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Then he was kissing her again, his face descending to press to hers.
But his mouth was rough, aggressive. She wanted to whimper, but his breath rushed across her tongue. She couldn’t move.
He drew back, and then his hands were on her chest, a heavy weight over her heart. “Goddamn it, Becca.” He pushed. “Breathe.”
She did one better. She coughed and spit water all over herself.
He swore again and rolled her to her side, and she coughed up what felt like a gallon of the Chesapeake Bay. By the time she was done, she’d made it to her knees, her forearms pressed into the sand, hair pooled around her, her forehead braced on her knuckles.
Chris was kneeling beside her, the sand beneath his knees gray in the moonlight. He didn’t say anything, but she could hear his breathing, rough and almost shaking.
Inhaling hurt, but her lungs grabbed the oxygen and wouldn’t let her stop. Her voice came out as a croak. “So I should have just met Hunter at the car.”
“You were out for a long time.” Chris sounded frightened.
“Feels like it.” Then she paused. “How long really?”
“Maybe five minutes.” He ran a hand through wet hair. “God. You let go of my hand and—”
“Oh. Okay. This is my fault. Got it.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and she listened to their breathing. The wind had gone, leaving the air soft against her skin. Her feet were still in the water.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
She rolled over and sat in the sand. The closest light came from a streetlamp about twenty feet behind them. Thank god, since her shirt was completely sealed to her chest. “Where are we?”
“About half a mile south of the party.” He pointed. She could see the glow of fire on the beach. “Do you want to start walking?”
Becca shivered. She wasn’t ready to go back to that house. Not yet. She shook her head, then had to hug her arms across her chest. “He had a gun.”
“He was firing blindly. He couldn’t see us.”
“He had a gun.”
He nodded, looking at the water again. “I know.”
She’d seen that bullet pierce the water, close enough to touch. Tyler hated Chris and his brothers enough to kill them. She shivered again.
The water rolled up the sand to drift over her bare feet. It felt warm again, tropical almost.
In September.
Her head snapped sideways, but she couldn’t see Chris clearly in the darkness. He was looking out at the water, his expression resigned.
I need a frigging rainstorm. A drizzle. Fog, even.
“Do that again,” she said.
He didn’t look at her, but the water pulled higher along the sand, hanging for a moment to warm her, then receding with the tide.
She licked her lips, unsure how to proceed. Another swirl of warm water wrapped around her legs to drift down the beach again.
Chris scooped a handful of water out of the surf, letting it pool in his palm. He held it there for a moment, then spread his fingers to let the water trickle between them.
It never reached the wave below. The water dripped from his fingers to turn into steam in midair, where the wind caught it and pulled it into nothing.
She was just staring, when she really wanted to grab his hand and look for a hidden heater or something.
