I sit at the edge and dip my toes in, making a brief splash for him to feel my presence. Joe’s eyes snap open, register me,and give way to a huge smile, it’s so immediate and genuine, my heart flutters.
“Baby,” he says, voice thick with greed and something warmer. “It’s early. I thought you’d still be sleeping.”
“It’s ten am! Even Liam is already boxing.” I tease.
“Of course he is, he never gets tired of violence,” he says, laughing.
I brush it aside and stare at the water, letting my legs dangle while the heat from the tile makes my thighs sting, but I welcome the summer sensation. My pulse beats overtime when I’m around Joe.
“Come here,” he says with a commanding voice that is also kind, one that hurries me to bury myself into his open arms.
Peeling off my dress to a navy-blue bikini underneath, I lower myself into the water from my elbows. The water’s shock only lasts a second as I glide toward him, and I can feel his eyes taking in my body.
Once I get close enough to the face I’ve memorized, I see the constellation of freckles across his nose that I love, the faded bruise on his cheekbone from a recent boxing match, and Joe is all raw physicality, sharp jawline and battered elegance. The boy who doesn’t know how to inhabit his own body without damaging it a little, and somehow that makes him even more handsome. So handsome.
I open my mouth to say something along the lines of how the week without him felt like something was missing, how my chest ached a little. But I’d never be brave enough to form the words, and that’s okay, because Joe’s hands close around my waist, and he yanks me against him, kissing me. I melt into him like I’m made of nothing but liquid, making me one with the water lapping between our bodies, his warm skin against mine, and it takes everything out of me to not beg for the one thing I’m ready for.
When our lips finally part, I’m breathless, dizzy, my fingers still tangled in the damp hair at the nape of his neck.
“Hi,” I whisper, because that’s all I can manage when he’s this close.
“Shit, I missed you,” he whispers back, and my ribcage aches when he presses his forehead against mine. His breath warm against my lips.
“I—” My voice comes out shaky. I swallow. “Me too, I missed you too.”
He smiles, a knowing sense passing between us that whatever this is, it’s building into something neither of us might be ready for.
“So, what’s on the agenda today?” he asks.
I want to say“you,”but that would be too straightforward. Since I’ve never had sex, he wants us to wait.
“Don’t you have work?” I tease.
He grins and lifts a shoulder. “Called out. Needed a break today to make a few calls and paperwork.”
“Ah! So, you work? Oddity!” I snort.
He flicks a handful of water at me. “Shush it. Close your eyes,” he says, laughing, and the request makes me suddenly warm inside. I want to say something clever, but I’m suddenly aware of how fast my heart is going.
I close my eyes, his thumb traces the curve of my cheekbone, slow and deliberate, like he’s mapping me. The pad of his finger drags across my lower lip, and my breath catches.
“Joe…” I start, but he places his other hand, sliding from my waist to the small of my back, pressing me closer, and I feel his chest rise against mine, quieting me. I move on instinct beneath the surface, my arms and legs locking around him.
“Right here.” His lips press against my forehead, soft, then my temple, the bridge of my nose, the apple of my cheek. Each kiss lands like a small, burning ember. I keep my eyes shut becauseif I open them, I might remember how to be rational, and I don’t want to be rational. I want to be here, suspended in time.
His lips hover near mine, close enough that I can taste chlorine and something sweeter, something justhim. My pulse thunders in my ears, louder than the distant thud of Liam’s bag.
Don’t open your eyes.
I open my eyes.
The desire lodges itself in my throat, and the words tumble out,
“What if we stopped waiting?” I whisper, and his eyes darken as his hands cradle my face, forcing me to look up at him.
Joe stares at me with that look. One that makes me feel as if I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing. His pupils are blown wide, blue almost swallowed by black, and his jaw is tight in that way it gets when he’s holding himself back.
Always holding himself back.
