I thought I knew everything about this girl, but the salt-licked scent of her skin makes me want to bite her neck.
I see how feelings multiply now. They sneak up on you when you least expect, then stab-stab-stab in a limb you thought you didn’t need, like tiny teeth. Then, presumably, you are infected forever. Then, I assume, if you feel even five percent of what I feel right now, you become an addict for life, or you die.
Probably, you die.
Because I can’t handle this.
Katie, on the other hand, is making herself comfortable, and I hold myself very, very still, because studies show that you shouldn’t make sudden movements when faced with a predator. Her face is in the crook of myneck, and our lower bodies float dangerously close together.
“Tristan,” she whispers. “I honestly thought you’d be better at this. You’re not even hugging me back.”
“I’m treading for both of us,” I hiss, and she laughs into the crease of my shoulder. I drag a single arm through the water, just brushing the curves of her body, until my forearm bands her to me.
“How’s that?”
“Ten out of ten,” she whispers.
My pulse is thick in my chest. The force of it shakes my body. It must shake her too.
You’re my favorite person.
She’s my favorite too. More than anyone. More than my siblings. Katie likes me best and damn me if I’m not selfish enough to like her best because of it. She is mine. The one who has, against all odds, always chosen me. I sink my nose into the curve of her neck.
Yeah, mine.
I thought I could practice with her and not let that feeling grow dangerously large. It’s far too late for that. My fingers are already skimming up her hip. The curve of her waist fits my hand so perfectly that I imagine one was created with the other in mind. Her first. I followed.
I test it with my thumb. “Concave.” Up over her hip, to where it reaches a perfect, gentle peak. “Convex.” I follow it up her waist, over sinfully silky skin, goose bumps chasing my path. “Cutis anserina.”
“I’m glad I gifted you that subscription toNatureall those years back,” she says shakily.
I keep the motion light, gentle, feeling like I’m on the edge of a precipice, wanting to fly, but also knowing I might crash. This is different from those other times. We’re naked,and we haven’t agreed this is practice. It doesn’t feel like practice.
If she shivers, I’ll know I’m not alone in this.Please,Katie.Another inch up her ribcage—there. A tremor runs up her spine.
“Tristan,” she whispers before she leans back to look me in the eye. Our noses are inches apart.
“Yeah?”
“I like the way I feel with you.”
