Frayed

She smooths one last squirt of sunscreen over her chest and my eyes drop again to her hard ni**les beading through the fabric of her bikini top. Fuck, now I’m sure I’m popping out too.

Averting my eyes in a useless attempt to tame my dick, I have this sudden realization. “Red?” I ask.

She looks up at me.

“Have you ever surfed before?”

She scrunches her brow. “No. But how hard can it be?”

I try not to choke on my laughter. “Maybe just a little harder than you think.”

“That’s why I’m here. So you can teach me.”

“Right,” I say, scratching my head because it’s just that easy.

She smiles.

I take a deep breath and rub my hands together. “Okay, let’s do this.”

“Yeah.” She beams at me and does a slight jump into the air. Her earrings bob and her necklaces jangle as she heads toward the water.

I love how excited she gets and really hate to disappoint her, but I grab her hand and pull her back. “Whoa, where are you going?”

She whips her head around. “To surf.”

“Yeah . . . not quite yet.” I give her a serious look.

She looks at me, confused. “Okay, what is it?”

I step toward her and even with the chill in the air, a heat flares between us regardless of what “guidelines” have been set. Today the attraction feels stronger than ever. But now that I have a mission, teach S’belle Wilde how to surf, I have something to take my mind off it—for now. I push forward and answer her question. “You can’t surf with your jewelry on. You have to be able to move without restraint,” I tell her.

“Oh,” she says, shrugging before circling her hands around her neck. The wind catches in her hair, and the necklaces seem to get caught in it.

“Look down,” I say.

She does without question and I carefully untangle the necklaces from her hair and remove them from around her neck. When she raises her head, her eyes lift to meet mine and we stare at each other for a few short moments. My heart is beating wildly and I have to cut my glance sideways to slow its pace. With the necklaces gripped firmly in the palm of my hand, I step closer and pinch my fingers around her earlobe to gently remove the hoop from her ear. “These too.”

Her breathing quickens, I can see it in the rise and fall of her chest. With almost no space between us, her eyes meet mine again and we speak to each other clearly without words. We seem to be able to communicate best that way, or maybe we are just more honest about our feelings with our silent acknowledgments? I’m not sure. But our relationship began with unspoken words and has moved painfully slowly in the very same manner.

The sun beats down, but that’s not where the heat I feel is coming from. When the rays become even brighter as the morning clouds burn away, I blink rapidly at the sudden abundance of light shining on us. The magnetism between us is undeniable and I have to remind myself of what I am doing. Glancing down, my eyes hit my board. Yes, right, getting her ready for our surf lesson. Shifting my gaze, I catch the sparkle in the sand and grin before saying, “One last thing.”

She watches as I drop to my knees. I let my fingertips trail down her legs on the way and notice the deep breath she draws in. I motion for her to lift her foot and set it on my leg. When she does she braces her hand on my shoulder and her touch sears me, makes me ache for her. I try to catch her gaze, but my eyes dart to the gleam in her belly button. The ring pierced inside it is a four-leaf clover fabricated with gold and green emeralds.

Glancing up, I ask, “Are you Irish?”

“A little. My grandfather was Irish.”

“Is that the significance of this?” I point to the clover.

She stiffens. “No, it’s not.”

My eyes are pulled back to it. I want nothing more than to run my tongue around it: it takes every ounce of control I have not to. I have to keep reminding myself I’m supposed to be teaching her how to surf. Focusing on the task at hand, I glide my fingers across the top of her foot as I slowly unbuckle the sandal strap. Her leg quivers slightly from the contact. I run my palms up the back of her calf. Her skin is soft and smooth and feels so good. I grip her calf tightly as I raise her leg slightly and slowly remove her sandal. Brushing some of the sand off her perfectly painted toes, I drop my knee to the ground and to steady herself she rests her other hand on my bare shoulder. Her body cages my head. With her stomach so close to my mouth, I let my lips skim the ornament. Nothing that seems obnoxious, just enough to let her know that I want her.

Her whole body trembles and she quickly stands up straight. “I can do the other one.”

“No, please let me,” I insist with a devilish grin.

Once I’ve repeated the process, I can only hope that it turned her on as much as it turned me on. With my heart pounding and my pulse racing, I stand up and take a deep breath. Letting it out, I let my eyes rove over her one more time—she’s so f**king sexy. When they land on her face, I pause and allow our eyes to lock. Then I force myself to shake away the thoughts of what I want to do to her and instead lift the large bag she’s got draped over her shoulder and dump everything I’m holding in it. “There, now you’re almost ready. Just tie your hair back so it doesn’t catch in the wind.”

While she fumbles through her bag, I take a moment to pull myself together. When I agreed to this friends thing, I knew I was agreeing to take it slow, but it feels like utter torture with her standing in front of me practically n*ked and I can’t help blurring the lines a little. In the past if a girl I was interested in had ever thrown out the friend word, I would have deleted her number from my phone. But there’s just something about S’belle . . .

She lifts her arms and pulls her hair up off her shoulders. She smiles at me as I watch her. Yeah, there’s something about her. Everything about her is sexy as hell—the way she moves, the faces she makes when she’s concentrating on something, even the way she stands.

“Ready,” she says with a small bounce.

Does she have any idea what that does to me? I scan her body again as I pick my board up, and this time I notice the hint of a scar peeking out from her bathing suit bottoms.

I point to it. “What happened?”

She glances down and quickly adjusts her bottoms.

She blows some stray pieces of hair out of her eyes. “Are we going to start this lesson today or what?”

I laugh and toss my board to the ground. I sit on it and pat the empty space beside me.

She stares at me.

“Sit down.”

She does but makes sure our bodies don’t touch.

I smirk over at her. “Let’s go over the guidelines.”

She blinks at me without speaking.

“The guidelines of surfing.”

“Surfing has guidelines?”

“More like generalities, things you should know. But I’ll call them guidelines.”

She rolls her eyes.

I grin and raise a finger. “Number one, the instructor must always be respected.”

She laughs and shoves my shoulder. Again her skin against mine feels anything but wrong.

I raise an eyebrow.

“Go on, I’m listening,” she says.

“First, do you know what a rip current is?”

She shakes her head.

Five minutes into my guidelines, it’s apparent she has no knowledge whatsoever about surfing and there’s no way I’m letting her go out there on a board today. When she asked to come surfing, I assumed she knew how—but she doesn’t even know how to stand on a board or which end is which.

We need to start with the basics. I find a stick to draw in the sand. She pays attention and her eagerness to attempt surfing does nothing but fuel the fire between us. I point out to the water. “She’s in charge out there. You have to respect her. Know what you can handle and what you can’t. No two waves are ever the same.”

An hour of Surfing 101 later, we both need a break. She takes a sip from the water bottle I hand to her, and some spills from her mouth down to her chest. Immediately I have a vision of licking the drips up for her. When she bends over toward her giant purse, I follow the lines of her body and notice the sand sticking everywhere and think I should wipe it off for her. But she stands with a cup of grapes in her hand before I get close enough.

I bite down on my lower lip instead. “Do you have a picnic lunch in there too? Because if not we need to take a break and eat.”

She pops a grape in her mouth. “No.” She laughs. “I stopped and grabbed these with my coffee this morning, but I think I should have picked up some sandwiches too. I didn’t know it was going to take this long to learn to surf.” She blows some hair out of her eyes.

I can’t help laughing at her. “I’m only kidding.”

She extends her hand, offering me the cup. “Want some?”

I flash her a boyish grin. “Yes, I want some.” I move closer and tuck that same strand of hair back behind her ear before curling my hand around hers and pinching a grape from the container.

Our faces are so close that it’s hard to tell whose breathing is louder. But I’m sure it’s mine when she lowers herself to the ground and brushes against me before she takes a seat. She wipes her face and drinks thirstily from the bottle.

“You all right?”

“Yes, I think I just need a breather. This is hard.”

I plop down beside her. “Want to go grab some food? Call it a day?”

“No. I’m having fun.” She buries her toes in the sand and I mimic her action.

“Okay, but let’s take a short break.”

She nods.

We sit on the shore in comfortable silence for a bit and both watch the way the waves break. I assess the wind conditions as she studies the current rolling in. But I also find myself glancing over at her and thinking about how much fun I’ve had with her over the past few weeks. And even though we haven’t had sex, I’ve enjoyed her company. I seem to want her near me all the time. It’s not a feeling I’m used to. But sex or not, things have definitely progressed between us since our first date. And I haven’t pushed her. I’ve let her set the pace for the most part. And the fact that she joined me this morning in something she knows I love triggers an odd feeling in my stomach.

CHAPTER 14

I Choose You

Bell

It’s a beautiful day for the beach. The sun is shining, there’s just a slight breeze, and he’s here sitting next to me.

He leans in close and startles me. “Look over there. Watch what he does.”

With a grin, we both watch the guy as waves rise from under him and he catches one just right. “It looks like heaven.”

He jumps to his feet and pulls me up. “Come on, let’s do this. Lie down on the board on your stomach.”

“Shouldn’t we be in the water?”

“Red, you have a few dry land lessons to complete before we take you out there.”

My hands go to my hips. “What do you mean? Surfing is done in the water, not on the beach.”

“Yes, it is. But not for us—not today.”

I pout my lips but mostly for show because dry lessons means his hands are on me, and I can’t deny how much I like his touch.

He drops down on the board and all his muscles flex in the most delicious way. “Like this. See, you have to move fast.” He snaps from his stomach to his feet. “It looks easy but it’s not. Speed is what matters. And as simple as it sounds, the less time you spend trying to get to your feet, the more success you’ll have staying up. Do you know how to stand on the board?”

My eyes are ogling the ridges of his abdominal muscles and I fear I might be drooling.

“Red? You got that?”

I start to shake my head mostly because I haven’t tried to process what he said, not because I don’t understand it. I was too busy looking at what I haven’t seen in what seems like a very long time.