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JT’s eyes darkened. The intensity almost made me drop to my knees right then and there. “I say it.”
Oh fuck.
My legs wobbled a little, and JT’s hands tightened on my hips. I could argue with him and pretend I didn’t want his fat dick inside of me, or I could take him up to my bed and let him fulfill years’ worth of fantasies.
There was no choice to be made here.
“Y-yeah,” I breathed, trying and failing to sound casual. “Fine.” I turned and stepped to the slim ladder that functioned as a staircase. “Follow me.”
As I began to climb, JT took the opportunity to run a hand up the inside of my thigh and into my shorts. My heart thumped harder as my lungs struggled to take in enough oxygen. When his fingers brushed my sac, I almost fell off the damned stairs.
“Steady,” he murmured, moving his hands up to my hips. One of his thumbs snuck under my shirt to rub a gentle circle on the skin above my waistband. Why was he such a magical fucking sex master? The man could touch me lightly with one finger, and I already wanted to come all over myself.
“Yeah, fine,” I said again. Because I was on fire with the words.
When I got up to my bedroom loft, I was relieved to see I’d left it fairly tidy that morning. The bedding was thrown into place, and there weren’t any dirty clothes on the floor.
Not that I cared. Not that I was trying to impress anyone.
Liar.
I cleared my throat to cover my nerves. “So. We’ve found the bed. When do we get to the shoving and the pounding?”
JT didn’t answer. I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting to find him giving my personal space judgy eyeballs, but he wasn’t. He was staring at a large black-and-white framed photo hanging on the wall at the top of the stairs with his jaw hanging open.
Ah, fuck. How had I forgotten?
My stomach twisted. “That’s a photo of the Retreat that McLean took when he was little—”
JT shook his head wonderingly. “That’s a photo ofme.”
“What? No. It’s some random kid jumping off a rope swing into Quick Lake at the Summer Picnic. Alden maybe. Or Castor.” Alden had never been that tall in his life, and Castor was scared of the rope swing to this day.
“It’s me. You have a picture of me hanging in your bedroom.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Egotistical much?” My voice sounded reedy to my own ears. “I like the composition. And McLean was so proud of capturing that perfect moment. The light coming off the water droplets, the pattern of the ripples on the surface of the water. He’d saved up for months to buy that camera.”
“I remember,” JT said, turning to look again. His eyes locked back on the photo, and he brought his finger up to point. “And that’s you in the water. Right here.”
I stopped breathing. “How did you—? I mean… is it?”
But I was bullshitting him, and we both knew it. Because of the reflection of the sun on the surface, anyone looking at the photo couldn’t see under the water. The only way to know I was under the water was to remember, to have been there.
The air inside the little loft felt hotter. Alive, suddenly, with the scent of coconut sunblock and the ghost of long-ago laughter.
“You were lying in wait to drag me under,” he said with a faint smile. “I remember you could hold your breath forever. And I would fight you off again and again, but you wouldn’t let go of me until I yelled, ‘I yield to Flynn Honeycutt, king of this lake.’”
I didn’t want to do this anymore. Memories swarmed over me like a horde of angry bees looking for places to sting, and I felt stripped raw. Vulnerable, in a way I’d only ever been with him.
“I thought this wassex,” I said angrily.
He turned to face me, his blue eyes troubled. “Me too,” he said softly.
I swallowed hard. I opened my mouth to tell him to leave, but that wasn’t what came out.
“I want you to wreck me.” My voice didn’t sound right. It sounded hoarse and ragged, desperate and too… something.
JT’s breathing became audible as he turned to face me. “You have no idea what you do to me,” he said, almost to himself. “Take your clothes off, Firecracker.”
