“It’s getting longer,” Rowan acknowledged.
“You’re really cute.”
“No, you’re really cute.”
Juniper flirtatiously took Rowan’s hat off and put it on herself. “Trying to see if I can pull this look off. Nerdy lawyer by day…” Then she flipped the hat backwards and added in a deeper voice, “rugged ecologist by night.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“Well, both are equally you. Why would you make me choose?”
Rowan shook her head and softly smiled. “I wouldn’t.”
Judging by the softening look in her eyes, that sentiment seemed to mean more to Rowan than what Juniper intended.
She let her hands trail down Rowan’s shoulders to her biceps. Sun glistened off the water on her body, and all Juniper could think about was how she wanted to meander her tongue along the rivulets that formed down Rowan’s neck, mixing the wetness from her mouth with the bay water on her skin.
Rowan pulled her in closer to brush her lips against hers, so tender that it made Juniper feel needy. Like she needed to beckon something from Rowan’s soul. She felt her hard nipples brush against Rowan’s breasts, aching from the contact with fabric and not skin, the way she craved it. She slid a finger against the skin under the band of Rowan’s bra, and withoutneeding to say anything, Rowan must have understood what she wanted.
“Hold on to me,” Rowan requested, barely above a whisper.
She leaned the upper half of her body back, took off her bra, and threw it back toward the beach. She took the hat off Juniper’s head and threw that back too. Then she drew Juniper’s body back in close to her and their bare skin touched each other’s in this way for the first time. Juniper ran her hands through the back of Rowan’s hair and moaned into the kisses she started to place down Rowan’s neck.
“Junie,” Rowan whispered, almost as a question.
Juniper pulled back. She felt like Rowan’s eyes were searching hers for one more indication she was sure she wanted this too.
Rowan parted her lips but waited a few moments to speak. “I’m in love with you,” she finally admitted.
Chapter 17
Time, along with Rowan’s breath, suspended as she looked at Juniper.
“I’m in love with you too.”
Their lips crashed against each other, like a tidal wave unable to deny the pull of all the forces that created it. All of their movements deepened and hastened with want, then need. Rowan could feel Juniper’s back arching and her supple legs tighten their grip around her waist. She felt Juniper’s fingers slide up the back of her neck and intertwine into the short hairs on the back of her head. It had been a few weeks since her last haircut, and for that, she was thankful for the extra length to grab.
She hungrily kissed down Juniper’s neck and across her collarbone. She was conscious of not wanting to move too fast but was also rapidly getting lost in their heat. Juniper cupped Rowan’s cheeks and angled her face back toward hers. Juniper’s face was equal parts anticipation, vulnerability, and longing.
“Touch me, Rowan.”
Rowan quickly nodded her assent. She brushed Juniper’s hair from her shoulder and lightly traced her fingertips across Juniper’s collarbone where her lips had just been. How long and how intensely had she imagined the way this moment would feel? It didn’t even matter. It could never come close to watching her own hand slide down the front of Juniper’s breast, watching her ample flesh squeeze through her fingersand feeling the pads of her fingertips roll over her nipple. The cool water from her hand dripped across Juniper’s flushed and sunwashed skin and caused her to gasp.
Rowan gripped Juniper’s ass harder and raised her up, taking that nipple into her mouth to lick and suck before she turned her attention to the other one. Juniper pressed her own body up further against Rowan’s mouth. Rowan took that as encouragement to graze her teeth along the sensitive peaked skin of her nipple. Juniper tilted her head up to the sky in response and moaned.
“Please, I need more,” Juniper asked through gasping breaths, looking down to meet Rowan’s gaze.
“You need more,” Rowan whispered, almost in confirmation, as she met Juniper’s eyes.
Juniper’s gaze was dark as she looked down at her from her heightened position. “Yes.”
“Tell me what you need.”
Rowan only wanted to take control if Juniper wanted her to. She wanted to learn the ways Juniper wanted to be touched. She wanted to do it better than Juniper had ever felt before, not just because she wanted her to only crave her touch from this point forward, but also because Juniper deserved to feel everything she wanted, even things she didn’t know she could feel yet.
Juniper slid her wet body down slightly, grasped Rowan’s hand, and slid it inside her swimsuit bottoms.
“Fuck, Junie,” Rowan moaned in response to being allowed to touch her like that.
